DRINKING

BEWARE THE POMPOUS METRO-SEXUAL WINE SNOB POSERS

They can't taste their way out of a paper bag

 

 

’ve long suspected wine snobs were simply pompous metro-sexual posers.  News reports have confirmed my suspicions.  A study was conducted recently where wine snobs were told a wine was $10 and then the wine snobs rated it.  They were told another wine was $90 and rated it.  Guess which one the wine snobs rated higher?  That’s right.  They rated the $90 wine almost twice as high as the $10 wine.  But here’s the rub – it was the same wine.  The price was the major influence; not the color, the legs, the bouquet, or the taste, but the price. 

 

Of course, who couldn’t see that one coming.  How often have you ordered an expensive bottle of wine, or someone gave you a glass of some expensive wine, and the wine was very mediocre?  Or how often have you ordered a bottle of wine which was twice as expensive as another wine you liked, but the expensive wine was hardly twice as good, if at all?  More often than you can recall, I suspect.

 

Here’s another news report.  In a scandal in Napa Valley, grape brokers sold tons of low quality grapes as high quality grapes to unsuspecting wine experts.  In other words, the wineries looked at the grapes, bought the grapes, made wine from the grapes, and sold the wine from the grapes, and at no time during this process did anyone realize that the quality of the grapes were low.  This went on for years.

 

But that’s not the best part.  The best part is that the grapes they bought weren’t even of the same variety that they thought they were buying.  That’s right.  They thought they were buying Zinfandel grapes but were actually buying a grape called Carignane – a grape which sells for many times less than a Zinfandel grape.

 

If you’ve ever been on a tour of a winery you’ve undoubtedly witnessed wine makers meticulously testing and tasting the wine at various stages in the process.  They do this on almost a daily basis for weeks or months.  When the wine is ready for bottling, wine makers, winery owners, and numerous other ‘experts’ taste the product and bask in its magnificence.

 

At no stage during this process could any of them tell that not only were the grapes of inferior quality, but the grapes weren’t even of the same variety.  So much for the palettes of the so-called experts.  As a matter of fact, they never figured it out.  And it’s likely that none of these wineries would have ever known the difference, year after year, unless a government agency had not become suspicious and started an investigation. 

 

It seems that the government requires that grape growers and brokers scrupulously document the type and weight of grapes grown and sold.  For several years, state investigators had noticed that the amount of certain types of grapes sold was far in excess of the grapes actually grown.  They wondered where these extra grapes were coming from.  They uncovered a simple labeling scheme where brokers simply labeled the grapes as a high quality variety in order to make more money.

 

You see, the grape brokers knew what we’d always suspected.  These pompous wine snobs with all of their pretentious tasting mannerisms didn’t know their wine any better than the wino on your local skid row.  They couldn’t even tell the difference between two completely different types of grapes.

 

So forget the so-called experts.  They can’t taste their way out of a paper bag.  Next time a wine snob mocks your wine or your tasting habits, remind him that ‘experts’ greater than him could barely tell the difference between a white and red wine.  Then, very calmly and politely, in your best British accent, ask the offender to please go sodomize himself.  Then, with a satisfied grin, go back to drinking whatever you like. ©2009 www.realmanmag.com

 

 

 

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