Discerning ‘the best’ from the best: Creating the Gérard Basset Global Fine Wine Report
What makes a great wine? As the old saying goes, ‘Age and glasses of wine should never be counted’ and yet – as customers – we want a measure of quality. We enjoy seeing a gold star or high score awarded to the things we’re investing in. It’s a mark of quality and an assurance that the money we’re parting with will be well spent, or that the occasion we’re marking will be a good one. When it comes to investing at any level, numbers matter.
Historically, wine rankings were the work of a single influential figure, Robert Parker, who developed the popular 100-point scoring system – the first pragmatic way by which one could judge wine. Parker gave 50 points for all wines regardless, and then allocated a certain number of points for appearance, aroma, flavour and finish. Theoretically, a wine he judged to be perfect could score 100-points. Prior to Parker’s system (and social media), the job of the wine salesmen was extremely difficult as they had no obvious way of proving why someone should buy a specific wine, besides the historical reputation of the estate. Parker’s scorecards suddenly created a marketer’s dream. Today, scoring is part of the very fabric of wine culture – testament to Robert Parker’s enormous influence on the fine wine world.
However, this soon became a cast of the tail wagging the dog. Thanks to ‘Parkerisation’, winemakers began to chase the numbers, creating wines that appealed to Parker’s specific palate – oaky, robust and fruit-forward. The nuance of appreciating a bottle, of its specific process and terroir, became increasingly watered down – the very last phrase that should come to mind when discussing wine. Even today, scoring systems are graded within very limited margins. It makes sense on a certain level, but some of the detail is lost.
Where does this zero-sum game of data points and subjective opinion – often of a single or small group of individuals – leave us when trying to build a fair, unbiased scoring system that honours the excellence on offer when it comes to fine wine? How do you really discern ‘the best of the best’? The answer: you ask people who live, breathe and love the industry and its creations, and that is precisely what we do with the Liquid Icons’s Gérard Basset Global Fine Wine Report – a new way to understand and celebrate quality.
‘Making good wine is a skill, but making fine wine is an art’, said winemaker Robert Mondavi. People in the industry understand this distinction, and so their opinion is vital.
The Report is based upon extensive polling from a wide range of experts in the field, including Masters of Wine, Master Sommeliers, sommeliers from Michelin-star restaurants, wine merchants, brokers and importers, wine press and media and winemakers themselves.
For the 2022 edition, 943 fine wine industry professionals from more than 100 countries voted, with an average experience in fine wine of more than 14 years. It was by far and away the largest and most diverse fine wine industry poll ever taken.
Votes were weighted based upon industry qualifications and experience: those with top academic credentials (such as the Master of Wine or Master Sommelier qualifications) or more years of industry experience received a higher weighting on their votes.
Deloitte, one of the Big Four international accounting firms, independently verified the results. The winners were awarded with their Golden Vines® Awards in a number of categories, including Best Fine Wine Producer in Europe, Best Fine Wine Producer of the Americas, Best Fine Wine Producer in the Rest of the World, the World’s Best Rising Star and the World’s Best Fine Wine Producer.
Because the Awards are given to the very best estates (and not the individual wines), it is much more likely to reach the public consciousness: assessments which award points on individual wines are impossible to remember (and, sometimes, to access unless you subscribe to the journals that award the points). The Golden Vines® Awards are deliberately designed to replicate the impact of the Ballon d’Or award in football or the Oscars in film. A much bigger percentage of the population know the winners of these awards because they are simple to remember, and very accessible.
But can the system be gamed? We stand by our reputation for promoting excellence, and all entrants and participants undergo a vigorous vetting process to establish their credentials. Deloitte assists in helping identify any suspect voting patterns or duplications so these submissions can be ruled out. Furthermore, we went through a verification process by checking whether all those who listed a Master of Wine and Master Sommelier qualification actually possess them – by verifying the qualification holders with the database of the Institute of Masters of Wine as well as the Court of Master Sommeliers (both the European and American Chapters).
We believe making our Report Survey’s proprietary voting mechanism, as well as subsequent checks, pays dividends in the long run. Winners can rest assured that the votes are valid and give an accurate reflection of the industry and the opinions of the people in it. In simple terms, this gives an industry a feeling of comfort, since it can be rest assured each champion truly deserves their title.
No system for judging wines is perfect, and nor is this one. For starters, the system rates the wineries, not the individual wines, which is equivalent to rating the football teams and not the individual players. However, it stands that great wineries make great wines and removes the element of bias that can mean an individual bottle scores especially high or low for a particular vintage, and again – makes for a more accessible system of recognition for customers and investors – based on the views and experience of the widest data set possible to-date, taking in votes from across the globe and from a wide number of professional stakeholder groups. It is for this reason that the system may even throw up the odd surprise or wildcard – making for an endlessly interesting and much more exciting result.
Ultimately, the Gérard Basset Global Fine Wine Report and the Golden Vines® Awards celebrate the ‘best of the best’ – the true masters of their craft who deserve to be recognised and honoured. We hope you are as keen as we are to see this year’s Awards Winners – we hope it honours the legacies of both Liquid Icons and Gerard Basset Foundation legacy of commitment to excellence and inclusivity, and lifting up the true champions when it comes to the art of wine.
As with the previous editions of this research paper, our 2023 Report will be made available on a complimentary basis for the fine wine industry members & lovers in October 2023, on our website.
To learn more about the Gérard Basset Global Fine Wine Report and download copies of the 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 Reports, please visit: https://liquidicons.com/work/gerard-basset-global-fine-wine-report