Let's Not Complain About the Perfectly Priced $1,000 Wines

The laws of Supply and Demand and Wallet Girth tell us if a wine is worth the price.

The most expensive wines in the world, even those that will put you back four figures, are not overpriced. Moreover, their real value has less to do with their quality than with their desirability.

And yet, every now and then, someone somewhere declares very loudly that those wineries that charge hundreds or thousands of dollars for their bottles are either gouging drinkers or simply “not worth” the price because “you can get something just as good for much less. The claim is usually couched this way: “Is that $500 bottle of wine really 10 times better than that $50 bottle of wine?”

Recently, Kate Dingwall, writing in Wine Enthusiast, provided a perfect explanation for the high prices of some wines and why they are PROPERLY priced so high. Her article, “When Did Burgundy Become Untouchable?” is perhaps the best explanation of the law of supply and demand in wine I’ve seen in ages.

Without seeming to set out to do it, Dingwall puts a lid on those folks who decry the high prices for some wines. And there have been several such folks.

If you want to read this kind of commentary, you can look to the Wine Berserkers or Reddit comment boards, where the claim is leveled consistently. Or you can look back and see luminaries within the wine writing community, such as Jeff Seigel, Dave McIntyre, Alice Feiring, and Michael Bettane, who have decried the high prices for wine.

I honestly believe much of the complaint about the high prices of some wines is about envy. Not all of it, but much of it. Nonetheless, back to Ms. Dingwall.