The power of gold

You only have to glance along the shelves at your local wine merchant to see the importance of wine show medals for the wine company marketing people. Those little gold, silver and bronze circles festoon all kinds of labels announcing performance at all kind of shows from the capital city agricultural society main events to little regional efforts. Goodness knows how much the industry invests in entering these competitions but must run into the millions when the entry fees, effort and energy are taken into account. As such wine shows are major part of wine's promotional budget.

But, alas, I have to report yet another piece of evidence to suggest that for consumers the medals are nothing more than a misleading nonsense. Robert T.Hodgson, professor emeritus, Department of Oceanography, Humboldt State University, Arcata, California and now proprietor of the Fieldbrook Winery has sat down and analysed the results of over 4000 wines entered in 13 U.S. wine competitions. In a paper published by The Journal of Wine Economics Prof Hodgson's analysis shows little concordance among the venues in awarding Gold medals. Of the 2,440 wines entered in more than three competitions, 47 percent received Gold medals, but 84 percent of these same wines also received no award in another competition. 

It is clear that many wines that are viewed as extraordinarily good at some competitions are viewed as below average at others. An analysis of the number of Gold medals received in multiple competitions indicates that the probability of winning a Gold medal at one competition is stochastically independent of the probability of receiving a Gold at another competition, indicating that winning a Gold medal is greatly influenced by chance alone.

When he takes off his professorial hat and becomes wine maker Bob, the attitude to gold, silver and bronze takes on the marketing man's viewpoint. As he says on his website, Fieldbrook "enters some of the most competitive wine tastings in the state. Because of the relatively small size of the winery, we feel this is our best opportunity to promote the quality of our wines."