> are experts just able to detect what expensive wine tastes like, as opposed to what nice-tasting wine tastes like? A real expert can do both. The problem is

> are experts just able to detect what expensive wine tastes like, as opposed to what nice-tasting wine tastes like? A real expert can do both. The problem is that "nice-tasting" means different things to different people, and "nice tasting" may or may not have any correlation or even overlap with "expensive". The most expensive wines I've ever had have tasted horrible, borderline undrinkable, because they have all been very old wines, which I personally don't like. But some people (apparently) like the taste of very old wines, which are rare, and expensive to produce because they (obviously) have to be stored for a very long time. The main skill of a true wine expert is to be able to listen to someone else describe what they like and then pick a wine that matches that description or, even better, takes them just a little bit outside of their usual comfort zone. Wines don't become expensive because they are good. They become expensive for the same reason any other commodity does; the demand, for whatever reason, exceeds the supply. There are really good wines that are cheap because they are mass-produced, and really bad wines that are expensive because they are rare, but have just enough people with more money than sense willing to buy them for whatever reason.