There is on earth no body more prestigious than Boston's Le Premier Club du Vin. You may trot out the College of Cardinals, perhaps, or the San Francisco Bar when Belli shows up, and for color and pomp you might have something. But for sorting out Sauternes, Boston's Best has no peer. (The price of membership included no small amount of groveling on my part, I might add.)
Why, then, after ten memorable years of Mouton, Musigny, and Montrachet are they disbanding? Why indeed! Why do you need proof of a recent stress test to see the adult shows at the county fair? Why are small New England villages disincorporating and turning into parking lots, lobstermen selling the family boat, riding academies turning the Morgans out to pasture, obstetricians sending their kids to vet school? Why? Liability insurance premiums, of course. Faced with a jump from $4000 per year to