Best Money You'll Ever Spend

There is a multitude of wine drinkers imbibing every night.  Or afternoon or morning, if you please.  Either way, while a few lucky aficionados are drinking the 'crus' of the world, the rest are out there picking up something that is stacked at the end of the aisle at Trader Joe's.  Whether you are into fancy wine or not, the cheapest wine sells in big quantities and that is the dominating chunk of volume of juice drank in any wine culture.

And for every person that is going to buy the rotgut that is marketed their way, I will have another ask how to break out of the slump of choosing the prettiest bottle over the best tasting one.  In the world of overwhelming selections, a plethora of deals, and a sales clerk that has no idea what you like, there is a bottle for you.  It will take some experimenting, some good wines and bad, but you will come out better for it in the end.  Or at least quenched.

For those of you out there who never know what to spend to enjoy a bottle of wine let me stress this: the best money you will ever spend on wine will be when you decide to move from the $10 range to the $15 range.  This five dollars is the biggest consistent increase in easily discernible quality.

For anybody who finds wine intimidating or can never really vocalize what makes one wine good and the other bad, this rule is for you.  The casual wine drinker will probably not care too much about the flavor profile being more subtle or developed between the $15 and $30 bottle of wine.  However, when you find yourself lost in the process of picking something off of the shelf, the simple descriptors between the $10 and $15 bottle will be what is important.  It will taste better.  It will be smoother.  And, seeing as wine is a social thing at its core, it will impress more friends or loved ones.


From a wine geek perspective, I probably will stick to beer when I see the '2 for $12' sticker on the bottle that is being passed around a cocktail party.  But at the same time, my casual everyday drinking wines, or the wines I try in tasting groups, or the wines I have picked for wine lists often fall in the $15 range.  I'll be there to help you open the bottle and make sure the first few glasses taste right.

Furthermore, let's examine a wine that is 50% more expensive at any other range.  Granted, the top price point of any comparison should have the ability to prove a better wine in a variety of attributes.  For example, a $30 bottle of wine could be a killer collectible bottle at the low end of the threshold for serious wines.  However, its $20 counterpart could be found preferential in many cases.  Same goes with the $40 wine sitting next to the $60.  Only when you start approaching extremes around $80 for the base wine does a wine purely sell for that much more because of prestige, history, or critical acclaim; all of which do not speak for your tastebuds.

After that, I'll let you decide for yourself what those most a bottle of wine could every be worth to you.  A decently regarded White Burgundy usually starts at $150.  First growth Bordeaux is going to sting you for at least $750.  Screaming Eagle may set you back $3000.  That's $4 a milliliter.  And it's immediately consumable, unlike most anything else you would spend that kind of money on.  One and done.  But of course, that's why it is there.  Wine is an extreme luxury.

Instead, transcend the luxury and get what you really want.  For five dollars more, buy yourself a wine that tastes good.