Some Thoughts from the Wine World

[shanez]

This thread could go lots of ways, and it has!
I'll just throw in my couple of pennies as well.
I buy some cheap stuff and I buy some expensive stuff but most importantly I buy according to my own tastes, with an occasional recommendation followed. My tastes just don't seem to follow the crowd.
I have a wine cellar crammed full of $15-ish/bottle wines that are fantastic. For the price. They pale compared to some of the other bottles in my collection though. The thing is, it is not a fair comparison.
And just to muddy the waters a little more, there is always the possibility that people in the test group simply paid more attention to the wines when they thought they were more expensive and, in doing so, noticed some characteristics they might have otherwise missed.

 

[macaroon]

With booze, tobacco, and innumerable other products, the law of diminishing returns is a very real factor. I agree very much with the discussion of a "sweet spot" above the obviously cheap stuff but below the point when you're really only paying more money for the brand name.
And as always, never underestimate the power of suggestion. And the power of the placebo effect, for that matter, though that may not be quite so directly applicable here

 

[sparroa]

Taste is subjective, yes, but there are real differences between wines that (usually) account for the massive disparities in price.
What is often derided as cheap wine is often just made simply for mass tastes. They source mechanically harvested grapes from a vast growing region like California or Australia and try to attain an easy drinking flavour profile at an inexpensive price point. These are designed to be enjoyed immediately as table wine or party wine for the average consumer.
Expensive wines are typically made from more exacting methods that require more manual labour and input costs. Grapes are harvested by hand and the wines are often aged for longer periods of time in specific barrels, depending upon the local tradition. There is also the element of exclusivity because "fine wine" is finite. There is only so much land available in the best growing regions so supply and demand reigns here. If you desperately want a bottle of Chateau Margaux from a certain vintage, for example, you have to contend with the world market and pay the going rate. There are only 150,000 bottles produced every year from about 200 acres and that is not going to increase in any significant way. The best years will fetch the highest prices and you will accordingly receive a relatively rare bottle of wine from an exclusive vineyard in Bordeaux for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. This kind of wine is bought by the one percent and matured for years in cellars so they can enjoy the complexity over time. These are really a different beast in comparison to more casual wines meant to be enjoyed young at a barbecue that were blended from many different estates across a wider region. The sense of "terroir" and character offered by these high end bottles is often absent with these inexpensive options.
If you are satisfied with the taste and value of a $25 New World blend made with Bordeaux grapes, however, you can enjoy a decent tasting imposter at a fair price and keep the rest of your money in the bank. It's no Margaux, though and there will likely always be a significant difference between them. What you judge to be better or worse is up to your own palate and budget...
With that said, fakes and forgeries are increasingly common in the wine world and people who buy expensive bottles as a status symbol without having any knowledge to back it up are frequently the unsuspecting victims of savvy scammers. It doesn't help that a lot of wine marketing is pure fluff and sommeliers have become too esoteric with their language and practices.
The economics of pipe tobacco doesn't really compare well to the wine world because the industry is so much smaller and companies are often buying leaf from the same sources before processing them heavily with a lot of flavourings and additives. Wine is not doctored as much so the base quality is easier to discern.
The "best" pipe tobaccos are often quite scarce but in the past price was sometimes no real reflection of quality. McClelland, for example, used premium leaf aged for many years yet they charged prices that were typically cheaper than their average European competitors. I don't know how they made it work for so long but obviously they were happy with less profits than the more corporate rivals in the industry.

 

[flakyjakey]

I haven’t posted recently, but this thread caught my attention. In response to the OP there are, IMO, analogies between the wine world and our world of pipes and tobaccos, and even with the world of Hi-Fi music systems.
Pipe smoking is my 20-year hobby, whereas fine wine collecting (and drinking) is my 40-year passion. I have a cellar of more than 3000 bottles at Octavian Vaults under the Wiltshire hills. In the house, we have a Eurocave wine cabinet that holds up to 180 bottles, and I arrange a shipment from Octavian when the cabinet is running low. My tobacco cellar is beneath the stairs in the house. Some years ago, I determined to build up both cellars while I was on a decent wage, such that when I retired I would never ‘need’ to buy more wine or more tobacco. Since I retired from clinical service last April, I have been happily consuming both.
So, what have I learned?
- Particularly when starting out, try as many varietals, wine makers and countries of origin as you can. Start at the low/med price range but every now and again slip in a more costly bottle – see if there is much difference. Try the wines with different foods – wine was meant to accompany food – for example, a decent bottle of red Bordeaux may not snap your socks on its own but with roast lamb it would be a perfect marriage. Apart from champagne, I think this holds true for most “Old World” wines.
- As with pipe tobacco, your tastes are likely to change over the years. Having smoked a huge range of different tobaccos, I am now an unashamed codger - my cellar is focused on GH&Co, SG and J.F. Germain blends (no aros or blends with ‘Lakeland Essence’), but I made sure there was room for 7 pounds of ODF!! The same is true of my evolved wine cellar – now mostly French, Italian and Spanish, having been much broader a decade ago – a codger’s cellar, with ten bottles remaining of my Birth Year wine (1953)!
- Trust your own taste buds rather than labels, although it is well worth noting the opinions of experienced and trusted wine pundits like Robert Parker and his disciples. If Parker gives a £15 wine 93/100 – I’ll take it! There is another analogy here I think. Would you pay $$$$$ for a Hi-Fi system if you could not tell the difference from a $$$ system? I wouldn’t and neither would I for wine.
A tip – The top chateaux will produce decent wine (at a high price) even in poor vintages, but the lesser producers (and second labels of the top estates) often punch way above their weight in years when the harvested grapes are exceptional. Like picking up an eBay pipe ‘steal’, I love picking up an exceptional wine for a relatively small outlay.

 

[mso489]

Much of drinking -- wine, liquor, beer, whatever -- or pipe smoking, the pleasure is in the situation. The social company and general frame of mind make all the difference. Drinking to ease the stress of a crowd of strangers versus drinking with someone you care about, friend or partner, are two different experiences. My best buzzes have been with ordinary beverage. A trip across Lake MIchigan drinking folksy fruit wine with my wife, an outdoor orchestra concert picnic drinking table wine with my sister and her husband. Much buzz, much contentment, not expensive beverages. My best pricey buzz was celebrating the birthday of a friend (pipe smoker) with an up-market single malt Scotch.

 

[trouttimes]

For years (14) the wife dragged me to the Aspen Food &Wine Classic every summer if I was in country. I have tried bottle that cost more than my truck, I've had wine that there is only 19 bottles left on this earth. I have learned to taste the undertones like a pro but...the one truth I have learned, is to drink what you like. Once it is in a glass, a $25,000 bottle of wine looks just like a $5 bottle. It is all about what taste good to you. Yes there are a lot of people that the cost does influence their enjoyment. Good for them if they can afford it. For me, I find something like 14 Hands or White Pine is just right ( both under $20 ). My wife says I should know better but I guess I'm just an old cowboy at heart. Drink what taste good to you.

 

[krizzose]

I would have picked up on those cheap wines in the fancy labels immediately.
Or probably not. It’s just another form of the placebo effect. And there’s certainly pleasurable innthe anticipation of something that’s supposed to be good.
There’s also a flip side to this, I think, when you try something that by all accounts shouldn’t be that good. For example, I love Hamm’s beer for camping and filling up the cottage beer fridge at the start of the summer. It’s cheap as hell, almost comically low brow, but damn it’s not that bad at all.

 

[irishearl]

lawdog, this one's for you: was just perusing the current Ralph Lauren RRL catalogue for the heck of it and, as an example of their pricing insanity, see that they have a faded and fashionably torn & worn denim work shirt for a mere $395. Actually prefer the less torn & worn denim shirt I have hanging in my closet which cost me around $20. If one wants the worn look, heck, go to Goodwill and pick one up for $4.

 

[pappymac]

Krizzose - Hamm's was a good beer. Until one of the bigger competitors bought the brewery and started cutting back on production until it's extremely hard to find. The same thing happened to a number of good beers going back decades. Who remembers Falstaff? In the 1960s it was one of the top selling beers and the third largest brewery in the country. My father drank Falstaff until he could no longer buy it, then in the 70s it fell on hard times and cut its marketing. Personally, I didn't like it when I started drinking beer in the early 70s and still remember it as being real bitter. Funny thing is there are a number of craft beers available that taste similar because they are hoppy. Falstaff is currently owned by Pabst but hasn't been made since 2000 or so.
Point is, there have been a lot of good beer made that are considered low-brow now but taste a lot like expensive craft beers.

 

[philobeddoe]

I agree that the placebo effect comes into play quite often in the higher price = better taste etc. argument. However, there are many instances when the better tasting or higher quality (X) simply costs more than the competition. For example, it is empirically more pleasurable to drive a Ferrari sports car than it is to drive a Toyota Camry, do they both transport you from A to B, yes, but the journey from A to B will be ever so much more pleasing in the Ferrari. Taste is subjective, but it can also be acquired and refined through exposure to many different examples of the objects in question.

 

[warren]

I guess it boils down to, if you can't taste a difference, drink the cheaper. The Ferrari won't go where the F150 will so, it's usually in the garage.

 

[davet]

The Camry would be much more pleasurable to drive than the Ferrari this evening after 8 inches of snow :P

 

[philobeddoe]

I’d rather have an all-wheel drive Ferrari FF in the snow than any Camry or F150 for that matter!

 

[davet]

Didn't think of that...

 

[warren]

For snow I prefer something by Bombardier.