> I enjoy great wine and it seldom costs more than $8 a bottle.

You can definitely get really good wine cheap. But! Sometimes it's worth it to bump up.

I drink a lot of whites these days because my wife can't tolerate red. I find that there is a sweet spot at about $25 (NYC retail prices) for whites that are noticeably better than cheaper ones -- French whites like Sancerre, decent Chablis, the less fancy Bourgognes; what I think of as new-style California Chardonnays (not oaky, more like French Chards).

Then there's another sweet spot for whites at about $40, which includes some of my favorite bottles ever, which can change your idea about what good wine can taste like, if you don't usually "go there" pricewise.. I'll call out specifically the Alma Fria and Division Chardonnays, both from California, and in general a $40 bottle of Bourgogne will be very special.

I also love natural (spontaneously fermented) wines as discussed in the article, but that's a whole different drinking experience, more like kombucha in a lot of ways than conventional wine.