Wine Wars: The Curse of the Blue Nun, the Miracle of Two Buck Chuck, and the Revenge of the Terroirists

distilled alcohol changed the sacred art of the brewer and the vintner into a profane economic engine for the consumption of human hopes.

Wine does defy logic in one sense — in nearly everything else we buy we value consistency. If one in three bottles of whisky we bought, or one in three pints of beer we bought in the pub were total shit, we would never go to that pub again, and yet one in three glasses of wine we try are just rubbish, and yet we persist in trying to drink wine, and

All of this said, my sense is that many wine professionals (including me) would argue that once a table wine exceeds 15 percent alcohol by volume, the chances of it being elegant, being reflective of its place, and being distinctive, diminish considerably.