Two glasses after I decided I may as well finish the bottle of PSI I had for the evening, I wondered if I should have just written down a tasting note. Instead of noting down the astonishing array of flavours I’d come across, I wondered whether I’d had a peek into a world I rarely saw. The world of the cult wine. I started thinking about what this particular wine meant to Peter Sisseck, winemaker at PSI and Dominio de Pingus. Whether it took the fame of Dominio de Pingus to make PSI or whether I could have drunk something similar without the cult wine link.

Here’s the thing about cult wines. If you can’t afford them, they may as well not exist such is the likelihood of ever getting to try them. If you can, well you get to drink the thing. It’s a fairly recent phenomenon. Wine used to be a lot more democratic based on the release prices of first growths in the 80’s. Nowadays the value of these kinds of wines is based on hundreds of factors, not just to cover the production. But is it a bad thing for wine? More money in the industry means more investment in research, technology in the vineyard and gives winemakers a bit more freedom to experiment. And that means better wine for all of us. It’s not like wine is alone in having “two tiers” of products.

Just like the relationship between haute couture and high street fashion, “affordable” wines need the stratospheric cult wines.

Without Dominio de Pingus I would never have tasted PSI. I wouldn’t have known just how good the grapes from those old vines can taste. Just like without the endless conveyor belt of designer clothes, I wouldn’t be wearing the clothes I wear today. I’d probably be wearing a hessian sack. And the less I think about that the better.

There will always be a wine or a winemaker who can go against the grain and be hailed as the next big thing, normally under the motto, “making wine I want to drink.” But winemakers like Sisseck and wines like PSI mean as a drinker I don’t have to risk drinking a bad bottle. He’s a talented guy. He got these growers in Ribera del Duero working to standards that we now accept as standard: being paid according to grape quality not quantity, offering advice on biodynamic farming so they can look after the soils. Who knows if we’d ever have got the chance to taste them if Peter hadn’t bottled PSI.

Wines like this should be celebrated.