Predicting the Quality of an Unborn Grange

In a recent paper Ashenfelter, Ashmore and Lalonde found they could explain the variation in the price (and quality) of Bordeaux vintages by a combination of age, temperature and rainfall. The same ideas are applied here to Grange Hermitage, Australia's premier wine. Weather variation is less important than in Bordeaux. However, some remarkably robust results are obtained: a ‘quality index’ for Grange is derived, predictions about still unreleased vintages are made, the Australian regression coefficients work well in the Bordeaux equation, and issues relating to market efficiency in the pricing of young wines are examined