Not all top consumers are so poor that they have to go for the cheap stuff. Also, if you're one of the people drinking it once a year, twenty of you is worth one of them to the producer. It doesn't take many such people to swamp you, consumption wise.

I rented a cellar apartment in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in my country for some years. (I got it cheap because the owner mostly just wanted someone to be there when she was away, also there was no real kitchen). Other than me and the au-pairs I met on morning jogs, everyone there was probably obscenely rich.

And I'm no expert on those things, but the bottles I saw lying along the roads on those jogs didn't seem like the cheap sort.

How much alcoholics spend to satisfy their addiction is largely a function of how much disposable income they can muster.