Fucking Rich People Ruining Everything, Even Wine

You don't have to look much farther than our federal government to realize how much rich people are ruining the lives of people much less wealthy than they are, attempting to slash their healthcare and offering the greatest tax breaks to moguls like themselves. With such privileged, self-centered people at the helm, it seems that nothing is safe—as The Atlantic points out this week, not even the wines of Napa Valley and other regions across the U.S.

It turns out that Donald Trump is not the only billionaire also interested in dabbling in wine, competing against families and grapes with a long history in the region. James Conaway, author of Napa At Last Light: America's Eden In An Age Of Calamity, describes in his Atlantic essay, "Rich People Are Ruining Wine": "The wines have become—with notable exceptions—standardized, and the gap between real agriculture and the glamorized version has grown." Conaway blames the "lifestyle vintner... a type of hobbyist investor who makes money in another field and then buys into wine, mostly for the social and financial cachet. Trump is but the most famous of them; the owners of thousands of smaller enterprises across the country—wine's now made in every state in the union—qualify as well."

In Napa, for example, the valley floor is already filled with vineyards, so some new "vintners" like a "prominent computer-boom beneficiary named Mike Davis" are attempting to plant on the hillsides, messing with the area's natural wildlife preserves. Meanwhile, large "mega-companies—Constellation, Treasury Wine Estates, Kendall-Jackson, Gallo" are in danger of overshadowing longstanding family wineries like Salvestrin Vineyards, a small, 18-acre Napa operation that is the "antithesis" of a lifestyle vintner. It all makes for a fascinating, closer look at the various markets (and possible less-than-noble forces) behind a beloved beverage; find out more at The Atlantic today.