On the Alleged Superiority of Elven Wine

There are matters which scholarship should not be required to address, yet eventually must. Elven wine is not intrinsically superior to Human wine. I have participated in three blinded tastings conducted under controlled conditions, and in each case experienced tasters identified supposed “Elven subtlety,” “forest character,” and “centuries of accumulated viticultural instinct” in bottles which were, in fact, produced outside Belleren by Human vintners. When informed of this, two participants changed their tasting notes. This is why experiments are blinded.

Elven vineyards produce excellent wine because many Elven estates possess old vines, stable climate records, centuries of accumulated agricultural practice, and owners patient enough to wait twenty years before selling a bottle. None of these qualities require elongated ears. There are also dreadful Elven wines, and one simply encounters them less often because the Elves, unlike Humans, are willing to keep a mistake in a cellar for eighty years until everyone responsible has died.