On the evening of June 9th, we celebrated the Class of 2016 on top of the magnificent Russell Investment Center. 18 students were honored on this special evening. It was a bittersweet affair, as we were not only saying goodbye to our graduates but also to George Rolfe, who is retiring this year, and Chris Bitter, who is leaving the Runstad Center to pursue other interests. This summer Chris will be presenting a paper titled “The Ratings Game: Scoring Washington Reds,” at the American Association of Wine Economist’s Annual Meeting in Bordeaux France, June 21-25. The paper explores the level of consensus in wine ratings across prominent critics and the extent to which differences in scoring can be explained by subjective preferences, and addresses the implications of “buying based on points” to both wine consumers and producers. We will greatly miss George and Chris and all they have done for the MSRE program over the years.
Here are some pictures from the festivities…
