A while back, I read an article in the NY Times about how fickle we are when it comes to consumption, especially when it comes to something as elusive and subjective as wine. Cliff notes version: Most people can’t tell the difference between $10 and $80 wine. Connoisseurs train themselves to learn what $80 wine is supposed to taste like. For the rest of us, ignorance is bliss.

Now I’ve had an $80 bottle a countable number of times in my life, and of course there’s a difference when it’s a great wine. I’ve also had $80 wine that’s terrible. So for the 95% of us that need some guidance, the role that emotion plays in the decision making process (especially when we have little else to go on) is incredibly powerful.

This is one of my favorite wine labels, a $4 Trader Joe’s special. The wine is nothing special - the identity is iconic. The symbolism itself is fantastic: Fuerza, “force” or “strength” in Spanish, represented by a little red man peeling back the paper label. Clever. I’ve probably bought over a dozen bottles of this stuff when I’m looking for “nothing special” wine.

Compare this to the $160,000 1787 Chateau Lafitte. I suppose you could call this the “Anti-label” - it feels like it’s from a case of one-offs. It’s initialed “Th.J.” because it was part of Thomas Jefferson’s own wine collection. The thing feels personal, above all - unique, precious, valuable.

When I went wine tasting in Baja California’s wine country, I found a small-batch producer that had a small sample run labeled with duct tape and the initials of the owner. To this day it’s probably the best and most memorable wine I’ve ever had. Orange peels, cloves, pepper. The mental image of this rustic bottle had something to do with that, or maybe it had everything to do with that.