How we score.

The 100-point scale.

A score is a single number on a 100-point scale. It is the panel's judgement of quality in the glass — nothing more, nothing less.

Every wine that meets the bar is awarded one of three honours, set at fixed thresholds. The threshold is the wine's, not the critic's: the same number always carries the same award.

Wines scoring below 85 are not published. We record only what we can recommend — an unpublished wine is not a failing grade, it is simply absent.

Two axes: nose and palate.

Critics evaluate a wine along two axes. The published number is their composite judgement — we do not publish the internal point breakdown, because a score is a verdict, not a formula to be reverse-engineered.

What we describe is enough to understand what a critic is weighing. It is deliberately not enough to game.

Blind, by category.

Category-blind means a critic knows the category they are judging — Burgundy, Champagne, Bordeaux-blends — but never the producer, label or price of the wine in front of them. The flight is judged on what is in the glass and nothing else.

This is the standard for all Tier I scoring and for the majority of Tier II. The one exception is the Tier II field tasting, where a critic assesses wines on origin, at the estate or region, and the producer is necessarily known.

Where a wine was not tasted blind, it is marked as a field tasting on its score, openly and without exception. A reader should never have to guess how a wine was judged.

Four critics, equal time, one final call.

Every Tier I wine is tasted by a panel of four: two Panel Critics, one Lead Critic, and one Chief Judge. Every wine in the flight is given the same amount of time — the same window to taste, to debate as a panel, and to write notes. No wine is rushed through, and none is lingered over longer than the rest.

The Lead Critic is the Category Owner — the critic who holds that category and is accountable for it — and it is the Category Owner who makes the final call on the score that is published. Any critic on the panel may write a tasting note that is published alongside the score; a wine's published notes are not limited to the Category Owner's voice alone.

Two tiers — by style, by origin.

We organise scoring into two tiers. This is an organisational structure, not a ranking of prestige: a Tier II wine is not a lesser wine, it is a wine judged on a different axis.

Every score has a name on it.

The primary score is the official record. It is the number that appears in the database, anchors every ranking, and underwrites every trade licence. One wine, one official score, one category lead accountable for it.

Independence, structurally.

Scores and tasting notes are never for sale. The commercial and editorial sides of AWR are separated by structure, not by promise.

Submission fees cover the logistics of tasting and nothing else. Trade licensing grants commercial use of scores that already exist — it cannot commission, alter, or withdraw them.