Monthly Archives: September 2023

A Worthy Life

17 September 2023 By in Books Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Socrates

By A.E. Taylor

Published by Forgotten Books

Copyright: © 2017

Original Publication Date: 1933

A.E. Taylor – Wikipedia

Author Biography:

Alfred Edward Taylor was born in Oundle, England in 1869, and died in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1945. He was a professor, a Greek classicist, and a philosopher of metaphysics and ethics. He spent his adult life at the ancient Scottish Universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh researching and teaching the spiritual; the immortal basis for morality and the philosophy of Plato. Plato was a student of Socrates and as such he was a concern to and within the orbit of Taylor.

Socrates’, leaving no written record, entire philosophical corpus and biography have reached us today primarily through the writings of two near contemporary Greeks: Plato and Xenophon. Taylor’s contribution to our present day understanding of Socrates was to argue that Plato’s four basic texts on Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, are accurate depictions of what Socrates said and did. Xenophon, who also wrote extensively about Socrates but later, Taylor argued, is less reliable. This may seem trivial, but this point has been and still is contested due to the immense stature of Socrates as one of the founders of Western philosophy in general and ethics in particular. The basic question among philosophers is whether Plato’s writings describing Socratic philosophy are accurate or are amalgamations of Socratic and Platonic thought? Who knows? The dispute will continue till the end of days so we will leave it as Taylor says.

Taylor’s studies within the philosophy of ethics and morality centered on what is right and good, whether the two were complementary and/or achievable. Taylor argued right and good or the moral practice of the individual is constrained and flawed without the aid of the supernatural: God. His thesis was that searching inward, within oneself for rebirth and betterment, for a moral compass, flows only in circles leading nowhere. To reach a higher level of morality or good requires looking outward to the spiritual through contemplation of the eternal good. Taylor argued that the will to reach for a better or eternal good is impetus for the eternal, the divine good to reach for you. Additionally, morality, Taylor surmises, plateaus in the human confines of a person’s physical life, requiring, unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, death to continue the soul’s moral journey for better or worse.

Socrates:

Any biography of Socrates is going to be short. Almost all authoritative writings concerning his work, teachings, and life that have reached us in the 21st century consists of approximately two hundred written pages, in English, by Plato and about three hundred English written pages by Xenophon with the two containing significant overlap. Taylor’s biography, using Plato and Xenophon as primary sources, is no exception managing to encapsulate Socrates’ remarkable life into a quick read of 142 pages. Within these few pages concerning this most remarkable man everything has been disputed except for the Athenians putting him to death for being a royal pain in the rear, some have used the term gadfly. That is the one piece of his life that no one disagrees with. No one disputes that he was put to death in 399 BC, and it is likely that no one disputes that he was a royal pain in the posterior, a gadfly.

Socrates was born, circa 469 BC, grew up and lived in Athens until he was put to death in 399 BC at the age of seventy. He lived during the Golden Age of Athens (478-404 BC) and the overlapping Age of Pericles (461-429 BC) both now combined and known by the excessively non-descriptive non-demonym: Fifth Century Athens. (Why classical historians thought this was a useful, didactic change defies any sound, logical reasoning. Alas it was changed to avoid hurt feelings of Greeks and Athenians whose best years occurred two thousand seven hundred years ago. How you soothe pouting children should not be an instruction manual for sane adults.)

Socrates only left Athens to serve in military battles prior to and during the (second) Peloponnesian War. He was a hoplite in the Athenian army, a heavy infantry soldier outfitted with a shield, sword, and/or spear fighting in a phalanx or block-like formation. By all accounts he was a good and courageous soldier. His first recorded engagement, at the age of thirty-eight, was the battle and siege at Potidaea beginning in 432 BC. lasting until 429 BC. Potidaea was a Greek city-state, approximately 155 miles, as the crow flies, north of Athens, threatening to break free of Athenian control. This battle helped trigger the much larger and costlier Peloponnesian War beginning in 431 BC and lasting until 404 BC.

Socrates saved the life of Alcibiades, a gifted Athenian general and politician, but exceptionally duplicitous and erratic. Socrates heroic action should have garnered him the prize for valor, but Alcibiades was awarded it instead due to his higher birth and rank. A very powerful disincentive to the rank and file indeed.

Five and seven years later Socrates fought for Athens in the losing battles of Delium and Amphipolis, respectively, during the initial stages of the twenty-seven year-long Peloponnesian War. During the battle of Delium in 424 BC, Alcibiades saved Socrates’ life thus repaying Socrates’ valiant deed and cementing their life-long, but problematic, friendship.

Alcibiades recounts a story of Socrates during the engagement of Potidaea that bears on the philosopher’s power, or possibly prophetic power of thought. One morning Socrates, while contemplating an assumed perplexing problem became motionless, a state he remained in until the next morning when he said a prayer and walked away invigorated, amazing his fellow soldiers who had been watching him through the night. This story has him either being completely lost in thought, refusing to move to avoid breaking that train of thought, or as another occurrence of the ‘Sign’, voice, or daimonion that came to him, starting in his childhood and continuing throughout his adult life.

The ‘Sign’ was a voice usually described as an inner call, not to action, but to caution, a warning of future woes to come. Socrates mentioned at his trial that whenever the voice spoke to him it turned him away from something he was about to do. Some believe the ‘Sign’ was simply his subconscious speaking to him while others feel it was divine. A message from God.

To stretch a minor detail, Socrates almost never referred to the Gods, just God in the singular, a minor point yes, but a point all the same that the ‘Sign’ may have been religious vision or experience from the perspective of monotheism versus accepted Greek polytheism. At his trial he states, “It is to fulfill some function that I believe God has placed me in the city. I never cease to rouse each and every one of you, to persuade and reproach you all day long…” His ‘Sign’ did not speak to him during his trial leaving him to conclude that the sentence of death was something he should accept.

Socrates’ ‘religion’ began with his belief in the soul, and that it was immortal and unchanging. The soul existed before you were born and continued after your death. He believed the soul was your truth, your essence, your reality beyond your corporal self. He believed the soul must be looked after and kept in immaculate condition.

Socrates believed that to care for your soul required a focus on personal growth. Growth comes from the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge, the study of philosophy, to further one’s understanding of not only yourself but the world around you. The pursuit of wisdom through what became known as the Socratic method, questioning and logical reasoning started with yourself: ‘know thyself’ and expanded to include the universe beyond your own flesh. To seek wisdom and knowledge by examining your life was to seek truth. Seeking wisdom and knowledge for the sake of truth is what Socrates meant when he spoke his famous line at his trial in 399 BC, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Without truth, life is not worth living. Without truth one risks living a lie.

Socrates examined and questioned everything and everyone. His thirst for knowledge and wisdom all flowed from his stated belief in his own ignorance, stating “as for me all I know is that I know nothing.” No one that knew Socrates believed this statement for a second. He was known as a sage, a philosopher, and shrewd one at that. His wisdom was even embraced by the Oracle of Delphi who said Socrates was the wisest person in Athens.

For Socrates, though, his statement professing to know nothing wasn’t an expression of humility or ignorance but a challenge. A challenge to question one’s beliefs and opinions concerning all things seen and unseen. Two plus two equals four, everything else is questionable. “All I know is that I know nothing” is an acknowledgement that the search for wisdom: truth, at a minimum is transitory, possibly imaginary, and thus one must never stop searching. This was not to say there were no truths available to the living, but the search could be difficult and deceptive.

Socrates’ quest for the truth manifested itself first through his rejection of fame, money, and power. The corollary of that rejection is he lived a life of poverty, neglected hygiene, and wore no shoes. No shoes whether with feet on burning stones or frosted rocks. Pain and discomfort did not seem to bother him.

Secondly his quest for the truth was through the spoken word, never written. Conversations with his fellow Athenians occurred throughout the city, the Lyceum and the Agora were his two favorite haunts where he questioned his victims, and they were victims, in his famous ‘Socratic Method’ style of inquisition. Below is a short description of Socratic torture from the–Explainer: Socrates and the Life Worth Living (link below):

  • Socrates engages an interlocutor who appears to possess knowledge about an idea
  • The interlocutor makes an attempt to define the idea in question
  • Socrates asks a series of questions which test and unravel the interlocutor’s definition
  • The interlocutor tries to reassemble their definition, but Socrates repeats step three
  • Both parties arrive at a state of perplexity, or aporia (ed. a philosophical puzzle), in which neither can any further define the idea in question
Socrates’ Address. Louis J. Lebrun. 1867

A humorous sketch illustrating his method from Plato’s ‘Euthyphro‘ picks up near the end of a discussion concerning the gods:

Euthyphro: Why you don’t suppose, Socrates, that the gods gain any advantage from what they get from us, do you?

Socrates: Well then, what would those gifts of ours to the gods be?

Euthyphro: What else than honor and praise, and, as I said before, gratitude?

Socrates: Then, Euthyphro, holiness is grateful to the gods, but not advantageous or precious to the gods?

Euthyphro: I think it is precious, above all things.

Socrates: Then again, it seems, holiness is that which is precious to the gods.

Euthyphro: Certainly.

Socrates: Then will you be surprised, since you say this, if your words do not remain fixed but walk about, and will you accuse me of being the Daedalus who makes them walk, when you are yourself much more skillful than Daedalus and make them go round in a circle? Or do you not see that our definition has come round to the point from which it started? For you remember, I suppose, that a while ago we found that holiness and what is dear to the gods were not the same, but different from each other; or do you not remember?

Socrates: Then don’t you see that now you say that what is precious to the gods is holy? And is not this what is dear to the gods?

Euthyphro: Certainly.

Socrates: Then either our agreement a while ago was wrong, or if that was right, we are wrong now.

Euthyphro: So it seems.

Socrates: Then we must begin again at the beginning and ask what holiness is. Since I shall not willingly give up until I learn. […]

Euthyphro: Some other time, Socrates. Now I am in a hurry, and it is time for me to go.

Socrates: Oh my friend, what are you doing? You go away and leave me cast down from the high hope I had that I should learn from you what is holy, and what is not, and should get rid of Meletus’s indictment by showing him

Socrates’ learnings in search of the truth have been passed down to us through Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Locke, and others, climaxing in Jefferson’s preamble to Western civilization’s crowning ode to self and country: the ‘Declaration of Independence‘, proclaiming the fundamental, natural rights of man: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The phrase the ‘pursuit of Happiness’ has been thoroughly misconstrued to mean something foreign and vulgar to Jefferson’s original intent. The ‘pursuit of Happiness’ was not a grant to seek earthly enrichments and pleasures but a call to a higher state of being. Epicurus provided a definition of happiness that comes closest to the meaning of Jefferson, “the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and once this is obtained the tempest of the soul is quelled.” Life, Liberty, and the pursuit free from pain and fear. The ‘pursuit of Happiness’ sounds better.

Epicurus seeks a soul free of pain and fear. Socrates sought a pure soul. Both pursued it through the same means. Socrates and Epicurus’ greatest pleasure in life was the pursuit of wisdom and truth. Neither sought fame, money, or power nor feared death. Epicurus did not fear death because it was the end of the body and the soul. There was nothingness after death. No greater glory. No damnation. Just nothing. Socrates did not fear death because a pure and good soul went on to something better.

Socrates, then, lived a good life. A life in pursuit of truth. A death to continue his journey to a higher plane.

Socrates died, supposedly, for impiety and corruption of the youth. Both charges were difficult to square with reality, but they achieved the desired outcome: removing an inconvenient seeker of truth. Silencing the moral inquisitor, the examiner of the soul. Extinguishing the gadfly.

At the end of his trial Socrates’ soul was at peace but still he seeks truth: “Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except God.”

The Death of Socrates. By Jacques-Louis David. 1787

Taylor’s Bibliography:

References and Readings:

The Last First Leatherstocking

5 September 2023 By in Books Fiction, Novel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Deerslayer

By James Fenimore Cooper

Published by SMK Books

Copyright: © 2012

Original Publication Date: 1841

James Fenimore Cooper – Wikipedia

Biography:

James Fenimore Cooper died in 1851 at the age of 61 in Cooperstown, New York, a small town founded by his father, William Cooper in 1785. The city is located on the southern edge of Otsego Lake which means ‘Place of the Rock’ in the Mohawk language and Glimmerglass in his novel ‘The Deerslayer‘.

Cooper, the eleventh of twelve children, after his first birthday spent his pre-teen years in Cooperstown. He was enrolled at Yale University when he was thirteen and expelled for dangerous mischief at 16 without obtaining a degree. He crewed a merchant ship at the age of seventeen and sailed across the Atlantic to London and down along the Spanish coast into the Mediterranean. In 1808 he joined the U.S. Navy and spent the next two years serving aboard inland lake gunboats and preforming recruiting duties. He resigned his commission in the navy in 1810 for the lack of excitement. (In life where timing is everything, the British naval blockade of American trade during the war of 1812 may have provided Cooper with some needed excitement.) In 1811 he married a wealthy heiress, Susan Augusta de Lancey and settled down to life of leisure for the next decade.

In 1820, after ten years of dabbling in various occupations, more as hobbies rather than employment, he decided to take up writing, producing his first novel, a poor imitation of Jane Austin novels, ‘Precaution’ in the same year. His second novel ‘The Spy‘ was more successful and gave him a measure of fame and wealth, enough to encourage him to continue his pursuit as a novelist and writer.

His first ‘Leatherstocking’ novel. ‘The Pioneers‘ appeared in 1823 followed by the second ‘Leatherstocking’ novel, ‘The Last of the Mohicans‘ in 1826. ‘The Last of the Mohicans‘ is considered his greatest triumph as an author from the time it was written to the present day and has been adapted to film many times over the last one hundred years.

As a testament to his success as a writer, after two centuries almost all his fictional novels are still in print.

The Deerslayer:

‘The Deerslayer‘, first published in 1841, was the fifth and final volume of the ‘Leatherstocking‘ historical romantic novels by Cooper. In ‘The Deerslayer‘ the author brings the protagonist of the ‘Leatherstocking‘ series, Natty Bumppo, back from the future as a prequel to the first four novels. Running in the background to the story is the French and Indian Wars, setting the stage and providing context for the action and dialogue occurring on and around Otsego Lake known as Glimmerglass in the novel.

Natty, referred to by his nicknames Deerslayer and Hawkeye, is a young 17th century moralistic American frontiersman living and traveling among the Iroquoian Mohawks, in what is now known as central upstate New York. Deerslayer has a strong innate sense of right and wrong from a civilized Christian perspective which he continually attempts to square and bridge with the less polished cultural tenets of his Indian brothers. To avoid moral conflicts with his adopted tribal brothers he focuses on the good in the red and, with a nod to cultural sensitivity, he internally closets any interpretive bad in the red as inconsequential. Deerslayer though, takes a less compromising position with his white brethren; admonishing them for traits and behaviors that diverge from his Christian grounding in what is right.

Cooper reinforces the inherent conflicts between good and bad by creating good Indians, Mohawks, and bad Indians, Mingos. The noble, liberated savage versus the evil, fearsome savage. In the end the white and red dissipate and all that is left is the perpetual struggle between good and evil.

Layered on top of Deerslayer’s sententious inclinations is a romance played out between Natty and the beautiful daughter of his traveling companion’s friend: Judith. Judith is slowly drawn to Deerslayer’s inherent goodness while Natty remains committed to his frontiersman bachelor ways. Another gap for the Deerslayer to bridge but in this instance, fails.

Literary Criticism:

‘The Deerslayer‘ received much critical praise from the time of publication onward into the 20th century. Author D.H. Lawrence found the book “one of most beautiful and perfect books…” Critic Carl Van Doren called novel “as a whole absorbing.” Wilkie Collins, author, said “Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction yet produced in America.” Critic Lounsbury proclaimed that ‘The Pathfinder‘ and ‘The Deerslayer‘ “were pure works of art.”

Not all criticism was positive. Mark Twain supposedly found it dreadful and wrote ten pages explaining his thesis in the aptly titled: ‘Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses‘. As is his want and style, Twain’s account of Cooper’s offenses was exceptionally funny though I’m less than sure if he was serious in his criticisms or if he just saw an opening to throw a few well-constructed barbs to help pay the bills and meet contractual obligations. An excerpt from the opening to ‘Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses‘:

“Cooper’s art has some defects. In one place in ‘Deerslayer‘, and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks a record.

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction–some say twenty-two. In ‘Deerslayer‘ Cooper violated eighteen of them….”

Cooper is dead. Long live Cooper.

Bibliography – Fiction:

References and Readings:

Exploration 15: Wine Ratings

4 September 2023 By in Red Wine Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

‘But it’s all right ’cause it’s Midnight,
And I got two more bottles of wine.‘

Song: Two More Bottles of Wine

Performed by: Emmylou Harris

Album: Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town – 1978

Written by: Delbert McClinton

Copyright: 1975

The (Editorial) Point:

In subsequent posts I will attempt to examine the relationship between wine ratings and price. To get there I thought it may be useful to quickly rehash the reasoning and methodology of ratings, which has been done many times by many others, before I compare them with wine prices.

The Need for Wine Ratings:

After many years of spending considerable time, money, and effort buying and drinking poor quality wines, I was ready to throw in the grapes and stick with whiskey: Irish whiskey, Scotch whisky, Canadian whisky, but not American burbon whiskey, too rough around the edges for my tastes. But this is not about whiskey. This is about choosing a decent wine at an affordable price–choosing a wine that doesn’t provoke tongue burn and esophageal spasms. Finding a wine without pouring over countless wine reviews in search of something within my budget and of acceptable quality. Unless you were a fervent oenophile steeped in the language and nuance of the vine you could get through about as many reviews as there were licks in a Tootsie Pop – 3 – before giving up and picking a wine at random at the local liquor store. An all-around Herculean and, as a rule, unrewarding task. An alternate method was to collect tips from fellow wine travelers. Experience taught me that wine tips were the blood brothers to stock and racehorse tips. Hang onto your wallet when receiving them and expect nothing good to come from them.

Considering the abysmal state of pre-1970s wine analytics, the ability to sort wine by quality and price, it’s a wonder anyone drank the stuff. Before ratings, the sellers of wine usually wrote glowing reviews of their product leading most buyers, through experience, to question their objectivity. Producer and seller reviews continue to the present with caveat emptor remaining germane and necessary to the buyer.

Then along came Robert Parker in the 1970s with a 100-point impartial wine rating/ranking system, a 50-point system in reality, which revolutionized how wine was bought and sold. His approach was to evaluate wines independently of the producers and sellers, communicating his results directly to the consumer.

Parker’s system wasn’t meant to replace wine reviews and tasting notes but to supplement them. The ratings were meant to provide a comparison between the seemingly infinite number of wines that were all labeled good and worthy of your time and money, but impossible to narrow down to something manageable, affordable, and drinkable. The ratings gave the consumer one number, along with price, helping to winnow the field of immense possibilities to single bottle or two for the evening’s festivities.

Wine rankings have their detractors mainly because they are subjective, but all rankings are subjective whatever they may be–books, clothes, cars, phones, whatever. Name a subject and you will be able to find a ranked list and it will have a subjective component. As a species we describe objects by comparing them with other objects and then rank them in a list. Consumer Reports have been doing this since 1936 and as much as they try to be objective there is always a subjective piece in their evaluations. Ranker.com, going live in 2009, has collected a billion votes from millions of users on hundreds of thousands of items and lists, all with subjective content.

When looking for a movie to stream on Friday night you may check out the written reviews which are likely to range from love it to hate it for any given flick, but the first thing that catches your eye are the consensus scores. A movie that scores 30 out of 100 you will give a pass, unless campy movies are your thing, but the ones rated 85 out of 100 prods your interest. You may even go on and read a review or two by critics that you know and trust. This eliminates a bit of the trial and error, taking thousands of movies and finding something we wish to spend our Friday night watching. Not fool-proof but better than written reviews by themselves.

The same process works for wine. That numerical score assigned by a reviewer that you trust narrows the choices of finding an acceptable wine for that Friday night movie, leaving you time to put together a colorful fruit and cheeseboard to complement your well thought out bottle of red… or white.

The Wine Rating Methodology:

Wine ratings are subjective by nature which means the numerical scores will not only change from reviewer to reviewer, but an individual reviewer will likely assign a different score at a different time and place. Moods, physical states, and surroundings affect us all. Smell and taste will not be the same in fresh air as it would in a smokey room. The variables to consistent, or inconsistent, scores are endless, but one must persevere.

To bring some objectivity to ratings the tastings are generally done blind. In blind tastings information about the producer(s) and price is not divulged to the reviewer. In some cases, even the varietal of wine is not communicated before the actual tastings have been completed. The reviewer uses the same scorecard listing the same criteria to analyze all wines. A typical scorecard will contain some or all the following criteria:

  • Appearance – Color, Viscosity, and Opacity
  • Consistency or Mouthfeel – Body and Density
  • Aroma and Bouquet
  • Taste – Acidity, Flavors, Intensity, Balance, Depth, and Aftertaste
  • Complexity
  • Varietal

To assist in tasting and evaluating wine the UC Davis wine tasting wheel, divided into three expanding detail circles, was developed, and is shown above right.

The American Wine Society evaluation sheet shown below is for scoring on the UC Davis 20-point system.

With the above criteria a reviewer will assign a numerical value or star(s) to that vintage bottle of wine. The most common scoring structure is the 100-point system devised by Robert Parker. Others, such as Jancis Robinson use a 20-point system designed at the University of California at Davis in the 1950s. On the simple and basic end of ratings is the ubiquitous 5-star system that ranks wine with very little pretentious hair splitting. Vivino’s use of the 5-star system is strictly constructed and populated from aggregated and averaged individual consumer rankings and correlates very well with the more orthodox expert 100-point ratings. A Vivino 4-star rating equates to a 90-point Parker rating. The four rating scales, plus mine, are listed below.

Ratings in Practice:

On a finale note, those employing the 100-point scale very seldom, either for ranking or subsequent sales promotion, publish any scores below 88 or 89 reducing their scoring system to a 12-point scale that only contains outstanding to extraordinary wines. I have almost no experience with 20-point scales so I cannot speak directly to their posting, or not, of inferior wine scores. Vivino’s 5-Star system publishes all ratings provided by their customers, the good, the bad and the ugly. Vivino’s system subdivides each star into ten parts creating a 40-point system. In the end, whether you are using a 5-, 20-, 40-, 50-, or 100-point system the goal is to add a little quantitative assessment to qualitative reviews.

Robert Parker’s System:

  • 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.
  • 50-59 — A wine deemed to be unacceptable.
  • 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.

University of California at Davis System:

  • 17-20 – Wines of outstanding characteristics having no defects
  • 13-16 – Standard wines with neither outstanding character nor defect
  • 9-12 – Wines of commercial acceptability with noticeable defects
  • 6-8 – Wines below commercial acceptability
  • 1-5 – Completely spoiled wines

American Wine Society Version of UC Davis System:

  • 18 – 20 – Extraordinary
  • 15 – 17 – Excellent
  • 12 – 14 – Good
  • 9 – 11 – Commercially acceptable
  • 6 – 8 – Deficient
  • 0 – 5 – Poor & Objectionable

Vivino et al 5 Star System:

  • Five Stars – Superlative
  • Four Stars – Excellent (Robert Parker’s 90-point rating)
  • Three Stars – Perfect for everyday consumption (Vivino’s average wine is 3.6 stars)
  • Two Stars – Casual drinking
  • One Star – Very Ordinary

Els Ranking:

  • Five Stars – 95-100 points – A most excellent wine
  • Four Stars – 90-94 points – An outstanding wine (My sweet spot for balancing quality and price)
  • Three Stars – 85-89 points – A good wine
  • Two Stars – 80-84 points – An OK wine
  • One Star – <80 – Yuk

The Raters and Rankers:

Wine Magazines, and Information:

Rating References and Readings: