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I use this wine key: Laguiole en Aubrac Wine Key Ebony
I have used this glass in this Video: RIEDEL Veritas Champagne
I have tasted the following wines in this Video:
2021 Fantini Calalenta Merlot Rosato Italy – 5,99 €
2021 Galadino Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Italy – 3.49 €
The 100 Point Scoring System (from www.robertparker.com):
96-100: An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase and consume.
90 – 95: An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.
80 – 89: A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.
70 – 79: An average wine with little distinction except that it is soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.
60 – 69: A below-average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.
50 – 59: A wine deemed to be unacceptable.
The modern 100-point wine rating system was championed by Robert Parker, who introduced it in the 1980s. Parker saw himself as a consumer advocate, who operated independently. You can say what you want about him, but I have never heard anyone make credible accusations about him being biased when reviewing wines and the wine advocate did not accept money from producers.
His rating system is now used by most wine publications and wine critics and wines are rated on a scale from 50 to 100. The wines that receive a rating above 95 generally represent the crème de la crème, the best of what this wine style has to offer.
While there are differences in taste between different critics and there are some that consistently score higher or lower – there is a consensus on what 90 or 100 points mean. However, one critic has highjacked the 100-point scale and has created his system: Luca Maroni.
Luca Maroni is an Italian wine writer who has been working in wine for a long time and developed a scoring system he calls: THE LOGISMA OF THE FRUIT-GRADE OF WINE. While most critics nowadays give scores for a wine based on their overall perception of its quality Maroni scores his wines based on the slightly weird formula of Consistency + Balance + Integrity which results in his Index of Pleasantness/Fruit-grade.
Consistency and Balance are about the perception on the palate of the wine’s concentration and the balance between sweetness and acidity, tannins, etc. Integrity describes the wine’s “purity” and fruitiness.
Each element can score between 1 and 33 points and a wine can get up to 99 points in total – but he doesn’t give 100 points because no wine can be perfect – which is in my opinion a bit of a silly argument as in this system the perfect wine then receives 99 points. I must admit that it took a while until I understood his scoring method and I am still not really sure whether I could score wines based on his system – or whether anyone can. What I am pretty sure of though, is that most consumers don’t know how this system works. And I am also pretty that his scores are not even close to reality.
I went through his last 1000 reviewed wines and exactly 33% or one-third scored above 95 points and ONLY 28 wines – 28 out of 1000– less than 3% of all wines received a score below 90 points. And now you might think: Maybe he had some amazing tastings in the last months? Nope … He is tasting way more entry-level wines than most wine critics and amongst the best-rated products are wines that I would not mind drinking but certainly not the best wines in the world.
There is quite a lot of other information on his website that I would argue with, like for example that wine does not get better with age. His scores are available for free, but he does not offer any tasting notes. Instead, he gives suggestions on when a wine like the Vecciano Rosato should be consumed- according to him as an Aperitif for a romantic dinner on a quote “Great event”, Christmas, Easter, or New Year’s Eve as a “Morning wine” or an Afternoon wine. He also suggests that this dry Rosé wine goes well with Appetizers, Meat. Desserts, Fish. And Main course – so everything basically.
34 Comments
Hahahaha that sneeze made me lol!
Did you guys get it!?
I had a bottle that he rated 98. It was pretty good, probably high 80s to 90 on an honest appraisal. But his scores have little bearing on reality.
James Suckling is a notorious score inflater. It's convenient that his scores are 3 to 8 points higher than everyone else, since stores pick the highest score to advertise, guaranteeing that his name is plastered on the shelves of every wine store in the country.
His credibility amongst wine lovers in italy is 0.
Thanks Konstantin for exposing this scam for what it is. This waterfall of high end false points has been bothering me for a long time now. Well done!
As long as those suggestive adhesive tags with totally subjective, personal, arbitrary scores and tasters’ or magazines’ names will be tolerated alongside the wine labels on the bottles, despite an express prohibition by the law (at least, the Italian law) as ‘laudative mentions’, it will always go this way. The mentions are banned on brochures and websites as well, but apparently not on bottles, which is frankly a scandal nobody talked about as of today. And a ‘97/100 by XY’ tag is indeed a ‘laudative mention’, isn’t it? Or should it be considered as an ‘information to customers’, lol? Someone thinks we’re a bunch of idiots, I guess.
I had actually never heard of this guy. Which I guess is a good thing as the places where I buy wine don't display his scores 🙂
I learned about maroni score in the hard way LOL
The real crime isn't Luca Maroni's "attitude" in judging wines, not even that he calls himself a wine writer, but the fact that he pretends to be a writer tout court. The massacre of the Italian prose that he perpetrates is THE CRIME.
Could not agree more ❤
My first experience with Luca Maronie was with a bottle of Tenuta Ulisse Amaranta Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2014. Everyone at the dinner party was blown away by how delicious it was, with or without the 99 point tag. It crossed all the T's and dotted all the i's for most people. Since then, I haven't found another 99 point of his wine worth its salt. Maybe it started out with self-respect, and then it went downhill fast.
What glass did you use? The name of the brand and the collection it belongs to. Thank you
Good to know that not every rating is equal! I have a request. Through the reviews that you’ve done in the past, I’ve discovered some amazing wines (thinking of the Dido “la universal”). Can I find more of those recommendations? Or can you maybe add a short segment to your videos 😉
I strongly believe the main fact highlighted by your criticism is how this distortion is somehow tolerated in Italy. Apart the usual jokes on this “subject”, I haven’t read, or at least I don’t remember, any sharp criticism carried out by his “colleagues”.
There are a lot of critics that seem to operate on quite different scales to one another. It's a pretty hard thing to standardise. But Maroni's numbers are absolutely ridiculous.
Almost all the really good wines would in his "system" have to get lumped in with really mediocre wines under "99" , in fact many excellent wines would be rated lower beause their transparency would lack "consistency" in his use of the term. So let's face it: the system is a pseudo-scientific cover for corruption, really. But least, Maroni clearly declares that his rating is not based on the the same scale. The real culprits then are the retailers who use it without such a disclaimer. In effect, his rating is more or less a 10 – 15 point scale in which a 90 is pretty much the bottom worth considering at all. In that respect I use my ratings similarly: I wouldn't buy wines again if I wouldn't at least rate them with an 86 or 87.
This was an awesome video. I drank some TERRIBLE wines that received 99 points from Maroni, most of them were from the Puglia region
Did you ask Maroni for comments prior to uploading this video? Or did they react on your video?
Great job on calling this out Konstantin. I’ve personally never come across him, but I think alarm bells would already be ringing for me if a wine is sub-4 EUR and getting a 97 point rating! To your point, I shudder to think what has gone into the bottle if they are able to economically make a wine that cheaply. Also, you’d have thought super market buyers would be wise to this….
Thank you Konstantin for putting LM scores onder scrutiny. The scoring is so inconsistent and random that I was wondering if such scoring was illegal.
Thank you for sharing this about the Luca Maroni scores! The truth is always in the bottle.
As a wine pro, thank you for making this. My employer proudly features wines with high scores from Luca Maroni, and while there are rare exceptions, most of the wines are middling at best, unbalanced, with sweetness far more than is needed given the style. I personally believe he is singlehandedly responsible for the big push towards high residual sweetness (>15g/L) wines from Southern Italy in our market. Honestly, I think there is an inverse relationship between the quality of the wine and the Maroni score – wines with 91 points will have acidity, appropriate levels of sweetness, and overall have more balance.
1.36051701 ounces left from 3 glasses? That's 750ml=25.360517 devided by 3 is 8.45350567. So 8 ounces per glass with the remainder. No other combination of volumes from a bottle gives that many decimal places. Any other way the .00000001 is missing. 🙂 And your remainder left in a shotglass is to the 7th not the 8th place. So if you want a shot of wine you must first drink 3 glasses. cheers!
I have not trusted Wilfred Wong's ratings at BevMo a huge wine retailer chain in the US, nor the Wine Enthusiasts scores since they are overrated and exaggerated for sub par wines.
Excellent. Personally I only look at critics whose scores equate to my own taste and experience. I prefer to rely on personal tasting. I’ve been surprised how off beam some mainstream critics seem to be. At the end of the day wine enjoyment is personal
and if I read the scores by a critic whose judgment I have found to be sound I’ll go with it. Others I take with a pinch of salt.
Lol, when I started with wine I also bought some high rated maroni wines. They were terrible. I think he is more popular in Austria and Germany, the wines he likes are generally bold, fruity with very low acidity. Jammy wines. I have only seen his ratings being shown in Germany/Austria shops, nobody in France, Italy or Spain put his ratings.
At least Luca il Truffatore does make top wines available at supermarketprices. We all benefit 😁
Today a friend of mine sent me a photo of a bottle of wine (vino nobile di montepulciano) with a mark of 97 points. I thought it was strange for him to buy such an expensive bottle ( i assumed it was a real 97 points wine) so i searched it on vivino and it had a 3.8 score and its price was 7 euros. i was so confused, then i got this video on my video and understood why it had such a high score… In my opionion what he is doing should be illegal. I hope his scores lose al credibility after a while.
Luca Maroni is a joke. Suckling rates are to high but at least his 90 point wines are proper wine, and actually a quite good way to find value in Bordeaux, Toscana, South America and so on….
I prefer magazine reviews like the wine advocate and wine spectator. And Jancis Robinson, she is very serious about wine.
I have drunk wines scored by Maroni recently and initially I thought that his scoring was in line with JS, RP, WE, WS, etc. However since drinking wines scored by him I have discovered that his wine scores are WAAYYY off and highly misleading. There is a wine critic, (we all know who he is, 😛) when I see his score I automatically deduct 3-5 points. But Maroni is simply tricking people and misleading ignorant consumers, because 95 + wines should make your jaw drop & make you go "wow".
Also they don't generally retail for 3-7 euros, much more than that. Interestingly enough I went to the Taipei Wine & Spirits in Spring wine exhibition a few weeks ago and talked with some Italian wine importers. They said that Maroni in Italy is a big joke and nobody trusts him, so that further confirmed my judgement.
I trust your, Peter Koff, Matthew Horkney, the Wine King and other honest individual wine critics opinions a lot more that Maroni's. As far as publications go I generally trust Decanter, though sometimes their scores can be a bit subjective as well. Great video and good for you for speaking up about this issue.
" 72 points, just to make myself clear.." 😁
Thanks, Konstantin for sharing this grounded point of view on the scores from Maroni. He is known to be profilic on 99pts for his reviews… it is just sad how it murks consumer choice and takes the credit away from great wine producers, while the retail is incentivized to support it (because scores "sell"). 😕
Luca Maroni is a laughingstock here in Italy
I never heard of maroni?…… wine education, knowing who not to refer to 😏👍