5 ms·

If I buy a bottle of plonk for $20 and it tastes as I except, I don't stress about what gamma rays it's emitting. I just reckon I got what I paid for. Of course

by kayo_20211030 1y ago

If I buy a bottle of plonk for $20 and it tastes as I except, I don't stress about what gamma rays it's emitting. I just reckon I got what I paid for. Of course, if I payed $1 million, and I dare not open it, I might stress quite a lot. But really, that's for other people not me. I sadly don't have a million bucks to spend on wine.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
At these numbers you don't buy a product, you buy an investment with the intent to sell it later on; if it turns out to be a fake though, it's worthless. On the other hand, if you get it verified, it goes up in value by a lot.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Collectable wine is essentially orthogonal to quality and taste when blind tasted. Never pay over say ~$30-40 USD for a bottle of wine if all you care about is taste. That's the gist I got from VEN 3 at UC Davis. And, always buy budget wine while suggesting to people it was "expensive". ;) People who want to collect expensive wine, more power to them, but it seems to me somewhere between a tulip bulb, Beanie Babies, and art market. https://localwiki.org/davis/VEN_3 https://localwiki.org/davis/VEN_3 https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/wine-study-shows-price-influences-perception-1374 https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/wine-study-shows-price-in... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08080-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08080-0
- kulahan 1y ago
  Two Buck Chuck was a famously inexpensive and delicious wine from... Trader Joe's, I think? Though last I heard it got moved to Three Buck Chuck. It's my dad's favorite. Incidentally, he once went to a wine auction with a rich friend. The friend bid on a $1000 bottle of wine (ostensibly inexpensive among this crowd) and gave it to my dad as a gift, who ended up not drinking it until years later when his first grandchild was born. If I remember correctly, he preferred the Two Buck Chuck.
  - throwaway81523 1y ago
    2 buck Chuck (now around 4 bucks) was never a particular wine or wine blend. It is whatever the factory happened to overproduce in the hope of selling it under more expensive labels. Whatever was left over got sold as 2 buck Chuck. It tends to be perfectly good wine, but not consistent at all from one shopping trip to the next.
    - kulahan 1y ago
      TIL! I basically don’t drink anything but makgeolli and soju these days, and I’ve never been much into wine, but that’s such a neat approach. Whoever was choosing which wine overproduction to buy was a real monster it seems.
      - throwaway81523 1y ago
        I don't think they were buying someone else's overproduction. 2 buck Chuck (2BC) is made by a huge winemaker that sells under a lot of different labels. So the stuff that ends up as 2BC was already in their inventory and 2BC gave them a way to get rid of it. The main innovation of 2BC is it being sold cheap in respectable looking bottles. Cheap decent wine has always existed as box wine or jug wine. Long before 2BC there was an actual person named Charles Shaw who was a niche winemaker whose company went bankrupt. Bronco Wines (the huge winemaker above) picked up the assets including the brand, and used the brand to create 2BC. Shaw was apparently pissed, but oh well.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  I suppose it's like rare classic cars. They're usually not great to drive, and often aren't ever driven.
- bsder 1y ago
  > Never pay over say ~$30-40 USD for a bottle of wine if all you care about is taste. Change that to 30-40 EUR from Carrefour? Sure. In the US, not so much. I do not understand how I can spend a minor fortune on wine in the US and not like a single bottle (including many imported from France!). By contrast, I can spend very reasonable amounts on wine in France and almost never have a bottle that I don't like.
  - OJFord 1y ago
    You've answered it yourself? 'imported from France'. It's more expensive in the UK too for example, but not to the extent it is over there.
    - bsder 1y ago
      > You've answered it yourself? 'imported from France'. This is no explanation at all. This does not explain why expensive bottles of wine imported from France aren't as good as basic bottles from Carrefour (even from before Sir Random-Tariffs-a-Lot). It also doesn't explain why US wine producers aren't producing basic wine as good as basic wine in France (in my opinion). US wine producers spend VAST amounts of money on the technology and knowledge to make wine. There is no "magic" in wine production knowledge that the US wine producers wouldn't have figured out by now. At this point the difference is either fundamental (Napa soil matches France but climate does not, for example) or market driven (French wine drinkers expect better wines so market forces cause sub-par wines to get driven out quicker). Neither of those explanations are very satisfying. You would expect that an ambitious US wine producer would someone solve anything fundamental. And "market forces" implies that somehow wine in France resists "cheapening forces" that affect every other foodstuff. My personal hypothesis is that the problem is fundamental and is about batch size (I'm extrapolating a bit from the craft brew scene). Large batch sizes are notoriously different in kinematics from small batch sizes in industrial processes. French wine producers are often making wines from, as seen in the US, very small grape plantations in very small batches. US producers tend toward much larger batches as it vastly increases the profitability, and US small batch producers tend not to have deep knowledge about winemaking.
fred_is_fred 1y ago
I wish I could find the study but there was one done where people were given the same wine samples and then told how much the bottle cost - either a low or high number. People enjoyed the "expensive" wine more and rated it more highly. Like you, at 1M I might feel more like "why did we waste money on this?"
rolph 1y ago
wine is one of those things that allow for indirect sampling of conditions at or about the vintage year. this may be more valuable than a vicarious, but high class swig of conspicuous consumption.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

At these numbers you don't buy a product, you buy an investment with the intent to sell it later on; if it turns out to be a fake though, it's worthless. On the other hand, if you get it verified, it goes up in value by a lot.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

Collectable wine is essentially orthogonal to quality and taste when blind tasted. Never pay over say ~$30-40 USD for a bottle of wine if all you care about is taste. That's the gist I got from VEN 3 at UC Davis. And, always buy budget wine while suggesting to people it was "expensive". ;) People who want to collect expensive wine, more power to them, but it seems to me somewhere between a tulip bulb, Beanie Babies, and art market. https://localwiki.org/davis/VEN_3 https://localwiki.org/davis/VEN_3 https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/wine-study-shows-price-influences-perception-1374 https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/wine-study-shows-price-in... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08080-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08080-0

kulahan 1y ago
Two Buck Chuck was a famously inexpensive and delicious wine from... Trader Joe's, I think? Though last I heard it got moved to Three Buck Chuck. It's my dad's favorite. Incidentally, he once went to a wine auction with a rich friend. The friend bid on a $1000 bottle of wine (ostensibly inexpensive among this crowd) and gave it to my dad as a gift, who ended up not drinking it until years later when his first grandchild was born. If I remember correctly, he preferred the Two Buck Chuck.
- throwaway81523 1y ago
  2 buck Chuck (now around 4 bucks) was never a particular wine or wine blend. It is whatever the factory happened to overproduce in the hope of selling it under more expensive labels. Whatever was left over got sold as 2 buck Chuck. It tends to be perfectly good wine, but not consistent at all from one shopping trip to the next.
  - kulahan 1y ago
    TIL! I basically don’t drink anything but makgeolli and soju these days, and I’ve never been much into wine, but that’s such a neat approach. Whoever was choosing which wine overproduction to buy was a real monster it seems.
    - throwaway81523 1y ago
      I don't think they were buying someone else's overproduction. 2 buck Chuck (2BC) is made by a huge winemaker that sells under a lot of different labels. So the stuff that ends up as 2BC was already in their inventory and 2BC gave them a way to get rid of it. The main innovation of 2BC is it being sold cheap in respectable looking bottles. Cheap decent wine has always existed as box wine or jug wine. Long before 2BC there was an actual person named Charles Shaw who was a niche winemaker whose company went bankrupt. Bronco Wines (the huge winemaker above) picked up the assets including the brand, and used the brand to create 2BC. Shaw was apparently pissed, but oh well.
HPsquared 1y ago
I suppose it's like rare classic cars. They're usually not great to drive, and often aren't ever driven.
bsder 1y ago
> Never pay over say ~$30-40 USD for a bottle of wine if all you care about is taste. Change that to 30-40 EUR from Carrefour? Sure. In the US, not so much. I do not understand how I can spend a minor fortune on wine in the US and not like a single bottle (including many imported from France!). By contrast, I can spend very reasonable amounts on wine in France and almost never have a bottle that I don't like.
- OJFord 1y ago
  You've answered it yourself? 'imported from France'. It's more expensive in the UK too for example, but not to the extent it is over there.
  - bsder 1y ago
    > You've answered it yourself? 'imported from France'. This is no explanation at all. This does not explain why expensive bottles of wine imported from France aren't as good as basic bottles from Carrefour (even from before Sir Random-Tariffs-a-Lot). It also doesn't explain why US wine producers aren't producing basic wine as good as basic wine in France (in my opinion). US wine producers spend VAST amounts of money on the technology and knowledge to make wine. There is no "magic" in wine production knowledge that the US wine producers wouldn't have figured out by now. At this point the difference is either fundamental (Napa soil matches France but climate does not, for example) or market driven (French wine drinkers expect better wines so market forces cause sub-par wines to get driven out quicker). Neither of those explanations are very satisfying. You would expect that an ambitious US wine producer would someone solve anything fundamental. And "market forces" implies that somehow wine in France resists "cheapening forces" that affect every other foodstuff. My personal hypothesis is that the problem is fundamental and is about batch size (I'm extrapolating a bit from the craft brew scene). Large batch sizes are notoriously different in kinematics from small batch sizes in industrial processes. French wine producers are often making wines from, as seen in the US, very small grape plantations in very small batches. US producers tend toward much larger batches as it vastly increases the profitability, and US small batch producers tend not to have deep knowledge about winemaking.

fred_is_fred 1y ago

I wish I could find the study but there was one done where people were given the same wine samples and then told how much the bottle cost - either a low or high number. People enjoyed the "expensive" wine more and rated it more highly. Like you, at 1M I might feel more like "why did we waste money on this?"

rolph 1y ago

wine is one of those things that allow for indirect sampling of conditions at or about the vintage year. this may be more valuable than a vicarious, but high class swig of conspicuous consumption.