Friday, December 18, 2009

Are Wine Spectator reviews biased towards advertising wineries?

.....The implication is thatWine Spectator ratings of advertisers’ wines are approximately one point higher than their ratings of comparable wines from non-advertisers.” .......
For the text of the blog and link to original research click on this link.

Larger wineries pay for advertising and get higher scores which result in higher prices and much higher revenues?

How do smaller wineries compete, or even get their wines tasted?

1 comment:

Thomas Matthews said...

Wine Spectator reviews many, many more wines from non-advertisers than from advertisers, and most of the highest-scoring wines are from small family wineries that never advertise.

There has never been proof that Wine Spectator is biased in favor of advertisers, and this research paper is no exception. Its own data shows that the average score of advertised wines is LOWER than the average score of wines from non-advertisers. The author concludes that "Wine Spectator appears largely to insulate reviewers from the influence of advertisers."

All newly-released wines are reviewed in blind tastings. Tasters don't know the producer or the price. We make every effort to avoid bias, and give every wine a fair and equal chance to show its best.

If you would like to have your wines reviewed by Wine Spectator, I hope you will reach out to me, rather than make unfounded allegations about bias.

Thomas Matthews
Executive editor
Wine Spectator