Gary V told an interesting story how they made up reviews and numbers and posted them in front of their wines at his store. It was just a test and most of the reviews and numbers were bogus (this 91 point wine will make you invisible when you drink it – Hank the Wine Expert). He found that people purchased these "rated" wines much quicker than anything off the shelf (most of them not even reading the review). He also said that he has a lot of clients that aren't wine drinkers, but buy from him in large quantities for events and parties. Most of them buy purely based on parker's and spectator's ratings… Wine is an intimidating thing to most; if you don't have much experience or interest in wine, then it makes it "easier" to buy on ratings.