the thing that “oh people can’t distinguish good wine from bad” discourse feels like it’s missing to me is that it’s making this materialist assumption that taste should be an entirely chemical phenomenon. but all food is drugs and as drugs they are sensitive to set and setting

food literally tastes different depending on the context in which you eat it and the meaning you make about it and that’s a feature not a bug. eating food can be a magical practice. you are literally connecting to the process that keeps you alive and builds your body

the production and consumption of extremely fancy wine is likewise also a magical practice. the product that is being bought and sold is the experience of luxury; that’s a particular kind of spell that some people want to be able to cast on themselves and others

nice

welp more fool i for not even double-checking the original claim, h/t @ChasingMyself. learning a lot here on twitter dot com