The $30 wine blew me away and the $115 / 99pter left me feeling Ho Hum

I have to admit with my daugter & husband over for dinner last night we probably didn’t give the '01 Pride Reserve Cab it’s full due attn but, shouldn’t a $115 release (now going for $275 @ auction) ‘99 point wine grab your attention anyway? The Pride was delcious but no one seemed in awe of it. Or was it the strip steaks that rocked more? A couple nights before we had a $30 96’ Las Orcas Solar De Randez Rioja Resrva that knocked my socks off. Happen to any of you?

Every week.

To borrow from Harry Waugh: “Not since lunch.”

Price does not determine quality. It can (and might) be an indicator…but it’s no guarantee.

BTW - 01 Pride CS Reserve was one of the worst wines I had about 2 years ago. Terrible.

You cant taste points. Many Cali wines, are now made very fruit forward, Caymus comes to mind, and then dont age well.

Aren’t price and quality perfectly correlated?

I agree with you 100% Craig, and it happens all the time.

Bob, I can think of plenty of highly rated non-Cali wines that I’d prefer not to drink, too. But welcome to the board!

I’ve never had a $115 wine (note to self, make sure son marries up-class), but it’s no news that price isn’t firmly correlated to underlying quality, in wine as in other things. This idea is the basis of Warren Buffet’s investment strategy, fwiw.

But at 80 something, do you think Warren approaches wine with the same “buy and hold” strategy? I think he’s more a “drink now” guy!

Cost and points mean nothing. It’s individual palate preference and often expectations. Inexpensive wines are often built to provide maximum flavors on the short term, while some wines, regardless of price are made to age.

At this stage in my life, I’m blown away by a wine that tastes great for a price I can drink on a daily basis while the highly rated wines age long enough to evolve into something approachable. When that highly rated wine is ready and/or I decide its time to drink it, I approach it with a different set of expectations, based on the varietal, AVA and style, with the word nuance included.

Then again, Barolo is Chianti in regular wine bottles without the cute wicker basket on the bottom, for 10 to 100 times the cost.

An old Rioja (from one of the more traditional style houses) will blow an old Napa Cab out of the water any day. I tend to hate the point system in general, but with publications it definitely distorts the price and blows up demand for relatively crappy wines. When I was taking the classes for the CSW an older retired man was there spending his days learning about wine for his own satisfaction and not for any professional reason. Any time the man spoke it involved how many points the wine scored, this that or the other. His license plate was “cabernet”. He was an ex lawyer with good disposable income and would buy up any high scoring wine by the caseload. Theres tons of these people everywhere, sheep following two digit numbers starting with 9. I don’t understand the mentality and I never have, and the tragedy is worst when they actually give a wine worthy of that score a review. Goodbye me ever affording it.

Craig,
Absolutely happens to me all the time. I always harken back to the Cremant de Bourgogne producer Louis Bouillot. About two months ago, we had friends in and they were celebrating an anniversary – forget which one now – and I opened a Bollinger NV we had received as a gift. A very nice gift too as it is quite pricey in our market ~$70.00. The bottle was disappearing quickly so my friend Paul asked if I would open something else so I went immediately and got a red, decanted it and left it to sit. In the interim, I suggested we could have a white while the red opened up but, Paul’s wife said she was enjoying the bubbly so I thought I would open a 06 Bouillot Cremant ($19.99). The Bouillot was gone before the Bollinger and was everyone’s favourite of the two.

and my head just exploded.

My point exactly.

The rules are as follows:

1. Cheap wine isn’t great
2. Great wine isn’t cheap
3. Every other price-quality combination is in play

If you know what you like and shop intelligently, you can drink in the $25-$50 range with consistently pleasing results. Spend too little, and you won’t get very far. Spend too much and gains are only marginal.

It happened to me twice in recent memory. An 05 and 06 scarecrow were outclassed by much lower price-point wines with my tasting group, which tastes blind. I’ve since sold off my stash and dropped from the list.

Usually happens when I have a Champagne from a good grower next to an overrated tete de cuvee.