empirical data on correlation of individual's wine preferences vs. price, wine rating, etc.

There is not necessarily much corelation between price and preference. I do most of my tastings blind, and so identity and cost of a wine is not a factor.

What you are suggesting is simply blind tasting, but with the added query as to whether preferences change after a couple of glasses.

I would suggest that there is no significant change in preferences after a couple of glasses, but by all means do your own study and report back to us.

I would also suggest that trying to relate a sample group's preferences to the ratings of one of the magazines that rates by tasting panel would be pretty meaningless. Many of us find ratings from the Wine Speculator, for instance, to be unreliable and inconsistent.

You might be able to find a correlation if you compared to a single reviewer (Parker, Tanzer, etc.) but I'm not sure what conclusion you could draw from that. You might in fact find that a sample group of very new tasters would prefer easy to like wines with lots of up front fruit and lower tannins than a group with more experience, that would likely mirror the ratings of an 'expert' more closely.

Maybe this is semantics, but I'd say "great" and "good". But that's one of the difficulties with this kind of thing.

Here's the other problem -- which 1,000 wine drinkers? I bet 1,000 sommeliers would give pretty consistent results. 1,000 clones of me

*might* give consistent results. 1,000 people with my level of experience would be all over the map. Having said that, I'm kind of amazed that there's correlation to the current extent. For example, I buy under $12 USD wines. I'm pretty careful about what I choose, and I get the best quality I can for what I pay. A friend of mine buys in the under $20 USD range, he's less assiguous than I about what he picks, but he pays attention to what he's doing. The thing is, I've rarely enjoyed my wines more than his. Now I know that there are some real beastlies out there but they really are few and far between, and as long as people are reasonably informed we stay away from them. And I'm not even close to being "an experienced wine drinker".

In short, I *wish* the people who price this stuff were doing a worse job. Unfortunately, I very seldomly catch them out.

-- kov

..

I agree with Bill. My stats are rather rusty, but I think the variables of " after 2 drinks" nad on price would make the study a statistical nightmare, ( I beg to be corrected by more learned folk. Most serious wine lovers taste blind part of the time, you are then not "drinking the label" Like chess and bridge,( see recent thread), appreciating fine wine is straightforward, but one can peel away layer upon layer of complexity and you keep learning to your last glass. I always remember an experiment in the 70's, ( the details escape me, someone may know), where very fine examples of classic wines, and some dogs, were served blind to two groups, one of "wine experts", the other of very inexperienced tasters. They were asked to rank the wines in niceness to drink. , just nice drinking, there was no difference between the two groups.

Now that could be an interesting thread!!

JT

The essence of my thoughts is that "most" people that insist on paying

$10 w> >

There was a study back in the 80s; unfortunately I can't recall the source.

In it, a smallish, 40 or so, randomly selected group were offered wines to drink in a leisurely way, on their own. The offering was repeated for daily for about a month. The wines were very varied by price, style, and general recognition of quality. The design of the experiment. People could taste all of them, then pick the wine they wanted to drink.

The initial result confirmed the sceptics -- peoples choices were random, uncorrelated to price or quality.

The progression however tended to confirm the beliefs of those who think there is some objectivity to wine ratings. Once people had settled on a style they liked, they would gradually work their way up the quality ladder. What was interesting is that they didn't jump for their initial preference to the top rated wines, but selected their way up gradually.

You can interpret this in any way you like. My guess is with increasing familiarity, one begins to enjoy the composition and complexity of wine more, and places less emphasis on the immediately pleasant primary qualities, i.e. something sweet, without sour or bitter tastes or oddball aromas.

If I know anything about the wine: producer, vintage, price, WS/WA rating, storage history, I've tasted it before, etc. I suppose it sets up a certain expectation. However, an expensive wine has a greater potential to _disappoint_ if it doesn't deliver the desired attributes . . . whereas a cheap wine has a lot more room to impress (on a QPR basis).

To your point, I believe that an average consumer (at least the ones I observe here in middle America) reacts to both price and any posted professional ratings _at the point of sale_ in their decision to purchase. If that taints the tasting experience and tips in it a positive way or changes repeat purchase behavior, I would be curious.

Not many food products are numerically rated by 'experts' . . . however, consumers are very familiar with food, berverages, and consumer goods being offered for sale at a variety of price points. There may be a variety of consumer/sociological/economic studies out there around this general idea to give you guidance, because in a way it isn't necessarily a wine specific question. For example: I am interested in buying a stereo; I read consumer reports for their opinion; I go to the store and listen to them and I may or may not be able to detect an improvement in sound quality from $200 to $2000; also maybe the brand is important as to you (for experience, reputation for quality, or status symbol). Your purchase decision will be fueled by all of that and also, ultimately, what you can afford.

justin