ADVERTISING: Advertorial — Can you taste the difference?

I got my start writing the wine column for “The Press” a long time ago in response to the publication of an article in “The Press” they ran from the AP. I found the column to be largely irrelevant to wine consumers in North Idaho, because they focused on some ultra-high-end wines that few would be able to access and fewer still would pay the multiple thousands of dollars per bottle. I volunteered to write a column more relevant to our local market and here we are today. Just this past week I was discussing with my Sommelier brother-in-law a wine that runs in those kind of price ranges.

That conversation got me to thinking about a question we frequently get from readers and customers. “Can you taste the difference?” in the context of very expensive bottles, it is a good one. It not only illustrates that we all have our price limits on what we are willing to pay for any given bottle but it also shows a healthy curiosity about wines above our normal price comfort zone.

We taste a lot of wine and frequently it gets to some lofty price levels. We never put a wine in any of our wine clubs, including our high-end Sommelier club where the average price per bottle is well over $100, if we don’t have the opportunity to try the wine. When it comes to bottles like Harlan, Bond, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC), Coche Dury and others though, the wines that retail for multiple thousands of dollars we have only had the opportunity a couple of times in our life to taste some of them.

The question still hangs out there though, can you taste the difference? Everyone’s palate is different and those with special skills when it comes to truly assessing wine certainly are capable, but here we are discussing the more general “you” in that question. And yet again the answer is, it depends.

Mary and I have worked on our palate skills and palate memory since we started our wine journey. What we have found is that there are price ranges where the dollars paid for a bottle of wine can and do make a big impact for most of us. I will tell you that with any given bottle, the jump between a $10 bottle and $25 bottle is certainly detectable. Similarly, the jump to $100 for a bottle will certainly be recognizable, and for me when you get over $500 I can for sure tell the difference. Are there exceptions? Of course. A good friend of ours says “finding great things that are expensive is easy, finding great things that are inexpensive is far more challenging” Absolutely true, but nothing makes any wine consumer happier than finding an inexpensive bottle that drinks like a million bucks.

A while back I was at a business dinner and my host ordered a very difficult to get bottle of Napa Cabernet which at the restaurant was easily over $1,000. Could I tell the difference on that one? You bet. Here is what also contributed to that feeling of having one of the best bottles of wine I’ve ever had, the night! It was a special evening catching up with a dear friend and very good client, great food and even greater company, so I wonder if those other pieces were not in place would my feelings for the wine be different? Unanswerable. Can’t remove that bottle from the context of that night. Other times we have been exposed to wines in the $1,000 plus caliber the circumstances of a special occasion were in place. Each time the wine was extraordinary, so again we could tell the difference.

The progression of thought being what it is we would then move to is a wine any wine worth that? Another unanswerable question in our opinion. We all have our budget comfort zone on wine, and we each must decide on our own criteria when and if it is worth it to reach for a bottle of wine that is more, way more than we typically spend. I can’t tell you with certainty if you will notice a substantial difference each and every time, but I would speculate that most times most of us will feel it is worth it.

While the quality of the winemaking is a big part of the price of a bottle also affecting the prices on the super high end is exclusivity, there is simply not very much produced. Add in high and consistent demand from collectors and you get prices like that.

For wine consumers though part of the fun of your own wine journey is from time to time to reach for that next tier of wine and answer the question for yourself, can you taste the difference?

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George Balling is co-owner with his wife, Mary Lancaster, of the dinner party, a wine and gift shop in Coeur d’Alene by Costco. The dinner party has won the award for best wine shop in North Idaho twice, including for 2018.

George is also published in several other publications around the country. After working in wineries in California and judging many wine competitions, he moved to Coeur d’Alene with Mary more than 10 years ago to open the shop.

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