Orpheus, your analogy is (wine) spot on. :-)
Stringreen, yes, a lessor wine can taste better than a higher priced one. Case in point, at the last tasting I went to, the presenter who imports the wine is a Frenchman who's steeped in wine from an early age. His whole life is devoted to it. He now lives stateside and had some wonderful wines he personally selected and none of them were over $50/ bottle. 7 were under $20/bottle (-15% off for the tasting) and all were simply great.
He showed a map of France and all of the regions selected were off the radar, so to speak. None were famous or highly regarded: what he termed "off the beaten path". If not told I would have guessed 4-5 times the price. Easily. He explained that there are many like them out there that never make it stateside, let alone a lot of parts of Europe.
The sad part is, some of these small producers are disappearing in a way you wouldn't guess. Two of them that had been along for a long time and consistently put out fantastic wine were bought wholesale from someone in China and all of the wine now goes there (probably obscenely marked up). He just smiled a little forlornly and said it's all about supply and demand.
All the best,
Nonoise
