Annointing , putting on the mantle, etc.

[Botafogo]

It could be worse, this is from my friend Phillip White's column in the Adelaide Advertiser (Australia):

"Langton’s Australian Fine Wine Buying and Investment Guide, Fifth Edition, 2000, hot off the press at $25.

Langton’s is Australia’s most prominent wine auctioneer. Its publications boast of it being "both gamekeeper and poacher", as it ranks wine quality according to auction prices. It should have made quite a deal of money selling the winners of Parker’s highest points. But despite the predictability of some of his beatifications, Langton’s system does not forecast them, which must be a bastard. Their grumbling about Australian "crackpots in ten sheds" being regarded as "artisans and cutting edge innovators" by the American cognoscenti doesn’t help.

The reality now is that Langton’s, a wine auctioneer, has established a quality ranking system based upon opportunists selling wine which they had no intention of drinking, while the makers of those wines can buy them back at inflated prices, just coincidentally earning a higher Langton’s rating while they bolster their museum stock. On the other hand, wines so beloved by drinkers that they regard them as far too precious to sell, would never make the lists. This is what we call the free market."

There the fix is REALLY in, Roberto