Money Myths: Expensive Wine Tastes Better
It’s going to be my 25th birthday soon, and I want to celebrate the occasion with some wine. But buying wine can be intimidating especially if it’s your first time. Many people say that the more expensive a wine is, the better it tastes, but this isn’t necessarily true. Here are some ways to make informed wine purchases:
Know that it’s all in the mind. I came across a study that showed how pricing controls people’s enjoyment of wine. Here’s a basic description of the study:
Dr Rangel gave his volunteers sips of what he said were five different wines made from cabernet sauvignon grapes, priced at between $5 and $90 a bottle. He told each of them the price of the wine in question as he did so. Except, of course, that he was fibbing. He actually used only three wines. He served up two of them twice at different prices.
Source: The Economist
The results? People said they enjoyed the “more expensive” wines, even if they were exactly the same as the less expensive wines. A blind tasting version of the same experiment where no prices were indicated showed that the volunteers could tell that the same wine was served twice.
In other words, people enjoy more expensive wines because their brain is playing tricks on them.
Decant it. In the old days, decanting was done to remove the sediment from the wine. However, the wine making process has improved since then, and nowadays decanting is done to mix the wine with air and open up the flavors. Doing so makes the wine less acidic, compared to serving it just after uncorking. This is especially important for young wines, and it can make inexpensive wines taste much better.
Note that you don’t need a fancy wine decanter to do this. In most cases, a glass pitcher will do.
In this video from WineLibraryTV, Gary Vaynerchuck talks about the benefits of wine decanting and how to do it.
Go with your own taste. Only your tastebuds can measure how sulit your wine purchase is, so go with what you like. If you really don’t like that P200 wine, don’t buy it. It’s just like throwing P200 down the drain. Conversely, if you don’t like an expensive wine, don’t buy it either.
Learn about wine. The more you know about wine, the less intimidating it will be to shop for the best deal. You won’t be subconsciously forced by salespeople to buy the most expensive thing around. Here are some great resources to learn more about wine:
- Cork’d – a site with user-submitted reviews on different wines
- Wine Library TV -videos about wine, presented by the entertaining GaryVaynerchuck
- Wine for Newbies – a blog about wine for those who are new to it
The next time there’s a special occasion that calls for wine, it’s important to make an informed choice. Doing so can not only stretch your peso, but expand your enjoyment as well.
What wines have you tried? Which did you like best, and how much were they?
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