Tim:
I don't pay $500---or even $200-250) for bottles of wine. Not even close, I can assure you.
On the other hand, I don't get the slightest bit upset that there are bottles of wine that get sold at that price, or that people are buying them.
Why should I? If people have the money and are willing to pay it, why should that bother me (or you)?
How in the world can you "abuse" the economic concept of supply and demand? That's.....silly. And, excuse me, you don't get to determine whether a wine is "deserving" of its price: only the potential purchaser can do that.
I would suggest that your time and energies would be better spend enjoying the wine you drink rather than resenting (and envying) those wines you consider priced too high for you to be able to enjoy, or appreciate.
My way of approaching these things is somewhat simpler: I've had some of those cult wines (it's a lot easier and less painful to the pocketbook if you're ITB and you have occasion to sample them without paying for them). Some of them have been exceptionally good; some of them have been exceptionally mediocre; some of them have been astonishingly egregious examples of over-the-top winemaking. There were some I'd love to have in my private collection, but never will because they cost too much. There were some that I thought laughably priced.
But you know what? It never bothered me all that much in either case. Sure I sighed a little at the wines I would have liked to enjoy. Didn't get angy about it though.
When I was a kid, I lusted after hot cars in sequential fervor. Never got one of them, mind you, but I lusted after them. But I never got angry at that Shelby Cobra (just to give you an example) as a result; or the people who could afford them. I never scoffed at them not being worth the money. I got over it. (And many, many years later, when I could easily afford it, I got a little two-seater convertible sports car that was super fun to drive. It was an MR2 Spyder instead of an Austin-Healy 3000 Mark IV or a Lotus Esprit, mind you, but it's sure all the joy I need and it scratches my itch to perfection, while being a lot more comfortable and refined, thank you very much).
Capitalism is not fair and balanced, Tim. Never was; never wil be. But neither was socialism, or any of the other isms.
(Okay, having preached at you, I'll tell you this: All those wines you wonder about? There's not a single one that would make your life different in any significant way. You're not being denied of as much as you think you are. You can live a good and balanced and meaningful life without ever once having had a 1907 Chateau Latour. Trust me; I know.
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