Walk into a wine shop and chances are you’ll encounter displays touting the ratings of the wines in front of you.

Is a bottle rated 88 really not as good as something rated 90? It’s actually a nuanced issue colored by personal opinions, and you might want to consider what might be the right wine, rather than the best.

Not only will signs proclaim whether the wine is rated an 88 or a 92, but whole brands are even based around the rating system, guaranteeing the wine inside is rated at least a 90+ even if you have no clue who the winemaker is or what vineyard the grapes came from. Make no mistake, the 100-point scale, introduced by Robert Parker in the 1970s as an evolution of the 20-point British system—which is based on how French students are graded in high school and college—and now used by outlets and critics such as Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Wine & Spirits, James Sucking, Jonathan Newman and many more, sells wine, and it sells it very well.

And while the people who actually make and sell this wine, as well as many who write about it, increasingly claim they are turning against a system they say is corrupt and bad for wine, in many ways that system is still stronger than ever. With so many people seemingly trying to move away from ratings, we decided to investigate what causes the ratings system to continue to have so much power, and what you need to know in order to be a more informed consumer.