So going deeper- Why not just have wine? Why does it have to be pigeonholed as "natural," "industrial," "made," "commercial," or whatever you want to call it? Perhaps that is the easy way? "Everyone is a weiner!" (even though we hate your guts, and my kid is wayyy better than your lil' Ricky who can't field a grounder unless it came rolling towards him in a KFC bucket)- It isn't that there has to be pigeonholing (which might be worse than a cornholing)- but we hope that process or lack of it is something to celebrate.
It isn't about superiority or inferiority- It is about difference. Alinea is a different experience from Chez Panisse which is a different experience from eating sushi at 5AM in a stall at Tsukiji fish market . With food the consumer knows this. They seek it out. They don't sit slurping oysters on the edge of Tomales bay expecting microfoams from the shucker, and they don't go eat Richard Blais' food for him to just stick a raw turnip on a plate. These differences are consciously or subconsciously understood. You go out for sushi, molecular gastronomy or to a steak house... They aren't superior cuisines- just different.
But step into media- We remember that first scene in the original Star Wars (after the text crawl) when the Imperial Destroyer flys over head- that is not real, but duuuude, back in '77 we were therrrrre! It captured the imagination, transported us to a place in space that neither exists or doesn't and that became the mythology of many of our dorked out lives. It wasn't real, but to me, at the age of four, Star Wars was a documentary. Later, once I realized there was no Greedo- it became even better. It was real in the sense of a real product of the imagination. (Now- who wasn't pissed with the remastered / altered Star Wars?)
Where it reaches the point of obscurity is when the altered reality we are presented with is done with the idea of skewing reality-- The covergirl on Glamour mag- Photoshopped leaner, removed of character / imperfections, and put into a place that is physically unobtainable- but yet sold as real. Made wine isn't going to produce anorexic teens trying to attain immortality- but it when pushed to extremes, when it is the market, it warps the idea of reality. This isn't about vinous nips and tucks- it is about a complete space aliening transformation being presented as a new reality.
Same as when blue raspberry flavor becomes a child's reality of rapsberry.
When Cher's auto-tuned Cher's "Believe"- comes on when I'm cruising between the hills of Alexander Valley, don't get me wrong- windows down, volume up, I get a little excited- I used to feel guilty, now I get all fuzzy up in my personal Jimtown
But then there's Aretha... that doesn't get your Jimtown, her inflection, character, and touch gets your soul. It is a character that is filled with character.
We don't want to stop progress, but we don't want to lose touch with our souls
This isn't raising one and damning another- It is about seeing things for what they are- Celebrating the making or non.
