Some ideas refuse to die. They show up at dinner tables and tasting rooms dressed as “common sense,” whispering that more money means better wine, that swirling is for show-offs, that age automatically equals greatness. Cute stories. Mostly wrong. And when they stick around, they cost people money and rob them of joy. Let’s retire five of the worst offenders and replace them with something more useful: how to actually drink better for less, learn faster, and trust your own palate.
1) “Expensive wines are always better.”
Price signals many things; “better” isn’t reliably one of them. A bottle’s cost is a stew of land prices, labor, fame, scarcity, and marketing muscle. Napa Cabernet is a perfect example. I love making it and drinking it—the big, oak-saturated, almost-to-extinction style can be thrilling—but top bottles routinely land at $200–$300. If you’re pouring for a seminar or celebrating a milestone, terrific. If you just want that same sweep of black fruit, structure, and polish on a Tuesday night, look north.
Washington State—especially Red Mountain within the larger Columbia Valley—regularly delivers comparable depth and tannic architecture for $30–$50. I use Washington fruit when I’m teaching winemaking because the raw materials are that good: Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, even Carmenère that’s clean, ripe, and characterful without the Napa surcharge. France plays the same game: Margaux doesn’t cost more because its molecules are morally superior; it costs more because it’s famous. Fame floats price. A battered regional reputation can sink it.
One more wrinkle: price bias. If you think a wine is expensive, your brain will often make it taste better. Years ago I ran a training for a winery team and poured the same wine twice—once from a fancy, heavy-glass bottle and once from a plain, grocery-store-looking bottle. Everyone scored the “fancy” one higher. These were pros. Mortifying and illuminating. The takeaway isn’t that you’re doomed; it’s that context flavors perception. Use that knowledge to your benefit (there are times when a heavier bottle and a gilt label do help set a mood), but don’t confuse theater with quality.
2) “Cheap wine is always bad.”
Let’s swap “cheap” for “inexpensive,” because that’s what most of us mean: wines in the $10–$15 band that punch above their weight. They exist. They’re everywhere. The trick is knowing where to look—and accepting that once a region becomes a media darling, values evaporate.
Portugal’s Dão is a case study. It used to be known for mass-market jug wine. Then it pivoted. Today the district cranks out focused, savory, often arrestingly good reds and whites that still carry the baggage of yesterday’s image. Result: $12–$15 bottles with the balance and structure you’d pay $30–$40 for in Bordeaux. There are dozens of pockets like this in the wine world at any given moment.
You don’t need a world atlas on your phone to find them. Walk into a shop you trust and ask a targeted question: What’s the best thing you have under $15 right now? Not their favorite wine of all time; not whatever just got 97 points; the best value on the floor this month. Buyers and sales staff live for that challenge. Their job, at every tier, is to delight you at the lowest price possible. Let them.
3) “Swirling wine is snobby.”
You swirl to smell, not to show off. Oxygen helps volatile aromatic compounds lift from the liquid to your olfactory system, where most of “taste” actually happens. (The majority of flavor is aroma—vapor, not liquid.) Swirling also kicks off a cascade of small changes inside the glass: oxygen binds to certain sulfur compounds; esters pop; a wine that’s been sleeping in an anaerobic bottle wakes up and talks.
Could you decant? Sure. But a gentle swirl does real work in seconds and puts your nose in charge, which matters because people lean either nose-dominant or palate-dominant when they evaluate flavor. Wherever you sit, swirling helps you get more information, faster. One caveat: sparkling wine is already doing its own “swirl” via bubbles, so you don’t need to agitate it. (If you can’t help yourself… I get it. But the bubbles truly have you covered.)
4) “Sommeliers are gods.”
Some are generous guides. Some are gatekeepers with fragile egos. The title itself isn’t proof of wisdom, kindness, or certification. In our classrooms and certification work, we teach the opposite of intimidation: meet people where they are, then nudge—don’t shove—them forward. If you love fruit-driven bottles with a little flash, that’s valid. If you’re hunting for feral, leathery complexity, also valid. A great pro listens first and curates to your taste and your meal. A not-great one performs knowledge at your expense.
If you feel smaller after asking a question, that’s not your fault; it’s a signal that you should trust your palate and disengage. The best nights out often happen because a pro clocked your preferences and said, “I just opened something funky and gamey—you might hate it, but want a splash?” That’s hospitality. That’s teaching.
5) “Old wine is better wine.”
Fifty years ago, many serious reds were built so austere—high acid, big tannin—that you had to cellar them to make them pleasant. Modern winemaking (better farming, riper fruit, cleaner cellars) flipped that script. Most wines released today are designed to be enjoyable now. If a wine benefits from time, the most interesting evolution in many red wines happens within roughly five years of harvest. Beyond that, storage has to be excellent, and preference matters a lot.
Aging shifts a wine’s balance from primary (fruit) and secondary (winemaking notes like oak or lees) toward tertiary aromas: leather, earth, mushroom, spices. Those can be fascinating. They can also be a turn-off for many drinkers, because the fruit fades and the texture thins. And no, collectors can’t always taste their way around the aura of a famous label. Price bias and expectation loom large in the rare-bottle world, which is why counterfeit wines fooled some very sophisticated palates for years. Ironically, genuine long-aged wines can show sulfur-derived notes—including a “canned asparagus” character documented in the literature—while fakes often taste “cleaner” because they’re blended from younger components. Strange but true.
A few smaller myths worth burying while we’re here
“Legs” (the streaks on the glass) don’t prove quality. They mostly reflect alcohol and viscosity. Screw caps are not a cheapness badge; entire countries use them for freshness and consistency. Don’t spend more on stemware than on what’s in it—good, clean, reasonably shaped glasses are enough. And white wine doesn’t “have fewer calories” than red as a rule; calories track alcohol, not color.
So what should you do instead?
Pay attention to producers and places that overdeliver; partner with a good shop; buy what you enjoy; and ignore theater that doesn’t add flavor. If you’re curious about taking your skills further, the National Wine School offers certifications through universities, partner schools, and online programs you can complete from anywhere. If you’re near Philadelphia, come see us at the Wine School of Philadelphia; we teach the same principles live, glass in hand
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