I find that glassware brings out the pretentiousness unlike anything else. There are a million stories, but I’ll go with this one:
About couple years back I was working the floor as a sommelier in Boston, MA-area restaurant when I was summoned to the table by a clearly enraged guest. His face was bright red and he was sweating profusely. I inquired as to what was wrong and he began yelling about about how I had “some nerve” to serve him his Spanish red in anything other than the “proper gar-KNOCK-uh glasses.” He kept repeating that term, gar-KNOCK-uh glasses…gar-KNOCK-uh glasses…
When I finally realized what he wanted, I apologized and told him that I had never heard of - and didn’t carry - “Garnacha glasses” but would be happy to show him the glassware I did have. He was appalled. “What kind of restaurant is this? HOW could you not have gar-KNOCK-uh glasses?” I apologized again and retrieved several types of stemware to show him. With much reluctance and with absolute fury in his voice, he selected Burg stems.
A few minutes later the table’s server approached me near the bar, literally shaking in terror. I returned to the table. The guest - still red-faced and still sweating - yelled “this is the worst Ribera del Duero I have ever tasted! Don’t you know anything about wine?” I apologized again, and in as kind a tone as I could muster said “sir, the wine you selected is not a Ribera del Duero, but a Ribeira Sacra.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you know anything? They are both from the Ribera!”
An hour later I was summoned to the table once more. The guest reiterated his complaints about gar-KNOCK-uh glasses and my lack of knowledge of Spanish wines. He told me he was good friends with the owner and let me know he would be telling him all about this. I apologized one last time and said I understood.
The owner, who was sitting no more than five feet away, called me over. “Who is that guy and what’s his deal?”
“Not sure” I said, “but he has a real problem with gar-KNOCK-uh.”
Claiming that one’s non-vintage Champagne is actually multi-vintage strikes me as pretentious. The argument seems to be that because Krug is singular, they can have a special name.
Man, a lot of these examples are just people being jerks!
On the pretentious scale, I recall being at a (bad) Virginia winery and the sunglassed wine bro behind the tasting counter was coolly “priming” the wine glasses with a swirl of (bad) sparkling wine before the initial pour. I recall a nonsense explanation about how the water messed with the ph of the wine or something.
And I know that priming a glass is a thing for some people, but c’mon, you’re a tourist trap Virginia winery pouring mediocre wine. Spare me your wine theater.
I’ve heard the “nonsense” of always using wine rather than water for priming, rinsing b/w pours from more than a couple folks that I respect in the business. Can anyone comment on whether this is a recommended practice or just an unsupported piece of conventional wisdom?
Also, the folks at this winery might be pouring plonk, but it’s their plonk. What you refer to as “theater” could also be characterized as their pride in producing that plonk. Not suggesting that they necessarily should be proud of their product but it’s certainly understandable.
What you call “priming”, I learned as “Italian seasoning” and I still find it a tremendous way of removing mustiness from a wine glass. Nothing pretentious about it, to me.
If I have a choice between rinsing my glass or leaving the last wine drained in it (as long as it is not corked) and risking the chlorine etc. in the local water supply I would happily chose the wine. Luckily our local water supply is good so this is not such an issue.
As mentioned above, there’s a difference between being pretentious and just being a jerk. Sometimes the Venn diagram circles overlap, though…
I have far too many examples of pretentious stuff. Like the guy at a wine party who stationed himself at the pouring counter and commented on the WS rating of every bottle that was opened.
The reason people say such things is to impress and be pretentious.
The point here is not just that they can afford to drink fabulously expensive wines, but that they have enjoyed the same one one several occasions. Of course, this is said in a falsely-offhand way.
One upsmanship.
Pissing contest - alas, an aspect that is always in the background when people talk about the world’s rarest wines.
Really tough to comment on this, though I’m fascinated to read the stories posted already. Wine is so EASILY tied to pretentiousness, and the definition varies broadly, as to someone like my wife (and I’m guessing several other spouses of Berserkers) the mere mention of terminology like ‘animale’ or ‘VA’ smacks of pretentiousness. To the vast majority of the wine drinking public, you drink it because it tastes good, and talking about vintage, producer, cork, label q quality, or storage is pretentious.
That said, the 6 bottles of '45 Latour that I had were significantly better than the 6 bottles Dusty had.
Another old story that works here. Some years back I was helping a friend pour wine at a charity event. There were a number of really good, interesting bottles opened, but most people just wanted to drink the Silver Oak. OK, fine, no problem.
But one of the guests wanted to regale me with a lengthy discussion of how long he’s been on the list, how many bottles of each vintage & bottling he had in his cellar, etc. The guy behind commented along the lines of “sounds like you don’t really like Silver Oak,” prompting a “what do you mean I don’t like Silver Oak!!! I buy it every year!!!”"
