Article;100-point wine scale in late 19th century America

WINE TALK
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“That we may know the relative value of their own manufacture”: The spread of the 100-point wine scale in late 19th century America

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Hmmm…thanks for posting that link, Roman. Quite interesting.

This is quite different from the 100-pt Parker scale or the 100-pt WineSpec scale or the 100-pt WineEnthusiast scale. So in no way does it
deprecate Parker’s invention. These scales are known as “hedonistic” scales…how much the taster likes the wine…nothing more.

The Ohio 100-pt scale is a “scientific” scale and is similar to the UC/Davis 20-pt scale. That’s a distinction that escapes most people.

Tom

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These early 19th century ratings clearly had a different purpose, at times scientific, but we don’t yet know enough about how subjective the ratings were. For Ohio they were instructed to mark the wine from 100 for “good catawba” and below. The “grade was set down by each taster at such lower number as he deemed it entitled to”. It is not clear that they couldn’t be subjective. I think Harszthy’s 1894 scale was meant to be scientific.