To get to my local wine store, I step out my back door, pass through a gate, cross the alley, and slip through the back door. I'm there in 20 seconds. It is dangerously convenient. And I'm at the wine store more than I should be.
Every now and then, I observe something in there that really harshes my wine-buying mellow. Usually, it involves loud, middle-aged guys who inevitably end up stuffing themselves into the late-model BMW sedans they've illegally parked out front in the handicap zone.
The other day, though, a woman burst in, making a big, blustery show of it, and proving the gender neutrality of wine snobbery. She drew attention to herself like a human Klieg light, pairing an enormous personality with zero capacity for self-editing and an all but total lack of self-awareness.
Immediately, she barked at the shop clerk. She was on a quest for the very best wines in the store--and apparently didn't care who knew about it.
The clerk led her over to the swanky Barolo section. Not sufficiently inspired by the thought of Italian wine, she asked for a Cabernet Sauvignon.
"What's your price range?" asked the clerk.
"Price doesn't matter!" she boasted.
"Would you like a Cabernet from France, California, Washington--"
"Oh no, not Washington! Washington is awful!" she said, casually impugning the entire wine industry of America's second largest wine-producing state. (Full disclosure: This was all happening in a Seattle wine shop loaded with delicious local Washington wines.)
She spoke with a force of certainty that drew stunned double-takes from several of us in the shop. I caught the smirking eyes of another customer; it was like we were silently asking each other, "Did she really just say that?”"
The clerk protested mildly, "Oh, well, there are some very nice Washington Cabernets."
And in fact the most expensive wine in the shop turned out to be a bottle of Quilceda Creek Cab…from Washington. The clerk carefully removed the bottle from its glass case and showed it to the woman. "This is a tremendous Washington wine," the clerk said. "It was rated 99 points by Wine Spectator."
And that was all it took.
Sold!
It wasn't like the clerk swayed her with a Perry Mason-like defense of Washington wine. Ultimately, all the customer required was the wine be prohibitively expensive and achieve a Spectator rating that flirted with perfection. In all of about 15 seconds, the customer's unambiguous opinion about Washington wine was turned on its head.
She plopped down a credit card, bundled up the Quilceda, and she was gone. Calm restored.
And who knows? Maybe that one bottle is worth it. Maybe there's an epiphany in store for this customer. But what then? Will her capacity for appreciation be confined to the $200 price point? What about a $100 bottle of Washington wine? Is that gamble just a bit too risky? A $50 bottle? $20? Okay, now I'm probably insulting her.
Studies, like the one recently completed by the California Institute of Technology, have shown a person is more likely to enjoy wine if they believe it is expensive. Tell someone a $5 bottle of wine is actually $50, and his perceptions will contort themselves like a bendy toy until he's convinced he's truly enjoying it. The opposite is true too: Portray pricey wine as a bargain-bin selection, and he'll probably pick it apart.
Price and expectation clearly influence perception. What troubles me is that there's an enormous, yawning value gap at play here. Is a $200 bottle of wine really ten times more enjoyable than a good $20 bottle? Personally, it's hard to conceive it could be. But then, I'm approaching this from the perspective of someone simply looking for a good wine to serve with dinner.
Wine does not need to be so exalted to be appreciated. For me (and for the people I like to eat dinner and drink wine with), wine is not a cerebral exercise or a status symbol, it's a beverage I'm enjoying with grilled chicken or meatloaf. It's this simple enjoyment of wine with food that matters most. That's where I always find the most value.
So how do you determine real value when you're shopping for wine? For starters, I'd ask the wine clerk at your store. Where are the best deals coming from these days? Wine prices are rising with the rest of our agricultural products, and he or she probably has some insight to share. If you know what you're cooking, get the wine clerk's opinions on a good pairing, too.
But most importantly, don't be discouraged if you're not buying the most expensive bottles in the store. Few people ever do buy them. As for that bottle of Quilceda, the clerk told me that this was the first bottle she'd ever sold. And even then, she expressed seller's remorse (that rarely observed distant cousin of buyer's remorse). She fretted she had sold the wrong bottle to the wrong person, which suddenly made me feel good about my unassuming, inexpensive grab-bag of wines--no way was I going to send my wine-selling friend spiraling downward into a fit of the worries with these modest purchases. These were simple, solid wines for dinner.
What's this?