This story is the confluence of three inspirations. One is a story from the book Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. The story concerns the chances of finding a good wine by choosing it solely by its label. Come to find out, your chances of finding a tasty wine are really good if you go by label.

The second inspiration is from a friend who makes it his goal to find the best cheap wines money can buy. He can wax quite rhapsodic about his successes.

And the third inspiration is my own propensity to giggle whenever I hear the “flavor notes” on the back of a wine bottle read aloud. Talk about marketing hype.

Sorry, I digress.

But I wanted to explain why there’s a cheap wine contest in Carding, Vermont. This is a sample of tomorrow’s Chronicle.