Funny offline experiences

First one was in 2002/3 when Scott Manlin came to San Diego. One of the people invited, who had a great cellar, showed up without a bottle. The guy said that both bottles were opened for cork, and since they were flawed, he could not bring anything.

Another one was when one participant voluntareed a DRC. We ended up with a Domaine Serene, which he said is better according to WS. That was not bad enough, but the guy told us that his wine group had tasted a DRC the day before, we were getting the better deal.

Last one; another wine creep. Brings wine to tasting, says everybody thinks wine is flawed but can’t be right. Wine is major league flawed Guess what, the wine was shit. He counts for this as a bottle.

Anytime someone I’ve never met says they’re bringing a wine worth over $300, I’m skeptical. So DRC? Lol.

We had a friend once pour 2001 Pride Mountain Cab into a bottle of Screaming Eagle. Lo and behold, that “Screaming Eagle” was a crowd favorite. He didn’t do this to fool people (he would later tell them what he did), but he did it more to reinforce the fact that people are naturally biased towards bigger brands. Not a new concept, by any means, but I had fun watching it all unfold.

The real test would be Screaming Eagle poured into another’s bottle.
I have a few stories I will keep to myself.

We went to an offline at a restaurant and have a number of bottles on the table, some open and some not. The server brought the seafood app which was a huge tower of food. One fellow laid a bottle on its side to get it out of the way so I went to do the same. Only the bottle I laid down was open. We only lost a few tablespoons though before I realized it.

I’ve got a story of two people who hatched an idea, a bottle of PlumpJack, a very expensive and refilled well known top end Bordeaux bottle, and an unsuspecting Bordeaux “expert.” I’ll give you a hint, the story has been told here before…

Not really funny, more like the show “The Slap” if you’ve seen it:

Had a big party/tasting at my house for my wife’s 30th birthday, rented a tent for the backyard, brought in catered BBQ, the whole shebang. The attendees were a mixture of family and two distinctly different groups of “wine people” my wife and I hang out with, that had never met before (I knew this situation can always be a little iffy the first time). Everybody brought bottles, ranging from a couple 84’s (Ridge York Creek Petit Sirah and Montelena Estate), an early 2000’s Dominus, and an 05’ TIG.

At some point in the evening, a couple from group A went to the tasting table with a few friends, opened the bottle of Tig (brought by someone in group B) and poured it around for the four of them. Before he could set it back on the table, a member of group B (not the one who brought the bottle) took the bottle directly from his hands, without saying anything, and took it over to the table where group B (and the person who brought the bottle) was sitting.

The couple from group A who had opened the bottle came up to me and told me they were leaving, basically throwing a silent fit about what had gone down and how they “try to avoid that kind of behavior in the wine world.”

I confronted the guy who had grabbed the bottle, who gave me a disingenuous apology when I called it a boneheaded move; but I was actually madder at the people who got pissed and stormed out of the party. They later said it wasn’t their proudest moment, but it will be next to impossible to get them at another event together, which is a shame as they are both super knowledgeable and passionate about wine. They really threw a tantrum about it and put a big stain on the whole event. The guy who brought the bottle could care less, “It just a Tignanello, who cares? It isn’t like I brought a Masseto.” The bottle grabber is one of the more novice of the group, and felt the need to defend such a rare and sought after wine as that.

I can definitely see how there are different ways to view this, but in group A, if the bottle is on the table it is meant to be opened. In group B, many in the group feel the same way, but there are a few who refuse to open a bottle without explicit instruction from the bringer. This was a casual party with 35 bottle of wine on a table, half open, half yet to be opened.

Casey Benjamin brought a '45 La Tache to an OL At NVW&C

Then there was this! Thankfully I wasn’t there to see it as my eyes still hurt just from the picture.

Is that second picture, Todd?!

In all his glory!

I had a dinner at my home for 6 of the former Phoenix Offliners–after the champagne and sushi, poured the first flight of wine. complete silence. And they are never silent…

I guess they really enjoyed the wine.

Perhaps you laced the wine with cyanide before serving it to them?

No, really, what was the wine you poured?

I think the first flight was 4 Montrachets from Boillot.

I have a strong emotional aversion to taking ownership of someone else’s property without express permission, and doubt that I could ever get comfortable with a custom of “if it’s on the table, anyone can open it.” A couple of times I’ve been at tastings (including a large OL many years ago) where the person who brought the bottle isn’t aware it had been opened until it’s gone, and the person who brought the wine is justifiably outraged. Even worse is when the person who opened it then sneaks it around to make sure that his closest friends get to try it before it’s empty.

If I bring a wine and don’t care if I try it, I’ll open it and leave it. But that’s rare. More often I’ll bring something that I know someone else in attendance will appreciate for some specific reason and I want to make sure that person gets to try it.

Fortunately, I’ve had few bad experiences, and countless good ones, at OLs through the years, and have met too many great people to count.

If I bring a bottle, I figure it’s to be shared. So if the person hosting doesn’t make clear what the protocol is, you may as well just open the bottle, pour some for yourself and a few people who you would want to taste it, and leave it on the table, expecting it to be finished by others.

The host might have some serving order, so that should be noted at the get-go.

And if the bottle shouldn’t be shaken, it should be kept out of sight. I was at an event and one guy had brought a bottle the day earlier so it could stand upright. His plan was to carefully decant for sediment when he opened it. Unfortunately the host put it out with the other bottles that we were planning to open. A few people came by, saw the bottle, flipped it over to read the back label, and passed it around. It was thoroughly shaken and the sediment well-dispersed by the time the original guy got to it. He was completely nonplussed when he decanted and the wine was so cloudy. I told him what I’d seen but I didn’t rat the people out because that wasn’t the point. His face as he was decanting was the best part. After he learned what happened, he saw the humor in it. What are you gonna do?

Among the main wine crowd I taste with, the question of, “do you mind if I open/taste this?” is always met with a joking, “If you have to ask, the answer is no!”

The part that surprised me about my recklessly opening bottles friend is that he hadn’t met most of the crowd at this party. While I may feel free to open bottles at a tasting where I know everyone pretty well, and I know roughly who brought it, if I am in an unfamiliar crowd I would at least ask the host of the party whether it was cool or not. The other piece is that he clearly cherry picked the bottles and the Tig was probably the nicest unopened bottle on the table at the time.

While I wasn’t in attendance, there was an offline about 6 years ago in DC that includes a pretty funny twist. After the event, some of the guys went out for a beer or two. After the bar, one of the guys stopped to take a leak (in an alley) on his walk to the Metro. He didn’t see the cop car nearby, but the cops saw him. He ran, the cops followed, but he got away.

Close call.

We once had a blind tasting with stuff in decanters, and got confused as to what was in what.

I guess it forces everyone to concentrate way more. Some of the folks had much more acute palates, so hopefully when they made the call as to what was what, they were right. But I’ll never know.

And as an earlier poster suggested, its always interesting to see how well/good other wines do when poured into different bottles. Someone once poured us a 90 first growth in an innoucuous bottle, and it probably would have gotten much great laudations if we had known what it was. We’re human, and the context, from the label, affects the enjoyment sometimes.

Dusty, you were in a no-win situation as the host, as neither the guest who opened the bottle nor the guest who took it from them handled it well. The guest who brought the Tig is the kind of guest you want, as he didn’t exacerbate the situation. And there doesn’t seem to be anything more you could have done.

Put differently, the gentleman who brought the Tig was gracious, which I was raised to understand is an inherent obligation of both the guest and the host. I find that some people have a hard time with that concept, particularly in the guest side, viewing it more from the perspective of a customer.

Even at an OL at a restaurant where everyone is a customer of the venue, the person who organizes it is usually in the role of the host. He or she is the one who is going to get the blowback if an attendee doesn’t behave.

I once had a wine dinner attendee refuse to let me pass his payment/cash down the table. There were no issues at dinner, and we sat next to each other all night. When the bill came, everyone paid cash. I offered to pass his $ down to the guy with the bill, and he simply refused - saying he wanted to do it himself. strange… was I going to get up and walk away?

Another time, a winemaker came to town and brought his new girlfriend who was much younger and very sexually charged. They were all over each other, and it was pretty hilarious.