In considering the quality of any alcoholic beverage, it is insufficient to discuss just the obvious characteristics of a product, which in the case of wine would be color, clarity, aroma, and taste. Perhaps more so for wine than any other beverage, including beer, quality is shrouded in a mystique, a culture, a state of mind, and an almost intangible meeting of geology, climate, locale, tradition, art, mystery, and hyperbole.

Let me illustrate. A year or two back, an entrepreneur by the name of Fred Franzia decided that he was going to shake up the snobby world of California wine with the release of products marketed under the name Charles Shaw, but colloquially known to all as “Two Buck Chuck.” This was on account of the fact that they retailed in the charming chain stores of Trader Joe's at the princely sum of $1.99. Understandably, these wines were very popular with all – everyone, that is, except those who considered themselves wine aficionados, experts, and commentators, who decried the exercise as a loss-leading gimmick. That was until the day that the toffee-nosed judges selected Charles Shaw 2002 California Shiraz as one of 53 finalists for the International Eastern Wine Competition at Corning, New York, in a blind tasting of 2,300 submissions. The judges were seen next morning at breakfast to stagger around, heads held low, utterly ashamed of their ignorant mistake and completely baffled as to how they could have been “misled.”