Wine award given to fictitious restaurant
By sylvie | August 21, 2008
I wouldn’t normally link to this kind of story, but I thought it was amusing to see that Robin Goldstein, who perpetrated the fraud on Wine Spectator, did it in the name of science:
As part of the research for an academic paper I’m currently working on about standards for wine awards, I submitted an application for a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. I named the restaurant “Osteria L’Intrepido” (a play on the name of a restaurant guide series that I founded, Fearless Critic). I submitted the fee ($250), a cover letter, a copy of the restaurant’s menu (a fun amalgamation of somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes), and a wine list.
After submitting this basic information, his “restaurant” received the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, even though Robin deliberately chose to fill the restaurant’s wine list with wines that received low scores from Wine Spectator.Makes you feel a lot of confidence towards Wine Spectator’s recommendations, doesn’t it?
Via The Consumerist.
Topics: Science reporting |
