Do Tasting Notes Add Value? Evidence from Napa Wines

This paper evaluates whether tasting notes - the brief testimony that describes the sensory properties of wines - add value. The analysis is based on a sample of over 2700 recent vintage cabernet sauvignon wines evaluated by Wine Spectator. I estimate a dynamic wine price model to evaluate the marketing effect of the note, controlling for quality measures as well as other wine characteristics. The results indicate that the length of the tasting note exerts a strong positive influence on the wine’s price, even after controlling for quality. A 10 percent increase in the number of characters in the tasting note (about 23 additional characters) contributes about two to four dollars to the price of the wine. Further analysis reveals that the value of the tasting note does not come from the “analytical” words contained in the note but rather, from the more subjective component of it