Do Organic and Biodynamic Wines Get Higher Scores? That Isn’t What the Evidence Says.
Updated: Mar 1
In issue 183 (2021) of
Ecological Economics Magali A. Delmas and Oliver Gergaud purport to
present results that show that externally certified organic and biodynamic wines score 6.2 and 5.6 percentage points respectively higher in blind tastings by expert wine reviewers than wines without these certifications.
In fact, their paper does not show this. Rather, it shows, if anything, that more expensive wines get higher scores, an intuitive result that is already well established.
THE TERMINOLOGY AND HYPOTHESES
Delmas and Gergaud (henceforth, D&G) divide wine into flour categories by whether and what type of ‘eco-label’ they carry: externally certified organic, externally certified biodynamic, self-certified sustainable (including organic and biodynamic), and conventional agriculture.