[andymurd]

Agreed. My partner is a Wine Educator and this is one of her favorite rants. Consider the costs of getting wine onto a store shelf:

- Glass bottle

- Bottling & Labelling

- Transport

- Cork/closure

- Taxes (29% here in Aus)

- Retail Markup - 25-50%

- Promotions, payment processing, business overhead, etc.

An eight dollar bottle of wine does not leave a lot of money for grape growing, harvest, wine making, aging etc, all the good stuff that makes wine tasty. Probably under one dollar.

Some grape varieties cost a lot more than others, e.g. Pinot Noir is expensive to grow and harvest because it has thin skins and so is easily damaged. However, any recent vintage bottle that retails for more than $100 is about meeting a market price point, not production costs.