Wine nerds: Can't taste difference between $10 and $25

[Anonymous]

I drink Cabernet. For me there is a difference between $10-$30 bottles of wine. There is also an improvement in the $50-$100 range. However, beyond $100, my palate is not sophisticated enough to differentiate between the extreme sublties of wine tasting.

[Anonymous]

Wine is like music, or art, or food. There's a whole wide world of it out there, and there are different regions and genres, some more expensive, some less. (There's great-to-awful Salvadoran food, great-to-awful steakhouses, grocery-store-to-flown-from-Tokyo sushi, etc.) Some styles appeal to some but not others, some are mass-produced and some are custom, etc. Price does not directly correlate with quality (much), nor with what you like. The market has consumers of varying tastes and budgets, and producers of varying tastes and budgets.

If you immerse yourself in it, or study it, or just drink a lot of it, you may find yourself appreciating fine nuances, or chasing far-off, hard-to-find specimens, or willing to splurge for once-in-a-lifetime experiences. If you don't do these things, then it's a waste of money to blindly spend chasing quality, when price is determined by a lot of things other than quality, and quality is subjective anyway.

If you like what you're drinking, and what you're drinking costs $10, carry on. It's a waste to pay more. Stick with what you know at the price you like. If you want to branch out, then you need a guide, who can (a) suggest where you'll find value at the price you want to spend, and (b) suggest stuff that will appeal to your own individual taste, and the context you'll be drinking in (with meal? without? every day? special occasion? gift? what season? what food? etc.) Hence the many recommendations for knowledgeable vendors at reputable shops.


To detour into my subjective recommendations for accessibility and value: my preferred reds these days are from Spain, Chile, and Argentina. I think there's value and versatility there. I think California Chardonnay and Cabernet, because of their popularity and familiarity, are crowded with plonk at the low end and overpriced at the high end, and in the $20-$25 range it's easy to pay more than you'd like without tasting results in the glass. The same is true of almost all pinot noir, though there are a few accessible values in Oregon (and I like Mark West). If I'm drinking California red, it's most likely to be zinfandel or a rhone-style blend (or sometimes, wine from the actual Rhone Valley). On the white side, my favorites right now, again for versatility and value, are chenin blanc, viognier, and sauvignon blanc. Others' mileage may vary, of course.

And I'm willing to pay more for Virginia wine, because I like supporting the growing local wine industry and keeping my money local.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and my favorite shops are Ace, MacArthur, Calvert Woodley, One Dupont Cir. West, Conn. Ave. Wine & Liquor, and Bell on M St. (used to be stodgy, but under much better mgmt now). Also Whole Foods, and Costco. Great deals at Costco. But there's not a wine-dedicated staff there, so if you don't know your stuff, you have to get friendly and rely on other browsing wine nerds.

[Anonymous]

Wine is like music, or art, or food.

I should have added, or shoes, or clothes, or jewelry. $150 shoes are not automatically going to be twice as good as $75 shoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wine is like music, or art, or food.

I should have added, or shoes, or clothes, or jewelry. $150 shoes are not automatically going to be twice as good as $75 shoes.

The difference there is that with clothes or shoes, you can look at them (or even try them on) before buying.

If you had to buy clothes by explaining to a salesperson, "I like lighter colored clothes without buttons, and preferably collared, for under $50", and then they hand you over a wrapped package... well, then that seems more analogous.
Still seems like a crap shoot, unless you've already had that wine before.

Anyone have rec's for wine shop in Western Fairfax County (i.e. Reston/Herndon/Fairfax)?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I should have added, or shoes, or clothes, or jewelry. $150 shoes are not automatically going to be twice as good as $75 shoes.

The difference there is that with clothes or shoes, you can look at them (or even try them on) before buying.

If you had to buy clothes by explaining to a salesperson, "I like lighter colored clothes without buttons, and preferably collared, for under $50", and then they hand you over a wrapped package... well, then that seems more analogous.
Still seems like a crap shoot, unless you've already had that wine before.

That's true. But think about how interesting clothes and shoes would be if that's how you bought them!

[Anonymous]

Wine is a beverage. The key is to drink wine with people who treat it like a beverage instead of a status symbol.

Buy what you can afford and buy the ones you can tell the difference in quality and taste. If you can't tell the difference and you don't like it (winery, year, varietal, etc.), then don't buy it.

[Anonymous]

I only know what I like. I'm happy when it falls in the $10 range, which it mostly does.

[Anonymous]

Think about the exchange rate and the reliability of the climate. Good values from south america and southern europe (Spain, Portugal). I like whites from New Zealand a lot too. Agree with previous poster who said that cheap wine from CA was pretty bad.