Is wine fake?
One of my professors in grad school was really into wine and every couple of years he would put on an after-hours wine tasting class for a semester.  One of the points he made was that there are absolutely wines which are objectively better and worse and that experts can reliably tell them apart.  He had met enough experts who could identify a vineyard and vintage blind to know there was something to it.  But sitting on top of that there is a frothy market that is driven by fads, speculation, and hype.<p>He was of the opinion that generally speaking the quality of a typical wine increases monotonically with price up until around the $40 range with the big steps around the $5, $10, and $20 price points.  But above $50 or so, you&#x27;re no longer paying for higher quality, per se.  It&#x27;s more that you are paying for a unique flavor profile and reliability.  But unless you&#x27;re seeking out that particular flavor profile, you can get a bottle that is just as good for $30-40 (and occasionally even cheaper).  And above a few hundred dollars it&#x27;s all just fads, speculation, and hype.  (He liked to say that the people who buy those wines have &quot;more money than sense.&quot;)  They&#x27;re good wines, but you can get a bottle that is just as good for a fraction of the price.