some random wine thoughts

No tasting notes today, just a few random thoughts regarding the world of wine, the wine trade and such.

• Fine wine prices are stupid, for the most part. Quantities are such that deep-pocketed investors can drive the value up by simply scooping up more of their favourite tipple. It doesn't need to be much. Just a case or two here and there and they watch the remaining stock jump 20% on wine-searcher or live-ex in the space of a week. I cannot for a moment believe that anyone who does this does it for a love of wine.
• I find the Rodenstock fake debacle incredibly amusing. There is something deeply satisfying and iconoclastic about the whole thing. The indictments of both Broadbent and Parker as a result goes further to prove that expertise in wine has its limits and that no opinion is categorical.
• Bordeaux bores me more and more every year. It also saddens me. I hesitate to revisit even Chateau that I've loved in the past as the combination of hot years and modern wine-making techniques suggest they'll probably taste the same as every other fucking Chateau in the same league. I wish wine writers would call them out more on this. 
• I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd rather taste an interesting wine than a good wine. This makes my tasting notes increasingly useless to the average consumer. I'm ok with that.
• I find it really difficult to post notes for the dreadful wines I taste. I feel I should. I feel that wine-making is such an effort that to undertake that producing some of the lousy wines I've sifted through of late is a waste of time. And the producers that pump this stuff out by the super-tanker load should be named and shamed. 
• Organic wines ≠ good wines. There are exceptions, but shit wine is shit wine no matter how it's produced. If you're organic and still produce dreadful wine, you should grub up your vines and plant an orchard. 
• While I feel that there should be research put into sulphur alternatives, most of the sans sulphite crowd are ill-informed fear-mongering hippy reactionaries with little-to-no concept of wine or how it's made. A 50€ bottle of re-fermenting Le Caset des Mailloles that tasted more like Devon Scrumpy than Collioure Blanc further cemented this view. 
• My tasting notes have been shoddy of late. Apologies.

So there you go.