The topic of wine ratings also reminds me of the famous battles over whether better wines come from California or France. Wikipedia provides a good entry into the story, along with the individual ratings by the judges and the good question of whether differences in these ratings are meaningful...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine) Ken Mike Palij wrote:
Some folks around this time of year start to wonder about what brand of champagne they should get for New Year's Eve, whether they should get something cheap like American sparkling wine (e.g., Korbel, which technically is not a champagne), a French champagne that that is moderate in price (for example, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/dining/reviews/23wine.html?emc=eta1 ) or something really expensive under the assumption that there is a strong linear relationship between price and objective quality. But it is refreshing to note that some people don't rely upon price or the score that "Wine Spectator" assigns to a particular wine to judge whether a wine is good or not (snob appeal aside). To see this attitude in people who recommend wines for a living is even more surprising. Which is why I suggest looking the following column by Brecher & Gaiter on the "Delicious Wines of 2009", see: http://online.wsj.com/article/tastings.html As they point out, the perception and appreciation of wine, as with many things especially works of art, is not just a function of the objective properties of the wine but also our expectations, the reasons why we are drinking it, the situation/environment in which we drink it, and so on, representing a very high order of interaction. What may be great one time, may not be great or even bad another. There is the old saying of "you can not step in the same river twice" which can be altered to "you can not drink the same wine twice". -Mike Palij New York Unviersity m...@nyu.edu
-- --------------------------------------------------------------- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. steel...@appstate.edu Professor and Assistant Chairperson Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
