Signs You May Be Mentally Ill

I often wonder if there is a more thankless task than wine blogging. But I guess pursuing anything that is basically psychopathic is in the end always a thankless task. And, actually, bloggers get a lot of credit compared to, say, stalkers, yet both share the same sick need. To prove that we really, really love you like no one has loved you before. And to let you know that if we can't have you, no one can. Wine bloggers are stalkers in training. Hell, look at Gary Vaynerchuk and tell me that guy hasn't broken into his ex-girlfriend's house and put First Growth corks in her underwear drawer to warn her from dating a real man (after all, Gary is inflatable). He's probably wearing her stolen panties under his cheap pants too, though I, for one, don't think that's necessarily a sign of mental illness. Sometimes a guy just lost a bet, right, honey?


The addiction to wine is mental illness. People that don't see the appeal of wine know this. But wine geeks, wine lovers, wine bloggers, others suffering from the same delusions, we don't know we're mentally ill. We think everyone feels the way we do, believes what we believe, that there's absolutely nothing wrong with us. But look at the symptoms.


Feelings of Superiority: Do you have the feeling that you're better than most people because you know a lot about wine? Sure you do. And look at the crazy folks who own wineries in Napa Valley. You know, 3000 years from now archaeologists are going to "discover" Napa Valley. They'll dig up wineries like Jarvis and Hall and Palmaz and Castello di Amorosa and think they've discovered another Valley of the Pharaohs. Another place where rich and powerful men built shrines to themselves so that they could be buried with their toys, so that they would be separate from ordinary men and not have to be associated with them. Why else build such lavish palaces to simply ferment grape juice? Surely these wineries are loud cries for help.

Speaking Incoherently: Ever really listen to wine experts expounding about wine? It's basically speaking in tongues but without the clarity or the snakes (unless the marketing people are present). It's like the babble of seriously schizophrenic people, people unable to hear anything but the voices in their own head. "I find the aroma rather primary with some ml, but the mouth is generous, though a bit abbreviated and lacking in the middle, and there's some r.s. and it's hot." Babbling. And even if you understand all of that wine babble, chances are it's inaccurate 80% of the time. But when you have overwhelming feelings of superiority it just doesn't matter. Ask any wine judge.


Belief in Hidden Messages: Crazy people think that there are secret messages for them being broadcast on the TV or hidden in ads on the bus or that their dog is trying to tell them something ("Now you lick your balls, now you lick your balls, now you lick your balls..."). Wine geeks think there are secret messages in numbers. An "89," oh, they (you know, crazy people talk about "they" all the time) say that's a perfectly good wine and worth seeking out, but what they really mean is it's not that good, that they wouldn't serve it to a Big Loser contestant selling OxyContin to Rush Limbaugh much less someone they were trying to impress. And 100 is perfection without question, and the hidden message of 100, meant just for me, is that I don't understand perfection because I not only can't get 100 point wines but if I did I taste them I would probably wonder what makes them perfect, or, worse, believe that whatever they did taste like actually was perfection. Numbers are wine loonies' Belief in Hidden Messages.


Hallucinations: Mentally ill people sometimes see things that don't really exist. They see Jesus or dinosaurs or Michael Buble. Their minds manufacture these objects and, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, the crazy people believe them to actually exist. Wine lovers have many hallucinations. They believe Wine Spectator rates wines blind. They think the BevMo 5 cent sale is an actual deal for them. They believe Wilfred Wong actually exists. They think Temecula is beautiful. They think the guy they met at a local wine tasting that they drunkenly took home is handsome when he's actually a cardboard cutout of one of those shitheads posed like Captain Morgan. Wine people suffer from continual hallucinations.


Put these symptoms together and there is only one sane diagnosis. Wine lovers are fuckin' nuts.
Which is why I have nothing to do with them.