Another star rating - Decanter

To conclude this series on scores and ratings, we will look at the way Decanter awards its stars. Johnson (2008) wrote that for this system, one star is "poor", two stars "fair", three stars "good", four stars "good to excellent" and five stars mean "outstanding". The star systems are actually based on the 20 point system that I had blogged about previously. Wines scoring 10.5-12.49 points get 1 star, 12.5 - 14.49 points get 2 stars, 14.5-16.49 points = 3 stars, 16.5-18.49 points = 4 stars and >18.5 points get the top 5 stars. For the top 3 categories, the magazine also uses an alternative designation: 3 stars = recommended; 4 stars highly recommended and 5 stars = Decanter Award.

The system is the same whether it is the score of a single invited "expert" or a blind tasting panel whose EU-recognised scores are nevertheless the work of a whole group. Could we call that a star rating by committee?!