Doctoral student Tracy Rickman has posed that question and placed it at the center of her thesis. Tracy is a Consumer Research doctoral candidate at Auburn University and her dissertation pertains to wine blogs as an information source.

Participants will be asked to complete a survey that should take about
10-15 minutes.

I encourage everyone to participate in Tracy’s study (participants must be 21 years or older).

In Tracy’s words: “The survey is a little longer than the typical ‘polls’ you see out there. It’s a dissertation and that requires a little more of [the participant's] time. But, information from this study should provide general benefit to the wine blog community.“

While I tend to be cautious about consumer and market research (which tends to have a master to serve), I am comfortable endorsing Tracy’s project because this is purely an academic project. Tracy – to my knowledge – has no vested interest in publications, blogs or the wine industry. She doesn’t have a blog, she didn’t read blogs prior to starting this thesis and is probably most comfortable describing her wine savvy as “beginner”.

Please tell your wine blog-reading friends about this survey: http://dbm.questionpro.com

That number is magic in wine production.

If your wine gets 95 points from one of the major publications, You can buy that new car you’ve been drooling over.

But when it comes to statistics, this number is not so great. Not when you want to get statistically meaningful data from a survey or poll.

Wine Surveys is running a wine serving habits survey. The goal is 200 entries. Right now we have 95. This survey promises to give some very useful insights into people’s wine serving and consumption habits.

The survey will also benefit greatly from novices’ participation. If you are a newcomer to wine or if you have the ability to reach some wine newbies or casual imbibers, please help this survey by giving it some exposure.

We will reciprocate in the results summary if you just contact us and let us know you are promoting the survey.

The temperature of wine and the serving environment are important to many wine drinkers.

This survey seeks to understand the serving habits of wine drinkers.

A month and a half long survey seeking to understand the real-world incidence of TCA taint in wine has concluded with results consistent with previously published results. These numbers appear to fall in the range previously reported in wine literature which has indicated incidences reaching 7%.

12 individuals (at least two winemakers and other wine professionals who describe themselves as writers, public relations professionals, wine education professionals and wine importers) opened total of 208 bottles of wine. 158 of those were sealed with a natural cork. Of those, 9 bottles were reported to be definitely tainted (5.7%) and 4 bottles were reported to be possibly tainted (2.5%). After elimination of a questinable contributor, the results changed: A total of 188 bottles of wine were opened by participants with 140 of those being sealed with a natural cork. Of those, 9 bottles were reported to be definitely tainted (6.4%) and 4 bottles were reported to be possibly tainted (2.9%).

The results of this short and informal survey indicate that the incidence of definitely tainted wine is in the range of 5.7% to 6.4% and that of possibly tainted wine is in the 2.5% to 2.9%. These numbers appear to fall in the range previously reported in wine literature.

To discuss this survey, visit winesooth.com.

The TCA survey is now closed.

Remy Charest started a very prolific discussion on OWC about the incidence of TCA taint in wine.

Winemaker Nathan Carlson propsed we take a poll or survey.

I proposed we use this discussion to create the survey I started here (link removed).

If you’d like to help design or adminstrate this survey, contact me at winesurveys [at] gmail [dot] com

The survey has been finalized and is now available here.