Anonymous

15 Mar 2025

Field Notes
Found #03: Wine


The owner of a small wine bar in Kyoto once told me, "Expensive is easy. It shows a lack of research and imagination. It’s far more satisfying to find unique, reasonably priced wines."

It stuck with me. The same principle applies to any purchase.



The way we search shapes what we find. If we rely on price, we’ll always land on the most expensive option, mistaking cost for quality. But price isn’t always about quality. It’s often a branding tool, a way to signal exclusivity before something is even experienced. Luxury brands, restaurants, and marketers understand this. Sometimes, price has less to do with what’s inside and more to do with what it says about the person buying it.

A great bottle of wine doesn't have to be expensive. Neither does a meal, a book, an object. The price and the meaning are different things, and we keep mixing them up.

Price is just one filter, often mistaken for quality. There are others.

Algorithms work the same way. "Michelin Awarded." "Hidden Gems." "Best Coffee." The results are pre-sorted before you've even started looking. The most expensive and most visible rise to the top, not because they're better, but because they're louder.
When everything is ranked and rated before you've even started looking, it's easy to confuse visibility with value. If something is ranked highly, it must be good. If it's expensive, it must be worth it. What gets lost is everything that isn't optimised for attention.

A great meal, a well-made object, a beautiful piece of music. None of it needs a high price or an award. It needs someone willing to pay attention.

The most meaningful things aren't competing for attention. They're just there.

Instead of the most expensive or the highest-rated, ask: Whose business can my purchase make the most difference to? Who is creating something without chasing attention? What is genuinely overlooked?

Spending more is easy. Looking closer takes effort. That effort is what makes taste personal.
Found is a new series of field notes on what can be learned from the objects around us.
—
Felix Ng
Co-founder, Anonymous
@felix.anonymous

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