I don't understand- wine is a perfect example of something that doesn't scale. The process of making wine is fundamentally very different for the typical mass-m

I don't understand- wine is a perfect example of something that doesn't scale. The process of making wine is fundamentally very different for the typical mass-market grocery store wine than it is for a smaller winemaker. They have to put in all kinds of additives to make the output of high-volume wine production palatable, and the end result is something that may be perfectly drinkable but no one would consider best-of-breed wine. In extreme cases (like white zin), it's closer to artificially flavored and sweetened alcoholic grape juice than what a lot of people would even consider wine. That's not snobbery, that's just how it is. The process of producing really good wine is very inefficient by comparison, and part of the reason it can be so good is because it requires (for example) very specific grapes that don't even exist in large enough numbers to mass-produce that wine. I'm not even saying that mass market wine is bad. I've gladly drunk more than my share of dirt cheap wine over the years (and enjoyed it!) but I harbor no illusions that it's the best wine there is. I could totally see coffee as being a similar thing- you could scale it up and get a pretty decent mass-market approximation of the original, and it might even be pretty darned good, but it's not going to be the same as the original. It can be high-volume, best-of-breed, or reasonably priced- pick any two. I think that's all the original poster was saying. It's not snobbery, it's just the realities of that industry.