Well, the wine may be "worth" that amount. But it would probably be harder than heck to find a buyer for it. If he could, the chef would already of done it and payed you cash.

Also, for personal use, wine is only worth so much to me. My wife has been educating me on wine. I used to be happy drinking darn near anything. Now I have become discerning. Still I can find quite palatable wines for $12. It takes a little looking but they are there. Now, one finds palatable or very good wines much more common at the $30 range. That price range is about as "good" as I can really appreciate. The increase above that is beyond me.

Now quite a bit of wine stuff is sheer snobbery. I read how a guy with a little background in statistics started his own vineyard/winery. He entered contests. What bothered him is his results were so variable. He analyzed the results statistically and found that the awards with no discernable pattern: i.e. they did not very from chance. His rationale is that most of the judges do not know enough to tell good from bad.

The other thing is people tend to be highly influeced by the supposed price of a wine when they report the quality. You can take vin ordinaire and tell them it costs $$$$ and they will report it as very good. No one wants to look bad now do they?

I would say that I would prefer the money and if I want wines, I will buy em.