I mean, it's the world's oldest luxury. The Minoans shipped it around the Mediterranean. Scarcity is luxury and the consumption of luxury is a mark of status. That's true from the Chinese to the Tlingit.

My wine palate tops out at around $1000 but my wine appetite tops out at about $20 ($150 for special occasions - I bought a bottle of Perrier Jouet Fleur for my daughter's birthday and had the bottle made into a vase later). That's just how I'm wired, other people are wired different. I'll say this - there's a lot less crime, violence, extortion, exploitation and environmental destruction around wine than any other luxury. The guys making fancy-ass wine? Live well. The guys mining diamonds? Notsomuch.

You're right - fat gold chains will not impress the wine crowd. A Van Cleef and Arpels Alhambra necklace, with a hundredth the gold and about the same price, will. It's all social signaling and it's not like modern society invented it.

You can be mad about it or recognize that people spend money to impress other people. If you aren't surrounded by people impressed by spending? Count your blessings.

Friend of mine grew up rich. His dad had an impressive wine cellar. When his kids' friends turned 21 he'd give'em a bottle of wine as old as they were. The one he gave my girlfriend? We were too impressed to open it. When he found out about it he retaliated by giving her another that he'd already drunk a glass out of.

Of all the shitty things wealthy people do, "enjoy wine" is pretty harmless.