The wine delusion

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and unreliable, they are also untrustworthy, says Goldstein (2008). To call them fake wouldn't be an understatement. Speaking of taste So, how sensitive are our palates to the taste expectations of wine descriptions? Consider this description by Robert Parker: …is a real treat as this cuvee flirts with perfection. Already revealing some pink and amber at the edge, the color is surprisingly evolved for a wine from this vintage. However, that’s deceptive as the aromatics offer incredible aromas of dried flowers, beef blood, spice, figs, sweet black currants and kirsch, smoked game, lavender, and sweaty but attractive saddle leatherlike notes. Fullbodied and massively endowed, with abundant silky tannins, it possesses the balance to age for 30+ years.’ (McFadden, 2014) When an item promises multiple benefits, it is less convincing than items that appear to do only one thing. Behavioural economists call this principle, ‘goal dilution’ (Sutherland, 2009). If only wine critics and writers knew about it. What could everyday drinkers make of such flowery descriptions? If anything, they do one thing well: confuse. So they’re actually doing a good job, if confusing people is the real intention. But if the real intention is to help people match words with wines, they’re far from helpful. The American economist Roman Weil ran tests to see if people could match words with wine. Weil (cited in Berdik, 2012) gave subjects three glasses of wine, two of which were the same; along with two descriptions written by the same critic. Simple as it may seem, only half of them matched it right. They would have done just as well flipping a coin. Unlike the blunt signal of 12
price, flavour expectations of such flowery descriptions is nothing but a joke to the human capacity. Besides, nothing expresses approval like a Parker score of 90plus or a gold medal, both of which correlate to higher prices. In other words, it would mean logical for the besttasting wines to pick up 90plus scores and medals. But to Goldstein, that’s far from the truth. Wine Spectator makes $1 million in application fees for its ‘Award of Excellence’ every year. And Goldstein’s own stunt made it quite clear: money talks. To take it a step further, Goldstein (cited in Berdik, 2012), along with economists Craig Riddell and Orley Ashenfelter, compared Wine Spectatorstyle ratings to ‘Zagat’ ratings, which is done much the same way, except that it is awarded to restaurants for the best food menu. Results showed that for each point awarded, the price of a meal rose up to 48% (Berdik, 2012). Things take time Goldstein’s (2008) pricesignal study, which placed results onto a 100point ratings scale, found that pricier wines averaged 7 points lower among everyday drinkers and 4 points higher among experts. Which means, when people are freed of expectations, their preferences would differ from that of the experts. So it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that critics’ tastes may well have been corrupted. If people could pick wines purely on blind tasting, would they still prefer expensive wines? Goldstein has helped launch a wine research institute in California’s Napa Valley. Whose aim is to, by bringing together behavioural economists and wine enthusiasts, explore the gap between subjective quality and price in the wine industry. It seeks to compare the effects and relationship of a wine’s region, price, bottle type, sensory characteristics and preferences across people, experts 13
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The wine delusion

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