The Judgment of Paris According to Borda

Abstract

We use the Borda Count, the only non-dictatorial positional voting method that satisfies the criteria for a rational decision procedure while using the complete information provided in the ranking of each voter, to determine the outcome of the 1976 Judgment of Paris tastings. The surprising result is that a French wine, Château Haut-Brion 1970, is the Borda winner of the red wine competition and not the Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon 1973 from California as announced. The declared winner of the Chardonnay competition, Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 1973, a California wine, is also the Borda winner.

Keywords:

• wine tasting
• decision procedures
• Borda Count
• Judgment of Paris

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for communications with Orley Aschenfelter, Richard Quandt, and George M. Taber.

Notes

We note that the judges were asked to assign up to 20 points to each wine but were not explicitly told to rank order them. We can only speculate as to what the outcome might have been if the ballot were formatted differently.

The author is grateful to a reviewer for suggesting the inclusion of this explanation and providing the example.