Terms and Definitions

WineBork Rating: The WineBork Rating is our overall assessment of the wine. We are rather impatient folks, so we don't give a lot of credit for "cellaring" potential, but focus on how it drinks today. The scale follows the pattern set by Parker and others. The perfect wine is given a score of 100. We are a bit stingy, and values above 90 are very rare and represents a very excellent wine indeed. We perhaps encounter one or two of those a month. All ratings above 80 indicate acceptable, pleasant wines. However, we would not knowingly spend our own money on a wine scoring below 83.
Varietals: Many quality wines are made using grapes of more than a single variety (varietal). Although generally a wine must be a minimum of 75% of a particular varietal to be labeled as such, e.g., Petite Sirah or Zinfandel, the other varietals in its makeup provide much of the wine's character. If we know the makeup, we tell you here.
Price/Performance Grade: Since we don't consider cost to be a very good indicator of the wine quality, we also provide another scale, the "P/P" grade (price:performance ratio). A grade of "B" means an excellent wine in the $20-30 price range, or a good wine in the "teens". A grade of "A" could indicate a good "cheap" wine, a very good mid-range wine, or an exceptional wine in the low 20's. The P/P Grade is left blank in the case of "Library" wines or if we don't have a pretty good idea of the price.
AI (Alcohol Index): This is easy. It's just the percent alcohol as stated on the label.
Price: This reflects the price paid for the wine, or possibly an advertised price or an educated guess. In the case of a "library" wine reviewed after a cellaring period, the price will probably not reflect today's market.
Review Date: This is the date on which that the wine was tasted, or, for follow-up reviews, the most recent date.
Availability: If the wine is a recent purchase, we tell you where we think you may find it. Many of our favorites disappear quickly, so this information is seldom accurate for long. "Library" wines drawn from our private cellars are probably not available except by special order through quality wine merchants or on-line, at various auction sites.
Visitors' Rating: The value of this site will be greatly improved as you, our visitors also contribute to the wine ranking and reviews. Just fill out the form and your opinion will be automatically appended to the review.
Reviewed by: Who wrote the review. All reviews resulting from a Winebork Team group tasting are identified by "WB Team".