An explanation isn't owed. I don't question people who go jewelry shopping while on their cruise and buy $2,000 tennis bracelets or $7,000 Rolexes. Nor do I question them when they go on a cruise and leave a $1.5 million house behind, with a $90,000 car in the garage. I don't spend my money on any of those things. By comparison, fine wine is a relatively inexpensive luxury good.
That said, I did a quick check this morning on The Wine Advocate database. TWA is the foremost wine rating and tasting note publication in its field. Looking at Cabernet Sauvignon from the 2012 vintage in California, (the most recent vintage to make it market for the most part), of the wines that fit in that category and which scored 92 points or higher on its 100 point rating scale, the
average price of such wines is $215 per bottle, and the
median price is $150. There are only 3 (out of 146) wines priced below $50 with the average price of those being $40. Now, to be fair, some of these prices are secondary market (auction) prices as many of these wines have instantly appreciated in value immediately upon release. But if you wanted to go out into the marketplace to buy them, this is what you would have to pay. And if I did a similar search for Bordeaux, the prices would be more than double that. And Red Burgundy?? Don't get me started. $275-$450 is the low-end ante for those. The bottom line is that $100 is not an extraordinary price to pay for a bottle of fine wine. And many, many people buy them. I'm not saying that my cellar is stocked exclusively with such bottles. But that was really the point of my earlier post. At any one time after buying/consuming, I might have 50 or so such bottles that I save for special occasions. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Promotions. And, yes, vacations. Especially cruises, though we usually will bring a few bottles with us when we go to WDW as well. So it is nice to be able to choose a cruise line that allows us to treat a cruise with them as a special occasion and pull the cork on one of our better bottles.
And to its credit,
DCL mostly gets this, by still allowing a couple to bring 4 bottles with them. I just wish they made the rule "One bottle per night of the cruise, per cabin" so that a 7 day cruise would mean 7 bottles total for the cabin and a 10 day cruise would mean 10, and a 4 day cruise would mean 4. But as compared to Scotch aficionados, I've got far less to complain about.