I probably shouldn’t let my wife or siblings see this thread as they might vent their spleen about me.
This is the most recent as it happened last night. At a BYO restaurant, the couple brought a 98 Barolo and a split of rose Champagne. Nice I thought. Then he (of course he) pulls out a decanter and declares in a loud voice that this wine NEEDS decanting. (Ignoring that he carried it from the car swinging it wildly about) He then pulls out a Langiole cork screw and proceeds to try to open the wine. Of course the cork is dry and shreds into small pieces. He struggles to open it and finally surrenders the wine to the waitress who assures him they can get it open in the back. It comes back open from the back and he then slowly decants it. All of it. into the decanter. (What? no candle? I thought) Satisfied, he then opens the split with a loud Pop and fills both glasses to the rim. Well, I hope they enjoyed.
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Did they fly there in there helicopter.
I’ve got four displays of pretension and/or salesperson abuse. There are so many to choose from.
#1.
I was visiting a market in another state a few years ago. One wine shop I had an appointment with to show about 6 wines had an interesting protocol: The ‘underlings’ in the shop were to taste thru first and eliminate any ‘unworthy’ wines before the ‘big cheese’ would taste.
When he was summoned, all 6 wines were still on the counter. He snapped at the ‘underlings’ for not screening them for him. They retorted that they were all fantastic and he needed to see them all. ‘We’ll see about that’ he said.
One wine was my entry-level CS. ‘That’s a lot of new French oak in this wine’ he said. I said ‘actually, it was all older French oak.’ ‘Are you sure?’ he said with a suspicious look. ‘Yes, I make the wine’ I said. "Well, where does the tannin come from’ he asked. ‘Tannin comes from grapes too’ I said.
Needless to say, he did not find anything acceptable.
#2.
Another time, I was visiting a shop where I was warned the owner was ‘difficult.’ We pulled out 6 wines from the bag and the guy immediately said he would not taste the Cab. He also said his clientele were very picky and favored more locally grown wines than mine. I poured the first wine and he immediately turned on his heels, sauntered over to the cash register, pulled up the days’ receipts, then waltzed over to his computer, checked email, edited his store newsletter a bit and finally graced the glass with his attention.
The look of surprise on his face was priceless. He loved it but was trying to hate it.
I poured the next wine. A delivery guy then came in with a hand truck filled with beer and the store owner proceeded to chat with him about baseball, family travels, politics, etc. 5 min. later he came back to the glass. He loved that one too.
This scenario repeated until all that was left was the Cab. I saw my opportunity: ‘would you like to taste the Cab after all?’ ‘NO! Can’t you listen? I said I was not going to taste the Cab.’
Walked out without a sale. I would have walked out after the first pour was left at the altar if it was not for the Distributor’s sales rep having a stake in the relationship.
#3.
Tasting with the chain store buyer and two ‘underlings’ out of little plastic cups, the head buyer tasted the Chardonnay and said ‘Man, this is terrible. What does this taste like to you?’ I poured a plastic cup for myself and said ‘It tastes like Chardonnay served in a plastic ketchup cup.’ After tasting all the other wines, he came back to the Chardonnay. ‘This stuff is horrible. How can you think that I could sell this?’ I asked ‘what kind of Chardonnay sells in your store?’ ‘Rombauer flies off the shelf’ he said.
After the underlings left, the guy apologized to me saying that he really didn’t hate the Chardonnay that much. I said, ‘I understand you needed to impress your future boss today.’
#4.
In about 2005 in CO, a distributor sales rep and I showed up for an appointment with a small restaurant/bar a few minutes early. The owner’s son was going to do the tasting. He asked us to wait for him to eat his lunch first. 45 minutes later, he began tasting.
His technique was unique. After lengthy, vigorous swirling and visual examination, he took a big swig and spat with nearly a projectile-vomiting force into the stainless steel bar sink which resonated with an authoritative ‘kerschplotchz!’ It was less of a stream and more of a short shotgun string not unlike that of a 16 GA with a moderate target load. The wine could not have been in his mouth for any shorter time had he used his tongue as a backstop to bank the wine off of on its way to the drain. But that was impossible because he simultaneously flicked the remaining wine from his glass into the sink and the glass could not move two directions at once…it was something like a liquid drag race to the sewer line and a photo finish. Time after time, wine after wine, 'kerschplotchz after kerschplotchz, this amazing display of extended wine glass foreplay followed by the inevitable premature expectoration was performed for the sales rep and myself.
The dude lit a cigarette (no lie-it was before the 2006 law in Denver) and we were then informed he was on a buying moratorium imposed by his father.
A few years ago:
A Horizontal tasting of a noted Burgundy domaine at which the paying participants (price somewhere between $75 and $100pp; I don’t remember exactly) were tasted from Riedel Ouverture glasses while the Proprietor of the shop tasted from Riedel Grand Cru stems.
During the evening, The Proprietor frequently interrupted the Importer and also went on to make comments to the group during the tasting like “you would probably have a better appreciation for the aromatic complexity of the wine with better stemware.”
Charming…
Wow, Fred. The four scenarios you present seem less pretentious than just plain rude! Why do people think it’s okay to treat others that way?
I don’t think it gets worse than this:
http://www.jamessuckling.com/lalique-james-suckling-100-points-collection-now-available.html
OMG.
Yea, that one pretty much takes the cake!
Bahahahahaha, I wish someone could pin down the one video where he emerges from the fog of morning dawn like a vin rockstar on his way up to the chateau he was gracing his presence with…I was absolutely dying
Under my plan I can’t be prosecuted because I’d be already dead when I killed him. You have to think these things through.
I can’t beat these, but here’s one from some years back: I was at work, and a woman a few desks away started discussing local wine tastings with some coworkers who had happened by her desk. Although I hadn’t thought of her as someone with refined tastes, within a few minutes she mentioned a few of my preferred vineyards and some good wines. “Hey, maybe she knows something,” I thought, and considered going over and joining the conversation. Then I heard her say, “Yes, they have Cabernet Franc there. It’s a blend of the Cabernet grape and the Franc grape.”
I returned to my work.
George, you are a wily one!
According to my wife, pretentious wine behavior is whenever I open my mouth.
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I was in a very trendy wine bar in Minneapolis last year and they were pouring a Muscadet by the glass. The owner was pouring the wines as his wait staff hadn’t showed up yet, and was explaining to this table that this was a dry wine from the Loire Valley made with the Muscadet grape. When he came to our table, I very nicely told him that the grape was actually Melon de Bourgogne, which of course he snickered about - “…why does it say it’s from Burgundy then?” After another smartass remark by him he walked away. About a half hour later he came back to our table and apologized, saying he had “googled” Muscadet to find out what really is used.
Then of course I had to tell him that Chinon was made from Cabernet Franc and not Gamay -
I was at a rare wine dinner some time back and was seated beside a fairly unique individual. He stated that he preferred to drink wine from magnums as a standard bottle just wasn’t good enough for ageing wine. The quote he dropped was along the lines of “everything tastes better out of a magnum, so that’s all I want to drink.” When a good wine was poured he’d exclaim, “pity it wasn’t in a magnum, it would have been even better!” Something didn’t suit his palette? “Should have been a magnum, it would have tasted better.”
I had a bit of a conversation with him about Rudy wines and the small possibility that one could have made it into our line up given the aged Bordeaux and Burgundy being poured. He was completely unaware of the saga so I gave him a brief run down during the evening. I ran into him a month later in a second hand book store. He proceeded to tell me that he wouldn’t be doing another dinner like the one where we met as all the wines were fake “Rudy wines”.
That is freaking awful.
I know this is terrible to say, but he really has the worst toupee.
If you think I am pretentious, you should talk to my personal sommelier.
I would have done exactly what you did without hesitation. Does that make us enthusiasts who like to inform? Or dicks?