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John Nugent is a co-proprietor, along with his fiancé, of Colorado Wine Company in Eagle Rock (2114 Colorado Boulevard). He stops by from time to time to give la.foodblogging readers a taste of the wine business, from the inside. This is not an advertisement and no promotional fee or arrangement has been made between Colorado Wine Co. and la.foodblogging

A woman walked into the shop last week and asked a really fantastic question. She pointed at two bottles on the wall and said, “why does this bottle cost twice as much as that bottle?” We often get tough questions (usually they’re something like, “I’m cooking pickled herring, peanut butter, M&Ms and an armoire for dinner…What wine goes with that?”), but this question was completely fair and profound. Why do certain wines cost so much? It’s all grape juice, right? The easy way out is to say that the more expensive wine is just a better wine, but so much of tasting is entirely subjective. Regardless of what marketing is thrown in your face, you like what you like and that’s it. But, there is some sort of grading scale we can work with. Though there may be that one guy in Piscataway, NJ that prefers Two Buck Chuck over Opus One, he’s the ONLY one in the world (sorry Garden State folks, I lived there once so I’m licensed to make fun of it). The short answer to the value question is: earth, time, talent and reputation.

First and foremost, the person who has the best piece of earth (soil, climate, shading, topography) either got there first or paid a load-o-dough for it so there’s typically a premium attached to get ahold of those fantastic grapes. Secondly, the time spent harvesting, nurturing and aging the wines has a cost associated with it. If you hand pick only the best grapes from each bunch and age the juice for 12 months in very expensive French Oak barrels, you’re going to charge someone more than the guy who sends a harvesting machine through the fields in half the time and ages the juice for 2 months in used, American Oak barrels. As with any industry, the wine world has its wine making celebrities who have for the most part, earned a higher salary by winning awards for the wineries where they work. You’re paying for that, too. And lastly, you know the names Opus One, Caymus and Chateau Lafite-Rothschild because they’ve built up reputations over the years (or centuries) and of course, you’re paying for that as well.

There are a lot of other details that set certain wines apart, but you get the picture. So how do you find great, low-cost wines? Find new winemakers that don’t have the cachet to add a premium onto their prices yet. Instead of that Napa Cab (which alone kicks the price up a bit), branch out and try similar wines from other regions and countries. And finally, try to figure out a way to describe what you like and just ask your local wine store to find you something in a specific price range that tastes like what you want to pour down your gullet.