In the spirit of the new year, I thought I would share with you some of the personal goals — well, personal wine goals — that I resolve to achieve. Resolution number one: I will try to quantify the value of a wine with a numerical score. As I noted in an article last year, one of the things that I enjoy the most about writing this column is sharing some of the terrific wine values that I have discovered over the years. Nothing is more rewarding than reviewing a good wine and then doing a double-take at the price tag. I love finding wines that deliver a lot of quality for a reasonable price — or what I like to call, “Quality-to-Price Ratio.” The QPR is the Holy Grail for wine lovers, and the good news is there is a decent amount of high QPR wine on the market.

Over the past year, I have received emails asking me to develop a rating system that readily allows readers to quantitatively compare one wine to another. I have resisted doing this since wine is so subjective and flavor profiles can vary widely from one consumer to another. It’s a bit like trying to assign a numerical rating to something as subjective as a piece of art. And I dislike the thought of readers simply reducing their decision about a particular wine based on a scale, system or rating without reading the actual wine review. So I have decided to develop a system that employs the best of both worlds; reviews that incorporate a numerical scale.