Wallace is a talented writer, but his subjects tended to be so self-absorbed and arrogant that it was hard to find sympathy for anyone. It's an intriguing mystery: is the world's most expensive bottle of wine, an original Thomas Jefferson Chateau Lafite, a fake? It's a detailed study of the wine-collecting world, if you're into that sort of thing. And it's a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a decadent era, with nasty characters being nasty to each other. But unless you're a particular fan of cattiness or schadenfreude, in my view you're better off immersing yourself in a novel or just hanging out with us middle-class folks. We'll never drink ten $50,000 bottles of wine in a sitting, but hey, we're doing okay.