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People can't tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine, says psychologist Richard Wiseman after conducting a survey of 578 drinkers at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, reports The Guardian. The participants sampled a variety of red and white wines in a blind taste test with prices ranging from about $6 to $50. The results concluded that people could only tell the difference between cheap and expensive white wines 53% of the time, and 47% of the time for red wines.
In other words, it's about the same percentage as if they merely guessed. The Claret was the hardest to pinpoint, with only 39% getting it right, despite the price tag differences of about $5 for one bottle and $23 for the other. The Journal of Wine Economics backs up Wiseman's findings. Its 2008 study, "Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better?" reported that:
Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine. In a sample of more than 6,000 blind tastings, we find that the correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less.Maybe it's time to add some swill wine to that expensive Bordeaux collection.
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4-17-2011 @7:55PM Kevin H. said... So Joe Average can't tell cheap wine from the overpriced ones?
Imagine that...
News flash, most so called "experts" probably couldn't either.
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4-17-2011 @9:21PM judi Powell said... More like, a lot of the "wine snobs' don't really have any better taste than the rest of of us.
4-17-2011 @3:13PM Karl Wilder said... There are MANY bad expensive wines and many good inexpensive wines. A study like this totally depends on the wine chosen. If Yellowtail had been used as the cheap standard and Joel Gott as the median I bet every taster would call you out the Yellowtail as the swill it is.
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4-17-2011 @4:08PM vito smith said... This really was a moronic test. Price has nothing to do with quality. If about half of the people could not tell the expensive wines from the cheap ones then perhaps half the wines were over or under priced. A better test would be to have them rate the quality of the wines instead of guess the price and see which ones stank in relation to the price.
There is also individual bias. Are these experienced wine drinkers or just 578 science geeks chosen at random at the "Edinburgh Science Festival" whose idea of a good time is a lemonade or a pint of lager? If you give a 22 year old kid whose favorite drink is Crystal Lite a glass of intense Rhone Syrah or an aged Madiran I don't think he'll appreciate it.
4-17-2011 @4:39PM Ronald said... being a bit of a wine-o I agree that not all expensive wines are good, and there are plenty people out there that buy wine nearly because it is expensive. And is $23 expensive for a wine? I have a '99 bottle of Gaja here believe that is going for $200 at the moment... (it was a gift)... Sorry, but even though the results can be that people can't tell cheap from expensive, this says nothing about he quality of individual wines... whether cheap or expensive..
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4-18-2011 @8:22AM Lev Raphael said... I agree, $23 is not expensive per se for a bottle of wine, not remotely. And blind tests don't matter since what counts is the kind of wine you like to drink at whatever occasion, whether by itself, as an aperitif or with a meal. There are lots of good table wines at around $10 these days. And plenty of so-so wine at many times that price. This test doesn't prove much of anything.
4-17-2011 @4:46PM BOBZILLA said... I'm shocked...SHOCKED!
People living in a country so well known for culinary masterpieces such as haggis, blood pudding and head cheese don't have the palate to discern wine from swill? Imagine that....what are the odds?
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4-18-2011 @12:27AM Anatole France said... I've had magnificent meals in the British Isles, all cooked by professionals from across la Manche. By tradition they import French chefs! Still the Brits can't get it right. Welsh rarebit. Pathetic!
4-18-2011 @10:47AM LTM said... That's true, our food is an acquired taste, but we know our booze really, really well, which to be honest isn't actually a badge of honor. We just seem to really like it.
4-17-2011 @7:56PM Dr Juan said... The Scotch Eggs that I have tried over there were pretty bad too.
From the recipe you would think they would not be that bad - but trust me, stick with their fried mars bars.
http://www.food.com/recipe/baked-scotch-eggs-69970
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4-18-2011 @8:47AM sandyra said... Maybe you had a bad batch of Scotch Eggs but the best 'clotted cream' dessert in Edinburgh is on the Edinburgh Castle grounds near the round church. There's a restaurant nearby that has the best dessert in Scotland. OMG It's been ten years and I still think fondly of that 'clotted cream' delicacy.
4-17-2011 @11:51PM Paul Issac said... I think I've seen this problem before...
Most universities do not offer a Masters in Bag-pipe playing because there is no way to identify a good player from a mediocre one...
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4-17-2011 @8:08PM Seer Clearly said... This is an object lesson in keeping the unwise away from statistics lest they hurt themselves and those around them. I think the readers have brought up most of the method errors that the ineptly-named Wiseman has fallen prey to.
- Attempting to identify particular brands of wine (much harder than assessing they like the wine or not) and as a reader pointed out with so many bad expensive wines around, price doesn't correlate with flavor.
- Assuming that everyone has equal sensory apparatus. It's already been shown that different people react differently to cruciferous veggies based on their body chemistry, so it makes no sense to take a general populate and see if they can identify expensive wine. Instead, he should have sampled people who regularly pay for expensive wine to see if they were able to correlate price with approval of the wine.
- Much like a lot of expensive things, expensive wines often are crafted to emphasize certain flavors that the general public may not be used to or enjoy. Again, it makes no sense to choose a random sample of tasters.
While science always gets things right in the end, there is a florid history of huge blunders - often much more earthshaking than research into inology conducted by amateurs as we see here. Time for some peer review!
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4-17-2011 @10:19PM salvarsan said... The Sciences have their Ann Coulters, too.
The article is misrepresents the 2008 study, and the study itself does not mention the wines in the tastings.
Again: the study results were incorrectly reported and the study methodology is mostly undocumented.
Does anyone else have a problem with this?
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4-18-2011 @12:48AM jack ferguson said... Wine and beer snobs will never admit to common taste--they must always be different.
4-17-2011 @11:16PM Maria Chaves said... Not all that surprising - price doesn't make a good wine. The grapes used, how it's aged, where it's aged, and the care taken to make it...that's what makes a good wine. One of the best Pinot Grigios I've ever had was only $10/bottle retail, and as a sommelier I'm required to know my wine.
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4-18-2011 @12:28AM Anatole France said... How about this? Forget the $$ and have people see if they can tell the difference between wines at the low and high end of Parker's point system?
I don't have a "Million Dollar Nose" like Parker, so most domestic wines are enjoyable. I drank a $300 gift bottle of 1997 Mouton Rothschild and found it no more enjoyable than a Mondavi. Most Chablis' or Chardonnay's agree with me better than the most costly red. There are genuinely bad products out there ... watered down, spoiled, cloudy and disgusting to look at ... but they are rare. I know nothing about wine and am not afraid to admit it.
Oh, one other thing. No one talks about it. The real reason wine is so popular: we all like a bit of a celebratory "buzz" with our meals. You can get that for $6 or $600. ;-)
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4-18-2011 @1:27PM mitzy said... Yeah. Blindfold me and hang me from my ankles over a pile of horse manure. I'll tell Gallo from Cakebread 1000 times out of 1000.
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4-18-2011 @2:08AM shelobster said... OH, good grief, It is all about individual taste. There are some really great expensive wines and some really good cheap wines. After the first taste, most people don't know the difference. Its pretty much all about the "buzz" anyway. I'm a little bit tired of the "wine snobs".
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4-18-2011 @3:06PM will said... For those complaining about the price, I would guess they are converting the Pounds Sterling to USD. Over here in Europe you can get good cheap wine for the around $5 USD.
Ran into the price difference a few years ago when I wanted to give some wine to a person in the USA. The local wine here was in the $5-$7 range and the wine place in the USA wanted over $20 for it, not including shipping. Even with shipping from here to the USA and extra costs for the USA store does not explain the cost difference.
Doing a little research I found that the USA wine market is very much based on price so when wines are imported they jack the price up to make them "better" in the eyes of the consumer.
As for this event, I have no problem with it. It points out what has been demostrated time after time, that most cheap wines that people would normally never look at, because of price, are a pleasure to drink and it is the people who consider themselves to snobs that have problems with this.
Besides if you have problems with this look at all the similar studies done with Vodka.
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