How price demeans sighted assessments across user profiles

Abstract

Purpose Proceeding from studies that, at a general level, identify the extrinsic price cue as a mediator between a wine's perceived and intrinsic merit, the authors aim to report on a tasting‐room experiment conducted to determine the impact of the price cue on sighted ratings across categories of gender, age, and relative experience. Design/methodology/approach A total of 73 subjects assessed seven merlot wines, first blind and then sighted. During the sighted tasting, the only available cue‐information was the price per bottle. The seven price points ranged from the cheap (R25) to the expensive (R160). Findings Across all segmentations, the authors' analysis of sighted scores revealed the marked extent to which price effects demean the intrinsic merit of a wine. Older, more experienced and female strata appear to respond the most to price information; their respective model price effects are shown to increase by 57, 33 and 24 percent relative to their base comparators. Originality/value These findings challenge the dogma that unbiased sighted assessments are best conducted by self‐proclaimed wine experts who are older and more experienced; and suggest alternately, and perhaps heretically, that such assessments would be better conducted by younger, less experienced, non‐experts.

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