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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  490 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is Wine Fake?

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.





katakowsj  ·  461 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's nice to know I can always count on a thorough response from the blOO. AAThanks for the food for thought. Jeff.

katakowsj  ·  461 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Iguess the topic hit a sore spot for me. I had wogood friendsI see far less often as he and his wofegot caught up in the jackassery of wine and.bourbon snobbery that my wife and I ccould not justify ever trying to keep up with. Dissapointing to find the friendship was built on a bed of san, I guess.

kleinbl00  ·  461 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh the snobbery is a whole other thing. I think that no matter how you flaunt your status, you're still flaunting it. Flaunting it to demonstrate your membership in an in-group? The in-group will put up with it. Flaunting it to members of an out-group? The out-group will murder you for it.

Charitably? Your friends ended up dick-deep in social signaling that you wanted no part of/could not be a part of. Rather than... not do that, they kept trying and ended up driving you away. I'm sure they regret it. I'm equally sure that if they were more socially adroit it never would have come to that.

I'm a misanthrope. I grew up in a house of people so misanthropic my sister is convinced our parents are on the spectrum. But I learned to read the signals as signals, rather than truth, so I can talk a real big game around whisky. I also happen to like whisky so I think I've got... six bottles? Five? I also know what I like and how to maintain appearances so while I have deep and abiding opinions about Islay I also know that I much prefer Bushmill's most of the time (and fight the siren song of Southern Comfort). So I'm not going to insist anyone bow down and worship my Sampler Pack of Ardbeg. If you ask I can fill you in and make suggestions but if you really like your margaritas made with Corona I won't judge. On the other hand, if you have opinions about Highland vs. Lowland vs. Speyside vs. Islay and you buy me a bottle of Islay Gold I will NEVER let you live it down. If you don't wanna play the game, I'm an asshole for making you play. If you're gonna play the game, though, I gain immeasurable status by playing it better than you (scotch is that easy - don't buy blends that pretend to be single malts).

I think that a lot of luxury is people who don't realize they're playing a game. The people making money off the game? Know beyond a reasonable doubt that it's a game, and study it like it's golf. The bottom line is we psychologically define ourselves by the "luxury" items we purchase, nobody should be ashamed of that, and the more honestly we can talk about why a bottle of wine doesn't need to be worth a thousand dollars to you to still be worth a thousand dollars to someone, the happier we all shall be.