I wasn’t going to make one of these end-of-year wine lists. Let’s face it; many are done just as a marketing resource to support wineries that support and garner a lot of their free publicity. Or it’s a critic listing all the wines they loved throughout the year and, in doing so, urging their followers to like them too. There’s nothing wrong with such lists; that’s just not us. Our aim is to put the consumer in the driving seat. We objectively judge quality across a broad range of styles and accurately describe those styles. Therefore, what I love or dislike is not the point.

Humbug!

I thought about what kind of end-of-year list would be helpful to our readers. What would be useful to me? That’s when the quality/price ratio list dawned on me. As wine hounds, no matter our tastes, we all love wines of quality, but equally, we all love a bargain.

Quality/price ratio (QPR) is a way of calculating value for money. There’s no universally accepted way of doing this, but I developed a formula for determining fine wine value some years ago. Although it is not an exact science, the results are usually an accurate indicator of whether I’m getting a bargain or being ripped off. 

Ultimately, you may argue that something is only worth what you’re willing to pay. Plus, given the finite nature of any given wine from a particular vintage and that the highest quality wines are often produced in smaller quantities, supply and demand is a force that skews the upper-echelon wines away from a straightforward calculation of value. In other words, most serious wine consumers would agree that if you simply divided the score by the price, the result doesn’t reflect the value of many higher quality and rarer wines compared to the mass-produced, lower quality wines. Furthermore, it stands to reason that quality-seeking collectors look for value in higher-rated wines. I, therefore, use 87 points as the lowest rating consideration and accept that the calculation will only be useful from this score up. For greater accuracy in respect of quality, I tack on bonus points to wines scoring 90-95 points and higher bonuses to those that score 96-100. 

For the QPR bonus calculation, I add 0.5 bonus points to a score of 90 and then add an extra 0.5 to each score above 90 until 96 points. At 96 and above, scores receive an incremental 1-point bonus, and scores with a “+” symbol receive an extra 0.5 bonus. So, the scoring bonus looks like this:

87-89: No Bonus 

90: add 0.5 

91: add 1 

92: add 1.5 

93: add 2 

94: add 2.5 

95: add 3

96: add 4

97: add 5

98: add 6

99: add 7

100: add 8

The results can be assessed thus:

QPR 10+ = The Bargain of a lifetime

QPR 9 = Outstanding value

QPR 8 = Excellent value

QPR 7 = Very good value

QPR 6 = Good value

QPR 5 = Above average value

QPR 4 = Average value / fair market price

QPR 3 = The price is a little steep

QPR 2 = Expensive for what it is

QPR 1 = Forget it

You may have noticed that this bonus allocation assumes that 100-point wines start at “Excellent value,” regardless of price. Because this is true only up to a certain price, I filtered out 100-point wines reviewed this year on our website with an average global price on Wine-Searcher of over $400. Also, I only included new releases (mostly 2019 vintage) that were bottle (no barrel samples) and are readily available to purchase.

The resulting list of this year’s best QPR new-release collector wines was eye-opening. Italy performed well, as did, surprisingly, Bordeaux. The number one bargain for the year turned out to be a gorgeous Tuscan Sangiovese—2019 Isole e Olena Cepparello—reviewed by our Italian critic, Susan Hulme MW. Bravo to her for highlighting this beauty and awarding this excellent value wine with the highest of scores.

Happy wine hunting & Season’s Greetings!