The highest rated wines express themselves powerfully in each of these areas. Lower rated wines score with proficiency on some combination of the categories. The following rubric has been designed to distinguish the extent to which each wine displays the key characteristics.

SCORE 100-98: Outstanding quality, these wines reveal a surreal combination of fruit, power, opulence, and a lasting impression in the mouth, while showcasing depth and complexity that is rarely found.

SCORE 97-96: All of the key characteristics are found, beautifully integrated, and impressively pronounced.

SCORE 95-94: Combines a compelling combination of fine aromas, solid texture, and depth of fruit.

SCORE 93-92: A harmony of remarkable flavors, with balanced fruit and tannin. Not as potent as higher rated wines but of excellent quality.

SCORE 91-90: Reveals ripe aromas, with enough integration of sweet fruit and tannin to create a terrific drinking experience. At this level the taster will not find any austere or over-extracted flavors.

SCORE 89-88: Wines of lighter texture that tend to be silky on the palate with generous fruit structure, often a quite charming wine.

SCORE 87-86: An easy drinking, straight forward effort, with some problems. They either lack structure, sweet-fruit, or complexity. In some cases the thick texture and oak-filled aromas usually provide most of the attraction to the consumer. Many wines at this level are worthy of consumption.

SCORE 85-84: These tend to lack interest, reveal austere flavors and woodsy dominated aromas with no complexity of flavor. Not typically attractive to the taster.