Here's Proof: We're All Wine Snobs

Along comes this study that shows people think that the same wine tastes better when it’s priced higher. Little surprise here really. Same principal as for a grossly overpriced scotch like Johnnie Walker Blue. The ego can be powerfully suggestive.

Here’s the kicker though: they didn’t just ask people which wine they like better. The researchers hooked the participants up to a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner, which showed that people had a greater pleasure response in the brain when told they were drinking expensive wine.

Chew on that one. If you charge more for liquor people will actually enjoy it more. So don’t hold your breath for the three-dollar martini.

The New Yorker recently had an interesting article on wine fraud. That is the astronomically expensive wines bought at auction, like, say the six magnums of 1945 Château Mouton-Rothschild for which some Rich Uncle Pennybags recently paid $345,000. Although wine fraud seems to be rampant, no one cares. The buyers go apeshit over the wine and no one can really tell the difference anyway.

All of which brings me to the sorry state of the Wine & Spirit stores here in Pennsylvania. I nearly cried when Jonathan Newman resigned as chairman of the PLCB. You used to be able to get fantastic wines handpicked by Newman that were $12-$15. Now it’s hit or miss, mostly the latter.

Mrs. McDrinkerson recently picked up a couple “Chairman’s Selections” and one was so bad we poured it out. That's right, poured it out. To which the Catholic voice inside my head responds, There are sober people in Africa!