A friend of mine used to run blind themed wine tastings: Each of us would bring a Barolo, say. They'd go into numbered brown paper bags and we'd taste, make not

A friend of mine used to run blind themed wine tastings: Each of us would bring a Barolo, say. They'd go into numbered brown paper bags and we'd taste, make notes, rate, then reveal and taste some more. Typically these 8-10 wines would range from $25-$200/bottle, and other than the host we'd have no real idea of the selection until they'd been revealed. We'd typically intermix some suitable "matching" small plates so we could try the wines with and without food. From a half dozen or so of these, my anecdotal conclusions: A good percentage of expensive wines are either very difficult to enjoy or flatly bad. On the other hand, the pre-reveal consensus winners for the night were very rarely bottles costing less than $40-50, and often were among the most expensive. My guess is that if you asked two expert sommeliers to pair six wines with two six course meals, and gave one a budget of $200 for six bottles and another a budget of $1000, almost anyone with a passion for drinking fine wine could distinguish the more expensive wines and would enjoy them more.