100 Points

[Craig Camp]

Do you find the current fashion of judging wine on the 100 point scale useful or detrimental for the appreciation of wine? Is wine drinking a quest for perfection? Should it be?

[Randall Grahm]

Dear Craig,

Talk about a hanging curveball.... I have a lot of problems with the 100 pt. score system, chiefly in how it tends to fetishize wine. Wine now has become that is valuable because it is valuable not because it necessarily delivers pleasure. I think that Platonic perfection is something that one might contemplate while visiting the Parthenon or Mt. Fuji but I think that notions of perfection tend to take us away from wine rather than bring us closer to it. RG