Portuguese wine ratings: An old product a new assessment

Typically, wine is a good experience, its quality being unknown before consumption, with wine drinkers tending to be risk-averse. This being so, expert and consumer opinions may help to fill this information void. Following the classic example of the Bordeaux region increasing numbers of wine producers submit their wines to the raters' evaluation, aware of its importance in consumer purchases and in the definition of wine prices. Portugal, particularly in the last decade, has been following this tendency, with an increasing number of Portuguese wines appearing on the ratings list of Robert Parker (RP) and Wine Spectator (WS) gurus.Using the ratings published in 2010, by RP, WS, João Paulo Martins (Portuguese) and cellartrack.com, this paper aims to assess the consistency between the ratings assigned by different experts and by consumers and, additionally, to determine if the score attained by a specific wine is influenced by colour attributes and/or wine region (geographic origin). A statistical analysis shows that, with minor differences, there is consistency between the different ratings. Furthermore, the results of the regression models indicate that red wines tend to have higher scores and, in geographical terms, Douro wines are in prime position.