Cheap Wine vs. Expensive Wine: Can You Really Tell The Difference?

Posted: 01/11/2013 4:40 pm EST, HuffPost

Have you ever wondered whether an expensive, seemingly impressive bottle of wine really tastes better than a bottle of Three-Buck Chuck? For the layperson (i.e. anyone who's not a sommelier), drinking wine can be an especially psychologically driven experience, influenced by numerous factors: labels, price points, bottle appearance, and even your peers, just to name a few.

But take away all those factors, pour yourself a glass of wine, and take a taste. Without knowing the price or viewing the bottle, can you really tell the difference between a $65 bottle and a $3 bottle? What do your senses really tell you when those external factors and social influences are stripped away? We wanted to find out, so we set up a blind taste test in our office. Here's how it went down:

Each taster blindly tried two types of wine side-by-side, not knowing which was which. One was from an expensive bottle, and the other an inexpensive version from the same region. We did this with two reds (Cabernet Sauvignon), and then with two whites (Chardonnay). Testers recorded which wine they thought was the more expensive of the two, and left comments explaining why. Here are the results:

THE REDS

Cheap Red:  Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Blend Cabernet Sauvignon (a.k.a. Three-Buck Chuck), California, 2011 -- $3

Expensive Red:  Laurel Glen Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma Mountain, California, 2007 -- $65

Price difference: $62

Tasters' verdict: Only 38 percent of our tasters correctly identified the more expensive wine, and 62 percent preferred the $3 variety from Trader Joe's. Surprising, right? Think about how much more wine those tasters can get for their buck.

(More here.)