(FORTUNE Small Business) – What is it about lists that we love so much? From People's 50 Most Beautiful People to the Billboard Hot 100, the top ten vacation getaways, the Fortune 500--it just goes on and on. And then, of course, there are the wine lists. These typically rank wines on a 100-point scale, and they're everywhere these days. Major and minor wine publications run them. Local newspapers and magazines tell you what their "wine guy" thinks you should be drinking. There are lists of wines from certain countries, certain regions, certain grapes, wines within a certain price range--you could spend your whole life reading about the stuff and never drinking any.

With wine, at least, the popularity of such lists is easy to understand. They demystify a subject that's often complicated and intimidating. However, I, like most wine professionals, hate them. For one thing the lists go too far in the other direction--they oversimplify the subject of wine, which like art is a matter of personal taste. In the Manhattan store where I work, customers often come in and say, "I won't drink anything that didn't get 90 points or better." Know anyone who consistently got C's in school and yet went on to become highly successful? People change as they get older. So do wines. In fact, very few European publications give wines numeric scores. What's more significant is how the wine is described.

It's also important to realize that the ratings are highly subjective and not all that consistent from one magazine to the next. Reviewers will taste a tremendous number of wines--as many as 100 in a sitting. Not only does that lead to what's called "palate burn" or a "blown palate," but it means the boldest, richest wines tend to stand out at the expense of more delicate, subtle ones. And, of course, everyone has different taste. So a reviewer may give a particular wine a high score, and yet you hate it. Guess what? You're both right.

A more significant problem with the lists, however, is that you just can't find most of these wines on the shelves of your local store. Sometimes it's a matter of bad timing: Those wines may have been released months ago and already sold out, or the reviewer may have tasted something at the vineyard that hasn't been distributed yet. The release of a given wine rarely coincides with its appearance on a list, especially if it's a "Top 100 Wines of the Year" list. These typically consist of reviews written during the previous 12 months, and they often run around the end of the year. You'll start to see them in wine magazines in the coming months--consider this fair warning.

The problem of availability is exacerbated in the case of small-production wines. Some vintages get produced in such limited quantities--as low as 1,000 cases, or 12,000 bottles, for the entire world market--that you have absolutely no chance of buying them in your local shop. Consider the case of Bryant Family 1997 Cabernet, a Napa Valley wine of which only 1,000 cases were made. It was given 99 points by Wine Spectator and ranked 11th on the magazine's Top 100 list for 2000, at a price of $150 a bottle. When the wine was released in spring 2000, top stores in Manhattan got about one case each. Before it even arrived, the wine had been sold to the stores' top customers--who maybe got two bottles apiece. By the time the list was published in December, the wine was gone. Today you might, with a lot of luck, be able to find Bryant Family 1997 Cabernet at auction. Of course, that's if you're willing to pay $700 to $1,000 a bottle.

In the case of Bryant Family, at least a few bottles made it to some select stores. Some wineries produce wine in such small quantities that their wines are sold only on their private mailing lists or at a handful of prestigious restaurants. Marcassin, a California wine that is made in minuscule quantities by famous winemakers Helen Turley and John Wetlaufer, will never show up in a retail store. Ever.

Believe it or not, there are wineries that don't want you, the retail customer, to be able to find their wines at all, regardless of how much is produced. Distributors are given orders not to release the wines to retail stores. This is called "restaurant-only allocation" or "restaurant-restricted." It's illegal, but the laws against it are notoriously unenforceable. The credibility of having your wine served at a famous restaurant is a fabulous way to promote it. Merely being on the shelves in a retail store--well, some clueless customer could drink it out of a jelly jar with his grilled cheese. Not much promotional value in that.

The goal of most wineries is not only to create a quality product but also to create hype. Hype, when coupled with scarcity, equals profit. Consider Wine Spectator's 1999 Wine of the Year, a cabernet, the 1996 Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages, which--it's true--will make you weep with joy. The winery, through its distributors, released only a small amount but promised retailers more was coming. The magazine specifically cited the low price of the wine, $28 a bottle, as a reason for its selection. It also mentioned that a fair amount of this wine was made, 11,300 cases. Demand was feverish--most every store in America had a thick stack of requests. I used to call friends at other stores and disguise my voice just to ask for it and hear them sigh in frustration. But those follow-on shipments somehow never materialized--the wine had already been sold elsewhere. And when the 1997 Cinq Cepages was released, its price was $52 a bottle. Same grapes, same winemaker, same label, similar production costs, but a new improved price!

Even when a wine does make it to retail, there are people who will swoop in and grab it before you even have a chance. These people buy and sell wines as a profession, or at least as a very lucrative hobby. They scour ratings and reviews, memorize all the details about a vineyard or winemaker's past performance, and study the progress of every vintage. Then they snap up these hot wines the instant they get released. Some such buyers will collect all the bottles they can find, hold on to them for a number of months or years until demand is at a peak and availability is nil, and then sell the wine at substantial profits. (Others, like me, stupidly hold on to the wine for their own drinking pleasure.)

What's the solution? Don't ignore the scores, but don't buy exclusively by the law of the list either. Try auctions (see story on page 104), and get to know a salesperson or two at your local retailer. That way they can get to know what you like and don't like, and maybe suggest some alternatives to the world-class wines you don't see behind them on the shelves. It's realistic to say: "I'd like a good red wine that is dry and fruity and goes with lamb." It's not realistic to say: "I'd like a 92- to 94-point wine that was just written up, to go with my seared tuna steaks." The more we know about what you like, the better we can do. Given a short amount of time, a good salesperson should be able to guide you to wines that you'll love, so that you can spend less time tallying scores and more time enjoying the wine.

Chris Wilford is the general manager, retail, at Acker Merrall & Condit in Manhattan, the oldest wine retailer in the country, established in 1820; ackerwines.com.