The consumer stands in the market,

His eyes fixed on the bottle of wine

From the vineyard he has trusted for years.

The price has risen,

A little more with each season,

And now he hesitates,

Feeling the weight of every choice.

He looks to the shelf beside it,

Where foreign wines sit at lower prices.

He knows what makes them cheap—

The vineyards far away

Where the land is ravaged,

Where toxic chemicals seep into the soil,

And where the hands that toil are not free.

Yet those wines are untouched by price hikes,

A tempting offer of affordability.

The choice stands before him:

Support the winemaker he believes in,

Or save his money by turning a blind eye

To the suffering and harm that made the cheaper bottle.

The dilemma is not unlike that of the winemaker,

For just as producers must choose

Between ethics and survival,

So too must the consumer decide

Between conscience and convenience.

The cheaper path is easy,

The sacrifice small,

But with every purchase,

He knows he’s sending a message—

To himself, to his peers,

To the world that watches in silence.

And yet, adding insult to injury,

The monetary authorities will claim

That the price of wine has not risen at all.

They point to the cheaper bottles and say,

"Look, nothing has changed."

But in truth, everything has changed:

The wine is worse,

Its production tainted by compromise—

Health is endangered,

Human rights are violated,

And the sustainability of the environment is sacrificed,

All for the sake of keeping costs low.

Society’s moral integrity deteriorates,

It is compromised with every choice,

A slow erosion of values,

As convenience takes precedence over conscience.

For every action is a step toward becoming.

And as he chooses the cheaper, unethical wine,

He tells himself that price matters more than principle,

That his values can bend for a bargain.

In that single moment,

He reinforces a value system

That prizes convenience over conscience,

Low costs over lasting integrity.

And with each such choice,

The moral fabric of society weakens

It is not just the winemakers,

The business owners,

Who face this erosion of ethics.

It is all of us—

Every time we choose between what is easy and cheap,

And what is right,

We are pushing the world

In that direction.