Wine Contest!

I hosted a wine contest last night. Thirteen people came, and each brought two bottles of wine. We all tasted one of the bottles, while the other bottle was put into a prize pool. (Hat tip to Gothamist for the idea.) Every person scored every wine on a scale from 1 to 20, and then the scores were aggregated. For this contest, we decided to taste red wines retailing for between $15 and $40. Here are the results:

Wine	Total score	Price
Clos del Rey, Languedoc, France, 2002	183	$34
Marion, Cabernet Sauvignon, Veneto, Italy, 1999	180.5	$40
Priorat, Embruix, Vall Llach, Spain, 2003	162	$27
Domaine de Bonserine, Côte Brune, Côte Rotie, France, 2000	159	$28
Caro, Cabernet/Malbec, Argentina, 2001	157	$37
Bonny Doon Old Telegram Mourvedre, Contra Costa County, California, 2001	152*	$25
Castello di Modanella, Campo d'Aia, Sangiovese, Tuscany, Italy, 1998	136*	$23
Chiaramonte Nero D'Avola, Sicily, Italy, 2002	135	$19
Domaine Maria Fita, Fitou, Languedoc, France, 2002	134.5	$24
Prunotto, Fiulot, Barbera D'Asti, Piedmont, Italy, 2003	133.5	$17
Capçanes Mas Donís, Montsant, Spain, 2003	129	$14
Robert Sinskey, Los Carneros, Pinot Noir, Napa, California, 2003	125	$34
Maria Fita, Le Schmitou, Vallée du Paradis, France, 2002	84	$21

*The scores with an asterisk are the two wines from people who took the game a little too seriously, who recognised their own wines and gave them their highest score just so that they would have a better chance of winning. Of course, neither won. The full results, in Excel format, can be downloaded here.

If you plug the scores and prices into a correlation calculator, you get a result of +0.61, which I have to admit is higher than I thought it would be. Here's a scatter chart so that you can see the results visually:

There was one wine which everybody hated – the Le Schmitou. Interestingly, it's a Fitou from Maria Fita's Eric Schmitt, just like the Maria Fita Fitou which came in at a much more respectable 9th place. The difference is where in France the wine comes from – the location seems to make an enormous difference, since the Languedoc was quite dark and bitter, while the wine from the Vallée du Paradis, near the Spanish border, was far too sweet for anybody's taste.

Beyond that, it seems that there was a large number of more-or-less average wines, getting between 125 and 136 points, and ranging from $14 to $34 a bottle. To no one's great surprise, the really overpriced wine – worse and more expensive than most of the rest – came from California: the Robert Sinskey Pinot Noir.

The top two wines were both reasonably expensive. The winner was by far my favourite wine of the lot (I gave it 17 points, while my second-favourite got 12), and I was happy to see Luke walk away with his choice of the prize pool. That included my wine, the Caro, which I was very disappointed I didn't rate more highly.

The party itself was a huge success, lots of fun, and we'll definitely do it again. But I did learn a couple of lessons. Firstly, when you're tasting a lot of wines in succession, on their own and not in the context of a meal, it's hard to really appreciate them all. Secondly, the wines which we were rating average, and giving 10 points or so to, were all much more expensive than the wines we normally drink, and we would probably love them in most everyday contexts. So these results should probably not be taken too seriously. But I think I might try and track down a couple of bottles of that Clos del Rey all the same.

Posted by Felix at 16:23 EST

Comments

sound like much fun. invite your readers next time. ;-) at least, let us know where to buy the clos de rey. sherry lehmann?

Posted by: tim at 18:09 EST, February 11, 2006

Nope, Mister Wright.

Posted by: Felix at 20:29 EST, February 12, 2006

I am proud to say that I rated my wine a 14. I stand by my $19 bottle of Chiaramonte. Although it came in No. 8, no one had horrible things to say about it - not only was in unoffensive, it had zip. Highly recommend it and the Marion, which was recommended by my wine seller. Too bad I didn't grab it, but I was interested in trying to win with something cheaper. Both bottles of this wine can be bought at: www.de-vino.com

Posted by: Michelle Vaughan at 2:45 EST, February 13, 2006

Geoff asked me about the wines with the highest score per dollar. The winner on that front, by some margin, is the Mas Don�s, the cheapest wine in the contest. Second is the Fiulot, closely followed by the Chiaramonte. The loser, of course, is the Los Carneros, from Napa.

Posted by: Felix at 13:18 EST, February 13, 2006

Felix, I recommend two Italian wines for the next contest: Cannonau of Jerzu (pron.: ierzu)(Sardinia) is a very bodily red with a distinctively rounded taste. Very strong, its aftertaste lingers for a good while, so it is ideal for sipping with friends, or with game, lamb or pork. The other one is Amarone from the Valpolicella valley, near Verona, a red, strong wine rich in tannins to drink with red meat. "La Ripassa", a particular type of Amarone, is a Valpolicella Superiore, another, somewhat lighter, ruby-coloured red wine filtered through the Amarone grapes after they are pressed. This confers the Valpolicella Superiore a unique bitterish aftertaste. A producer I recommend is "Zenato". Somewhere nice to go to for a nice wine-tasting session and meal is indeed "La Bottega dei Vini" 7 E. 59th St., New York, NY 10022 ph. 212-223-3028. It's quite pricey, but well worth a visit.

Posted by: Roberto at 17:20 EST, February 13, 2006

Somebody needs to read Dierdre McKlosky on statistical significance. If you take all of the individual scores (rather than the averages, which aren't really of interest), it is true that the higher-priced wines were scored more highly at a high level of significance (a t-stat of over four). But (here comes Dierdre) it is also worth noting that the R-Squared is only 0.11, suggesting that you can only explain 11 percent of the variation in personal preference by variation in price. This suggests that buying expensive in hopes of liking the resulting wine is a pretty useless strategy to follow.

The results suggest Matt is easy to please (high average scores) while Simon and Matthew are highly opinionated (high standard deviations). Which is yet another demmonstration that statistical analysis teaches you nothing, because Matthew is anything but opinionated.

Posted by: Charles at 15:52 EST, February 14, 2006

i don't know about all the t-stat and r-squared of Deirdre et al. nor do i even know what it means.
i do know that the scores were not averages but sum totals, for however that affects things.
i would be interested to see another chart that has everyone's individual score per bottle vs. price.

felix- any interest in posting the full 169 point scatter diagram?

Posted by: geoff at 11:37 EST, February 16, 2006

geoff, it's all there in the excel spreadsheet i linked to. which I think is what charles was using to get his r-squared etc.

Posted by: Felix at 10:52 EST, February 17, 2006

and so you did.
it still looks to me that there is a positively sloping line to be drawn through the points.

it's a much more amorphous cloud... but it does seem to have a trend.

more interesting though would be the point that you raise felix, wine out of context is just not as enjoyable- period.

perhaps more research is required. something like taking an 'average' bottle and trying it out with a good lamb dinner, then fish, then at a table with people you like, then hate, in a hot room, a loud room, on a boat... get synaesthetic with it.

didn't someone already right the guidelines for such an event? i think we need a goat, a boat, a fox a box, a train, some rain and someone named sam.

Posted by: geoff at 12:20 EST, February 17, 2006

Roberto, FYI a Ripasso is not a type of Amarone, it is a Valpolicella. Your description of the pressing after Amarone is correct. Look for Ripasso from Le Salette $15 - $20.

Posted by: Felix S. at 2:37 EST, May 15, 2006

Felix,

I must agree with the above comment about the wine from Verona.

We absolutely loved Verona when we were there. It's no wonder the wine is so good. It's made by happy people!

We have thought about having an apartment there, mostly for the wine. Have you ever been?

If not, you have to go, to drink the wine where it's made.

If you're interested in seeing our pictures of Verona they're here:
http://www.carrieandjonathan.com/verona-our-wonderful-day-in-verona.html

Looking forward to reading more on your blog here!

Warmest,

Jonathan and Carrie

Posted by: Jonathan at 16:31 EST, December 18, 2007

Felix,