It was fun (in a sick way) to apply some basic statistical approach to something I enjoy so here is some parting thoughts on this topic.

Napa has a wider spread in pricing than Sonoma’s. I think it makes sense, Napa makes a wide range of wines from daily drinker to cult wines and is better known to casual drinkers. Ask some of your casual wine drinking friends if they recognize the name Silver Oak, Modavi or Dumol? I think in most cases people will have heard of the Napa guys and have no idea about Dumol, Rochioli or Selyem all amazing Sonoma winery.

This brings me to pricing and scores. Why are Napa prices and scores so strongly correlated? The simple look at it is that the better the wine is, the more expensive it is, therefore gets a high price and high score… Or is pricing driven by score? I would hope not. I believe this is one of those where we can say correlation doesn’t mean causation. Scores and prices are driven by other factors, such as production level, winemaker, weather, location, etc.

Hope you enjoyed the series of articles. More to come in 2013.