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Improving Experts' Wine Quality Judgments: Two Heads Are Better than One*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2012

Robert H. Ashton
Robert H. Ashton
Affiliation:
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, 100 Fuqua Drive, Box 90120, Durham, NC 27708, email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper reports an analysis of data from the “Judgment of Paris,” the 1976 blind tasting of California and French wines that revolutionized the wine world. Using both empirical and analytical methods, I demonstrate that the wine quality judgments of the renowned experts who participated in the Paris tasting would have been improved simply by averaging the quality ratings of two or more of the judges. Moreover, I explore both how many of the Paris judges should be included in the average and which ones they should be. The results have implications for the practical issue of choosing judges to include in tasting panels that award prizes or provide expert advice to consumers, as well as for better understanding the variability in the price-quality association across hedonic wine pricing studies. (JEL Classification: C93)

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Wine Economics , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Autumn 2011 , pp. 160 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © American Association of Wine Economists 2011

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