

Should We Buy Expensive Wine? - cwan
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/should-we-buy-expensive-wine/

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ghshephard
"So does this mean we should all start swilling Two-Buck Chuck? I’m not so
sure. "

As a connoisseur of Charles Shaw
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Shaw_wine>) I resent the implication
that by costing $2, Charles Shaw is somehow an inferior wine. Isn't that the
entire _thesis_ of that article, that you don't associate quality based on
pricing?

From the Wikipedia article:

"At the 28th Annual International Eastern Wine Competition, Shaw's 2002 Shiraz
received the double gold medal, besting the roughly 2,300 other wines in the
competition.

Shaw's 2005 California chardonnay was judged Best Chardonnay from California
at the Commercial Wine Competition of the 2007 California Exposition and State
Fair. The chardonnay received 98 points, a double gold, with accolades of Best
of California and Best of Class."

I've seen Charles Shaw win at more than one taste testing.

~~~
rflrob
I've found Two-Buck Chuck to be highly inconsistent. It can definitely be very
good, but it's also not unusual for it to be pretty bad. On the bright side,
when you only spent $2, it's not a huge loss if turns out you got a bad one.

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huhtenberg
> _Although the people were told that all five wines were different, the
> scientists weren’t telling the truth: there were only three different
> wines._

I did the same experiment with beers few years back. Showed friends three
different ales, poured one of them into three glasses and bet they couldn't
tell which glass had which ale. Though exact answers differed, all of them
thought there were three different beers in those glasses. That was truly epic
:)

On the other hand I ran the same test with cheap and expensive port and people
could easily tell which one is which. I also find that the same is true for
wines - there _is_ a noticeable difference between $5 and $30 wine, but once
it gets over $50, then telling them apart becomes much harder. One should
really have the _palate_ for that, and very few people do.

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colomon
I would say that in particular, I'm fairly certain I can usually tell the
difference between $5 wine and $15 wine, and the $15 wine is usually markedly
better. On the other hand, my experience is that it's usually a lot harder to
tell the difference between $15 wine and $50 wine, and as often as not, I
prefer the $15 wine.

Hmmm... as I think on it, maybe there's something more to it than that.
Because when I think of those $15 wines, I'm not thinking "generic $15 wine".
I'm thinking, "oooo, that $15 wine I really like." That is to say, I'm not
sure I could reliably tell you which of a set of random Zinfandels was $5 and
which $15. But I know there are certain reliable $10-$18 Zinfandels --
Ravenswood, Renwood, and Rosenblum leap to mind -- that I like much better
than anything I've tasted under $10. That doesn't mean that I have liked every
$15 Zinfandel I ever tasted, though.

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wiredfool
I'd take Rosenblum ahead of the other two, and Seghesio over any of the three.
But I think their price has creeped up since I bought a bunch at $16.

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rflrob
The article says nothing about the previous experience of the participants.
I've been led to understand that many wine critics have highly consistent
palates, able to give the same score to a wine within a couple of points even
under blind taste tests. On the other hand, the inter-rater reliability is
relatively low. I would be interested to see how professional raters compare
on similar studies to the ones presented.

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Blarat
well during a wine tasting competition in sweden the winner managed to not
only name all wines, she also managed to say which region AND producer it was.
So yes if you make the same test with experts the result would be quite
different.

And most expensive wines need to mature before you enjoy them, if you uncork
them right away it won't be a very pleasant experience.

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mv1
I've come down to a rule for wine - price correlates well with value in the
$15-$25 per bottle range, you get what you pay for. Outside of that it seems
random. Two-Buck chuck is pretty good, especially for $2. I've also had
expensive wine > $50 which was, in my opinion terrible.

(This is for store bought wine, for restaurants multiply prices by 2 to 4).

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munsito
It really depends on personal taste. If you tend to prefer younger, fruitier
wines as opposed to heavier, aged wines then going for the $50+ bottle isn't
going to do you any good. Some wines actually get worse with age.

You can find some really consistently great pinot noirs, merlots, and malbecs
for much less than $20. I would steer clear of cabernet sauvignon simply
because there is such a wild degree of variation in taste and it is not
consistent with price.

Be aware of prices by region as well. Some grape varieties grow more easily in
certain climates and as a result will be more cheaply produced. The Oregon
wines have recently gotten noticeably more expensive, but this has more to do
with it becoming a trendy region much like Napa Valley in the past.

So be aware of factors in price when buying wines, and your personal
preference in wine body should be the ultimate determinant of how much you
should be willing to spend. On a side note, if you're ever throwing a dinner
party stick with the lighter wines. I break out the schmitt sohne riesling for
$8 a bottle during the summer and while it's too sweet for my taste, guests
usually love it.

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johnrob
Wine appreciation depends on your experience. If you haven't been exposed to
the higher end, you won't miss it and should be perfectly happy with everyday
brands (like Charles Shaw). The more exploring you do, however, the more
you'll appreciate the higher end. Music is probably a good analogy: the
majority of people are fine with mainstream radio content, while the more
'hardcore' tend to be into eccentric stuff.

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Vivtek
I think the thesis of the article is that the more 'hardcore' are into
eccentric stuff not because they inherently like eccentric stuff, but that
they like being hardcore people who are into eccentric stuff.

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nandemo
That doesn't seem to be thesis of the article, since they don't mention
anything about the wine tasting experience of the subjects. I really doubt
that doing similar experiments with wine experts would give the same results.

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trustfundbaby
I started thinking of the ramifications of that last part

> You see what happened there? Even though their assumption about wine was
> false – the more expensive Cabernet didn’t taste better – that assumption
> still led to increased pleasure,

Turns out lying to certain types of women about how much you make or how much
you drive, isn't so stupid after all

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hop
If it was possible to consistently tell the difference in wine quality, then
wine judging could be done in a lab by chemical analysis and published in
Consumer Reports. This wouldn't matter though because humans innately value
alcohol based on price and rarity like the article says - its prestigious to
have a Château Rothschild no matter what a scientist says.

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Vivtek
I dunno. I've had a truly expensive wine exactly once, at a wine cellar
tasting in Würzburg, Germany, and I may have been fooled by the fact that they
told me it was expensive, but it was pretty damn good wine. (But roughly
equivalent to (far cheaper) Hungarian Tokaji, if you ask me, and that's not
just loyalty to my wife's nation.)

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waterlesscloud
Tokaji can get pretty darn pricey, you know.

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Vivtek
But even the medium-price ones are at least as good to my taste as that really
expensive Bavarian white. Your mileage may of course vary.

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rbreve
One thing I am sure is that wine in France taste a lot better than any other
wine

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jarin
John Cleese did this experiment years ago in his "Wine for the Confused"
series.

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InclinedPlane
As with everything, buy what you like, not what you think you should like or
what you think other people like. I'm lucky that I live in a state with a lot
of wine makers so I get to buy excellent wines for single digit prices. Even
so, if you're spending more than $20 on a bottle of wine all the time then
you're probably wasting a lot of money.

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sliverstorm
I've personally found two things work very well:

1) When you want nice wine, go to Safeway and buy the $20 bottle with the
largest discount (of a type you like, of course). You'll typically pay $12-14
for a pretty good bottle.

2) For those times when you are feeling cheap- well, this is more of a 'be
prepared'. Drink cheap straight gin, cheap straight whiskey, and a little
straight Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum for a few months. Then, 2-buck chuck
tastes gorgeous.

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aneth
I'm sorry, two buck chuck tastes terrible to me. I'm not the kind of person
who sits around debating the merits of various wines, but I do like wine and I
am somewhat picky. I can't finish a glass of two buck chuck, whether I knew
what it was beforehand or not - and both situations happen all the time at
parties.

I've read this type of study several times - either I have especially
sensitive taste or there is something wrong with the studies because it is
simply not true that there is no correlation between taste and price.

Can I tell the difference between a $15 bottle and a $40 bottle? No, I don't
taste price. Are as many $15 bottles excellent as $40 bottles? Absolutely not.

One flaw: if you pick a random $40 bottle and a random $15 bottle and ask
someone which they like, this is not a valid study. You need to pick a wine
that both costs $40 AND IS WORTH $40 and likewise a wine that's WORTH $15.
Just because a wine is $90 doesn't mean it's great, but if a wine is $2 it
probably sucks.

The correlation is there and pretty strong, particularly when moving from $2
to $8 to $15, but it is not perfect. Price != taste.

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DrStalker
How do you evaluate "worth"? If you say the worth of wine is based on the
taste then of course wine that is worth more will taste better.

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aneth
Get someone who can tell the difference between a good $40 bottle and an
overpriced $10 bottle with a $40 label, have them pick a wine they think is
worth $40 and one worth $10, then do the study.

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JoachimSchipper
This would prove something closer to "some wines taste better than others", a
statement which is not disputed. (E.g. the results of wine tasting contests
are not nearly random.)

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aneth
What does the current study prove? Some wines cost more?

What needs to be studied is if there is a correlation between price amd
consumer preference. As far as I can tell, this was not an effort to do that,
but rather to prove the obvious: you can't taste price. This is true for any
kind of food.

Can you look at two pieces of art and tell which is ore expensive? No. Is
better art more expensive? Sometimes, usually yes, and often eventually. Same
can be said for wine. Price is a product of demand, demand depends on
information and information distribution. Both products are small batch and
highly personal, so price quality correlations will be less accurate and
change over time.

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JoachimSchipper
Art is usually unique; I'm not sure the markets are comparable (wines have a
limited run, but not so limited that two true fans will push the price into
the millions.)

This study shows that some/many wines cost more, yet don't taste better. In
other words, a random expensive wine is likely not great from a price-quality,
or even just quality, perspective. This is relevant to the unsophisticated
buyer, i.e. most of their readers.

I think you're arguing that, essentially, a well-chosen expensive wine is
noticeably better than a similarly well-chosen not-so-expensive wine. I'm
inclined to believe you, but that is much harder for the average consumer to
act on.

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aneth
Yes, that's basically my point. I also think, on average, a higher price wine
will be better than a lower price wine.

A lot of these arguments could be made for any product or service. If you pay
more for your house, does it mean that you will live happier? No. You may be
much happier in central Montana than New York. If you pay more for your
clothes, do they look better? If you pay more for your music, do you enjoy it
more?

The whole debate is non-sense. Any consumer who thought they were necessarily
getting better wine simply because they paid more probably is not literate
enough to have understood this article.

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JoachimSchipper
> I also think, on average, a higher price wine will be better than a lower
> price wine.

You'd expect that, yes, but this article and similar studies strongly suggest
that this is not actually true (at the high end, at least). That's the entire
point.

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rkon
Sounds exactly like Grey Goose. So many people swear by it thanks to the high
price and marketing gimmicks that add perceived value, but put it in a blind
taste test (even with a bunch of Grey Goose fanatics) and it gets blown away
every time.

It's pretty sad how easily consumers can be fooled by cheap tricks like a
frosted bottle and the words "made in France". They don't even need the help
of alcohol to make poor decisions :p

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huhtenberg
A bit of a perspective from a professional Russian :)

Taste of the vodka is irrelevant. You drink it to get drunk, not to enjoy the
taste. So, for example, vodka on the rocks makes as much sense as deep fried
caviar - it's a pointless waste of a product. Secondly, and _most importantly_
, you are looking at whether you get a hangover in the morning or not. That's
it. So the criteria for a good vodka is (a) doesn't make you cringe when drunk
and (b) no hangover.

Stick with Wyborowa or Stolichnaya. If not, get a really cheap one and put it
through Brita filter a couple of times. This removes all impurities
(specifically - the fusel oils, which is what actually hurts the head in the
morning), and it will be as good as high-grade commercial product.

(edit) By the way, another way to filter cheap vodka is to mix it with
cranberries (ideally the wild ones), mush them and let sit for 24 hours.
Filter and enjoy. Cranberries absorb the oils and infuse vodka, so not only
this reduces the hangover effects, it also makes the vodka significantly more
pleasant to drink.

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delackner
About two years ago two close friends of mine went on a heliboarding trip in
eastern Russia. Before the boarding, they went out and got weird looks when
they ordered vodka tonics. They asked what the problem was, and were told
"everyone" there drinks it straight.

Any russians in the audience care to clear things up?

~~~
huhtenberg
Imagine your friends going to Ireland, ordering a pint of Guinness and then
asking for a straw. That's your vodka tonics :)

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iandanforth
No.

