What Kind of Wine Snob Are You?

I posted this on my blog the other day. Might interest some here.

My mother, may she rest in peace, taught me many lessons, many I have forgotten but one that I did not, was

that being a snob is a good thing. It means you know what you like and can discern differences between things to assess quality and preference. The term wine snob can be thrown around but in this golden age of wine that we live in, what does it really mean? Sorry to go all Buzzfeed on you but I present the 6 types of wine snobs.

1. Points Snob - perhaps the oldest and most hated of all wine snobs. They have no faith in their palate and don’t trust themselves enough to make a personal judgement on the wines. They follow critics blindly and their cellar is usually a mish mosh of prestige bottlings and high scoring “trendy-chic” wine that was hot once and no longer is. Think Grenache from Catalonia, Shiraz from the mid 90’s from places like McLaren Vale, or new wave Barolo from 97, 00 or '90. You cannot sell them wine they would like because it doesn’t have points but if it has points they will back up the truck. When you drink with them, they tend to bring older versions of wine that has all fruit and no acid so after about 18 months it tastes like fruity sludge…and they love it, after all, it has 95 points.
   
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2. New World/Old World Snob - Maybe you are a new world/old world snob. This means you’ll only drink from France and Germany and Italy or just from Chile or California. It’s interesting comparing these two types of snobs, and in my opinion both sides are being unnecessarily myopic. There is enough crossover in styles that you can find world class spoof in France just as much as California. So why should a CA wine drinker not drink French wine despite there being many many to choose from? Probably laziness and lack of exposure I would say. French is another language, the labels and rules are very complex and people, unless they have the passion, don’t really care. It goes the other way as well.
   
   
   There are many interesting wines of restraint, moderate alcohol, high acid, site character being made in places such as Chile, Australia and California. California used to make world class wine in a European style and then went completely off the rails chasing fruit and points. There has been a resurgance of old world style producers in California recently (Donkey and a Goat, Clarine Farms, Rhys, etc.) but most Old World snobs have never heard of them. There are actually some people (mostly younger) that will argue with you until they are blue in the face that it is impossible to get balanced wines with minerality in California. Of course, they’ve never had any of the more restrained producers which makes these arguments particularly educational.
   
   
   A subset of this is the region-specific wine snob “I only drink Burgundy” or “I only drink Champagne.” This group is missing out on an even larger number of wines that they would like.
   
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3. “Green” Snob - Now on to another altogether different beast. The dreaded I only drink “organic/biodynamic/natural” wines people. There is an old joke. Well oldish. How do you know if someone’s vegan? Don’t worry, they’ve already told you. You can apply that to this type of wine snob. When I worked retail, granted at a store that specializes in all of these three types of wines, but happily shows restraint in their overall proselytizing about these segments of the wine market, which by the way, they pretty much created, these people came in and were rubbing it in your face and now it’s all over social media and the such. Organic/biodynamic/natural are ways to make wine and farm, it is not an invitation for your smug superiority You all know who I am talking about. It’s great that these wines are organic (very expensive to be organic and requires all sorts of verification and certification), but there are also many producers who use organic principles and are not tied to organic as they are business people and need to feed their families and one year some crazy pest came and almost destroyed it all, but it didn’t, because they sprayed. Shit happens. People spray. Move on. Don’t hold it against a winemaker if they are not organic or not 100% organic. As long as the wine is good (see Laurent Tribut) the audience will be there. Even the so called organic geek audience who probably have no idea that Tribut nukes his vineyards and yet these wines are delicious and very popular amongst the people in the know.
   
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4. Price Snob - Now we come to a snob that is also democratic. The price snob. The price snob cuts both ways. First in the classic sense is the rich person who will only drink wines above $50/$100/$200 a bottle. It’s the equivalent of just eating white truffles/caviar/belotta every day and ignoring things like rice, bread and pork. There is always a necessity for Côte de Nuits Villages, Muscadet, Cotes de Francs, Chablis AC and village level German Trocken wines. Expensive is what it is and through a combination of scarcity, hype and reputation these wines command high prices but at one point they were not expensive. It’s like the old sommelier trick if the cheapest wine on the list is not moving, they just mark it up higher and it will sell.
   
   
   Which brings me to my next snob in this category. They proudly declare that it costs the same to produce most wine in the world and cling to their Cotes Du Rhone and Muscadet while citing moronic blind tastings held by scientists and consumer reports publications prove them right. No, you’re not right, you’re kidding yourself. There is a reason France, Germany, Italy have classification systems, and the such. It’s because some wine is better than other wine because it comes from better dirt. Cornas will and should be better than Cotes du Rhone. If not, the monks need to be resurrected so they can do their thing again.
   
   
   A variant of the high end price snob is the Name snob. These snobs will only drink wines made by a small number of recognized names (e.g. Dujac, Roulot, Mugnier, Salon, DRC, etc.). A big trend in name snobbery is drinking these wines so young that all you are really appreciating is the terroir in the new French Oak used to age them. Of course, if the pleasure is all in the label, it doesn’t really matter.
   
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5. Spoof/Traditional Snob - Now we arrive upon one that I may indeed be guilty of. The spoofiltated/traditional wine snob. It’s either “I only drink big, alcoholic, rich, oaky, high extract wines I can’t even attempt to see through” or it’s “I only drink wines that see no oak, only use natural yeast, are only from France/Germany/Italy and in some cases Spain, are made the way it was made 200 years ago using only the most traditional methods from only Selection Massale vineyards from very old parcels, blah blah blah.” Both are insufferable and we all know a lot of each type. God forbid someone should like a wine that sees some oak and it is just a component of the wine rather than the wine itself. I’ve seen people like a wine, then find out it was raised in 20% new wood and be all like, “I’m not having that, even though I liked it 30 seconds ago.” Insufferable. And then we all know the person who likes Cali Cabs, Brunello!, super Tuscans baby! some Priorat wines and of course some Chateaneuf and classed Bordeaux. Only the spoofiest ones like all the Cambie CDP and like Cos, Pavie and Las Cases. You know it’s like 1/5th of the wine world drinks the same 75-100 wines. If it’s Riesling it’s Clos St Hune or Freddy Emile. The ideal place to be is somewhere in the middle, a place I am working to get myself. There is a phenomenon that I also have noticed with these two types of snobs. The traditional wine snobs usually cannot drink any of the spoofy stuff. Like me. I’d rather have a beer than drink spoofy wine. But the spoofy wine people can drink traditional wine and enjoy it and make intelligent comments on it so maybe I have something to learn from the spoof crowd.
   
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6. The Quality Snob The last snob on the list is the hardest to be because it requires a lot of work (and money). The quality snob will drink any priced wine, made in any style, from any region, so long as it is well made for what it is. He can enjoy a well made estate riesling or Muscadet and recognize that it makes more sense to have with oysters than a $200 white Burgundy. He can enjoy a well made Super Tuscan with a steak. He can also spend an entire evening following the aromatic progression of a single glass of Grand Cru red Burgundy. What he won’t drink is crap; wines that are unidimensional or overly hot or out of balanced or funky beyond belief. He’s had it all, been through all of the phases and has no need to try the latest orange wine or funky junk from the Jura. He has so many wines left to enjoy on earth and will not allow any crap to pass down his gullet. If there’s no well made wine available, he’ll bring his own and if not allowed will eat elsewhere. The mantra that he lives by every day is “life is too short to drink bad wine.”

Amen.

Pretty interesting.

I’m definitely a snob, see no problem with it, but try and be self aware and not flaunting. FWIW in your classification I’d say I’m a tiny bit of #2, quite bit of #5 and a lot of #6.

I dunno, Lyle. Look at the spectrum of what I’ve bought from you and what I drink…I’m just a picky snob?

2&6

Very interesting and well thought out. The word “snob” is not appealing to many but IMO it is simply the “default state of a wine enthusiast” / Berserker. We take our passion to an extreme and take the time to bicker about it online.

I’ve been through stages of #2 but no longer there; now, I’m probably a little bit of #5 and more of a #6.

I’ve been at one point all except 3.

Now I am 5 and 6. A strong 5 and 6.

Beau,

You are certainly not old world/new world. You drink it seems like a lot of interesting new world wines along with many old world wines. I’d say 6.

We’re all snobs. My mom was right. It is all about owning it.

Hors catégorie wine snob.

#7. All forms of snobbery are beneath me.

P Hickner

Yeah, I’m definitely a 6. Scary how close that one is to my attitude.

Recovered from #1 like I’d bet nearly everybody on this board. Any of #2 and #3 that I ever was was the healthy and productive backlash from #1 and in no small part attributable to the OP despite his disavowing #3.
Was never #4, I don’t think.
I’m a #6 but I got no problem keeping one foot in #5.

I remember that the first wine where I identified myself as a “wine drinker” was the 1997 Robert Mondavi Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. I bought as much as I could find…and when I moved from California back to Maine I loaded all of it in the trunk of my BLACK 2000 Honda Civic and spent three months driving through the southern states of AZ, TX, into FL and up the East Coast…to Maine. I remember the wines changing and not liking the change…but didn’t understand till years later what I did to my wines.

I got into wine so I would have something to talk about other than my military experiences after nine years in service. Who would have thought I’d ever reach a point where I’m seen as the snob? I’m definately in 6 but I’ve been all but 3 at some point or varying degree.

I have reached a point where I’m very alcohol intollerant. I drink minimally compared to the past days…and when I do now I notice imbalance more. I love Port…but I was ruined by the '66 Grahams Finest. EVERY '77 I’ve had tastes too boozy to me. So it really has landed me in a camp where balance is all that matters. Hence the almost 2 cases of fruit wines I have in my cellar.

What would Symon Brown say?

Lyle, you had me almost to the very end…I Like " funky junk from Jura" (as long as it is priced accordingly)

I had much more to say on this but will limit it for now due to lack of time.
I personally do not see the use of the term snob as anything other than derogatory. It literally means someone who puts up his nose to others and I would never think I am, nor hang out with such persons myself. I have spent much of my lifetime avoiding wine snobs. Once we get past that, there is some entertaining aspects of this written piece that made me smile and certainly much holds certain truisms.
I have a question for the author:
Was the line below tongue-in-cheek? THIS is snobbery.
It’s because some wine is better than other wine because it comes from better dirt.

This was my favorite bit that made me smile:
There is a phenomenon that I also have noticed with these two types of snobs. The traditional wine snobs usually cannot drink any of the spoofy stuff. Like me. I’d rather have a beer than drink spoofy wine. But the spoofy wine people can drink traditional wine and enjoy it and make intelligent comments on it so maybe I have something to learn from the spoof crowd.


from Wiki:
A snob is a person who believes a correspondence between status and human worth. The term also refers to a person who believes that some people are inherently inferior to him or her for any one of a variety of reasons, including real or supposed intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, power, physical strength, class, taste, beauty, nationality, fame, extreme success of a family member or friend, etc.[citation needed] Often this form of snobbery reflects the snob’s personal attributes.[citation needed] For example, a common snobbery of the affluent is the belief that wealth is either the cause or result of superiority, or both.[citation needed] Both definitions are used as a pejorative.

Thanks for the interesting read though on an otherwise dull morning. Next time, use your spell-checker…

What is the difference between 5 and 6.

7. Palate snob. No matter what it costs, how, where, or when it was made, only your tasting note matters. Anyone even thinking about having a radically different impression of the wine is flat wrong. Or they had an ‘off’ bottle. You have your ‘gods’ of wine, labels you like, regions you love visiting and have determined without any degree of doubt that these are absolutely ‘the best’ wines in the world. No rational person could possibly argue with your view.

A snob I remain.

When I was in camp 3 there was no difference between 3 and 6.

You can’t winner yourself.
Here…

How about ‘different’ dirt?