Figure 2. Wine rating versus price for n = 110,515 wines with a recorded price (8,255 price-null wines excluded per SPEC §5 rule 5). Price is on a log₁₀ axis capped at $500 (87 wines priced above the cap are clamped to the right edge). Points are coloured by derived VarietyFamily (Okabe-Ito-derived, colourblind-safe). The black LOESS curve (locally-weighted regression, frac = 0.30) rises then flattens: rating increases with log-price but with sharply diminishing returns — the falsifier (a flat line) is rejected, yet the wide vertical spread shows price explains only part of the variance. The green box marks the value sweet spot ($15–25, ≥ 90 pts); ringed points are the value champions (top 1% within-price-bin points z-score among wines ≤ $25; SPEC §4.7). Source: Wine Reviews (zynicide, Kaggle), Wine Enthusiast; snapshot 2019-09-20.