“The recent explosion of small importers is being met with increasing suspicion and weariness by many – but our study shows that buyers would actually be better advised to try more adventurously and embrace this embarrassment of riches while they still can.” That’s the overall summary from a recent empirical study carried out by Jonothan Davey of Nekter Wines during a tasting he hosted with Modal and Roland Wines. Being new to the sector many of the behaviours of the trade’s leading wine buyers he has experienced, which seasoned industry observers might take for granted, were a puzzle to him. Especially what he sees as the “apparently haphazard nature of wine scores and the inherently subjective element of tasting”. To try to better understand just how wine buyers make the decisions they do, he conducted a survey at the three importers combined tasting, not to see what buyers thought of the wines, but to try to understand more about the “dark art of tasting”. The results threw up even more questions for Davey to grapple with.