So 80% of the British public prefer a £5 bottle of wine to a £20 one, according to the London Wine Academy. Also, around 50% of Britons estimated that the £5 bottle of Aspen Hills Chardonnay from South East Australia was in fact more expensive than a £20 bottle of Gerard Thomas Saint-Aubin 1er Cru from Burgundy from France. Please note that they are both made from the same grape.
None of this surprises me. It does not surprise me that some Masters of Wine cannot do it either and I often get fooled myself. Wine tasting is not scientific and it cannot possible be so. There is no independent variable to test against and the human palate cannot measure the taste components of a wine to make objective comparisons.
From a wine tasting point of view all we can do is look for the overall balance of acidity, tannin, sweetness and alcohol of the wine. Also, its general flavour and taste complexity and the length of time that that flavour remains on the palate should be assessed. Wines which are better balanced and have more complex tastes and where the taste remains on the palate for a long time can be gauged to be better.
A £20 bottle of fine wine should also be able to keep and improve in the bottle for a number of years. But cheaper bottles can do this too. Some £20 bottles are inferior in quality to lesser priced ones. The trick and skill of wine tasting is to be able to identify a really good wine at a really good price: a wine which will improve in the bottle.
At a Christmas dinner party many years ago my family agreed that a bottle of the second wine of Château Pape Clement Red Bordeaux or The Clementin, bought at a bargain for £8 pounds a bottle, was of better quality than a £100 bottle of Echezeux Grand Cru Red Burgundy. And they were right.
You are entitled to get a really good bottle of wine for £20 and quite often you do not. I have never tasted Gerard Thomas Saint-Aubin 1er Cru from Burgundy from France so I cannot pass comment on this wine. However, if Majestic stock it it is probably very good wine.
For £5 a bottle you would expect a good wine too. In some respects the market for wine is buoyed up by the expectation that if a pundit scores the wine highly then the wine must be good and the price should go up. Well pundits can get it wrong. Ask yourself, how can a wine which scores 99 be that much better than a wine that scores 97? The whole concept of wine scoring is ridiculous. In my view there are only four categories bad, standard, good and outstanding. Good and outstanding wines should be able to improve in the bottle for a number of years despite their price.
Wine is made more expensive that it need be by wine experts offering lurid descriptions of wine and suggesting quality that may not necessarily be there. Hence the bitter irony behind the
"Château L'Ordure Pomerol, 2004" see the bottom link below.
With regard to taste why should a top quality wine have to taste so much? I often buy high quality cheese for a £15 or more a kilo and it does taste noticeably better than cheaper processed cheese. But the good stuff is not so expensive that I am reluctant to buy it. This is not the case with wine.
Sometimes, I like to open a cheap tin of baked beans and eat them on toast with bacon and egg. It is delicious. There is no need for snobbery about food or wine.
The great British public deserve to get a good bottle of wine for £5 and a top notch one for £20. So what if they prefer the cheaper bottle and if they value it more than the top cru then so what again?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/wine/10445719/Britons-actually-prefer-cheaper-wine.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2504531/20-fine-wine-5-plonk-Most-just-tell--people-prefer-cheaper-bottles-blind-taste-tests.html
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2013/jun/24/should-we-listen-wine-critics
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis
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