How the grades work | Wine PocketList

Every wine on the list gets one letter grade: A+, A, A− or B+. Anything lower doesn’t make the list. The grade combines two kinds of people who taste a lot of wine: wine judges and everyday drinkers. Each alone can mislead. When both agree, it’s about as close to a sure thing as wine gets.

1. The judges

We read the published results of five big wine competitions held in 2026:

A wine needs silver or better from at least two of them. Each medal becomes a letter, and we average them into the judges’ grade:

Double Gold, Best of Class	A+
Gold	A
Silver	A−

Bronze medals don’t count.

2. The drinkers

We look up what ordinary wine drinkers rated the wine on a large public rating app, by hand, one wine at a time. We only count it when at least 200 people have rated it, and we turn the average into a letter: very high is A+, high is A, good is A−.

So-so ratings: the wine can stay on the list, but it can’t grade higher than A−.
Low ratings from plenty of people: it’s off the list, medals or not. (The home page shows a few that won medals but didn’t convince drinkers.)
Too few ratings: the drinkers don’t count either way yet.

We show the drinkers’ letter and roughly how many people rated the wine. We don’t republish anyone else’s stars or reviews.

3. One grade

The grade is the average of the judges’ letter and the drinkers’ letter, rounded to A+, A, A− or B+. Open any wine on the list to see both letters and the medals behind them.

Track record

We also look back at the same competitions for the three years before. Next to each wine you’ll see how many years running it won medals, for example “4 years of medals”. A wine that keeps winning year after year is a steadier bet than one lucky medal. The track record doesn’t change the grade; it sits beside it.

What else a wine needs

Under $30. Prices are what the wine usually sells for, so we say “about”. They vary by store and state.
Easy to find. Made in enough quantity to be in ordinary stores. “Find it” searches stores near you; we don’t claim any shop has it.
A dated grade. The grade is for the vintage the judges tasted. When a new vintage reaches the shelves, the wine has to earn its place again.

What we don’t do

No 100-point scores. Letters say what you need to know.
No tasting notes. Your taste is yours; the grade is the useful part.
No money from wineries for a place on the list.

How often the list changes

A new Wine PocketList comes out once a year, after the competition results are in. In between, we update it when a vintage changes or a wine is hard to find, and the page says when. Earlier editions stay on the site.

Since 1994

The idea is the original PocketList’s: several opinions boiled down to one letter grade, on a list small enough for your pocket. From 1994 to 2007 the grades came from the critics’ reviews in wine magazines. Those reviews now need a paid license to reuse, so today’s lists use the judges and the drinkers instead. How the grades worked from 1994 to 2007.

See the 2027 list (25 wines).