Why is Gaja's wine so expensive??

[Thomas]

...because Serge knows that is when his wine is ready for release, and not before.

Yes, Roberto, Bordeaux, et al, released a few years before their time--it is mostly economics: get the money now! If you have a classification system that does the promotion for you, you can raise your money a lot sooner than those poor Italian vintners.

Remember, my salesman is Italian; he speaks of how Italians viewed the subject until recently. The best of them aged the wine before sending them to market.

But to the other point made: I surely know the value of laying some wines down. But my interest, being both commercial as well as hedonistic, is that people learn to drink wine every day. To get them to do that, I am committed to removing, not adding to, hurdles. Making the general consumer believe that wine must be put away for years, or rated by self-appointed numbers gurus, or put on a pedestal of mystique, is NOT the way to change its image and to get consumers behind it. Getting consumers to explore good, solid, everyday wine, every day, at every day prices, is the way.