Last week, the report of a single bottle of 62-year-old Dalmore single malt scotch whisky going for $200,000 (to – who else! – a Chinese businessman!) got me thinking about how f*cking expensive a hobby enjoying fine boozy beverages really is.

Most of us aren’t plunking down the better part of the median U.S. house sale price for a bottle of Scotch or vino (or anything else), of course.  But Collecting and imbibing vino is not for the cheap or the faint-of-pocketbook. It’s got to be right up there with golf (and, I’ll add from personal experience, in-line hockey) in terms of expensive hobbies.

But then, it’s so much more than just a hobby for us geeks, right?!??  That makes it all okay, right?!??  RIGHT?!????

Some wines are clearly undervalued these days.  Champagne is often a bargain even at the high-end – hear me out before you toss the flames: when you consider the quality you’re getting, and the price vs. the production costs, the potential longevity of the better examples, and the fact that some of the best stuff out there can be had for just over $100 when it comes out… I think there’s strong case to be made for saying that Champagne can be a decent deal even at the higher-end of the price spectrum.

Same thing for Sherry and Port, without a doubt in my mind.  Sauternes is an example of a wine that’s crazy-expensive to make, and it’s priced accordingly at the high-end, but Sherry and Port are also difficult, time-consuming, and labor-intensive to make – and while the best of them can age for a crazy amount of time and can probably be enjoyed someday by your crazy grandkids, they offer way more crazy bang for the buck (yes, even when they’re in $75 and up range – of course they are different experiences entirely to Sauternes, however). Just a lot of crazy there, generally.

You can admit it – you’ve bought a wine that seemed really, really, maybe crazily expensive for your budget.  Did it deliver the goods?  Did it knock off your vinous socks?  Maybe most pointedly (and I think likely most telling), would you do it again? Was that wine so good that you became a repeat customer even with the lofty sticker price?…

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Uhm, like what is this stuff?
I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine sample tasting notes via twitter (limited to 140 characters). They are meant to be fun, quickly-and-easily-digestible reviews. Below is a wrap-up of the twitter reviews from the past week (click here for the skinny on how to read them), along with links to help you find them so you can try them for yourself. Cheers!

• 06 Monteci Amarone (Amarone della Valpolicella Classico): That spicy dried cherry can’t get out from under its own big boozy shadow. $39 B >>find this wine>>
• 08 Giant Steps Chardonnay Sexton Vineyard (Yarra Valley): Drinks like it costs twice the price. A minor food-friendly floral triumph. $35 A- >>find this wine>>
• 08 Susana Balbo Cabernet Sauvignon (Mendoza): This tasty & flamboyantly fruity Cab definitely does not put the “ewww!” in “New World.” $24 B >>find this wine>>
• 09 Casas del Bosque Pequenas Producciones Pinot Noir (Casablanca): A little jammy/big, but earthy, true & carrying it all with aplomb $34 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 10 Casas del Bosque Gran Reserva Sauvignon Blanc (Casablanca): Tailor-made for lovers of grassy SB w/ hankerings for seafood cerviche. $16 B >>find this wine>>
• 08 Misty Oaks Vineyard Constitution Ridge Pinot Blanc (Umpqua Valley): Has all the melons already, seriously wants some crab cakes. $16 B- >>find this wine>>
• 09 Mulderbosch Cabernet Sauvignon Rose (Coastal Region): A couple of awkward invitees to this wild berry party but it’s still a party $12 B- >>find this wine>>
• 10 El Coto de Rioja Rioja Blanco (Rioja): New sheriff’s in town. Name’s pear. Rode in on some lemons. And he’s packin’ white flowers. $10 B- >>find this wine>>
• 10 Clean Slate Riesling (Mosel): If you’re into the limes-meets-wet-rocks theme, this is pretty damn good (for pretty damn cheap). $11 B- >>find this wine>>
• 09 King Estate Acrobat Pinot Gris (OR): Tropical crazy-*ss bargain of a wine. Gets the star sticker for playing well w/ others’ food. $13 B >>find this wine>>

Chances are pretty high that, if you’re reading this (and you’re reading this), you are a wine geek.

And by “wine geek,” I mean that you are atop the U.S. wine consumer pyramid (that’s if you’re living in the U.S., of course – those of you outside the U.S. are just gonna have to play along on this one). As in, the tippy, tippy, holy-crap-it’s-a-looooong-way-down-from-here, tippy-top of the pyramid.

And it doesn’t even matter if you consider yourself an avid oenophile or not – simply by virtue of treating wine with any semblance of importance in your life, you’ve firmly entrenched yourself in wine-geek-out territory, at least when compared with the general consumer-going public in America.

And don’t worry about it…. because it’s okay.

In fact, I’m going to explain why that’s not only okay, but that you ought to revel in the fact that you are in the upper echelon of the wine-buying U.S. public. In fact, I’m going to explain why it’s downright awesome.  After a bit of exposition, of course.  C’mon, you think I’m gonna let this thing go under 1300 words?  Are you nuts?

It all came to me after day one of the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference, during a steamy, 8-billion degree, 5000% humidity evening in downtown Charlottesville (I might have exaggerated that last bit), in which a bleary-eyed (due to travel-, conference-, weather-, and wine-induced-fatigue) yours truly took part in an off-premise “fireside chat” on the topic of Wine & Tech, which eventually turned about as heated as the sweltering northern Virginia night.

The event was organized by wine industry think-tank group Vintank and Crushd (the team behind a newly-released iPhone wine-journaling app). Thankfully (since most of us were already melting through our clothing) there was no actual fire was lit at the host venue (Orzo Kitchen & Wine Bar), and to assist (as if we needed it) getting our tongues wagging and opinions flowing, there were several interesting Rioja wines being poured courtesy of Vibrant Rioja (I can now attest personally to the tastiness of a well-chilled 2010 Marques de Caceres dry white Rioja on a stiflingly sultry Virginia Summer evening, by the way)…

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• 04 Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Blanc de Blancs (Champagne): A baby w/ a ton of tart green apple. Could use more bread but still a bargain $46 B+ #
• NV Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé Brut (Champagne): Sour cherry comes on all elegant & sexy; this will NOT last very long once opened. $70 B+ #
• 08 7 Deadly Zins (Lodi): A good one for the bargain-hunters. Smoky, meaty, & not much else-y; but certainly decent for the price-y. $15 C+ #
• 01 Chateau Doisy-Védrines (Sauternes): Lays on lemon custard thick as molasses. Will go for several more yrs w/out breakin' a sweat. $55 A- #
• 08 Cru ‘Appellation Series’ Pinot Noir (Santa Lucia Highlands): Tasty but things get a lil' dark (cherry fruited) early in these parts $29 B #
• 07 Montecillo Crianza (Rioja): A bit too much vanilla oak, a bit too much funk, but just tart cherry action amount is *just right*. $12 B- #
• 01 Montecillo Gran Reserva (Rioja): Black cherry, black licorice, but not to be blacklisted because this is a downright tasty bargain $25 B+ #
• NV J Cuvee 20 Brut (Russian River Valley): A little aggressive, but a LOT going on (fuji apple, lemon biscuit, honeysuckle) for the $. $20 B #