Role Author Name Robin Goldstein | Nationality American | |
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Education Yale Law School, Harvard College, Harvard University, French Culinary Institute, Yale University Books The Beer Trials, Blind Taste: A Defense, Houston Restaurant Guide, Austin Restaurant Guide, Dallas Restaurant Guide | ||
Robin Goldstein is an American author, food and wine critic, and economics pundit. He is known for his books and articles questioning conventional wisdom and pricing in the food and wine industries, particularly a widely publicized exposé of Wine Spectator magazine, and for his writing on the Freakonomics blog. He is author of several books, including The Wine Trials (the world's bestselling guide to cheap wine), The Beer Trials, and an upcoming book tentatively entitled A Defense of Fast Food. Goldstein was also one of the subjects of Think Like a Freak, the 2014 book by Freakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. He lives in Oakland, California.
Contents
- Wine Spectator Award of Excellence controversy
- The Wine Trials experiment
- Works by Goldstein
- References
Goldstein received a BA in Neuroscience and Philosophy from Harvard in 1998. He received a JD from Yale Law School in 2002. He graduated from the French Culinary Institute and the WSET wine program. Goldstein also reviewed restaurants for Fodor's Travel Guides in Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Thailand, and Hong Kong, and in 2005, founded the Fearless Critic series of restaurant guides, which was later acquired by Workman Publishing in New York and became a Workman imprint. Goldstein is currently on the research faculty of the University of California, where he is Principal Economic Counselor at the UC Agricultural Issues Center.
Wine Spectator Award of Excellence controversy
At the August 2008 conference of the American Association of Wine Economists in Portland, Oregon, Goldstein revealed that in a hoax exposé, he had won a Wine Spectator "Award of Excellence" for an imaginary restaurant, Osteria L'Intrepido (Italian for "the fearless tavern"). With the help of his friend Giuliano Stiglitz, he created a fake website for the restaurant, submitted a reserve wine list of low-rated Italian wines along with the $250 entry fee, and won the award, which he sought to expose as a form of advertising. The hoax garnered worldwide press. Wine Spectator Editor-in-Chief Thomas Matthews responded on the magazine's web site.
The Wine Trials experiment
In May 2008, Goldstein revealed the results of an experiment that he conducted in which 500 subjects, in a blind taste test, preferred cheaper wine to more expensive wine. The results were published in an academic paper entitled "Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better?" followed by a book entitled The Wine Trials.
Some wine critics and aficionados questioned Goldstein's conclusions, and a staff editorial in the Boston Globe criticized his findings.