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What’s
the difference between cheap and expensive wine?
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Wine for Normal People’s
Elizabeth Schneider
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March
2014
I’m a credentialed wine dork, former wine
industry insider, MBA, and tell-it-like-it-is, native New Yorker.
If you want a fresh, honest look at wine, join the other normal
wine people who are part of our growing community by listening,
reading, or interacting on Facebook and Twitter.
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Every
so often I get a question about the difference between cheap wine
and better wine: “What’s the real difference? Why spend $25
when I can spend $2.50? Seriously, it’s just fermented grapes. Isn’t
it all the same?”
No. And despite the articles and taste tests of experts where the
$2 wine in the $200 bottle wins a blind tasting, there is a difference
between shit wine and good stuff. Those tests are in pressured environments,
with artificial conditions (peer pressure), and play off the idea
that people are really susceptible to suggestion (which we all are,
since we’re human).
I’m telling you, even if you don’t know how expensive a wine is,
when you taste something that is well made, there’s a big difference
between that and plonk.
I’m totally willing to buy that, like everything in wine, tasting
quality is something you learn as you learn more about wine. You
may be at a place now where you can’t taste the difference. It will
come with time and more tasting.
Regardless of what you can or can’t taste, there are some serious,
concrete differences between mass produced wine and boutique wine
that may be of interest. These are farming, winemaking, and flavor
factors that make a big difference in quality and price. So even
if you can’t taste the difference now, maybe this will at least
provide an explanation of the price difference between good wine
and cheap wine and give you an appreciation of why some wineries
charge more for their wine.
1. Since all great wine starts in the vineyard, the best vineyard
sites are prized, limited and the grapes from there cost more.
Let’s take wine out of the equation for a second. Let’s bring this
to tomatoes.
Ever been to a local tomatoes farmer’s market? There are usually
multiple people selling tomatoes. One week you buy tomatoes from
a farmer whose wares look awesome and whose tomatoes are half the
price of the vendor next to her. But when you slice the tomatoes
open and taste them, they are acidic and too earthy for your liking.
They lack sweetness and aren’t so juicy. So when you go back you
spring for the more expensive ones. It ticked you off a little to
have to pay double for a tomato, but you decide to do it anyway.
When you cut open that tomato and taste it, the heavens open and
angels sing. This is the best tomato you’ve ever eaten. You would
pay 4 times the price of the other tomato for this experience.
What’s going on here? It’s the effect of terrior and the
brilliance of the farmer in picking the right fruit for the right
place on her farm. Growing on the right spot, the tomatoes are heavenly.
Growing on a less good spot, they suck. Grapes are the same way.
So expect higher quality, better fruit to go into expensive wine.
If someone grows grapes on crappy sites where grapes don’t gain
maximum flavor and structure, the resulting wine is going to suck.
If they grow it in a place with the right sun exposure, soil type,
drainage, and slope, you get unbelievable grapes. And you can’t
have great wine without great grapes. Period. So some of the expense
of better wine is from the cost of growing on coveted, often hard
to farm sites that make kick ass grapes.
2. Winemaking has another huge effect. If you don’t know what
you’re doing and don’t use the right equipment (the right kind of
barrels, the right type of maceration, fermentation) the wine isn’t
going to be as good.
Never is this more clear than when you’re touring around a wine
region trying the wines. The wines of the area are from similar
vineyards and sometimes from the exact same ones, but in the hands
of different winemakers they taste completely different. The winemaker’s
decisions can make or break a wine.
So even if you’ve done a great job in the vineyard and you have
beautiful grapes that have outstanding potential, you’re by no means
done — it can still all go to pot. Trust me, I’ve seen this happen.
In the hands of an overzealous, tech-loving winemaker, beautiful
grapes can transform into a wine that tastes like a mouthful of
vanilla and butter with no hint of the natural goodness that came
from the land. READ
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