Wine grapes contribute significantly to the economy of California, with a gross production value of more than $2 billion in 2010. Studies on economic issues in the industry require measures of demand response to price, but despite the economic importance of this industry, estimates of elasticities of demand for wine grapes have not been published. We use a flexible-form inverse demand system model to estimate elasticities of demand for wine grapes from three grape-growing regions in California, representing three different quality (price) categories. The resulting estimates of own-price elasticities are high, ranging from −2.6 for grapes in the low-price region to −9.5 for grapes in the high-price region. Such high elasticities are plausible given the role of international trade in wine, and they are consistent with synthetic estimates that we computed based on a combination of economic theory, data on market shares, estimates of some pertinent parameters in the literature, and informed guesstimates of values for other parameters. (JEL Classification: Q11, Q12, Q13)

To determine whether globalization is good for wine drinkers in the U.S., we examine the Wine Spectator's annual Top 100 lists, published since 1988. During this period, the average real price for these wines decreases from $43 to $26. Quality is consistent at around 93 points. Variety increases from six to twelve countries; the share of countries dominating the early lists declines from 95% to 75% over time. Our regression analysis indicates that when a New-New World wine replaces an Old World one, the average real price of the Top 100 list falls by 2.5%. (JEL Classification: F120, F140, C200)

“My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne.” (John Maynard Keynes) (Harod, 1951, p. 15)

Global consumption patterns for alcoholic beverages are evolving, with some convergence in per capita consumption among nations, as traditionally beer-drinking nations increase their consumption of wine and, conversely, wine-consuming nations shift towards beer. In a forthcoming article (Hart and Alston, 2019), we explore regional patterns of alcoholic beverage consumption within the United States. One purpose is to see if similar patterns of spatial convergence in consumption patterns can be observed within countries as have been documented in international comparisons. A more fundamental purpose is to explore the converse question and seek to better understand the persistent differences in alcoholic beverage consumption among groups. These issues are addressed using annual U.S. national and state-level data over four decades and, for the more recent period, supermarket scanner data at finer scales of geopolitical aggregation. This proceedings article focuses on the analysis using supermarket scanner data. We find that socioeconomic and demographic variables appear to play significant roles in accounting for the spatial differences in consumption patterns. (JEL Classifications: D12, L66)

We specify a two-tier stochastic frontier model to estimate a price equation for U.S. Rieslings and determine overpricing and underpricing of specific wines. The data is for 2000–2016. Using tasting score and tasting score squared as sole independent variables, we found evidence of overpricing and underpricing of wines. When additional location variables were entered, empirical estimates for this two-tier model were infeasible, suggesting that both underpricing and overpricing did not occur simultaneously in this market. Separate one-sided stochastic frontier models were then specified and estimated to test for either under or overpricing in this market. Results showed that overpricing exists and not underpricing, but the extent of overpricing is minor, suggesting that wineries do an efficient job pricing their wines, given tasting scores, conditional on regional location premiums or discounts. We also investigated the effect of scale on pricing for a smaller set of wineries. (JEL Classifications: C4, D4, Q1)

We build on Hart and Holmstrom (2010) to analyze the strategic choice of organizational form among wine producers. They claim that a firm's organizational form, when agreed upon competitively, conditions the sense of entitlement of the involved parties. The sense of entitlement determines their feeling of grievance for the outcome of the contract and, if so, their shading efforts by partially withholding consummate performance, creating deadweight losses. We consider two main organizational forms: non-integration, where growers interact in the winemaking process and can highlight the quality of their individual contributions, and integration, where individual contributions to the process may not be explicitly acknowledged and the winemaker cannot exert quality control over the production chain. We present a formal coordination model that illustrates how cooperatives and private firms can coexist within a market. Furthermore, given the reasonable parameter constraints, it illustrates how an integrated cooperative can obtain a higher social surplus than a non-integrated private firm. (JEL Classifications: C72, L22, L66)

This paper analyzes the determinants of Cognac brandy exports using a unique database on Cognac shipments to more than 140 destinations between 1996 and 2013. We use this database to construct descriptive statistics concerning the evolution of Cognac exports during this period. We also construct a database of protectionist policies that affect worldwide Cognac exports. We analyze the determinants of Cognac exports and base our empirical strategy on Heckman's (1979) procedure. We estimate successively the impact of geographical, demand and policy factors on the extensive margin of trade and the intensive margin of trade. We also control for the possibility of an endogeneity bias on the probability of trade. We show that i) as with other luxury products, the elasticity of Cognac exports to distance is negative, significant, and relatively small, while the elasticity to gross domestic product (GDP) is positive, significant, and relatively large; and ii) average customs duties do not have a significant impact on the intensive margin but significantly and positively affect the probability of trade. We discuss this last result and correct the endogeneity bias using tax revenues of importing countries in percentage of GDP as an instrument. (JEL Classifications: F10, F14)

There is an ongoing debate on whether wine reviews provide meaningful information on wine properties and quality. However, few studies have been conducted aiming directly at comparing the utility of wine reviews and numeric measurements in wine data analysis. Based on data from close to 300,000 wines reviewed by Wine Spectator, we use logistic regression models to investigate whether wine reviews are useful in predicting a wine's quality classification. We group our sample into one of two binary quality brackets, wines with a critical rating of 90 or above and the other group with ratings of 89 or below. This binary outcome constitutes our dependent variable. The explanatory variables include different combinations of numerical covariates such as the price and age of wines and numerical representations of text reviews. By comparing the explanatory accuracy of the models, our results suggest that wine review descriptors are more accurate in predicting binary wine quality classifications than are various numerical covariates—including the wine's price. In the study, we include three different feature extraction methods in text analysis: latent Dirichlet allocation, term frequency-inverse document frequency, and Doc2Vec text embedding. We find that Doc2Vec is the best performing feature extraction method that produces the highest classification accuracy due to its capability of using contextual information from text documents. (JEL Classifications: C45, C88, D83)

In this paper, we compare three ranking methods in wine tasting in terms of their respective accuracy levels. The first two are the original-score average and rank average, which are conventional methods in practice. The third is a relatively new ranking method called Shapley ranking. It is a game-theory-based ranking method, whereby judges are required not to rank order or score all the wines but only to choose a subset that they find meritorious. A simulation study is designed, wherein the data-generating scheme mimics how the real wine-tasting data are produced. We also consider two criteria in the comparison: the squared-error loss, which is a suitable measure when accurate ranking of all wines is of interest; and the percentile loss, which only considers whether the wines are correctly put in a certain subset. The main conclusion from our study is that the ranking based on score average is generally more accurate than that based on rank average. Shapley ranking, with the consideration that it puts less burden on judges in wine tasting, may outperform the other methods in certain conditions. (JEL Classifications: C11, C15, D72, D81)

We identify and examine the performance of frontier investments from 2002 to 2017. Using fine wine as a setting, we find that the trade frequency and value of frontier investments in the form of Alpine wines have increased in recent years, leading to a rise in their prices above inflation rates. We further document that this frontier investment has been favorable in terms of risk-adjusted returns and volatility for investors. We also observe that the inclusion of frontier wines in a financial portfolio is favorable for investors, both in terms of returns and diversification benefits, due to low correlation coefficients. The identification and investment into frontier assets appears beneficial for investors looking for new opportunities. (JEL Classifications: C60, G11, Q11)

The influence of the wine rater Robert Parker Jr. on Bordeaux wine extended over a 40-year period, with a particular impact on en primeur wine prices. Consequently, his announcement in 2015 that he would no longer rate en primeur wines creates some uncertainty for many chateaux that have purposely designed their production with his palate and preferences in mind. Although the wine rater Neal Martin was named by Parker to be his successor in terms of en primeur wine ratings, there are several other wine critics who have consistently rated en primeur wines over several years. Consequently, we employ copula function analysis to explore which wine critics’ ratings exhibit the closest linear and nonlinear relationship, for right bank en primeur wines, with those of Parker. The study employs data over the period of 2005 through 2012, during which time several wine critics, including Neal Martin for the period of 2010–2012, rated en primeur wines alongside Parker. Our results indicate that of the wine critics that continue to rate en primeur wines, the ratings of James Suckling exhibit the highest rank correlation and also bivariate upper tail dependence, identified through copula function analysis, with those of Parker. (JEL Classifications: C19, G13, L66)

We present a simple static way of optimizing the prices of bottles of wine for restaurants with a given cellar. In contrast to classical assortment pricing models, we posit that the cellar (i.e., inventory) is given and is not taken as a variable entering the optimization program. In our model, the optimal price is driven mainly by a rating parameter after the effect of initial cost is removed. This parameter plays the role of a dominant characteristic in hedonic models, even though the levels of stocks may also be determinant when they are very low. We provide a numerical sensitivity analysis of prices to various parameters and study a realistic large-scale example based on two wine lists with 50 bottles each. Finally, several extensions are discussed. (JEL Classifications: C61, L11, L83)

The wine industry in the United States has grown tremendously over the past few decades, from fewer than 1,000 wineries in 1980 to upward of 8,500 today. The growth has occurred over a period that has seen substantial changes in the structure of the wine industry, the modes of distribution available to wineries, and the regulations governing them. Most economic research, however, has focused on supply relations between wineries and wine grape growers rather than between wineries and their downstream markets. In this article, we examine wineries' contracting behavior with downstream distributors and the effects of industry structure, winery organizational structure, and state laws regarding direct shipment and distribution franchise laws. (JEL Classifications: D23, L14, L22, L66)

The author distinguishes between the clinical and statistical meaning of varying levels of intertaster reliability for the 11 judges who evaluated 10 Chardonnays (6 American and 4 French) in the heralded 1976 Paris wine competition. Four wines showed levels of weighted kappa values (<0.40), that are considered poor by established biostatistical criteria. These ranged between 0.10, for the French Beaune Clos des Mouches 1973 Chardonnay to 0.33 for the U.S. Veedercrest 1972 Chardonnay. However, when levels of statistical significance of the weighted kappa (Kw) values were obtained, only the Clos des Mouches failed to reach statistical significance at the .05 level. The other three wines-the U.S. Chateau Montelena, 1973, with a Kw of 0.20; the U.S. 1973 David Bruce regular, with a weighted kappa value of .27 and the U.S. Veedercrest, with one of .33-reached statistical significance at p values of <.05, <.001, and <.0001, respectively. These findings are not weighted kappa specific, and reveal that when sample sizes are large enough, even the most trivial of results will be statistically significant, while often devoid of practical or clinical meaning-fulness. A level of Kw that is clinically meaningful will most likely be statistically significant. But high levels of statistical significance are no guarantee of clinical significance. Methods for resolving this “big N phenomenon” are presented and discussed. (JEL Classification: C12, C49)

Classification of wines with a large number of correlated covariates may lead to classification results that are difficult to interpret. In this study, we use a publicly available dataset on wines from three known cultivars, where there are 13 highly correlated variables measuring chemical compounds of wines. The goal is to produce an efficient classifier with straightforward interpretation to shed light on the important features of wines in the classification. To achieve the goal, we incorporate principal component analysis (PCA) in the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) classification to deal with the serious multicollinearity among the explanatory variables. PCA can identify the underlying dominant features and provide a more succinct and straightforward summary over the correlated covariates. The study shows that kNN combined with PCA yields a much simpler and interpretable classifier that has comparable performance with kNN based on all the 13 variables. The appropriate number of principal components is chosen to strike a balance between predictive accuracy and simplicity of interpretation. Our final classifier is based on only two principal components, which can be interpreted as the strength of taste and level of alcohol and fermentation in wines, respectively. (JEL Classifications: C10, Cl4, D83)

In an attempt to expand the understanding of auction-price dynamics for fine wines, an age-period-cohort (APC) algorithm is applied to a database of 1.5 million auction results to quantify key drivers of these price dynamics. APC algorithms are designed to separate price appreciation with the age of the wine from overall wine-market conditions as well as to adjust for the unique value of specific vintages. In this context, the APC modeling provides a kind of Hedonic modeling, with specific controls regarding specification errors.

The analysis was segmented by Château Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux excluding Lafite, and Burgundy so that we could test specific events related to Château Lafite Rothschild. The results show price dynamics versus the ages of the wines and allow for the measurement of long-term price-appreciation potential. Environment functions versus auction dates quantify the “Lafite Bubble” and suggest past correlation to Chinese stock-market indices. An analysis of wine ratings versus price quantifies their nonlinear relationship. An analysis across nine auction houses shows a significant price spread for similar wines. (JEL Classifications: C23, D44, G11, G12, Q11)

We consider the impact of taxes on the quantity and quality produced by a competitive firm of goods, such as wine, for which market value accrues with age. Our analysis found the following: an increase in the volumetric retail tax collected at sale increases quality, so that the basic Alchian-Allen effect holds. However, an increase in the volumetric storage tax collected each period decreases quality, as does an increase in the ad valorem storage tax. The effect of an increase in the ad valorem retail tax on quality is indeterminate. Increases in any of the four taxes reduce the quantity of wine produced. Any two-tax system that includes a volumetric sales tax spans the full range of feasible tax revenues with positive tax rates. For any tax system that reduces quality relative to the firm's no-tax equilibrium, there is another tax system that increases tax revenues, eliminates the quality distortion, and does not increase the quantity distortion. Many wine industry observers believe that most, if not all, existing tax systems tend to result in the suboptimal provision of quality. Our results suggest that the wide variety of wine tax systems is not prima facie evidence that these systems, or most of them, are inefficient. Provided the system includes a volumetric sales tax it may be efficient, regardless of which of the other instruments, or how many of them, are used. Assertions regarding inefficiency must be evaluated on an empirical case-by-case basis. Our analysis provides a theoretical framework for such research. (JEL Classification: D2, H2, Q1)

The European Union (EU) is a major producer, importer, and consumer of wine, as well as other alcoholic beverages. Although it is possible to characterize demand for the EU as a whole, there is variation across the 27 countries that make up the EU. This research uses a simple standard model of demand and some descriptive statistics to characterize demand for alcoholic beverages and to identify four separate subgroups within the EU with different characteristics of wine and beer demand. Changing tastes over time turn out to be important in determining demand. (JEL Classifications: D12, F1, F15)

The objective of this article is to estimate the spatial structure of the collective economic conceptualization of strategic actions by cidermakers in Québec. It employs group concept mapping, a mixed methods–based approach. Given the limited research on the economic conceptualization of horizontal coordination for guiding collective strategic action orientations, this contribution is threefold: methodological, empirical, and practical. Methodologically, the results show the perspective of horizontally coordinated cidermakers and use statistical estimates and retroduction as an inference mode to produce and structure the concept map. Empirically, the spatial economic conceptualization consists of a concept map with seven strategic action clusters organized around the notions of product supply and demand and highlights tensions between individual and collective strategic actions. Practically, measures of relative importance and relative feasibility are obtained for each cluster on the map, and implications are discussed. (JEL Classifications: D02, L23, L26, L66, Q18)

This paper examines the impact of exports and its main determinants on the financial performance of the Romanian wine industry. We draw on a dataset consisting of mixed firm-level (i.e., 207 companies) data, Google Trends data, and regional variables covering the period from 2009 to 2017. We show that Romanian wine exports, at the firm level, are positively affected by regional wine yields (especially in the case of red wine varieties), temperature, and firm agglomeration, and negatively impacted by firm size. We also find a close positive correlation between financial performance and exports. (JEL Classifications: F61, L66, C23)