Image and perception are not always based on reality, and only sometimes is price directly related to quality. Proof of this comes every year at the nation's major wine competitions, when time after time, value-priced wines take the gold over competitors selling for more. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that all expensive wines are a rip-off. Affordability, of course, being a very relative and personal thing.
Image is also more than price and is often unexplainable.
Some wineries seem to have charisma from the day they open their doors, while others spends tons of money, hire p.r. And this has always been a bit of mystery. Not only are the wines super, but there is an actual showplace chateau, open to the public, with a restaurant, a gorgeous fountain, numerous settings conducive to special events and weddings and an address in the same growing region as Jordan, Silver Oak and Ferrari-Carano. Another barrel-fermented wine, but with a larger percentage of new French oak, makes for much more forward and pleasantly overt oak vanillin aromas and flavors. Big, voluptuous tropical fruit flavors.