I haven't told this story in awhile, so I'll type it now, and it confirms your story for me...
I got my consulting job through the guy who wrote the book for Junior Military Officers transitioning to civilian jobs because I emailed him a question. The job, and the guy, were in Marin County, California. He was a HUGE wine guy to the point that 1/3rd of his house in San Anselmo was actually a bonded winery (something like that). He had a source for Russian River old vine grapes (from Italians that had planted when they emigrated to Cali 100 years ago). He had a group of amazing people from lowly me up to a Cali Supreme Court Justice that would go help pick the grapes, come back to his place, do the crush, then he'd ferment into Port and Red Zin, then we'd bottle with him, then he'd do a big cookout for all of us in his yard. They had a game for this dinner, and these people were true "wine nuts." The game was, "bring the best bottle of CHEAP wine" and it was all amazing wine. There was one bottle of Red Zin that was phenomenal, and it was $7/bottle. That's when I learned to read labels and the difference between "bottled by", "vinted by"... and everything in between. Turns out, for this $7 stuff (that they all loved), you can go out, buy an odd lot of say 3000 gallons that a big house can't use for a run at $2/gallon, buy some bottles, get a nice label, bottle it, and sell it for $7 (eventually climbed to $12 due to popularity). It was great wine, not because it was cheap and good enough, but because it was good and tasted good.
I've always been a "trust your taste" guy... I'm NOT going to like your wine, vodka, or anything else, just because it's $50+ bottle and I'm supposed to say, "Wow! That's good!" when in fact it tastes like bad, homeless, ass! ;)