WHAT’S AN EXPENSIVE wine to you? I asked my husband a few weeks ago. “Anything over $35,” he said—a figure $40 lower than my own threshold. According to Karl Storchman, a professor of economics at New York University and the managing editor of the Journal of Wine Economics, income is a key factor in determining what wine drinkers deem expensive. “Income drives perception,” he said. My husband and I handle our finances jointly, so how could his perception and my own be so far apart?
Perhaps it’s because income is only one part of the equation. While the overall budget of a wine drinker—or wine-drinking couple—might determine a wine budget, other factors, such as emotion and context, can exert a powerful influence. The same $75 bottle of wine that seems expensive in a bistro might seem like a deal in a Michelin-starred restaurant. People who rarely buy wine might also have a lower price threshold. What most affects whether wine drinkers deem a bottle expensive? I decided to take a casual poll.
The wine’s intended recipient is the biggest factor for my friend Bruce. If he’s purchasing the wine for himself, he’d consider any bottle over $30 expensive, but if the wine is a gift for a friend, then the expensive range starts “around $50.” READ MORE…