Research published in the Journal of Wine Economics is featured in an article by Leonard Mlodinow in the 14 November 2009 Wall Street Journal. The first few paragraphs of the story are reprinted below. Click on this link to read the entire article.

Excerpt from the WSJ article:

Acting on an informant's tip, in June 1973, French tax inspectorsbarged into the offices of the 155-year-old Cruse et Fils Frères wineshippers. Eighteen men were eventually prosecuted by the Frenchgovernment, accused, among other things, of passing off humble winesfrom the Languedoc region as the noble and five-times-as-costly wine ofBordeaux. During the trial it came out that the Bordeaux wine merchantsregularly defrauded foreigners. One vat of wine considered extremelyinferior, for example, was labeled "Salable as Beaujolais toAmericans."

It was in this climate that in the 1970s a lawyer-turned-wine-criticnamed Robert M. Parker Jr. decided to aid consumers by assigning winesa grade on a 100-point scale. Today, critics like Mr. Parker exertenormous influence. The medals won at the 29 major U.S. winecompetitions medals are considered so influential that wineries spendwell over $1 million each year in entry fees. According to a 2001 studyof Bordeaux wines, a one-point bump in Robert Parker's wine ratingsaverages equates to a 7% increase in price, and the price differencecan be much greater at the high end.

Given the high price of wine and the enormous number of choices, asystem in which industry experts comb through the forest of wines,judge them, and offer consumers the meaningful shortcut of medals andratings makes sense.

But what if the successive judgments of the same wine, by the samewine expert, vary so widely that the ratings and medals on which winesbase their reputations are merely a powerful illusion? That is theconclusion reached in two recent papers in the Journal of WineEconomics.

Both articles were authored by the same man, a unique blend ofwinemaker, scientist and statistician. The unlikely revolutionary is asoft-spoken fellow named Robert Hodgson, a retired professor who taughtstatistics at Humboldt State University. Since 1976, Mr. Hodgson hasalso been the proprietor of Fieldbrook Winery, a small operation thatputs out about 10 wines each year, selling 1,500 cases

A few years ago, Mr. Hodgson began wondering how wines, such as hisown, can win a gold medal at one competition, and "end up in thepooper" at others. He decided to take a course in wine judging, and metG.M "Pooch" Pucilowski, chief judge at the California State Fair winecompetition, North America's oldest and most prestigious. Mr. Hodgsonjoined the Wine Competition's advisory board, and eventually "begged"to run a controlled scientific study of the tastings, conducted in thesame manner as the real-world tastings. The board agreed, but expectedthe results to be kept confidential. ...