Wine Ratings

Wines.mobi

Wine Ratings

The market lacks the transparency in wine ratings and wine pricing. Wine producers and wine merchants know a great deal about them. On the other hand, the public in general has no way of knowing or determining the ratings and pricing on the spot, while buying wine at the store or over the net.

As a result, the wine merchant has an upper hand in these transactions and can induce the buyer into buying a low ranking wine or grossly overpriced wine. Often, we see wine bottles prominently for sale at a local store at say, $25 a bottle. A quick check shows that its ‘street price’ is only $8.

If the wine industry was regulated same way as, say, debt or equity markets, you would see a lot of wine dealers and wine merchants behind bars.

Well, the industry is not regulated and you and I are taken to the cleaners every day.

This site is designed to level the playing field. Next time you buy a bottle of wine check WineRank on your cell or PDA for prices and wine ratings.

Wines.mobile website uses a 100-Point Wine Rating Scale. Ratings, directly or indirectly, are based on chance and probability. There is a continuum of wines from exceptionally good to good, so-so, to just awful and vinegar. A scale that doesn’t incorporate these extremes simply doesn’t do justice to wine. As a matter of fact, even the best and the most expensive wines degrade with time and go to wine hell – the vinegars. Some wines take 100 years to get there, some are born that way.

To ignore the universe of wine ratings and to focus only on the upper part of the rating scheme is just plain wrong.

Wines.mobile is attempting to right the wrong. We give you the real prices. And we give you a true 100-Point Wine Ratings Scale.

96-100 - Extraordinary; a classic wine

91-95 -- Outstanding; superior wine
81-90 -- Very good to terrific; a great wine
71-80 -- Good to very good; wine with special qualities
61-70 – Slightly above average to good; wine with various degrees of flavor
51-60 -- Average; little distinction beyond being soundly made

41-50 -- Below average; probably drinkable. This is what French call 'vin de merde'' -- politely put ... by a prominent French wine connoisseur, François Mauss’ when they talk about wines destined for the USA.

31-40 -- Poor; probably drinkable. May have a slight vinegary edge & vinegary flavors.
21-30 -- Undrinkable, made of grapes, rotten apples or other fruits. Loved by winos on a low budget

11-20 – Horrible & awful; undrinkable, not recommended
1-10 – Vinegars, good and bad. Don’t drink!

While ratings may influence your decision, the ultimate judgment is yours. It's important to remember that everyone has a different palate and different preferences, so basing purchases on ratings may not garner the perfect wine match for your tastes.

Wines.mobile was introduced to level the playing field. We also introduced the Wine Scales that make sense to everybody who ever had to deal with a 100 point scale. Zero being an absolute nothing and 100 is a perfect score! The universe of wines is rated between these two numbers. The average quality wine would be somewhere around 50. It’s interesting to note that a number of wine rating services in the USA use a 100-point scale where an average wine would be anywhere from 70 to 80! So, who’s fooling whom?

And so, we all want to buy the best wine for the lowest price, right? But how can you tell good wine from bad? What’s the yardstick?

The great wines have all the media attention, great displays and great stories. And yet, there is a whole world of average, below average and just awful wines.

How low can you go?

Well, quite low. We’ve seen wines that only nominally can be called wines. We tasted Russian wines made from apples. Very bad. Slightly above vinegar. But not by much!

And we tasted Algerian red wine, which was even worse. Apparently, Algeria produces a huge amount of red wine for export. But since most of their winemakers are Muslim they do not taste their own products! They just blindly follow the recipe. And to make things worse, Algerians are using oil tankers for the oversees shipping. They claim to use a strong chemical to clean the oil tanks. Good luck there!

Many East European countries encourage production of the low-quality wines and vodkas to keep the folks home happy.

In the 1970s and 1980s, before Russia emerged as a major oil producer, its wine and liquor industry generated a quarter of the GNP!

In Armenia and Georgia winemaking has ancient roots going back 2,000 to 3,000 years. They produce amazingly good wines which rarely reach our stores.

The worldwide movement of wine created a situation where you, the buyer, can find Austrian, Australian, South African, Italian, French, California, German, Israeli, Hungarian, Romanian, etc, wine at your local wine store!

But at the same time millions of gallons of generic and unbranded wine travels to be mixed, processed and bottled under some legitimate-looking labels.

And how high can you go? Well, this is where you should ignore the marketing pros and use statistically generated ratings.

The number of different wines in circulation is astonishingly high. The conservative estimate is 100,000. On the other hand a number of online wine cellars claim that it approaches 1 million!

Use Wines.mobile to figure out the best deal. We also would like your feedback.

Enjoy wine and save a buck!

Wine Rank