I don't think there's a thousand-fold difference between one wine and another. It's a status thing.

Quote from Alain de Botton in the May edition of 'Decanter'. Another quote from an Australian went something along the lines of 'the price of a bottle of wine tells you more about the cost of the winemaker's life-style than the intrinsic merit of his wine.

We all know wines which are inexplicably cheap or expensive. The reasons are sometimes hard to fathom. Why is Slovenian wine so expensive? Why did the cost of sweet Bordeaux suddenly double around 1980 if memory serves? If the Italians are masters of price sensitivity, why is it that so much good wine there is available for a song?

Misteriosissimo...