June 1997 posedown by David Broudy |
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Spill the Wine
A valuable skill I've learned in the past few years since becoming a wine
geek is that of Mouthfart Avoidance. I've never heard so much content-free
flatulence as I do when I'm in a room full of people at a wine-tasting
function. "Oh my GAWD this MerLOT is FABulous. It's pbbthth pbbt thbbbt
pwbt!!" This gushiness can be surprising from heterosexual industry idiots
from Sherman Oaks, but when it comes to wine some people feel the urge to
lapse into this mincing, florid speech pattern, as if they'd just finished
a Ronald Firbank novel/cinderblock substitute and are proud of it.
Wine is simple, folks. It's rotten grape juice. There's no mystery to it,
no secret insider clubbiness to it, no bullshit. Well, there shouldn't be.
For as long as I've been into wines as an expensive hobby, and writing
about wine on my personal
site, the phenomenal degree to
which wine has been very successfully marketed as a luxury beverage
surrounded by mystique, wealth and snobbery is just amazing.
Consider the haute snobbe apex of wines, Bordeaux. This most famous wine
region of France has for centuries been selling overpriced wine that is so
tannic, mean and morose when young that it's nearly undrinkable, so we've
been told for as long that the wine must be cellared for 10, 20, even 30
years before it is "ready." Well, I've had a few old bottles of incredibly
expensive Bordeaux, and it tastes like crap: tired, feeble, mean, and
nasty, a vinous Abraham Simpson. In fact, I think the whole business of
aging wines is a scam. I'm drinking wine from 1979 right now that tastes
like it should have been drunk around 1985 at the latest. All I taste is
wood, tannin, alcohol and some pruny old fruit. Bleah. Maybe some of those
billionaire wines like Mouton Rothschild 1929 are still fabulous, but it
appears I'll never know.
Vain Spotting
You're at a wine tasting event in a nice but not too pissy wine
shop. A ponytailed, balding, Boomer-ish studio exec of some sort arrives in
his leased Range Rover (or Hummer, if he's really up there), parks
obviously in front so everyone can see him, strolls in, asks for a few
pours of different wines, gives his opinion of each in effusive, gushy
language that makes noise, sure, but says nothing, then sidles up to the
winery rep and makes suggestions like "you know, if you'd kept this en
barrique for a few more months, it might have been a 90-pointer." He
doesn't notice the major eye-rollage going on around him; neither does the
attorney who swirls her Chardonnay furiously and complains that it's not
oaky enough.
Here's how to score points with the wine shop staff (who, generally, know a
hell of a lot more about it than you do), or the winery reps (hey, never
hurts to suck up a little and get an invite to a private tasting). There's
no point in trying to impress anyone else at these things, it lets them know
you're not a rich idiot who reads too many glossy
lifestyle magazines, and that you're someone with whom not to fuck. If you
like the wine, then say so without a ten-minute discourse on the nuances of
this or the subtleties of that, and if nothing else you'll have the respect
of the staff who then might steer you towards the wines *they* drink, not
the overpriced crap they push on the Robb Report crowd.
David Broudy, c/o staff@smug.com
back to the junk drawer
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