How to taste great wine (for less than $5000)

There’s a winery in Napa that now has a $5000 per person tasting fee, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in February 2025. The culprit is Ghost Horse, the same attention-hungry winemaker that is preparing to release a $25,000 bottle of Cabernet.

I’m all for people doing whatever they want with their money. But I think I speak for most wine lovers when I say, eff all that noise.

It’s grape juice, folks. Some of it is better than average, but you’re not convincing me that it’s 100 or 200 times tastier than regular premium Cab. The people who do those tastings and buy those bottles are doing it for bragging rights–which is like, totally lame.

The exclusive, out-of-touch wine culture is a major reason the industry is going down in flames. The younger generations don’t care about status-y, four- and five-figure bottles–and even if we did, we’d be too broke from paying our rent/student loans/insurance to splurge on them. The California wine industry will have to actually get serious about reinventing itself as soon as their boomer clientele kicks the bucket.

Anyway, I digress. My point here is that wine is for everybody. And while it can be an expensive hobby, it doesn’t have to be. Here’s five ways to experience better wine tastings without spending a fortune.

1. Get your friends together

You know what’s better than wine? Wine with your wine buddies! With 4-6 glasses in every bottle–too much for one person, almost too much for two people–wine was basically invented to bring friends together.

One of the best ways to sample a lot of different wines (including special wines you might not buy for yourself) is to share with other wine students or enthusiasts.

Why not organize a tasting club where each member takes a turn supplying a premium bottle? Or have everyone pitch in for a mixed case (or half-case) of wines in different styles, to be tasted as a group?

A standard 750 ml bottle will yield about 12 to 15 generous sample-size pours. That’s enough for your whole crew to get to savor a rare single-vineyard Pinot Noir or a vintage Champagne without too much of an individual investment.

You can make a group wine event as formal or informal as you wish. Besides the financial benefit of sharing the cost of wine, tasting in a group is a great way to refine your palate and develop your wine vocabulary.

2. Cruise in-store demos

Many stores host demos and tastings of wines that they have in stock. This goes for the small wine shops and the large grocery chains and everything in between. The benefit for the store and the winemaker is that shoppers are more likely to purchase a bottle when they’ve had the opportunity to taste it. The benefit for you is that the tasting is free!

Stores often pour wine samples on weekends, when shoppers have time to stroll and sip. Larger stores in metro areas may have weekday tastings. (You’ll probably get the wine in a plastic cup–but whatever, it’s wine!) And smaller, independent outlets are a great resource for sipping your way through lesser-known regions and sommelier-chosen wines. Follow local shops on social media or join their email list to get the scoop on tastings and events.

3. Join a wine club

If you’re lucky enough to live near a winery or a friendly wine shop, consider signing up for their wine club. They usually come with valuable perks, like member parties and free tastings when you visit.

Many wine-producing estates have clubs for their top fans and patrons. Winery clubs typically require a certain number of bottles to be purchased annually. One strategy that works well is to join a wine club in the fall and purchase the required number of bottles at sign-up. That way, you can enjoy their harvest festivities as a confirmed member, you have plenty of wine bottles for holiday gifts and parties, and you get to utilize the wine club benefits for most of the next year.

Yes, there’s an upfront cost to subscribing. But if you visit often enough and you like the wines, the math can work out. Being a regular at a winery or a wine shop means you’ll be the first to know when a special barrel is tapped, or a little-known gem of a bottle hits the shelves.

4. Scope out the happy hours

Wine sometimes gets cheaper, depending on where the sun is relative to the horizon. I don’t know exactly why it is that way (physics?) but I’m grateful for it.

Happy hours are a low-stakes way to venture outside of your comfort zone. Maybe you can’t remember whether you like Pinotage or not. But when it’s $6, who cares?

Chain restaurants tend to have boring pours, but foodie-centric and chef-owned places are more likely to have intriguing happy hour wines that rotate. Especially valuable are happy hours at wine bars, and Italian, French, or Mediterranean restaurants.

5. Take a wine tour

If you’ve been reading The Wine Fairy blog for a while, you probably know that I’m a big fan of wine tours. My partner and I have recently done tours in Fredericksburg, Arizona, Virginia, and Ensenada, Mexico

Wine tours are typically a great value and a low-stress way to try a whole bunch of wines. Sure, you usually won’t get super-premium pours on a tour. But sometimes you get rare tastes, like experimental, pre-release, and small-batch wines. And there’s nothing quite like enjoying a glass of wine right in the field or the cellar where it was born.

For complete newbies, taking a winery tour helps you get an idea of what you like and don’t like. For more advanced wine explorers, a tour lets you compare terroirs, grape varieties, and maturation choices within a single vineyard or region.

Wine tours fall into two broad categories: Single-winery tours and regional tours. Single-winery tours give you an in-depth look at one producer’s wine portfolio and production methods. You may get to a tour a vineyard, bottling line, or cellar before you taste the wine.

Winery tours are super informative–and outside of Napa and other agro-tourism hotspots–usually quite affordable because they help drive wine sales. Well-staffed wineries often have tours year-round. Smaller wineries may only host visitors during certain parts of the season. A winery may allow you to reserve a tour right from their website, or you can reach out to them directly for tour availability.

Regional tours, on the other hand, are offered by independent tour agencies. They collaborate with local wineries and arrange to bring in groups of tourists. Many of the world’s wine regions have tour guides that will chauffeur you around to several wineries for tastings over a full day or a half day.

When you factor in the cost of independent transportation and tasting fees, tours really are a bargain. It’s often the safest and cheapest way to do a whole bunch of tastings on a single trip.

You can find regional wine tours on travel aggregators like Expedia and Viator, and sometimes on discount sites like Groupon. (Money-saving tip: It’s worth doing a Google search for the tour company’s own website. Travel sites charge high commissions, and tour providers are sometimes willing to pass the savings on to customers who book direct.)

Whether it’s part of a staycation or a visit to another city, state, or county, wine tours are one of our favorite ways to indulge in wine-tasting while staying on budget.

Drink better, spend less

At first, I was annoyed to hear about a new bottle of wine that costs more than my car, but then I realized it doesn’t matter. The $25,000 Cab is a dumb media stunt, a textbook Veblen good. (They’ll probably sell out all three cases by the time the wine is ready in 2027…but it’s still a dumb stunt.)

Fortunately, there have always been–and always will be–plenty of ways to enjoy delicious wine without spending stupid money. Check out my other articles tagged “drinking on a budget” to find your own affordable wine bliss.