The 2010 Seattle Wine Awards

 

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a copy of a list of the 2010 Seattle Wine Awards and upon perusing it was surprised to discover how much correlation there was with my Review ratings. I had received several announcements about the tasting and the Awards Banquet, but hadn't paid much attention until I looked at the awards list. I have long believed that Wine Competition Gold medals have little, if any, value. I agree with the conclusions of Robert Hodgson in the "Journal of Wine Economics" that "the probability of winning a Gold medal at one competition is stochastically independent of the probability of winning a Gold at another competition, indicating that winning a Gold medal is greatly influenced by chance alone." (See my blog of June 13). But I found a comparison of the Seattle Wine Awards with my ratings of the same wines, to be an exception.

 

Of the 105 wines in the Awards competition that I have rated highly in the Review of Washington Wines, 90 received Gold or Double Gold Awards. This is an 86% correlation, a remarkably high one. There were 15 wines which got Silver or Bronze which, according to my review scores should have gotten Gold, not a statistically high deviation. I noted that of these 15, ten were in the Syrah/Rhone Style categories where the wide range in styles may account for these differences, as personal stylistic preferences may come into play more than with other varietals or blends. Several of these are very distinctive wines and may not have scored as uniformly well as others in the Awards Tasting.

 

How do I account for the significantly high correlation between my ratings and the Seattle Wine Awards? I looked at the tasting panel members and saw that all have much experience in the wine industry and in wine appreciation. I have read their bios on the Awards website and found them to be most impressive. The panel is composed of highly qualified wine tasters. I also note that the wines were scored on a modified 20 point system as I do.

 

My conclusion here is that a wine competition need not always be a random event where the awarding of medals is subjected to the luck of the draw in meeting the  preferences of the tasting panel members. In reviewing wines, I have always tried to be objective and evaluate them on a qualitative rather than stylistic one. The Seattle Wine Awards tasting panel has succeeded for the most part in this goal as well.