Comments on: Can’t Buy Me Love http://wineeconomist.com/2009/12/24/cant-buy-me-love-2/ An Economist Uncorks the World of Wine Wed, 23 May 2012 20:17:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: John D. Ayer http://wineeconomist.com/2009/12/24/cant-buy-me-love-2/#comment-702 Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:48:47 +0000 http://wineeconomist.com/?p=1253#comment-702 When wine critics are NIST accuracy certified you could have a real control group. Until then, Hodgson’s paper establishes a reasonable range for the most consistent judges and after reviewing both Hodgson’s and Reuters papers I believe both Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate are rating wines to an accuracy of about plus or minus 2 points regardless of advertising. I would like to see the relationship between the mean, modality and median. If the mode in Reuters study is skewed more than 4 points one way or the other that might be interesting….still it would only be a subjective analysis and as you point out wine suffers enough from that :-)

]]> By: Thomas Matthews http://wineeconomist.com/2009/12/24/cant-buy-me-love-2/#comment-701 Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:27:24 +0000 http://wineeconomist.com/?p=1253#comment-701 Let me add one point to this good analysis, Mike. While every reader/consumer should be aware of potential biases, unmitigated skepticism seems as short-sighted as unquestioning credibility. Consider the source! If a critic, or a publication, or a friend, has acted in ways that you judge honest and reliable, then perhaps you are justified in extending some trust, even if you can’t “prove” the lack of bias through mathematical calculations of statistical significance.

Thomas Matthews
Executive editor
Wine Spectator

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