I wish to declare myself the greatest blind taster on earth.

In a very specialized way.

Blind tasting, as wine drinkers know, consists of identifying a wine without seeing the label or, for that matter, the bottle, which can give away a lot by its shape.

I play this game often. It's amusing, and it requires the taster to think a lot about wine. It's also challenging. The other day I was poured a glass of a dark red wine and asked, as usual, to identify it.

Generally, I would start with trying to guess the grape, then the country of origin, then perhaps the year. In the unlikely event I would get all of those right, I might try for more obscure characteristics, like the region or even the winery.

In this case, I knew precisely what the wine was.

"About $60," I said.

I was real close.

When you think about it, that's all that counts in wine these days. We want to know how much it costs. The taster who can guess that must be considered a superb oenophile. Yet I don't believe any of those fanciful degrees that wine geeks seek, like Master Sommelier or Master of Wine, requires expertise in this matter.

I now consider myself Master of Price.

The wine I tasted was a California Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2001 Terra Valentine Wurtele Vineyard. To be honest, I don't believe I can guess the price of anything except a Cabernet or a Chardonnay—these varietals aren't particularly subtle and they tend to go up in cost in direct proportion to richness, oakiness and depth of flavor. They're very straightforward.

The Terra Valentine had plenty of wood, and an unusual combination of both plentiful acidity and soft tannins. The pleasure was immediate but limited, a little rustic. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to open up, become more complex, or age particularly well. It was, however, quite forceful, as an about-$60 wine should be.

I liked it. Had I been scoring it by the more common 100-point scale, I would have given it an 89.

I looked it up on the Wine Spectator, where it was praised for its intensity and brawniness but criticized for "a cheesy, dry character" and awarded a very mediocre 85. Oh, well. I never said I was the world's best at anything except price.