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July 31, 2005

Data from the great wine taste test

A common topic of conversation among my friends, several of whom are wine snobs and several of them (myself included) is the extent to which wine quality really varies by price and general snop appeal. At a recent party at our house, Cullen Jennings decided to run an experiment in blind tasting. He bought three pairs of wine, one cheap, one expensive, and encouraged people to try to determine which was which.

Cullen Jenning's message describing the raw results, without any real analysis, is below.

Red is 1
Green is 2
Orange is 3

In order of price

(These were under $15)
1B - Castoro Cellars - 2002 Paso Robles
2B - Alexander Valley Vineyards - 2002 - Alexander Valley
3A - Chateau Souverain - 2001 - Alexander Valley

(These were over $50)
2A - Januik, champoux vineyard - 2002 - Columbia Valley
1a - Ridge - 2001 - Santa Cruz Mountains
3b - Chimney Rock, Elvage, 2001 - Stags Leap, Napa

The correct answer for the sets is "a,a,b"

The raw data is: 

Participant    Set#1    Set#2    Set#3
31    a    b    a
40    a    a    b
22    b    a    b
30              b
20    a    b    a
21    a    b    b
40    a    a    b
18    a    b    b
35    a    a    a
38    b    b    a
28    b        
36    a    b    a
19    a    b    a
34    a    b    a
4     a    b    a
39    b    a    b
29    a    a    
25    a    a    b
23    a    b    b
78% of people correctly selected Set #1. Most people said this one was easier than the second two. In the second set, 41% got it right while the third 53% got it right.

Interestingly, of the the people that got the second set right, 83% of them also got the third set correct.

Posted by ekr at July 31, 2005 11:05 PM | Filed under:

Comments

One thing I've noticed, being a cheap wine junkie...

There are GOOD cheap wines and BAD expensive wines. EG, there are some wonderful dry roses out there which are

Likewise, I've tried some $50+/bottle wine which is "Yeah, thats nice, but I've tasted wine as good for $10/bottle".

Posted by: Nicholas Weaver at August 1, 2005 10:51 AM

weird, is something not right?

Quijibo: Test of a really really long word wrapped line. This will keep up until I get another time where I decide to say the magic terminator word Quijibo.

hmm

Posted by: Nicholas Weaver at August 1, 2005 10:54 AM