Global Wine Medal Rating. Practical application

What is it all for? A look beyond the horizon.

We would like to remind that this publication is the third and the last one in the series of articles about Global Wine Medal Rating (GWMR), therefore for better understanding of this subject, we strongly recommend to read the previous two articles: The Introduction, and Description of the mathematical model.

We hope that you followed our advice above and understand the difference between the GWMR and other similar aggregate ratings, and also difficulties in calculating it. After all, the medals awarded during professional wine competitions are an inexhaustible source of blind, comparative, and expert assessments of the quality of wine. But at the same time, no one had previously dared to undertake such a complex organizational and analytical task or at least, no one found a solution worth being published.

It deserves to address now the real practical applications of the GWRM:

• For example, our ranking and medal database may enable wine sellers to boost company sales.
• Or, by applying Big Data analysis, it may suggest to winemakers the optimal strategy for participating in certain professional competitions.
• Or, it will show the consumer information about the best wines in the category of interest, especially in terms of price/quality ratio.

Of course, this list is far from being comprehensive. We are at the very beginning of this journey but are confident that there are many more exciting opportunities ahead.

Ranking as a sales driving force: Tailwind

The simplest and most obvious application of the GWMR rating will be an easily implemented universal widget that allows any online site to upload information about wine rating and, at the same time, a complete list of medals this wine has received.

Of course, for some trading services this will create difficulties because they will have to be more thorough about the vintage information, such as, the harvest year of the sold wine.

On the other hand, we strongly hope that the accurate “vintage” of wines on trading platforms will have an extremely positive effect on both the correct sales practice and the culture of wine consumption in general.

For example, when was the last time you had the opportunity to buy in retail the same wine from different harvest years and, after having thoughtfully tasted it, compare their quality? Yes, we know which manufacturer you instantly thought of — but this is an exception, to prove the rule. Do you know any other?

Analytical insiders: A reliable pilot

Having on hand a huge array of information about wines from all countries of the world that have received awards at various world competitions, it is difficult to resist the temptation to apply certain analytical methods to this database and identify interesting patterns.

Preferences vary greatly from a region to another and from a country to another. And even within the same country there are competitions with different agendas and policies of selecting judges — as conservative, preferring typicality, so biased, truly appreciating bold experiments.

For the former, we will define traditional patterns. For the latter, we will follow new bold trends. And yes, it is better to send semi-sweet wine to some countries… In any case, this statistically proven consultation will not be superfluous for winemakers, who, like us, consider medals and awards to be an important image marker and marketing tool.

Underrated Wine Ranking: Treasure Map

In our opinion, this will be the most practical product for developing the GWMR mathematical model for a wide audience. A vast number of wines receive high awards at prestigious international competitions every year. However, medals and their number does not always correlate with the price that a consumer sees next to a bottle of such wine on a shelf.

As an experiment, we tried to collect the most reliable information about the price of Moldovan wines that received awards in 2020. By the way, we were not able to find all these wines on the market, which significantly reduced the statistical sample required for the most reliable and objective analysis of the facts of underestimation (or overestimation) of certain categories of wines.

And some wines simply have nothing to compare with on the home market, for example, those that “cannot be officially called Sherry”.

But, nevertheless, we decided to calculate the alpha version of such rating for Moldovan wines, according to the following scheme:

• Information on retail market price is collected for the entire list of wine medalists.
• Then for each wine, we pick a selection of the wines closest as rating, similar harvest year, type and color.
• Within this selection, the median price is calculated, which is a price that is “expected” or “recommended by the market”.
• The underestimation index is calculated:

UPi (Under Priced index) = expected price / market price

A couple of examples for clarity:

If market price of wine equals 100 lei, expected price equals 130 lei, then UPi = 1.3, and this means that such wine needs to be bought immediately before manufacturers realize that this price can be easily increased by 30%.

If market price equals 300 lei and expected price equals 150 lei, then UPi = 0.5, that means that this wine is overpriced, and it is easy to find analogue wine about twice cheaper.

Authors:

• Andrei Radul (Linkedin profile)
• Veaceslav Cunev(Linkedin profile)

About the project Gustos.life:

The Gustos.life project specializes in providing information services for the wine industry within the created integrated ecosystem.

Main Services:
1. Service for holding professional wine competitions — https://winetaste.gustos.life/

2. Digital wine storage — https://dws.gustos.life/