Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics and everyone’s favorite economist, talks on his blog about a wine test he conducted with some Nobel prize winners:
Cheap Wine
(special thanks to Stephen Dodson for sending me the great article)
Right now, it is amazing how many smart people believe one bottle of wine is so much better than another. In fact, it seems (from my humble little poll of friends) that the more educated someone is, the more they believe the myth of wine and the more they buy into marketing messages.
This is an example of a scam that works much better on educated people than on those who are just street smart.
My estimation is all but few thousand people in the world can’t tell the difference between different bottles of wine. Its silly. And if anyone doesn’t believe me, I’m willing to wager cash on a taste test.
Wine score:
Street smarts: 1
PhDs: 0
Game over.