Are High End and Lower End Wines Made That Differently?

Excerpts from:
Wine, a reflection of your taste
By Mark Arvanigian
Fresnobee.com columnist
(Published Friday, May, 31, 2002 2:15PM)

"Beyond the realm of the personal, wine and the style in which it is made can be a good measure of popular taste, indicating a preference of one style of wine over another. You don’t have to do much detective work to see the predominance in the marketplace of super-ripe, somewhat sweet and quite alcoholic red wines. Their popularity tells us that as newer consumers have entered the market, winemakers have moved to capture their affection by making opulent wines targeted directly at them. With the use of modern winemaking technology, vintners can create in their lower priced wines fruit-driven flavor profiles that are satisfying and of quite high quality; in California, these wines have proven to be a great improvement over those previously on offer. There has never been a better time to buy everyday wine in America.

However, this experiment in modern winemaking has had only mixed results, primarily because this popular style of winemaking – which is so very attractive at lower price points – has become the Holy Grail at the upper end of the price spectrum, as well. As consumers trade up in price, they are often met not by new flavor profiles or masses of complexity; instead, they get more of the same. Thus, while the details of the techniques may be different, the end product is the same. Expensive wines frequently mimic their lower-priced siblings, not because the latter have improved so much, but because a singular stylistic goal is at work.

...For those unaware of the panoply of flavors on offer in the world of wine (many of which positively define famous regions and producers) or those who simply didn’t like non-fruit, non-oak flavors in wine in the first place, the way is clear. "