TL;DR -- "Wine is not fake. Wine experts aren’t fake either, but they believe some strange things, are far from infallible, and need challenges and blinded trials to be kept honest. How far beyond wine you want to apply this is left as an exercise for the reader."
It is a showoff sport. Insane wine prices are there for rich people who have too much money to spend, or people who are in desperate need of validation. We all know someone in a McMansion with premium beige textured walls and a few Lexus who has a "wine cellar" that they can't stop talking about. The market is mostly for them.
I say "mostly" because like TFA says, some people really can tell the difference, but I feel bad that they have to pay so much more due to the idiot tax.
Yeah, there's definitely some learned skill in IDing wines by region/variety.
My "system" for picking wines has two approaches:
- Buy Trader Joe's Reserve in a variety I enjoy
- Visit local wine shop, tell them my budget and what I'm eating for dinner, and buy whatever they suggest
Both approaches yield pretty good results for not much money.
I'll leave "risking" the $5 bottles from Safeway to somebody else. The $10-$30 bottles I get are consistently good enough, and often better than good enough.
It is a showoff sport. Insane wine prices are there for rich people who have too much money to spend, or people who are in desperate need of validation. We all know someone in a McMansion with premium beige textured walls and a few Lexus who has a "wine cellar" that they can't stop talking about. The market is mostly for them.
I say "mostly" because like TFA says, some people really can tell the difference, but I feel bad that they have to pay so much more due to the idiot tax.