GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: How would you handle it?

Post Subject: Wine and audioPosted by de charlus on: 7/22/2013

Wine is very much like audio, as a matter of fact. I was a wine merchant for 10 years before my present occupation; when I started, I enjoyed wine a great deal and typically spent $30ish per bottle, occasionally ramping it up a little for special occasions. 10 years down the road I found myself an MW, for whom pretty much everything sub-$500 tasted like utterly unspeakable filth aside, of course, from such Mosel and Alsatian Rieslings as entirely alienate just about everyone else due to their incomprehensible labeling and classification. It seems as if when one becomes beholden to any hobby or interest, the human tendency is to seek out ever more rarefied and hard to attain strata, forgetting that if one was ever able to derive pleasure from that $30 bottle/Bang & Olufsen stereo/$100 pair of shoes etc, then one should still be able to, even if one is aware of the existence of higher pleasures. That said, I've never had a dreadful $500 bottle of wine - at the very least it will be rich, extracted and correctly made, for otherwise the market would not for long bear it - yet there are plenty of awful $10000+ up audio components out there. Why the audio market not only supports, but seems to actively encourage this disparity is beyond me; when it is so obviously in everyone's interest but the consumer, that the consumer does not revolt is surprising.

de Charlus

PS Following a long and sweaty period of rehabilitation, I am no longer a wine elitist and can once more enjoy $30 Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon - life's good.

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