Hey there, you all probably get this question all the time, but I need an answer. And to get that answer, I need a lot more input. I’m hoping a lot people will respond.
I’m a relatively experienced wine drinker/Enophile. I’m no professional sommelier, but I’ve had quite a lot of wine in my day. I’ve had quite a few wines from Italy, nothing terribly expensive, and a quite a few wines from Washington State, California, and Argentina, usually around $25 a bottle. The most I’ve ever spent on those wines was $40.
Recently, I’ve been getting WAY more serious about my wine, and have been voraciously reading on and learning about wine and wine regions. St. Julien, Haut-Médoc, Grands Échezeaux, Chateauneuf Du Pape, Ribiera Del Duero, Barbaresco, Stag’s Leap. You get the point.
I’ve recently been dipping my toes into Bordeaux, and have enjoyed some fantastic wines. But I’m totally confused about wine quality, it’s price, and how to get the best wines without completely destroying my bank account.
Recently I had a bottle of Pauillac du Château Latour, which was around $125. I also had a bottle of Merlot from Slovenia that was $33 that was recommended to me by a good wine merchant. I am shocked to say the $33 bottle was superior. It was more complex, and the finish lasted longer as well, although the Pauillac’s finish got more intense with time and then disappeared (and it didn’t last nearly as long). The Pauillac was very smooth, but it did not, sadly, blow my socks off like I hoped it would. The Pauillac admittedly was from 2017, and drank last weekend, most likely 4-5 years before it was ready. But then I also had a $60 bottle of Pomerol that was outstanding! Nevertheless, it seems a higher price did not guarantee a better wine.
Plus there’s articles like the following
that get me even MORE confused. Am I sucker? Am I expecting more out of expensive wines only to find that it was my brain tricking me all along?
But surely that can’t be the whole story! Any person can tell a $3 bottle of Barefoot Merlot doesn’t compare to a $35 bottle of Washington State Merlot. It’s obvious to any reasonably seasoned wine drinker, and I’m willing to bet it is even in a blind tasting. The $35 bottle is ALWAYS better.
I’ve heard so much conflicting info on this. The wine merchant I mentioned earlier said that the difference between a $10 bottle and a $200 is night and day, but the difference between a $200 bottle and a $2000 bottle is hardly noticeable except to experts.
If this is in fact the case, and that article is also simultaneously true, is a bottle of say, aged Mouton-Rothschild really just over-hyped, overpriced bull that couldn’t be distinguished from its lesser neighbors? There are wines from 5th Growths very nearby that retail for only $110, yet Mouton is well over $1200 a bottle! Is it all just hocus-pocus? Is a bottle of Burgundy Grand Cru Grands-Échezeaux no better than a $100 bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir? Am I a fool for buying a fifth growth from Bordeaux at $110?
The main goal when I drink wine and want to spend to buy a good bottle is to find the best bottle that will give me the most pleasure. I don’t NEED to spend $200 on a bottle, but if $200 really DOES give me the best experience possible, I’m happy to do so. I’ll just drink wine less so that one bottle with its superior quality is worth it.
But everything I thought I knew is totally in doubt now.
So that’s the my question! At what price point does wine stop getting better? Where is that limit? Where does the best quality meet the best price, and what price does that fall off a cliff? And do I really need to spend $7000 on that bottle of Grands-Échezeaux to get the best possible Pinot Noir? I’ve heard legends of just how great Château Margaux, Pétrus, and La Tâche are. But is that even accurate?
To make things more complicated, I’ve heard it can vary by the region! $100 gets you much less in Burgundy than $100 in California. Or so I’ve been told.
If there is a perfect Price-to-Quality-Greatness Ratio, (let’s call it PQR) what would that be? And if it does vary by region, the ones I care the most about are as follows:
Bordeaux: All of the Médoc (admittedly many subregions here), Graves, Sauternes, Entre-Deux-Mers, St. Emilion, and Pomerol. Any other regions underrated are appreciated.
Burgundy: Côtes du Beaune, Côtes des Nuits, Chablis, Mâconnaise, Chalonnaise, Beaujolais
Rhône: Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie, Chateauneuf Du Pape
Loire: Just the entire region tbh
Champagne: the whole Region
Alsace and Germany: Both Areas, even though they’re quite different.
Other French Regions: Provence, Languedoc, etc.
Tre-Venezia
Tuscany
Piedmont
Rioja
Ribiera Del Duero
Sherry
Port (any port)
Madeira
Other European Regions
South Africa
Washington State
Napa Valley/Paso Robles/Sonoma County
Other Californian Regions
Oregon
Chile/Argentina
Australia
New Zealand
Other Wine Regions in general
I know this is a sh*tton to ask. I’m just so confused though, and I’m afraid that when I buy a $20 bottle I’m missing out on the better experience I could have from that $150 bottle above it. To me, even if it was more expensive, if that bottle really is better, it would be worth the $150.
But I don’t know what to think anymore, and going wine shopping has now become a huge anxiety-ridden mess. Should I just stop worrying and just get what my merchant suggests?
Thanks for the help guys.
by Evilkenevil77
12 Comments
Typically better wine costs more because it’s more expensive to make, there is (like most luxury goods) a pretty steep diminishing return. Based on where you are in you’re wine drinking journey, I would keep taking recommendations from trusted retailers until you learn more about what you like. If you end up adoring burgundy, for example, and you want to blow cash on some DRC, good on you! It’s excellent and exciting to drink, but like many other cult wines, you are to some degree paying for the status.
I will leave you with this last piece of advice. If you’d miss the money or feel guilty drinking it on a random Tuesday based on the price… don’t buy it, you won’t enjoy it. As they say, take my advice, I’m not using it! Lol
It depends on how adventurous you are, and your tolerance of “busts”.
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Ok, so the biggest determinator in wine pricing is the appellation – If you throw out the extreme outliers (IE: very famous producers, producers who can afford to advertise, etc), the biggest variable impacting the price of the wine is where it comes from.
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Now you can look at vineyard prices, [you can see an indirect extrapolation of it](https://twitter.com/wineecon/status/1677572932887883776/photo/1). Vineyards in in demand appellations cost multiple times what they do in not in demand appellations.
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Now what separates prestigious appellations with crappy ones? I’d argue that it is mostly average quality – I’ve had great wine from crappy appellations and crappy wine from great appellations, but on average, most producers in great appellations are better, while most producers from crappy appellations are crap, especially if we’re comparing broad appellations.
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But the thing is, there are fantastic producers making great wine from crappy appellations, but since they come from a poorly appellation, they still can’t sell for much. Great producers are often dragged down by their less prestigious appellation.
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Thus if you’re willing to tolerate a high number of crappy bottles, you can find utterly fantastic bottles for very reasonable prices, just that they come from less prestigious appellations.
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Some of my favorite wines this year came from Cotes de Bordeaux for under $20. But at the same time, I’ve had some utterly terrible Cotes de Bordeaux.
There are so many factors that contribute to the cost of the bottle we drink. How nice are the grapes? Were they picked by hand on steep terraces? What’s the demand vs size of the yield? How much of it is marketing?
In some cases, newer producers will make a great vintage at an extremely low price point. As word gets around, customers call in and stores increase order size in expectation of high demand. The next vintage tastes worse in every way and that brand disappears for a while.
Personal taste and bias are two big factors in determining who likes what. Prestige buyers aside, those who enjoy single malts often are partial to big bold reds. Sweet tooths tend to subconsciously gravitate towards high RS.
I would say for collectors it becomes a bit of a fetish; extremely specific, and not necessarily deemed pleasant by all.
It sounds like you’re confused about what you’re paying for when you spend more money on a bottle.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but that extra money is going to something produced in smaller batches that is a more precise expression of it’s terroir/winemaker, wine produced in an area with higher land/labor costs, or wine that has a degree of exclusivity from demand that far exceeds production. It also could be a winemaker/retailer setting the price artificially high to try to suggest higher quality. None of these things automatically make one wine better than another.
I also wonder what you expect from fine wine. There is no objective “perfection” in wine, and I think your framing of the “best possible Pinot Noir” is a bit silly. I’m sure that $7,000 bottle of Grands-Échezeaux is incredible, extremely well-balanced with tons of nuance unique to its appellation. But it’s probably not going to make you have a Ratatouille-style transcendent flashback to your childhood or anything (there are other things you can ingest if you want that experience). It will just be an extremely good bottle of Burgundy wine, hopefully as part of a memorable night.
I’d say about tree fiddy
You’re asking kind of an impossible question, and any answer will depend on people’s subjective ideas of what constitutes good wine. Like, steak is more expensive than chicken, but is it *better*? Hard to say. Sometimes maybe, but I’d rather eat a great $12 chicken biryani than an overcooked $100 filet mignon. Would you rather have the nicest house in a crappy neighborhood or live in a small studio overlooking Central Park? It depends on what you value most. It’s the same with wine.
If you’re wondering whether a $1000 bottle will taste 10x better than a $100 one, the answer is no. But could it bring you 10x more enjoyment? Maybe. A Louis Vuitton purse isn’t much better at carrying your stuff than a plastic grocery bag, but most people would get more enjoyment out of the designer handbag. If you drink a $1000 bottle of wine and it gives you a story to tell for the rest of your life, maybe it was worth it.
For me personably, it cuts of at $300 retail for a SPECIAL occasion wine that I’m going to age for quite some time. If it’s bday etc., I’m typically super thrilled with a $75-150 bottle of wine. For me, $50+ bottles are really good, the odds of scoring a great one, increase with $$$$. Furthermore, only way I’d spend more than $400 at the restaurant would be a special vintage that I can’t get from a store (easily). For example, I have spent $900 on a Bordeaux that was my birth year.
I’d say 75$
Wine gets better with price up til about this point.
You can get some great wines any appellation in the world for this much.
In a resto, double it.
Not the answer to your question, but if you like Pinot from burgundy, I highly recommend gevrey chambertain. At around 100 per bottle I’ve had some very incredible wines
I like your thinking style and it seems similar to mine so allow me to tell you my journey if you don’t mind a wall of opinionated text.
I had similar questions and I always got bad advice (imo) which was get familiar with cheap wines in different regions and work your way up the price ladder. This is a major waste of time as cheaper wines won’t even show you what a appellation or terroir can produce. So I recommend the opposite, start at the higher end (doesn’t have to be the grail levels, but yes $200 range-ish) and work your way down until you start to notice the subtle intricacies disappear and by subtraction you’ll actually get a much better idea of what makes a great wine great.
The best thing I ever did in my journey was get a Coravin and I think this is a must for you. With a Coravin I was able to:
* Not feel bad about spending a lot on a bottle because I could drink a little at a time.
* Do side by side comparisons of different vintages of the same wine, different wines in an appellation, or even different wines from a producer I really liked. This way you can drink 4-5 glasses of wine and get a lot more information and cover grounds much faster than drinking one bottle at a time.
I see a lot of people use a Coravin incorrectly, including somms, and thus I hear people complain they don’t work well. This was not my experience at all and I was able to drink great wine over a couple months even (not sure how long I went, but never longer than a couple months, maybe 3 tops).
The primary objective when using a coravin is to make sure no oxygen gets in the bottle so you must:
* Clear the needle *as* you push it into the cork, so spray the argon before and as you insert it.
* Also before/as you remove the needle, hold the bottle upside down so wine will drip out behind the needle and not let any oxygen in, hold it upside down/cover it with your thumb, etc and ensure there is a good seal (sometimes there will be a very slight drop, or a more steady drip, so it takes some playing around to get this method down).
I think the QPR (quality to price ratio) definitely varies based on the region like you mentioned in your post, you can find some high quality produced wines for cheap from less popular regions (I’ve had some great wines from the country Georgia that were cheap). I’ve also spent thousands on bottles to see what the grails were like and was disappointed as I was expecting it to be the best wine experience of my life and while they were amazing, it wasn’t what I was obsessed with. Save the grails for a region that you’re absolutely obsessed with and then it will be money well spent.
I’m personally into old world wine and it seems like you are as well. I think they tend to be a higher QPR than Cali wines and I heard someone say something that made a lot of sense “old world vineyards are owned and passed through families where new world vineyards are still being paid off so the price must incur that overhead”.
My obsession is Northern Rhone, specifically Cote Rotie, Cornas, and Hermitage (not crozes hermitage though). Like you I’d rather spend the money and enjoy a wine, and I’d rather not drink at all than drink a wine that’s just meh – I drink for the flavor not for the effect. Not only do I just like a solid Cote Rotie but I feel like its a slightly better QPR as it’s less well known than Hermitage and this rings even more true for Cornas. Top tier Cote Rotie and Hermitage will run in the $400 range but you can drink really enjoyable wines in the $150-200 range. Cornas on the other hand, you can find some killer wines for $100 ish and depending on the vintage and producer there are some gems. I’d have to check my notes, but I was able to find a vintage of Vincent Paris Granit 30 Cornas that was ~$40/bottle and pretty killer and would blow peoples minds at parties, this is a pretty rare exception and I’ve tried many vintages of that wine and was a little disappointed.
Vintage can play a major role sometimes (and sometimes not as much) but when you find an amazing wine, it’s fun to hunt down every vintage possible.
Here are a couple bottles I can recommend if you want to see if we have similar flavor profiles:
* Cote Rotie:
* Guigal – Chateau d’Ampuis. You should be able to find the 2017 vintage and it’s solid, best vintages imo are 2012 and 2010 but you’ll have to hunt those down. Guigal has famous Cote Roties that are all single vinyard called “la la’s” (la mouline, la landonne, la turque). New vintages tend to run about $400 and they go up the older they are and they can be mind blowing, but Chateau d’Ampuis is great because it’s vineyards back up to/touch some of the la-la’s so you’re getting some similar terroir for 1/3 the price.
* Also a note that you can find producers share land on Landonne and this is a very special terroir and it’s fun to try any Cote Rotie producer that has a Landonne plot and you can see that there really is unique and identifiable characteristics to this terroir.
* Cornas:
* Matthieu Barret – Billes Noir (2011 vintage). This is a wine that is on no one’s radar and is a total show stopper, gotta get the 2011 vintage though and damn if you’ve ever had a wine like that in your life lmk because that is something unique and interesting. Other vintages are great but 2011 is the one…and you should be able to find it under $200
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Another thing I should mention is decanting time makes a big difference imo. A lot of good wines (that aren’t old) really benefit from 4-5 hours decant time. That may seem like a long time, and there is prob diminishing returns but some wines really do need the extra time. I’ve had a Guigal La Landonne (10 yr old vintage) drink amazing at 27 hours after leaving some over for the next day but that is a bigger/more tannic wine and more of an exception, but just as an interesting anecdote.
Old wine vs newer vintages: This depends on the varietal of course, so some wines you really just have to splurge on the older vintages. This is where you’ll spend $1k+ and be happy but again it should be an appellation you’re already hunting everything down in. (these are for the grail type wines)
There was a bottle shop that I knew of where the owner just bought tons of stock decades ago and was selling bottles 20,30+ years old and even some wines that weren’t killer were really fun to drink at an older age. I do tend to think that the older you go you do lose some important characteristics past a certain point but I also like that “old wine” flavor that seems to be common. Some old wines hold up quite well though, I once tried a 1967 Rioja, side by side to its 2001 vintage and it surprisingly still had a lot of “pizzaz” left in it (although I don’t drink a ton of Rioja).
Earlier in my wine journey I was a red only wine drinker but I’ve since found that I love whites, fortified, skin contact and all kinds of wines. I’ve had some old whites (23 years old to be exact) that were weird but amazing. I generally tend to find that mouthfeel is really important to me, the ability for a wine to show off subtle complexities and new flavors and have them all be integrated well – this is what I consider a high quality wine. Though sometimes, I like to drink stuff that is bizarre and weird to try new flavor profiles and if they can have some level of integration or nice mouthfeel then that’s a major winner for me. A cool wine in this category is Paulo Bea’s Arboreus which is a skin contact white wine that’s pretty tannic and a bit bizarre but just a really fun wine to drink.
One last note is that if you can connect/befriend some somms they can really open up your world. I was extremely lucky to live near Lazy Bear in SF which had multiple somms, one master somm and another guy that ended up getting his master and man those guys were so cool and really opened up my world of wine. During covid, to stay in business, they opened up their cellars and were selling their wine at cost +20% so it was like retail prices for stuff you just can’t find otherwise. I would go in there every few days, chat with the guys and they would recommend stuff I would otherwise never have discovered and really had some amazing wines. This was a pretty lucky and unusual scenario but if you can find some sort of community, bottle share club or something that will also help accelerate your palate expansion.
You are getting very bogged down on not get swindled. There are too many personal factors to find the perfect wine qpr for someone else. Taste is subjective and price is subjective to a certain extent, $40 to me isn’t going to be the same as $40 to a billionaire. There is definitely a point for everyone where you are getting diminishing returns on the price you are paying. There are plenty of very expensive wines that I don’t like, SQN for example is way heavier than my personal preference but there are plenty of people out there willing to pay the hundreds of dollars per bottle to drink it. I love a $20 bottle of muscadet that a sine qua non drinker may find repulsive. The best part about wine is tasting new things from different places and finding out what you find is best. Don’t skip to the end, just try new things and appreciate the things that aren’t necessarily your preference for what it is. All that being said pauillac de latour is just fine and you are mostly paying for the label.
It’s clearly very subjective and there’s also a creep up… the more expensive wines one drinks, the higher the indifference level gets.
As you point out also it depends from regions : Rioja, Southern Rhône, Washington state, Italians ex Piedmont/Tuscany/Amarone , NZ , have different levels than Burgundy /Napa/Bordeaux.
I’ll give you my 2 cents: I drink wines between 20-40$
for everyday occasions (ie not thinking about pairing, just pop and pour) and between 35- 80 still retail for special occasions, nice meals, more thoughtful pairings, older bottles . I also tend to gravitate to better QPR regions.
On average I can tell the difference;). But sometimes a daily drinker just hits the spot!