If there’s two groups of people not to feel sorry for, it’s the makers and buyers of overpriced, cult wines. This confluence of big money and bigger egos (on both sides of the fine wine equation) is the wine world equivalent of a famous model marrying the star athlete.

In other words, they deserve each other.

This mindless symbiosis contributes to “trophy” California cabernets going for hundreds of dollars a bottle, and first-growth Bordeaux commanding twice that much.

ELV considers any “news” about $500 bottles of wine to be as relevant to the average wine drinker as a headline about the problems of hedge funds and their customers.

In other words, who cares? If people with more money than sense want to do stupid things with it, what resonance does that have to anyone except maybe .001% of the population?

Be that as it may, this article in the LATimes is still an interesting read, because there’s now a glut of the stuff, and apparently, prices on the spectacular 2005 vintage in Bordeaux are now half of what they were a year ago.

In other words (just like the hucksters in stocks and real estate are telling us) it’s a great time to buy Mouton and Araujo!

Yeah right.