On average, vintages tend to rate near 80 on a 100 scale with a standard deviation of 15 points (Table II). This indicates the peaked nature of vintage rating systems: the majority of scores were between 65–95 and the best vintages with ratings of 95–100 were typically more than one standard deviation from the mean. In addition, vintage ratings showed trends of increasing quality in 25 of the 30 wine regions (Table II) and decreasing vintage-to-vintage variation (not shown). Champagne was the only region to have a negative trend in ratings (−3.4 ratings points over the time period), but the trend was insignificant and could be due to the unranked years when vintage wines are not typically released. The reduction in quality variability over time was likely due in large part to changes in vineyard and winery production technologies.