If you're spending under $6 per bottle, the wine is likely to be simple, offering alcohol as its principal virtue. From $6 to $12, most wines offer fresh fruit, enough structure to marry well with food, and some individual personality. From $12 to, say, $50, you can expect complex flavors of ripe fruit and new oak, enough concentration to develop with aging and a distinctive character stamped with the wine's creator and origin. Pay any more, and you enter into a rarefied world inhabited by passionate and deep-pocketed collectors; the rest of us usually pass by with a shake of the head.

Text from Wine Spectator's Pocket Guide to Wine. Image from www.wine.com.