Wines for the 1%?

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

Careful, he's going to write another admonitory note here and we'll have to fall all over ourselves apologizing.

 

[Unknown]

originally posted by Steve Lanum:
KLWM doesn't "owe" me low prices, for a start. However, in the age of the internet, even a dim bulb can see that Foillard's Morgon costs about 19 Euros, retail, in France which, at a generous exchange rate, comes out to about 26 yankee dollars. The price, including sales tax, should you decide to buy a bottle in Berkeley: over $40. (Yikes!) I find that a little too steep, but they'll probably sell all they have so others obviously don't. Yes indeed, prices have rocketed upwards in the past couple of years.

insofar as we are about anything, we're about taste here, steve, not morals. no one mentioned "owe", nor would they. go see ralph nader for that shit.

taste is not about "owe", or ought: it's about "chapeau!"; or else, "i wouldn't wipe my flabby ass on it."

in my corpulence, i tend to just ignore vulgar profiteering, or else point to the bleeding obvious, but i'm totally willing to make exceptions in the latter case when it comes to shills.

fb.

 

[Ned Hoey]

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by Ned Hoey:
Which is a bit ironic considering in France many of these wines have been what the lower middle-class folks drink. The vinous version of slumming? Ennobling Proletariat wines while doing some redistribution.

I don't know how many lower middle-class folks in France drink Baudry, Foillard, and Breton. Maybe lower-priced versions of those appellations, but that's a different story and not what Kermit has been doing.

You miss my point. Put aside the contemporary stars. These regions of France were where the daily drinks of the working classes were produced for centuries. Prior to modern marketing romanticizing these regions and creating the stars, farmers grew grapes and made wine for local consumption and occasional shipping to Paris. Most of the production of the south and southwest and the Rhone and the Loire etc were for the daily consumption of Frances' working classes. You sell these "humble but noble" wines to the American Petit bourgeoisie by assuring them that you've discovered the finest examples.

The thing driving price differentiation is the successful creation of star producers. Which isn't fraudulent, but it isn't absolute. Kermit was able to build trust over time by being reliable enough that folks believe it when he says this is the producer you want. Doesn't mean it's the only good or worthy one, but say that, AND attach a stiff tariff and you have people nodding in agreement. Hey it's endorsed by this reputable guy and it's expensive, so it must be good.

 

[Mike Klein]

It is worth keeping in mind that KLWM retail prices for direct sales (the prices cited in the mailer) are always full retail. The wines are almost always less if you buy through a store that does any sort of discounting or price competition. I'm sure this is to avoid undercutting KLWM wholesale customers.

The wines may still be aggressively priced, but I just wanted to point out that judging the prices based on the mailer or KLWM direct purchases is a little misleading as to the true market value of the wines.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by fatboy:

originally posted by Steve Lanum:
KLWM doesn't "owe" me low prices, for a start. However, in the age of the internet, even a dim bulb can see that Foillard's Morgon costs about 19 Euros, retail, in France which, at a generous exchange rate, comes out to about 26 yankee dollars. The price, including sales tax, should you decide to buy a bottle in Berkeley: over $40. (Yikes!) I find that a little too steep, but they'll probably sell all they have so others obviously don't. Yes indeed, prices have rocketed upwards in the past couple of years.

insofar as we are about anything, we're about taste here, steve, not morals. no one mentioned "owe", nor would they. go see ralph nader for that shit.

fb.

Although I would grant that there is less whinging from the self-entitled on this board about prices (mostly because there is less written about wines with stratospheric prices), numbers of people around here can be impressively moralistic. Not to mention that it is run by a politburo. So I'd say that Steve can safely stay here for that shit.

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Ned Hoey:

You miss my point. Put aside the contemporary stars. These regions of France were where the daily drinks of the working classes were produced for centuries. Prior to modern marketing romanticizing these regions and creating the stars, farmers grew grapes and made wine for local consumption and occasional shipping to Paris. Most of the production of the south and southwest and the Rhone and the Loire etc were for the daily consumption of Frances' working classes. You sell these "humble but noble" wines to the American Petit bourgeoisie by assuring them that you've discovered the finest examples.

What is your point. It's not just marketing to claim that Baudry and Breton are the finest examples of their region. It's the truth. And it's not just marketing to say that they wanted to put in work and had a vision for their land that a lot of their neighbors did not.

In France they also command higher prices than most of their neighbors. I know Kermit had somewhat of a unique role in helping to publicize these producers (I guess he started with Joguet), but he wasn't making the shit up or romanticizing quality that wasn't/isn't there.

And I still fail to see how KLWM is an enterprise catering to the American petite bourgeoisie. I would imagine those folks are much more likely to shop at Costco, Bevmo, or some other big box store I've never heard of. But I'm not a sales demographic specialist.

If you mean to say that KLWM is selling wines to the American bourgeoisie that would be drunk by the petite bourgeoisie in France, again, I'm not sure how many lower middle-class folks in France are drinking Baudry, Breton, etc. They're much more likely to be drinking from Baudry and Breton's neighbors. And the same logic applies for marketing them to middle/upper middle class folks in France: the best of the region for prices that are more expensive than their neighbors but cheaper than Bordeaux and Burgundy.

 

[Unknown]

got me.

fb.

 

[Unknown]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
numbers of people around here can be impressively moralistic. Not to mention that it is run by a politburo.

Someone needs to update the FAQ here. Marx rejected morality as ideology.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by .sasha:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
numbers of people around here can be impressively moralistic. Not to mention that it is run by a politburo.

Someone needs to update the FAQ here. Marx rejected morality as ideology.

Marx rejected justice as ideology. But,of course, appeals to justice operate frequently in his writings. I guess one could accuse him, as Habermas accuses Foucault, of cryptonormativism. I think it would be more accurate to say that he thinks the criteria of justice in particular societies are a manifestation of their ideologies, a claim, that if one thinks about it, is hardly surprising. It would be more shocking if a society's beliefs about justice didn't correspond to some extent to its ideological beliefs. And the claim, of course, does not exclude a belief in an objective justice, which, if it existed in a particular society, would still undoubtedly be an expression of its ideology. I think the politburo can rest easy with its FAQs on this one.

 

[John Roberts]

The American bourgeoisie drinks that Cupcake shit.

 

[Brian C]

I guess one could accuse him, as Habermas accuses Foucault, of cryptonormativism.

I thought people just accused him of using too much oak?

 

[Cliff]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by .sasha:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
numbers of people around here can be impressively moralistic. Not to mention that it is run by a politburo.

Someone needs to update the FAQ here. Marx rejected morality as ideology.

Marx rejected justice as ideology. But,of course, appeals to justice operate frequently in his writings. I guess one could accuse him, as Habermas accuses Foucault, of cryptonormativism. I think it would be more accurate to say that he thinks the criteria of justice in particular societies are a manifestation of their ideologies, a claim, that if one thinks about it, is hardly surprising. It would be more shocking if a society's beliefs about justice didn't correspond to some extent to its ideological beliefs. And the claim, of course, does not exclude a belief in an objective justice, which, if it existed in a particular society, would still undoubtedly be an expression of its ideology. I think the politburo can rest easy with its FAQs on this one.

The point of the Revolution is, finally, to achieve justice, so we can go fishing in the morning and write poetry in the afternoon, or something like that. Until that day comes, we are stuck with the (ideological) idea of justice imposed by the ruling class of the day.

 

[MarkS]

...we're about taste here, steve, not morals.

Seriously? So it's really "what's in the bottle" that counts? We (you) don't give a shit about anything?

 

[Levi Dalton]

originally posted by Brian C:

I guess one could accuse him, as Habermas accuses Foucault, of cryptonormativism.

I thought people just accused him of using too much oak?

Rim shot!

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

And I still fail to see how KLWM is an enterprise catering to the American petite bourgeoisie. I would imagine those folks are much more likely to shop at Costco, Bevmo, or some other big box store I've never heard of. But I'm not a sales demographic specialist.

I am. Although I haven't run any crosstabs on "petite bourgeoisie", I think you are right. With the caveat that wine geekiness is only partly correlated with income, so there are pockets of wine geeks in most economic tiers.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Cliff:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by .sasha:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
numbers of people around here can be impressively moralistic. Not to mention that it is run by a politburo.

Someone needs to update the FAQ here. Marx rejected morality as ideology.

Marx rejected justice as ideology. But,of course, appeals to justice operate frequently in his writings. I guess one could accuse him, as Habermas accuses Foucault, of cryptonormativism. I think it would be more accurate to say that he thinks the criteria of justice in particular societies are a manifestation of their ideologies, a claim, that if one thinks about it, is hardly surprising. It would be more shocking if a society's beliefs about justice didn't correspond to some extent to its ideological beliefs. And the claim, of course, does not exclude a belief in an objective justice, which, if it existed in a particular society, would still undoubtedly be an expression of its ideology. I think the politburo can rest easy with its FAQs on this one.

The point of the Revolution is, finally, to achieve justice, so we can go fishing in the morning and write poetry in the afternoon, or something like that. Until that day comes, we are stuck with the (ideological) idea of justice imposed by the ruling class of the day.

Well. that is what I said, just with a recognition that it's hardly shocking. I don't really think Marx can be accused of believing in the beach beneath the paving stones, as you suggest. But of course he did believe that there could be a more just arranging of economic ownership and wealth.

 

[Cliff]

I was simply pushing that last point, which strikes me as at odds with the bit about the beach and the stones. Once we achieve a just distribution of economic ownership and wealth, class conflict and the various ideological systems it generates will disappear. The noumenal and phenomenal will come into alignment; history will be over.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Cliff:
I was simply pushing that last point, which strikes me as at odds with the bit about the beach and the stones. Once we achieve a just distribution of economic ownership and wealth, class conflict and the various ideological systems it generates will disappear. The noumenal and phenomenal will come into alignment; history will be over.

One doesn't have to believe in a utopia to think that there could be better arrangements of power. Marx didn't write the Soul of Man under Socialism. Oscar Wilde did. And as far as my reading goes, the line about the withering away of the state is pretty much confined to the Manifesto. It is logical to assume that if the 19th century state's raison d'etre was to guarantee a distribution of wealth to owners of the means of production, and bourgeois democracy forwarded that by giving the means of running a state to those with material ownership (as opposed to the preceding monarchic and aristocratic states), then a state in which ownership was distributed among workers would result in an absence of need of then current state mechanisms for guaranteeing the current distribution.You would have to be way stupider than Marx was to think that decision making could be made directly by all workers, so, of course, power would remain, and the withering away, to the extent that it mattered in the larger discourse, exists as what Kant might call a regulatory, utopic ideal. So, in any case, it is usually interpreted by those Marxists who don't run totalitarian states.

It's worth remembering in these exchanges, that probably 80% of what Marx wrote, if his name weren't attached to it, would be regarded as ideologically neutral sociological and economic analysis. I wager that if you gave me the right to excise about 5% of the Capital, I could publish the rest under the name of David Ricardo and no one would notice. Surplus profit, after all, is a genuine intellectual problem in 19th century capitalism and its concept of the labor theory of value and Marx was right to be concerned about it.

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

It's worth remembering in these exchanges, that probably 80% of what Marx wrote, if his name weren't attached to it, would be regarded as ideologically neutral sociological and economic analysis.

Numerous times when reading Das Kapital, it occurred to me that with some editing and rearranging, it would be easy to use his insights as a guidebook to business strategy, kind of a Michael Porter for the late 1800s.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

Someone was talking about Das Kapital in exactly these terms on the radio the other day, making me want to read it.

One of the curious memories that has stayed with me from my youth was visiting the science-industry museum in Chicago with my then-girlfriend and reading under a display on Marx: Das Kapital: one of the most widely unread books of consequence.