Wine: Cheap can taste better?

OYFP frequently hosts wine tasting events. In fact, we have one planned for the springtime, which is yet one more thing to look forward to about the end of winter.

In preparation for more wine and guarding your wallet after exuberant holiday spending, you may want to consider this new research from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The work shows that the level of enjoyment people derive from a sample of wine is higher when they believe the wine that they are tasting is more expensive. The key word being "believe," since the researchers arbitrarily gave each wine sample a price.

I pulled a "pour a decent box wine in a decanter" trick at a recent party, and people seemed to enjoy it just fine, not knowing it was from the oft stereotyped (but more environmentally friendly) box wine industry.

The lesson here? Cheap wine can taste just as good as expensive wine, just as long as you don't know it's cheap. Buy a few bottles of varying prices at the package store, scrape off their price tags (or their labels), mix them up, and open at random to enjoy! Don't let the price change your mind.

Anyone have some cheap wine recommendations aside from the "two buck chuck" from Trader Joe's?