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In an adventure to experience 500 wineries
After spending the last 5 years visiting wineries throughout the world, we realized that the formula for an outstanding wine experience is not as complicated as one would think. We are able to distill the wine experience into 4 main areas:
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Discoverability of the winery or wine business
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The quality of the wine experience
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The hostess or host providing the experience
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The facilities
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Within those 4 areas, we identified 16 specific qualities we are able to measure in every wine experience. Wine quality only accounts for 6.25% or 1/16 of the total score. Measuring those qualities during a visit, we are able to create a total score as a percentage of the points earned out of 16.
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If it's not nerdy enough for you, here we go: we took the total scores of our first 169 wine experiences from May 2021 to March 2023, plotted a normal distribution curve, and divided the sample into the top 10%, top 25%, middle 50%, bottom 25%, and bottom 10%.
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Top 10 percentile: 5 Stars Rating
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75 to 90 percentile: 4 Stars Rating
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Middle 50 percentile: 3 Stars Rating
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10 to 25 percentile: 2 Stars Rating
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Bottom 10 percentile: 1 Star Rating
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We will allocate the star ratings for future visits utilizing these percentile breakpoints. On the way to 500 wineries, we'll continually reassess the breakpoints, but not retroactively change previously awarded ratings.
Brodi's Rating Method
Upon conferring with Brodi, we could only get very limited information. A winery experience that allows pets to join their human counterparts receives a One Paw rating.
Brodi says that the remainder of the rating methodology is proprietary, and to think about what pets would really appreciate in an experience in order to earn additional Paws!
Independence
We receive no compensation from wineries to alter wine experience scores, nor do we have a financial interest in a winery or wine producing region. We schedule all our visits through a personal Gmail account to simulate a true potential customer experience, and thus no winery receives advanced notification of our visit. Where applicable, we pay for all our tasting fees and wine purchases as would any general wine experience customer.