If there is anyone who can tell a sauce, a robust sauce perhaps made with a demi, using a ten buck bottle of a decent red from a hundred dollar one - good for him. My palate is not that sophisticated.
It is the subtleness of flavor that separates an expensive fine wine from a nice relatively inexpensive one.
But toss in all sorts of other flavors to a sauce, including herbs, and, at least to me, the delicate flavors of the expensive wine would be overwhelmed. I certainly could not appreciate the fleeting flavor of, perhaps, apricot the more expensive wine is supposed to impart.
It is kinda like taking a fine single malt Scotch and mixing it with Coke. You might as well mix the stuff with 'shine.
Maybe there are some very delicate concoctions that are served with little more than a reduction of wine that could be tastier with a pricier wine. If so, I don't know about them.
To me the addition of wine to many dishes and sauces is a fine thing to do and certainly improves the dish because it adds the fundamental flavor of the grape. After that the subtle flavors are lost. But if one picks a wine with a nasty taste, those flavors will survive. Off tastes, for some reason, never go away. Rats.
Does not seem fair but that that is the way things go.
So I sign onto the cook with a wine you can drink concept.
Just my take on things. Take care.