Hacker News Reader

Comment by Johnny555 | Hacker News Reader

Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine. In a sample of more than 6,000 blind tastings, we find that the correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less. For individuals with wine training, however, we find indications of a non-negative relationship between price and enjoyment. Our results are robust to the inclusion of individual fixed effects, and are not driven by outliers: when omitting the top and bottom deciles of the price distribution, our qualitative results are strengthened, and the statistical significance is improved further. These findings suggest that non-expert wine consumers should not anticipate greater enjoyment of the intrinsic qualities of a wine simply because it is expensive or is appreciated by experts.

https://www.wine-economics.org/aawe/wp-content/uploads/2012/...

View on HN

I see it more to be case of palate: people without wine training prefer cheaper wines, because they are build around primary aromas and might include some sugar or sweet tanins. It is like giving people tea with sugar or not. Most will prefer sugared version, producers of those cheap wines are aware of it and create their wines this way.

Expensive wine are usually more complicated and don't give you those basic pleasures, especially true for Old World Wines. It takes a while to people to build appreciation of those wines as there is huge culture component behind it.

You might see wine as pleasure giving beverage, in this case you are better with some nice fruit driven bottles which are usually cheaper.

Expensive wine are usually more complicated and don't give you those basic pleasures

But do the more expensive wines really give any more pleasure, or have people trained themselves to find it pleasing? Could someone be trained to appreciate the traits found in less expensive wines?

> But do the more expensive wines really give any more pleasure, or have people trained themselves to find it pleasing?

From my perspective, yes. A truly great wine is one that you want to sit with and follow from a palate and aromatic perspective over an evening or even a couple days. They evolve, improve, and continually impress from first sip to last.

2 Buck Chuck and other cheap "wines" doesn't evolve or improve, it's a static drink (for lack of a better term) that starts to degrade with oxidation in hours. If you tried to save a glass or two to look at the next day it would be borderline undrinkable.

What most people won't tell you though is that once you get to the $25+ per bottle wines there isn't much difference in those wines and the incredibly expensive ones. Furthermore most incredibly expensive wines aren't truly "great" wines and often disappoint in blind tastings. BUT (and it's a big BUT) every now and again you taste an expensive wine that is positively sublime. That's what keeps you coming back.

Thats actually good question. People do get trained to enjoy more complicated wines (they don't need to be more expensive, but they usually are).

I would use analogy with pop music and classical music or modern jazz. For a lots and lots of people your club-night-out pop music will give more pleasure than sitting in auditorium listening to Rachmaninoff.

Drinking wine and spending time learning to appreciate the wine are two very different paths. Whenever it is worth it is another question. But there are differences between cheap-industrial-pop wines and fine wines.

But doesn't that quote refute "We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine." assuming aficionados would be considered expert wine consumers?

It seems like a bit of a grey area - I don't know how to classify a "self-proclaimed aficionado" -- is that someone that really knows wine, or just a wine enthusiast that knows less than they think? (as opposed to a professional sommelier who has had professional training and certification, or at least proven experience)

preferring the cheap stuff is not the same as not being able to distinguish between cheap and expensive stuff. These tasters can tell the difference, and prefer cheap

Thank you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com