Can someone who appreciates quality $10 wine live in “America’s most-sought neighborhood”?
A new study says the Wine Curmudgeon lives in perhaps the hottest real estate market in the United States, which raises serious questions about my lifestyle – wine included.
Here’s the thing: I don’t have granite counter tops. I don’t have a Wolf range or Bosch refrigerator. I don’t have a sauna or swimming pool. I do have mid-century plumbing and a paid-for, stick-shift Honda Fit.
And, of course, a passion for quality $10 wine.
So when the study said my part of Dallas was “America’s most-sought neighborhood,” I was at a loss for words (which, as regular visitors know, is almost impossible). How can this be? I live there. Doesn’t that automatically disqualify my neighborhood?
Most importantly, does it mean I can no longer drink the wine I love?
Because, as the study notes, real estate seems to be the culmination of 21st century American culture – that we’re a “a nation of virtual carpet treaders” who love “Zillow porn.” Which I can vouch for: I have a neighbor who probably spends as much time on Zillow as I do looking at wine store inventories. Plus, just now, I got yet another text asking to buy my house, which happens with astonishing regularity.
Hence my conundrum. If my neighborhood is really this trendy, what will the hipsters say when I buy this instead of this? And what will they do when they find out that I write – and most convincingly, if I may say so – that expensive wines are not necessarily better just because they’re expensive? Don’t both of those actions defeat the entire purpose of trendy?
Will they snub me when I walk Churro, the blog’s associate editor? Will they point me out to their visitors, shaking their heads and sighing, as the neighbor who is just a little “off?”
Fortunately, the study has its flaws, as the authors acknowledge. If nothing else, it’s based on Zillow data, which may be even less accurate than many of the wine and health studies that claim we’re drunk every night – even though fewer of us drink and most of us are drinking less.
And, as my mother is probably thinking as she reads this, the last thing I care about is fitting in, and especially fitting in with people who don’t understand the value of a paid-for, stick-shift Honda Fit – or a fine bottle of $10 Gascon white wine.
Map: Courtesy of Zillow