Does Blind Tasting Work? Another Look

Does Blind Tasting Work? Another Look

A study entitled “Does Blind Tasting Work? Investigating the Impact of Training on Blind Tasting Accuracy and Wine Preference,” published in the Proceedings issues of this journal, analyzed the effects of training on blind wine tasting accuracy (Wang and Prešern, 2018). I point out two issues with that study and reanalyze their data. I find that the effects of training on accuracy are small, even without controlling for self-selection bias that may produce upwardly biased estimates. To the extent training works, it does not seem to work well and it may only work as a selection device.

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Capehart, K. W. (2019). Does Blind Tasting Work? Another Look. Journal of Wine Economics, 14(3), 309–320.