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Comment by valuearb | Hacker News Reader

And since people can't tell most wines apart, what's the point?

http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infamo...

Most people can't tell a red from a white by taste.

I think this is a common misconception. Various tests have asked ordinary people to determine what wine is expensive and what isn't. They can't.

(Also, if people know a wine is expensive, they don't enjoy it more. They enjoy it less. At least according to one well controlled study: http://www.wine-economics.org/aawe/wp-content/uploads/2012/1...)

That doesn't mean that very fine distinctions between wines cannot be independently and blindly detected by both experts and amateurs.

Prices are set at the margin [1]. Most people can't differentiate high-quality and low-quality wines. But some can. They are on the margin and will set prices.

As an anecdote, I can blindly identify with pricing in respect of certain regions and grapes, e.g. Valpolicella, Amarone and the Cabernets. (That is to say, I will blindly prefer the higher-priced bottles over lower-priced ones.) I am willing to pay a premium for those. With other grapes, e.g. Pinot Noir, my tastes don't seem to correlate with prices. (This is also true, with me, for whiskey and absinthe.)

[1] http://optionalreading.blogspot.com/2012/12/laws-of-price-pr...

The difference in pinot noir and say, cabernet sauv is like night and day, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Sure, but they probably meant "would an average person be able to differentiate TJ Rodgers Pinot Noir from another high quality winery's Pinot Noir"?

Most people could differentiate them, but wouldn't be able to identify the higher quality wine.

Burgundy pinot vs new world pinot? If they're a fan, they'd have little trouble spotting the Burgundy.

I agree, but the parent said average person, so I was thinking of someone less experienced.

This is exactly the problem; studies are done where random person who has a glass now and then can't tell food-coloring altered white from red, readers see "nobody can tell wines apart".

Well, the last statement doesn't imply that:

> Most people can't tell a red from a white by taste.

I most certainly can!

But I do agree, sometimes it's hard to judge the cheap wine vs the expensive ones, but we're talking $25 bottle to a $40 bottle. I don't have a lot of difficulty picking out the $8 vs the $25 from purely anecdotal experience. I am determined to double-blind myself at some point though.

There will always be a market for a high quality version of whatever you can think of.

but not at any price.

You think there's not a race to the top in the wine-as-status-symbol market?

https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/paulet+rsrv+louis+xvi+ext...

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