Daddy Winebucks

For years now, I’ve worn the fact that I’ve never watched an episode of Friends, The Simpsons, ER, CSI: Anywhere, Law & Order, Sex in the City, Lost, Entourage, Weeds, Dexter, Monk, or any of the critically acclaimed, rabid inducing bits of television entertainment, like a badge of hon0r.

I assure you this is not a statement on how TV has ruined our culture, that I gave ours up years ago in favor of books on Abraham Lincoln and by Malcolm Gladwell.  In fact, I watch a lot of TV.  But the more I’ve been told how much I should watch a show, how it will change my life, the more I’ve found myself holding off, claiming to wait until I can watch the DVD’s.  And maybe there is a kernel of truth there.  But more than that I think I’m just too lazy to commit to something else that I may or may not like, simply because the public at small has given a show their undying blessing.

So it was with great joy that I read Adam Sternbergh’s recent New York Magazine piece, “The Mad Men Dilemma.”  You see, I’ve not watched an episode of this show either, adding another notch on my, “I’m too hip to watch your hip show just because you tell me to” list.

But what this article really did was make me think about the recent Top 100 lists released by Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast.  These lists are not new but they seem to have been setting the tone for many in the wine buying public for at least as long as The Simpsons has been doing so for the culture at large.

On a base level I’m suspect of these lists, not because I think there is anything untoward about compiling them, but more about their trying to establish for us what is the “best” of a given year.  And just to prove there is no bias against the hand that feeds me (so to speak), I feel the same way about Rolling Stone’s, 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, every issue of Los Angeles Magazine, and of course in context, EW’s 100 Best TV Shows.

While some have taken a fair, semi-scientific approach to the process, none seems to have the potential purchasing punch that the wine lists do.  I know several people who look at the list and have a standing order on at minimum the first ten, to be bought on their behalf regardless of cost.  Again, this is not inherently a bad thing.  I guess my point is, is it a necessary thing?

Can we not, as wine consumers take more joy at finding those wines that tickle our palatel fancy, without being told what our palettes will like.  More importantly, how realistic (or humbling) is it for most of us to peek at the Top 100 wines of a given year only to see that a vast majority of the best ones are far out of our economic reach?  At least if I decided to buy the top TV DVD’s of all time, they’d be roughly the same price.

Don’t get me wrong, wine reviewers review wine.  This is what they do.  And I have no doubt that the Top 100 issues of both publications are their best selling newsstand sellers of the year.  I get it.

I’m a creature though who loved the joy of having discovered, “Arrested Development” on my own, before everyone was talking about it.  That allowed me to tell all my friends, co-workers and anyone who listened why they should be watching it, not the other way around.

So during this season, as it should be all year, it’s always better to give than receive!

Happy Holidays!