Posted on 05/25/2009 9:13:16 PM PDT by smokingfrog
It’s happened many times before: You take up a hobby or enjoyable excursion, like coin collecting or participating in Civil War Reenactments, and someone from the fringe comes along and has to ruin the fun for everyone. This can be said especially for wine drinking, where morons from all walks of life seem to find their way across the universe and stake their personal neurotic claim to all that is good about wine.
These people all play a different role when it comes to diluting your experience, and today’s Number One Culprit brings about a familiar soullessness to the otherwise pleasurable world of wine.
The Wine Snob
Wine of Choice: The '04 Clarendon Hills Bakers Gully Shiraz - $55
Throughout the collective history of winemaking, it's arguable to say the The Wine Snob has done more to hurt the industry rather than to help it. This is because a lot of people make a direct association with the enjoyment of good, pleasurable wine with these types of pretentious twits. Just like a lot of good things in this world, The Wine Snob will obstruct our innocent pursuit by using words like, “Transcendent, “ and “Effervescence,” to describe a glass of Syrah, and thus “distance themselves from the ordinary.”
And being perceived as ordinary is what The Wine Snob fears most. How The Wine Snob can detect asparagus along with a flutter of limestone in a $5 bottle of Smoking Loon remains a mystery, much like how they believed a college degree in Art History would provide them a career of wealth and prestige. There’s one Wine Snob at every party, and their insistence that they engage the lot with intellectual and philosophical conversation makes them slightly more obnoxious (but not much worse) than the Party Guitar Guy.
Where You Will Find Them: At social gatherings, leading an existential discussion around a semi circle of doey-eyed college girls. Later in the evening, The Wine Snob will try to one-up you in front of your girlfriend by scoffing at you for having no idea what Dadaism is, let alone its relevant, cultural impact on contemporary art.
Why You Hate Them: It’s quasi-intellectual idiots like this who scared a lot of middle-class people away from voting for Kerry in 2004, and now you’re working 14 hours a week at Petco while your house is on the brink of foreclosure.
Honorable Mention: The Rich Guy
Wine of Choice: Montrachet 1978 from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti - $23,929
Congratulations, Rich Guy. You single-handedly ruined Napa and ran up the average price of quality, estate-bottled Chardonnay to $200 a pop. That’s all well and good, except that The Rich Guy has no intention of actually drinking the wine. Much like his shallow, socialite Trophy Wife, he keeps his expensive wine collection locked away to acquire dust in a mansion and only shows it off during cocktail parties.
Where You Will Find Them: Buying up the entire real estate market in the Napa Valley with billion dollar homes, installing stone fountains and Zen gardens on the property, and then later that month selling the home back to the market for profit.
Next Article: The Dinner For One
Give me a 10 dollar bottle of Copperidge White Zin and I'm good to go.
Oh, yeah, I'm sure that Jean-Francois Kerry would have had the political strength to overpower the Congressional Black Caucus and actually force some oversight down the throats of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac....
I’m still a fan of 2 buck chuck to this day and have even served it to my friends here in L.A. who amazingly, dont know what it is. May I add the ff whom I have unfortunately had to meet in this city: “so you’re not in the (movie) industry?” guy.
Gotta remember Fred Sanford and his contribution to the wine community. Ripple.
Except the next step of actually removing the foil bag from the box to squeeze every last drop.
Something I have never done :)
Benjamin Mennell is a director and screenwriter based in Studio City, CA. While growing up in Ohio, he developed a love for good wine and has since been a stalwart adventurer on an endless search for the next divine bottle of vino. Contact him: bjmennell@yahoo.com
My sons college buddies would strap a box of Franzia on their backs and ride their bikes and thus the “Tour De Franzia” was born....
Don’t forget he mixed it with sparkling wine to make Champipple.
But snobbery is so much fun....
Two buck chuck works for me.
“Gotta remember Fred Sanford and his contribution to the wine community. Ripple.”
You are selling Fred short.
Boon’s Farm gave us Ripple.
Fred’s genius came in blending Ripple with Champale, giving the world a beverage that was transcedent AND effervescent - Champipple.
I have several bottles aging in a secret location as we speak. They will only be used at the appropriate time.
I recall one TV show on wine in which they did a blind taste test using gourmet chefs as the judges. The two buck chuck didn't win but it came in second to a $150 bottle.
I don’t consider myself a wine snob but I’m quite “into” wine. I like making it. I like drinking it. I like studying its history. I like tending my grape vines.
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One of my favorite signs of all time was the marquee of a liquor store in San Francisco—
WE SELL NO WINE BEFORE IT’S TIME.
OPEN 9AM.
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