Germany's youngest Master of Wine, Konstantin Baum: $10 vs $500 Wine Taste Test -- Is Expensive Wine a Scam? [View all]

Cheap vs. Expensive Wine – what is the difference?

I use this wine key: Forge de Laguiole Ebony

I have used the following glass in this video: Spiegelau Definition Universal Glass

I have tasted the following wines in this Video:

2023 Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz, South Australia

https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/penfolds+koonunga+hill+sra+south+australia/2023

2021 Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz, Coonawarra, Australia

https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/penfolds+bin+128+sra+coona+warra+south+australia/2021

2020 Penfolds St. Henri Shiraz, South Australia

https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/penfolds+st+henri+sra+south+australia/2020

2001 Penfolds Grange Bin 95, Australia

https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/penfolds+grange+bin+95+australia/2001

The 100 Point Scoring System (from https://www.robertparker.com/):

96-100: An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase and consume.
90 - 95: An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.
80 - 89: A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.
70 - 79: An average wine with little distinction except that it is soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.
60 - 69: A below-average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.
50 - 59: A wine deemed to be unacceptable.

It is one of the wine world's biggest questions: What is the difference between cheap and expensive wines? It seems ridiculous that the same product – 0.75 Liters of fermented grape juice – can cost anything between 1 Dollar and $558,000 US$ for the most expensive bottle of wine in the world: The 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. However, there are reasons why there are different prices for essentially the same product, and I want to talk about them today. This is why I prepared an exciting lineup of wines.

These wines are all from the same country, state, grape variety, and producer. They are all currently available on the market, but they sell at very different price points: US$ 10, US$ 50, US$ 100, and US$ 500. As usual, I purchased all of those wines with my own money so that I can review them completely independently – and tell you whether they are worth the money or not. And review them I will as I am tasting them blind to see whether I can tell, just from the smell and taste, which wine costs 10, 50, 100, or 500 US$.

In order to highlight the differences between cheap and expensive wines it is important to reduce the number of other variables.
That is why I wanted wines from the same place, the same grape variety, and the same winery, which is difficult to pull off. Few wineries produce wines at such different price points. You cannot buy a Bourgogne Rouge at Domaine de la Romanée Conti or a cheap Bordeaux at Chateau Lafite.

A handful of producers, however, makes interesting wines for all segments of the market. One of them is Antinori in Italy, another one is Mondavi in the US but I went for a particularly versatile winery: Penfolds. Penfolds is an Australian producer that was founded in 1844 by Dr Christopher and Mary Penfold. Mary was the driving force behind the wineries early success, and she built Penfolds into one of the biggest wine brands in Australia.