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Home > Blogs > Uncorked > Archives > 2008 > August > 06
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Would YOU be able to tell the difference between a $15 and a $150 wine?
Check out the book entitled “The Wine Trials: 100 Everyday Wines Under $15 that Beat $50 to $150 Wines in Brown-Bag Blind Tastings.” and the Reuters story entitled “Psssst - Have I got a cheap red wine for you!” that explores the issues raised in the book.
In the story, author Robin Goldstein declares expensive wine all but a sham:
“Most wine in the world is cheap wine. It’s only in the last 10 years or so that wines over $50 have taken off. It’s really a success of marketing, not taste,” Golstein told Reuters. “There have always been good wines and better wines, but the luxury products manufacturers and the mass brands got really smart about marketing their products. They created this niche out of thin air.”
Goldstein reaches this conclusion because when he and his editor hand-picked more than 500 of their friends of varying degrees of experience with wine to blind-taste a bunch of wines, they overall preferred cheaper to more expensive: they preferred the taste of a $9 Beringer Founders’ Estate Cabernet Sauvignon to a $120 Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, and liked Domaine Ste. Michelle Cuvee Brut ($12) over Dom Perignon Champagne, ($150).
Never mind that the Beringer Private Reserve was probably not meant to be drunk for many more years and still had its youthful, tannic bite, or that when any two wines are tasted side by side and the general population (including many wine experts) is asked which they prefer, they’re almost always going to choose the one that has more sweetness to it. Those inconvenient truths get in the way of the screaming headline and the desire to poke fun at all the wine snobs who spend money on more expensive wines just because they’re seeking status and not because the wine actually tastes better.
The story does point out that wine experts — let’s assume they’re talking about those who have more experience with and enthusiasm for wines than average — “preferred the more expensive wines, not surprisingly …”
If that’s the case, gee, maybe that marketing niche that Goldstein was talking about wasn’t created “out of thin air” after all, eh?
