The Real Review Wine Classification comprises the greatest wines of Australia and New Zealand with an outstanding track record of a decade or longer. Each wine has demonstrated its quality in our blind tastings over a period of at least ten years. Many of the wines in our Classification have earned their place over several decades.

Price or resale value of a wine on the secondary market plays no role whatsoever in the assessment. Our objective is to classify those wines, which have demonstrated outstanding quality time and again over a long period, regardless of price. It is not sufficient to make a few good vintages.

The Classification tier of a wine is based solely on its review history. To ensure that new wineries and winemakers have a fair opportunity to demonstrate their ability over time, recent reviews have more influence on a wine’s Classification than older ones. By the same token, wines that may have been great in the past but have not maintained their quality will have their Classification reflect this.

Our goal is to make the Classification the most compelling tool for buyers and industry, so we have balanced the performance of historic vintages and the more recent wines. Ultimately, it doesn’t help a wine buyer that a wine was superb in 1972, but in recent years has not shown as well. Conversely a buyer looking to invest in a top quality, timeless wine with history is not interested in a wine that has no track record.

How does it compare with other classifications?

Some wine classification systems are based on price or auction market performance, while others classify vineyard sites (e.g. Burgundy Grand/1er Cru or Germany’s VDP classification) based on centuries of experience that some vineyards produce better wines than others.

The Real Review Wine Classification does not work that way. It is solely based on the history of the wine in the bottle and its quality, based on blind tastings by our tasting panel. We do not classify wines based on some “recipe” or winemaking technique (e.g. three years in barrel), nor do we classify individual vineyard sites, like the Burgundy or German VDP classifications, or wineries like the Bordeaux system. Given that Australia and New Zealand are fairly new wine regions in the scheme of history, we are not yet at a stage as in Burgundy or Germany where all patches of vineyards around the country can be assessed based on hundreds of years of planting history.

In terms of the number of wines that are classified, we have taken a conservative approach. In Burgundy, around 18% of the production is classified as 1er Cru (second highest tier) and 5% is Grand Cru (highest tier). Bordeaux’s 1855 Médoc classification classified a whopping quarter of wineries, or around 6% of wines produced.

The Real Review Wine Classification aims to classify the best 3-7% of Australian and New Zealand wines over time. Our top tier three Merit wines comprise fewer than 0.5% of all wines in the market. In other words, the crème de la crème.

How often is the Classification updated?

The Classification gently reflects the changes and improvements in winemaking, winemakers and wineries over time. The Real Review conducts a Classification assessment on a yearly basis.

A wine that has been classified will retain its tier for at least four years. During that period, the wine has the opportunity to improve its tier in the annual review. This ensures continuity in the face of one or two poor vintages. If after four years the wine’s quality falls below the tier’s standard, it will lose a Merit or be de-classified. Each classified wine meeting the annual Classification assessment will also have its tier extended by a further four years.

Wineries interested in having their wines considered for the Classification need at least ten vintages reviewed by The Real Review tasting panel. Similarly, in the case of non-vintage, sparkling and fortified wines, the bottlings of the wine must have been reviewed over a period of ten or more years. Wineries can check their wine’s reviews on The Real Review to find out which vintages have not yet been tasted and submit current and back-vintage samples to cover these gaps. Contact us for any questions.