Factors explaining differences in wine experts' ratings: The case of gender, credentials, occupation and peer effects.

The aim of this article is to better understand why experts give different scores to the same wines in identical tasting environments. This research focuses on the personal characteristics of experts (or judges), such as their gender, industry credentials, and occupation within the wine industry, and examines how judges respond to their peers' characteristics. Using a dataset of 5,395 wines judged in the 2022 International Wine and Spirits Competition, we analyse 18,224 scores from different judges.