Research Note—Wine Journalism—Marketing or Consumers' Guide?

This article explores some aspects of wine journalism in Norwegian newspapers. Two issues are discussed: First, are wine sales influenced by wine journalists' reviews? Second, do experts agree on what makes a good wine buy? The results show that wine sales are indeed significantly influenced by the judgements of wine critics; a 10% rise in newspapers' scores in Norway was accompanied by an average increase of 16%–18% in sales figures for table wines. The effect of wine reviews varied somewhat from newspaper to newspaper. It proved difficult to establish criteria for a good wine buy that are objective and independent of the person making the judgement. The journalists gave no unanimous recommendation of good wine buys to the consumers; the same wine could get good reviews in some papers and might well receive run-of-the-mill reviews in others. However, a majority of the reviewers seemed to agree in the ranking of most of the wines, even if the absolute value of the scores differed.