From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:13:24 -0400 (CLT)
This interesting paper - http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP16.pdf - shows that in blind trials: - people who "know nothing" about wine very slightly prefer cheaper wines. - people who are "educated" about wine very slightly prefer more expensive wines The fascination thing here isn't the different between the two groups but the fact that both trends are so small. That means that the price of wine has hardly no relation to the quality (neither good nor bad). There are various ways to spin this. If you're looking to make money you can pick out the most popular low priced wines, and that's what the authors have done in a book - http://www.newsweek.com/id/129535 Alternatively, if you're looking to save face you can grasp the slight positive correlation shown by "those that know" and leave the rest to rhetoric - http://thepour.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/a-closer-look-at-the-wine-trials/ But both those miss the point. Wine price is no guide to quality in blind tastings, but that's not how people drink wine. This work - http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP03.pdf - describes how people actually decide a wine's quality and this - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/business/09instincts.html - shows just how effective price is: brain activity related to pleasure changes in response to the reported wine price, even though the wine remains the same. Expensive wine really does taste better - but only because it is expensive. What to do? If you want to save money with wine, somehow you have to fool your brain... Andrew
Wine Labels
From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:23:31 -0400 (CLT)
An article on designing a wine label - http://www.cogitocreative.com/images/COGlabel-PWV-JunAug07.pdf And a lighthearted view at the various design elements - http://www.services.ex.ac.uk/cmit/media/resources/ortrun-wine-labels.pdf Andrew