Tasting Fancy Wine

A recent post on the Atlantic's Food channel offers an excellent idea -- go to a pre-auction tasting to sample high-priced, much sought-after wines and decide if they are really worth the expense. I suspect most wines in the multi-hundred dollar a bottle price range are not significantly better than some very good $50 or even cheaper wines. But I don't actually know that, because I have not had the opportunity to sample the more expensive bottles. And, it is nerve-wracking to think about splashing out, say, for a Bordeaux first growth and discovering you don't like it that much (that would be $750 or more not well spent).