If you can’t turn it off, you might be a snob.
You keep ignoring that you changed the facts. Sure, if they really did laugh at him, it doesn’t matter who that is, that’s a dickish thing to do. But, it’s also that I’d expect wine folks to know what a Durand is, but not a waiter.
Having a wine server laugh at a Durand is different from having a waiter laugh at it. You changed that and for some reason you won’t acknowledge that.
I thought I had implicitly admitted the error when I said the error was not pertinent to the point I was making. But: I hereby admit the error and still claim it was not pertinent to the point you were making. And, again, they were tasked with opening wine bottles. So being ignorant of impliments for achieving that end is, perhaps, less forgivable than I think you imply, which might be why you think your distinction makes a difference.
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To me, the word “snob” has different meanings to different people, and maybe even has more than one meaning to even the same person. It is kind of like the blind men describing the elephant, and its meaning depends on the situation you are encountering.
I prefer to reserve the word ‘snob’ for the situation where a person acts or speaks to elevate themselves as being superior in some sense to others. Often this involves putting down someone else. I think being a snob is almost a “feature” of personality or character. It is not subject matter specific. Most folks who post here are wine enthusiasts, wine experts, wine geeks or nerds, take your pick, but IMO they are not snobs. On the other hand, there are some people who post here, who do come across as snobs IMO. Just like everywhere else.
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Ah, what confused me is that you never actually said that. The clarification is appreciated.
Yeah, that’s where we disagree. I’d expect about 0.001% of waiters to know what a Durand or Ah So is. I’d expect about 95% of wine servers to know them.
I still trying to picture a bunch of waiters standing around, laughing at the OP pulling out a Durand. If that’s true, that’s just dumb. But, who does that in a service business? Did they all circle around the table, pointing and guffawing?
I’ll also add that we can get a bit too hung up on a binary assessment of snob vs. not snob
a true snob is an obnoxious beast, and the biggest wine snobs I’ve come across have betrayed a significant lack of understanding, yet pressed on through over-confidence.
The most laughable for me, was a wine shop owner in (IIRC) Brussels, who made a point of lauding his credentials as a “professional judge in national wine competitions”, and who proclaimed that any wine stored at higher than 16C would be ruined inside 6 months. The temperature in his shop was well over 20C, probably pushing 25C when he said that 
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An independent definition - the first one that cam up in my Google search.
SNOB
noun
- a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors and dislikes people or activities regarded as lower-class
“her mother was a snob and wanted a lawyer as a son-in-law” [JLH comment - Ha! You classless “others.”
- a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people. [JLH comment - No one on this forum, of course.]
“a musical snob”
“a wine snob” [FIFY]
That’s 100% correct. It’s not usually what you do, it’s how you do it.
One of the persistent things in this thread I disagree with is describing whole categories of actions — e.g. choosing a restaurant because of corkage, bringing wine to someone’s house, opting not to have wine some place that is serving poor quality wine — as always snobbish.
It could possibly be snobbish given certain context and how you go about it, but it more easily could be not snobbish at all.
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Good one, Jay.
If you’re willing to pour a glass equally to someone with extensive wine knowledge vs. brand new to wine I don’t think you can be a snob.
Snobbery to me is about gatekeeping, but if you’re willing to share without pretention then I think we’re more wine lovers than anything else.
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I thought that everyone thinks their taste is superior just by definition…
It’s fun to talk about 50 shades of snob, and I think that “snob” may just be a type of reaction to a situation. For me, it’s all right to be a snob…I’m sure I am and some of my friends are…of different subjects. We all love each other anyway.
The key point to me is does that behavior mock, insult or otherwise make someone feel uncomfortable unnecessarily. Sometimes it seems productive, like maybe a sommelier needs to be reminded that their primary job is to help customers enjoy their experience, not broadcast their superiority. Maybe not when a new friend only brings a $125 BYOB to a bistro dinner.
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Preferring chocolate to vanilla ice cream carries no notion of superiority. Alas, with regard to art and wine, many enthusiasts believe in objective judgments–and, indeed, many on this board. This entails believing that one’s own judgment is at the very least accurate, whereas others are not, and, of course, an attitude of superiority can grow from that. If one takes one’s preferences to be just that, one’s preferences, then there’s no suggestion of superiority.
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And we all do it every day. I am going to this sushi restaurant because I think it better than the other ones around. I am watching this TV show because I think it’s better than other ones I haven’t watched yet. I am buying these shoes because I think they’re the best ones for me.
There’s nothing snobby about being discriminating in your tastes. It becomes snobby because of how you do it, and how you make other people feel. “Oh, you go to that other sushi place? That’s one of the worst ones around. The one I go to is so much fresher and higher quality.”
So we should continue enjoying the wines we like, enjoying them the way we want (including BYO and all where appropriate), just don’t act like a snob in the way you treat other people along the way.
And if you don’t act like a snob, but someone else assumes you must be because of views about what “wine people” are like, then that’s their problem.
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I love that account
Great comparison.
I’m glad I wasn’t drinking something when I saw this, or would have been all over my keyboard.
I wonder at Cars and Coffee who the snob is?
Is it the person with the Bugatti Type 35 waxing on about Ettore while slurping Folgers?
Or is it the 69 Resto-mod Camaro girl sipping Micro-lot Ethiopian from their Technivorm set up?
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Yes.
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