Released today in the new issue of the Journal of Wine Economics is my review of Robert M. Parker, Jr.’s Parker’s Wine Bargains: The World’s Greatest Wine Values Under $25 (Simon & Schuster). The full text of my review is available for free (PDF; begins on p. 209). I also encourage you to subscribe to Full Article…
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“Recent Advances in Bullshit Reduction” at the International Food Blogger Conference
My talk at the International Food Blogger Conference in Seattle, “Recent Advances in Bullshit Reduction,” along with my panel session and discussion/debate with Robert Schroeder of the Federal Trade Commission and Foodista.com CEO Barnaby Dorfman about the new FTC guide to the disclosure of freebies and financial relationships in blog reviews, will be broadcast live Full Article…
Counterfeit wine below the radar: the case of Tesco
Britain’s Sun recently reported that supermarket giant Tesco sold two bottles of counterfeit Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fuissé, distributed by Hatch Mansfield, to a customer named Danny McGowan of Clacton, Essex, who described the fake bottle as having a label that “looked photocopied.” Apparently, the bottle was on sale for £5, down from a usual £14.49. (As of this writing, the Pouilly-Fuissé Full Article…
More on FIFA censorship of disallowed goal at the World Cup: suppressed video, message police
In response to yesterday’s post about censorship on the FIFA.com “Have Your Say” discussion board after the USA’s third goal against Slovenia—which was controversially nullified by referee Koman Coulibaly for reasons that remain unclear—commenter bdr on my blog has observed that FIFA is also now widely suppressing video of the disallowed goal under the guise of Full Article…
Seamus Campbell, my co-author, on what it’s like to be a beer critic
Here’s the first of Seamus’ weeklong series of blog articles about The Beer Trials for the Powell’s website. In the article, he discusses a phenomenon that’s familiar to my experience as well: “conversations about how I could possibly have given famous and best-selling products poor ratings.” It is a basic human instinct, and (for those of Full Article…
The Beer Trials: a sneak preview
Here’s a sneak preview of The Beer Trials, which I co-authored with Seamus Campbell. The preview (in PDF format) includes a press release, the preface, our list of beer ratings, and a few reviews from the book. The book, due out on April 15 from Fearless Critic Media (distributed by Workman Publishing), rates and reviews 250 Full Article…
When are high wine prices justified?
In wake of some of the latest chatter about The Wine Trials 2010 (this one from Joe Briand, wine buyer for New Orleans’ excellent Link Restaurant Group, e.g. Cochon, Herbsaint, with a response from Wine Spectator executive editor Thomas Matthews), I thought it was time for a quick clarification of first principles here. People have Full Article…
Do taste and smell adjectives signal value, or do they create it?
We may disagree about our favorite artists and musicians, but it’s relatively easy to agree that a particular color is blue, or that a particular note is C-sharp. They’re described by wavelengths and frequencies along a clearly defined spectrum. That’s why the technologies of visual and auditory reproduction—photo, video, audio—work so well, relatively speaking. With Full Article…
Are empty wine bottles on eBay being used for counterfeiting?
One of the most thought-provoking papers at this year’s meeting of the American Association of Wine Economics was presented by Günter Schamel, a professor at the Free University of Bolzano. Schamel’s study, which is still in progress, has thus far looked at a data set of 260 eBay auctions of empty wine bottles. In his Full Article…
In Sweden, all wine stores are organized by price
Sweden has one of the world’s most controlled alcohol regimes, with steep taxation, a state-controlled retail monopoly, and a 20-year-old minimum age to buy alcohol at a store (and they really card, too). The only store at which a consumer can buy wine, beer, or liquor in Sweden is Systembolaget, the state-controlled retail monopoly. Is Full Article…