Wine Ratings: A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... st_Popular

Acting on an informant's tip, in June 1973, French tax inspectors barged into the offices of the 155-year-old Cruse et Fils Frères wine shippers. Eighteen men were eventually prosecuted by the French government, accused, among other things, of passing off humble wines from the Languedoc region as the noble and five-times-as-costly wine of Bordeaux. During the trial it came out that the Bordeaux wine merchants regularly defrauded foreigners. One vat of wine considered extremely inferior, for example, was labeled "Salable as Beaujolais to Americans."

It was in this climate that in the 1970s a lawyer-turned-wine-critic named Robert M. Parker Jr. decided to aid consumers by assigning wines a grade on a 100-point scale. Today, critics like Mr. Parker exert enormous influence. The medals won at the 29 major U.S. wine competitions medals are considered so influential that wineries spend well over $1 million each year in entry fees. According to a 2001 study of Bordeaux wines, a one-point bump in Robert Parker's wine ratings averages equates to a 7% increase in price, and the price difference can be much greater at the high end.

Given the high price of wine and the enormous number of choices, a system in which industry experts comb through the forest of wines, judge them, and offer consumers the meaningful shortcut of medals and ratings makes sense.

But what if the successive judgments of the same wine, by the same wine expert, vary so widely that the ratings and medals on which wines base their reputations are merely a powerful illusion? That is the conclusion reached in two recent papers in the Journal of Wine Economics.

(Click link above for the full Wall Street Journal story.)

[Robin Garr]

Great article, Justin, thanks for linking to it. (FYI, to avoid copyright issues, since you linked to the full story, I deleted a good-size chunk of the text, leaving in the first few paragraphs as a "fair-use" teaser. Folks can click through to the rest.

I saw the original article in the Journal of Wine Economics, and a forumite had sent me the link privately. As a wine writer and occasional wine judge, I'm not too surprised by the findings, although I would note that in competitions in Europe and Down Under, where I usually judge, competitions are generally monitored and regulated by national trade associations and tend to be less "commercial" than most US competions, some (not all) of which have a reputation for being "gold medal mills."

As for ratings points inflation and purple prose, in my own wine writing I've generally steered clear of points systems, particularly 100-point scales, although when I wrote a wine column for the old Louisville Times back in my reporting days, the editors did have me use a one- to five-bottle rating system. I've never been an advocate of reporting "fine corinthian leather" or other excessively specific tasting descriptors, or in overdoing the list of perceived aromas and tastes ... there's a fine line between olfactory sensation and the imagination.

In short, good article!

CORDOBA! Ahh!

Enjoyed the article above- must share funny Cordoba story.

I met someone with that last name a couple years ago and the immediate vision I had was Ricardo Montalban doing his schtick with the car... I told several other folks that day about meeting someone named "Cordoba" and laughing myself to death, while they all just looked at me like I had six heads.

I walked in the door of my house that night and was greeted by my husband. The first thing I said to him was simply "Cordoba!"

He looked at me and said "with fine, coriinthiian leaaather?!"

I knew I married a keeper.

This is for you Casandra: