This is the story of the Princeton Wine Group, a group whose membership has been relatively constant for almost 40 years. This group has enjoyed 244 blind tastings involving 1,708 different wines. A statistical analysis was performed at each tasting examining whether participants ranked the quality of wines similarly and whether the preferences of the group were correlated with several variables including professional wine ratings and the prices of the wine. The article concludes with a discussion of lessons learned from a lifetime of wine tastings.

Expert and peer reviews and popularity are freely available both on the Internet and in printed materials for a variety of food products. Using two experimental studies with non-hypothetical tastings and auctions, we explore the impact of peer tasting popularity, actual peer ratings, and expert ratings on demand for wines consumers can or have tasted. We find that higher own wine ratings are associated with higher willingness to pay (WTP). Morevoer, higher peer and expert rating scores increase consumer WTP for wine even after controlling for the impact of consumers’ own ratings. Observed peer popularity also increases WTP for preferred wines.