Money, Taste, and Wine

Book excerpt: “It’s complicated!” That’s a simple way to describe the sort of relationship that seemingly defies simple explanations. Like a love triangle, money, taste, and wine are caught in a complicated relationship affecting every aspect of the wine industry and wine enthusiast experience. As wine economist and best-selling author Mike Veseth peels back the layers of the money-taste-wine story, he discovers the wine buyer’s biggest mistake (which is to confuse money and taste) and learns how to avoid it, sips and swirls dump bucket wines and Treasure Island wines, and toasts anything but Champagne. He bulks up with big-bag, big-box wines and realizes that sometimes the best wine is really a beer. Along the way he questions wine’s identity crisis, looks down his nose at wine snobs and cheese bores, follows the money, surveys the restaurant war battleground, and imagines wines that even money cannot buy before concluding that money, taste, and wine might have a complicated relationship but sometimes they have the power to change the world. His engaging and enlightening book will surprise, inform, inspire, and delight anyone with an interest in wine—or complicated relationships.