We shed light on assessing product quality in blind tastings and their potential (gender) biases. We study how phonetic traits of grape varieties suggest product attributes in the context of professional reviews. This study aims to close this research gap and analyze how product variety and phonetic name traits affect expert ratings. We obtained data on 18,609 wines and their ratings from Wine Enthusiast Magazine between 1997 and 2016, yielding a sample of 31,058 observations. We suppose that the gender of the taster needs to be considered to understand what affects tastings and ratings, as women and men might be attracted differently to masculine or feminine names. This study shows that masculine names receive higher evaluations than feminine ones. This phonetic gender gap is driven by lower ratings for white wines by female reviewers and lower ratings for red wines by male reviewers. In addition, white wines are rated lower overall by both men and women.

Studies suggest the inter-rater reliability of judges at wine competitions is higher than what would be expected by random chance, but lower than what is observed when experts in other fields make judgments specific to their expertise. To further contextualize the (un-) reliability of wine judging while also extending the study of fine water, we examine the inter-rater reliability of judges at an annual international competition for bottled waters. We find that the inter-rater reliability of water judging is generally better than chance and, at best, about the same as the inter-rater reliability of wine judging at some wine competitions. These results suggest that perceptible differences between fine waters exist but are less pronounced than those between fine wines and, also, that aesthetic standards with respect to fine waters exist but are currently less established than those for fine wines.

Information conveyed on the price tag or label of a consumable packaged good is widely thought to change the consumer's sensory experience of consuming the good. Can the positive “placebo” effects of high prices and negative “nocebo” effects of low prices on consumer experience be isolated and observed in a controlled experiment without using deception? In a pilot wine experiment using a method I call “half-blind tasting,” I observe that the nocebo response to a $5 price tag is stronger than the placebo response to a $50 price tag. To interpret these preliminary results, I borrow some insights from prospect theory. (JEL Classifications: C91, D81, L66, M31, Q11)

To test whether consumers can distinguish among different bottled waters and, if so, whether they prefer some to others, we recruited more than 100 subjects to participate in a blind taste test that consisted of four brands of bottled water featured in a restaurant's water menu and a guidebook to fine waters. The tasting involved three successive experiments. First, our subjects tried to distinguish bottled waters in a sensory discrimination test. They were only slightly better than random chance at doing so. Next, they rated bottled waters and tap water on a 14-point scale used at an international water competition. Some subjects preferred the inexpensive tap water to any of the bottled waters, and there was no association or a weak negative association between a bottled water's price and its rating. Finally, our subjects tried to distinguish tap from bottled water while matching the bottled waters to expert descriptions. They were no better than random chance at doing either of those things. Similar results have been found in previous taste tests of beer and wine. Overall, our results suggest consumers do not have strong preferences over different bottled waters to the extent they can even tell a difference. (JEL Classifications: D12, Q25)