Question about ratings

[wondersofwine]

Bucko or someone else can confirm this but I understand that most raters are rating a wine for its type--i.e., a red burgundy against other red burgundies, a sauvignon blanc against other sauvignon blancs, etc. It should exhibit the characteristics of the varietal grape (or blend in the case of bordeaux reds) and of the region where produced. However, that said, I think it's possible that a rater might never give a classical rating (i.e, 95 or higher) to certain wine types that they feel are from inferior grapes and incapable of being designated as classic wines (maybe a labrusca native grape of North America with a foxy nose and flavor or a pinot blanc or muller-thurgau.)