Charles Olkin calls attention to a very serious (first-world) epistemic problem. The best wines are so expensive that most wine lovers cannot afford to drink them. That is an epistemic problem because if you can’t appreciate the best you can never really know what wine is about.
I taste thousands of wines a year. Most of them are decent, clean, acceptable offerings. And a few really set my taste buds alight. But how good are those wines? The only way I or anyone else can know is to taste lots of great wines. I have history with Cabernet Sauvignon and top-rated Bordeaux and Burgundy going back to graduate school when even fancy wines were affordable. If I no longer drink First Growths, Domaine Romanee-Conti, California cult Cabernets, and I am in the business, what do the newcomers do?
My guess is that they simply don’t have nearly the access to those kinds of wines that folks like I and my age-group peers once had.
This is exactly right. What would art students really know about art if they could not view an original Picasso or Monet? Could you really claim to know music if your listening was limited to the latest pop music drivel? The answer is clearly “no”, yet that is the situation contemporary wine lovers face. It is a shame and not really good for the wine industry. The appeal of wine will be limited if it is perceived only as a playground for the wealthy.
I’m not sure what the solution is. Perhaps the best wineries and Chateaux can provide discounted bottles to wine education programs. I know, fat chance of that happening.
My personal solution is to join a tasting group pooling our resources so that each person gets a tasting pour of Screaming Eagle or Chateau Margaux. It’s not ideal since it doesn’t permit tasting repeatedly but it does make the epistemic problem more manageable. I think I know what the best wines are capable of. That of course requires some resources but the cost is affordable for most wine lovers.
Of course there are good wines being made from less well-known regions and producers but that can’t replace the perspective one gains from tasting those wines that set the standard.
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 
This commentary on the “epistemic problem” opens up a can of thought-provoking worms, touching on an important aspect of the “human condition”—the natural desire for “quality of life” and the economic barriers that ultimately limit the pursuit of such a life. Enjoying the finer pleasures of life, however individual or subjective that may be, often comes with a price tag. As you point out, it is an undeniable truth that a passionate interest in wine and a desire for knowledge about its quality are on inevitable collision course–at least for the vast majority of wine lovers who are limited by money and resources. Wine enthusiasts and hobbyists are quickly straightjacketed by a brute fact: at some point, one’s taste develops (becoming more refined and informed) and naturally drives one to explore more expensive, quality wines, most of which are unaffordable for the average middle-class professional with a solid income. The desire to up one’s game by spending more and more money on wine, including wine events such as tastings or wine-pairing dinners hosted by specialists or professionals, can quickly become an excessive and unrealistic lifestyle. Whether one’s passion for wine is driven by insatiable curiosity, knowledge and mastery, or sheer delight and pleasure, forces of economic “entropy” will lead to living beyond one’s means at some point. On the whole, only the “rich and famous” have the buying power to sustain the seductive lifestyle of consuming wine at the highest levels.
The force of Olkin’s insight is ultimately bad news for the wine crusader on a mission to acquire more knowledge by exploring higher-quality wines. Why? The argument is straightforward: it you cannot explore and appreciate the best wines (because they are unaffordable), you can never know what wine is about. Financial limitations limit your access to superior wines, and this in turn limits one’s access to the full range of experience required for a real knowledge of wine. At best, your understanding of wine is incomplete, stunted, and ultimately reaches a dead-end. Even if you possess all the “right stuff”–passion, pleasure-seeking, insatiable curiosity, aesthetic sensibility, appreciation of fine things and a sense of excellence, as well as the love of all the subtle intangible elements associated with wine and culture, you are still doomed. The fact is that only an exceedingly small fraction of the world will experience what it’s like to “be in the know”. “Only the nose knows” and that nose needs a massive amount of funding.
I know little about Charles Olkin and what qualifications or credentials he holds. And, more importantly, perhaps, I have no clue how many great wines he has tasted throughout his life and whether the totality of his experience has lived up to his claim that the most expensive wines in the world are obviously and undoubtedly the best wines in the world. Superficially, this is a conventional rule of thumb—a time-honored “truism”– about price-quality relation; it is often expressed by the old adage, “you get what you pay for”. There is certainly a good deal of truth in this observation. How true is debatable. One must also keep in mind the danger of “knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing”. In fact, Oxford educated Jancis Robinson, the distinguished wine writer and master sommelier asserts quite explicitly: price is no direct indicator of quality. In her book “How to Taste”, she points out that blind tasting amongst the wine intelligentsia—knowledgeable experts who are highly trained and experienced tasters– confirm this time and time again.) Caveat Emptor!
Unless one is a thief or parasite or has won the lottery, no doubt this epistemic dilemma is a real “catch-22” for all those who remain outside the realm of the aristocracy, nobility or nouveau riche. The wine “jet set” is a very small fraction of the world’s population. Of course, this kind of fundamental problem is not unique to wine. It is a perennial one which applies to many ordinary aspects of our lives. What about cars? Is it only those proud, rare owners of Rolls Royce or Ferrari who truly understand the full experience of driving and what driving is about? What about homes? Is it only the owners of palaces, mansions and estates in places like Bel Air, Monaco, and Tuscany who enjoy the “epistemological” advantage of expensive home ownership, given that the most expensive homes guarantee superior quality, and, therefore, real knowledge about the essence of homes—that is, “what homes are about”? And let’s not leave out a university education. Given Olkin’s line of reasoning, isn’t obvious that the graduates of Stanford and Harvard (the equivalent of our best wines in the academic world) have a more comprehensive and robust knowledge of what “education is about” compared with affordable, low-brow schools like Cal State Fullerton or Florida State? Isn’t it scholastic excellence that motivates the most affluent families to spend over six figures on a four-year degree at an Ivy-League caliber institution? If you can offer your children Yale, Harvard or Princeton—or afford Petrus from Bordeaux or Pingus from Spain—it seems pointless, if not counterproductive, to torture them with anything less, not to mention mediocrity and the ordinary. We all want the best, naturally, and do our utmost to avoid the fate of the philistine.
So what? It goes without saying that there is nothing in the fabric of the universe which guarantees that all of our desires related to excellence, high standards and peak experience will eventually culminate in a kind of enlightened gastronomical “rapture”, anchored by “knowledge” of the finest wines and cuisine on the planet. One does not need to be a philosopher or psychologist to realize this. Mick Jagger’s iconic lyrics about the limits of “satisfaction” forewarned us in the simplest possible terms that we cannot always get what we want. Perhaps Olkin never got the message. In either case, Olkin’s misguided fears about the financial limitations of the untutored, are “true but trivial” at best and should be put to rest. We may never reside on Mt. Olympus or rub elbows with Bacchus. Even so, we will be just fine. In the infinitely rich world of wine, there will always be a an endless reservoir of knowledge and pleasure to be discovered and thoroughly enjoyed, even without coming to know the ultimate truth concerning what wine is about. This is something Olkin should keep in mind if he wants to know “what it’s all about”. In vino veritas.
(Note: Olkin’s thoughts about the “best” and its relation to expense did force me to rethink what I really know about my own wedding ring. If only Liz Taylor could speak from the grave! The things she must know about rings must be awe-inspiring.)