(OnlineAthens) - Many years ago we were asked by wine festival promoters to participate in a judging of Maryland and Virginia wines. The group of tasters — winemakers, retailers and consumers — were assembled in a room that would be our bomb shelter for a grueling half-day event. Tasting wine was never so unenjoyable.

To help synchronize our palates before we started, we were asked to reveal our 1-to-100 score of an unidentified but common California wine. Our rating was the lowest of the group, which prompted the organizer to suggest that we adjust — elevate — our scores once we got to the real tasting. In other words, be more reasonable like everyone else.

The episode demonstrated the vagaries of wine ratings among judges. One person’s 80-point wine is another’s sizzling 95-pointer. And, because there is no scale to weigh a wine’s quality with absolute certainty, rating a wine can be shrouded in ambiguity.

The 100-point rating system was born in the late 1970s when Robert Parker, Jr. — indisputably the world’s most recognized wine critic — launched The Wine Advocate. Parker argued that only a 100-point scale provided the range that would adequately distinguish an average wine from an exceptional wine. While British critics like Jancis Robinson and Clive Coates preferred a 20-point scale, it wasn’t long before most American wine critics adopted Parker’s approach. We did not, preferring instead to describe a wine without quantifying it.

However popular Parker became with his fervent followers, he became the source of vitriol once his success skyrocketed. Such is the penalty of success.

Parker has one of the most respected and experienced palates in the market, so challenging the accuracy of his scores takes chutzpah. On his website, erobertparker.com, he provides a long yet thorough explanation of his rating system. He writes that every wine starts with a basis of 50 points and then earns additional points for color, aroma, flavor and finish, and finally an overall impression. The wines are judged blindly in a group of their peers.

Parker admits that no scoring system is perfect, but adds that when it is applied by the same taster there is a uniform benchmark in play. This is a key point. We and other critics may not rate a particular wine similarly, but taken in the context of Parker’s palate, he is judging wines over time and region with the same criteria. His scores are arguably reliable if your palate is in sync with his and if you understand this is not an exact science.

Parker’s palate is not without prejudice. As winemakers have painfully discovered, he prefers showy, ripe wines that are high in alcohol. Today there are more such fruit bombs on the market because winemakers have abandoned austerity to earn Parker’s coveted praise. However appalling that may seem, fruit-driven wines that show well on release are probably what most consumers want.

We have bought wines based on the recommendations of many wine merchants only to find them unsuitable to our palates just as readers have followed our recommendations with regret. Some tasters simply love a burgundy’s barnyard character when we identify it as brettanomyces, a bacterial flaw that comes from a barrel. Others like the grassy notes of a New Zealand sauvignon blanc while others call it a flaw. Same with the tannins that preserve a wine or the acidity that gives it freshness — critics see them as attributes but when your mouth puckers up, will you?

Many years ago we raved about an inexpensive pinot noir and rhetorically urged readers to buy it by the case. One did so, hated it and wrote a scathing email about how she was duped by us. Other critics had rated the wine highly as well, but that didn’t matter to this reader, who was stuck with a case of wine she didn’t like. We can’t say her view was wrong, just different.

It is difficult for most people to perceive the difference between a 85-point wine and a 95-point wine, but many of a critic’s followers use these scores to determine what to buy. No one knows that better than winemakers, particularly those from France, whose vintages sell out once Parker awards them with at least 95 points. Winemakers whose products have been trashed or relegated to the deadly under-90 group have lost a lot of money. Some of them have even threatened Parker.