heres another wine fact. sorry. theres this hungarian winegrowing region called tokaji (pronounce it TOE-kai). the wine from here is a big goddamn deal, its referenced in the hungarian national anthem. in the 18th century this was the "king of wines," literally the cream of the crop, what all the aristocrats drank, etc. all your louis and fredricks of the big ruling families loved this shit. and its sooooooo sweet. its dessert wine. the modern disdain for sweet wines in serious wine circles is not this eternal thing, its the current trend.

i think of it like how europe treated heavily spiced food, how it was a luxury until the commoners got regular access to spices, then all of a sudden it was more refined to eat simple, lightly-seasoned food that "highlighted good quality ingredients" or whatever. i dont know if wine trends followed that exact trajectory? in europe and elsewhere theres always been a really strong tradition of peasant winemaking with whatevers around. i dont need to tell this to most of you, you can just point to your cultures traditional wines and spirits and whatever. but i definitely know that today Wine People like to disdain sweet wines that have strong mass appeal (even as they themselves enjoy an occasional Nice moscato) and let me tell you. they are doing that at least partially to feel better than and separate from the peasants.

i wrote this post mostly with the intention of giving you pointers to annoy people who have really bought into the superiority of it all, if you say most of that stuff around someone who likes wine but doesnt care about the prestige, theyre just gonna get nerdy and try to teach you something. youre all a bunch of nerds here, you know how to deal with an infodump just fine. alcohol is something you need to be careful about. if you cant have it, you probably know that, and that deserves respect and accommodation. but if you can, its got a long history as something that helps people meet and connect and engage with history and tradition. genuinely, the wine youre drinking and enjoying is a good wine, full stop. crack open the cupcake prosecco.