Wine

Rory Sutherland writing in The Spectator a week or so ago maintained that "most wine is actually rubbish". He thought people liked to talk about wine but didn't really know much about it or even like it. What about some wines having astronomical high prices while others are quite cheap: isn't there are difference in the quality? He says: "One winemaker sent the same wine to a competition under three different labels. One was rejected by the judges as 'undrinkable', another won a double gold award".
I have to say I'm in some agreement with Sutherland. In the past twenty years or so of drinking wine, mainly red wine, I have to say I have had only two bottles where I have said: "Mmm, yes, this is very good." One was a Chateau neuf de Pape given to me by a friend, the other I bought for a special occasion in a wine shop in Cardiff - don't remember what it was. Mostly the wine I drink seems much the same. I take no notice of what it says on the bottle - matured in brandy barrels etc - I just drink it. Sometimes it's quite palatable, sometimes just bearable but mostly it's very ordinary with no great 'lift to it except, of course, the lift that comes from the alcohol in it.