(Gasp) Pretentious Wine Behavior You Have Observed

[TomHill]

@Lewis Dawson

Marvin Overton?

Bingo, Lew…that be Marvin.
MarvinOverton was a big/deep-pockets FtWorth neurosurgeon wine collector from TX who held big/extravagant tastings, along w/ LloydFlatt.
Got lots of press in WineSpec who covered his tastings. Owned a big spread here in Eastern NM, in the prarie North of LasVegas.
Alas…he never invited me up to share his '82 Petrus. He eventually found religion and got out of the wine collecting.
Tom

[AlexO]

I got invited to a wine dinner a few years back by an investor in my firm. He had this group of about 10 people that met a few times a year. Each dinner had a theme. This theme was mid-90’s Napa Cabs.

There were some really nice wines represented there, Shafer, Colgin to name a couple, and the big boy was a '97 Harlan. So this guy, probably in his late 30’s, is barely drinking any of the 8 glasses in front of him. After it is revealed which is the Harlan, he says, “I figured this had to be the Harlan. It’s the only California wine I drink anymore, the rest just aren’t any good.”

Well I thought this was funny because if he was such a Harlan fan, you would have thought it would have been obvious to him, but he had no clue. Heck, even I knew which one it was, and my palate was still very novice at the time!

[Anton_D]

@TomHill

@Lewis Dawson

Marvin Overton?

Bingo, Lew…that be Marvin.
MarvinOverton was a big/deep-pockets FtWorth neurosurgeon wine collector from TX who held big/extravagant tastings, along w/ LloydFlatt.
Got lots of press in WineSpec who covered his tastings. Owned a big spread here in Eastern NM, in the prarie North of LasVegas.
Alas…he never invited me up to share his '82 Petrus. He eventually found religion and got out of the wine collecting.
Tom

Which religion?

Wasn’t Jesus a winemaker?

I always wondered how that wine would have tasted. Made for the audience of its time, or divine?

[Lewis_Dawson]

@TomHill

@Lewis Dawson

Marvin Overton?

Bingo, Lew…that be Marvin.
MarvinOverton was a big/deep-pockets FtWorth neurosurgeon wine collector from TX who held big/extravagant tastings, along w/ LloydFlatt.
Got lots of press in WineSpec who covered his tastings. Owned a big spread here in Eastern NM, in the prarie North of LasVegas.
Alas…he never invited me up to share his '82 Petrus. He eventually found religion and got out of the wine collecting.
Tom

Actually, religion had nothing to do with Overton’s exit from the SuperCollector scene. That was just a cover story. The truth - never before revealed publicly until this very moment - is that his palate started drifting from Bordeaux toward Burgundy, and he knew he just couldn’t afford it!

(just kidding)

[A_So]

@Lewis Dawson

@TomHill

@Lewis Dawson

Marvin Overton?

Bingo, Lew…that be Marvin.
MarvinOverton was a big/deep-pockets FtWorth neurosurgeon wine collector from TX who held big/extravagant tastings, along w/ LloydFlatt.
Got lots of press in WineSpec who covered his tastings. Owned a big spread here in Eastern NM, in the prarie North of LasVegas.
Alas…he never invited me up to share his '82 Petrus. He eventually found religion and got out of the wine collecting.
Tom

Actually, religion had nothing to do with Overton’s exit from the SuperCollector scene. That was just a cover story. The truth - never before revealed publicly until this very moment - is that his palate started drifting from Bordeaux toward Burgundy, and he knew he just couldn’t afford it!

(just kidding)

Burgundy’s a religion.

[Michel_Linden]

@Chris Blum

Not really pretentious(?) but I was in a group conversation at a party where a guy (who just loved the sound of his own voice) was talking about wines he liked. I can’t remember the exact words, but it was clear that he kept referring to Cheval Blanc as a white wine. At the time I thought “hmm, maybe they make a white Bordeaux” so I kept my mouth shut.

that is brilliant

[brodie_thomson]

@Neal.Mollen

Fantastic Anton

+1. Brilliant Anton.

I love it and I fell sure I have met both of these gentlemen (or some persons. who seems to behave just like them) and they were just as pretentious and boring in person as they are in cartoon form!

Sad but true…

Brodie

[Dave_H]

@Lewis Dawson

@TomHill

@Lewis Dawson

Marvin Overton?

Bingo, Lew…that be Marvin.
MarvinOverton was a big/deep-pockets FtWorth neurosurgeon wine collector from TX who held big/extravagant tastings, along w/ LloydFlatt.
Got lots of press in WineSpec who covered his tastings. Owned a big spread here in Eastern NM, in the prarie North of LasVegas.
Alas…he never invited me up to share his '82 Petrus. He eventually found religion and got out of the wine collecting.
Tom

Actually, religion had nothing to do with Overton’s exit from the SuperCollector scene. That was just a cover story. The truth - never before revealed publicly until this very moment - is that his palate started drifting from Bordeaux toward Burgundy, and he knew he just couldn’t afford it!

(just kidding)

Was not familiar with Overton, so I googled him and came across this Decanter story from 1979 where he’s talking about how the burgundy is in big trouble because they are pricing themselves out of the market!

WINE Best Cellar

Regardless, he sounds like a unique individual.

[Tom_G_l_a_s_g_o_w]

@Todd F r e n c h

@A. So

@Todd F r e n c h

One of my favorites, that I’ve heard several times from Wine Check customers, ironically, is ‘we ONLY drink Rombauer wines’.

Then why would they need a Wine Check? To bring Rombauer to France so they don’t have to drink the local swill?

It’s happened twice, one time was for a cruise - they ONLY drink Rombauer wines (red and white) so they had to take it with them - two cases.

The unbelievable part is the cruise ship let them bring the wine aboard.

[George_Chadwick]

I don’t have a problem with a guy saying how inexpensive wine used to be if the context is, super high end wine is overpriced today. To me that’s anti-pretentious.

I bought one bottle of 1992 Screaming Eagle for $75. Had to sell it in a divorce in 2002. The emotion I feel about that is not pretentious LOL.

[Brad_B_a_l_l_i_n_g_e_r]

En magnum

[Nick_Ryan]

@Dave H.

Was not familiar with Overton, so I googled him and came across this Decanter story from 1979 where he’s talking about how the burgundy is in big trouble because they are pricing themselves out of the market!
http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1979/april/wine-best-cellar
Regardless, he sounds like a unique individual.

“Spurr: Your feelings on the wine situation today?
Overton: Burgundy is pricing itself off the market. The stuff isn’t worth it anymore. Those wines we had today - you’ll never see anything like that again. That’s why I’m glad you young guys could be there and taste those old wines just once in your life. We may never have another chance.”

[Rauno_E_NZ]

Thanks for the Overton article. Particularly liked:
“Tossing the decanted bottles into a brown paper sack, the energetic doctor herded us into his car.”
“Burgundy is pricing itself off the market. The stuff isn’t worth it anymore.”
“Hell, a case of ’75 Lafite may be $250 one day and $400 the next. When you figure the cost of cellaring it over a long period of time - the air conditioning and everything, just so you can drink it when it’s ready - it’s not worth it.”
“If you don’t feel like driving, you’re welcome to stay. We’ll build a fire and maybe drink some vintage Port.”
Different times, different times, yet the comments about Bdx and Bgdy continue to be relevant !

[Wes_Barton]

@Brady Daniels

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.

“We treat our stems to extended aging in the finest dank cardboard the world has to offer!”

[Wes_Barton]

@Todd F r e n c h

That said, the 6 bottles of '45 Latour that I had were significantly better than the 6 bottles Dusty had.

That’s because they were magnums.

[Anton_D]

Some people on the “Removing the Manipulation Stigma from Winemaking” seem to be doing a bang up job.

[Lewis_Dawson]

Name dropping is always pretentious, and common here at W/B as well as face-to-face encounters. Especially grating IMO is the dropping of first names only. It’s like saying if you don’t know who I’m talking about, then you’re not cool like me… “At Jadot, the 2010’s are profound. When I visited there, at lunch with Jacques, he told me … blah, blah.” I like to reply with the question, who’s Jacques?

[Lewis_Dawson]

@Anton D

Some people on the “Removing the Manipulation Stigma from Winemaking” seem to be doing a bang up job.

Seriously? I see a heated discussion driven by differing personal philosophies relating to wine. What posts (or positions) are pretentious to your eye?

[Corey_N]

@Lewis Dawson

@Anton D

Some people on the “Removing the Manipulation Stigma from Winemaking” seem to be doing a bang up job.

Seriously? I see a heated discussion driven by differing personal philosophies relating to wine. What posts (or positions) are pretentious to your eye?

I found this quote to be pretentious:

@Mel Knox

On the other point the whole point of winemaking is to reveal the beauty of every vineyard, not necessarily to make a delicious wine. That is completely incidental.

[Anton_D]

@Lewis Dawson

@Anton D

Some people on the “Removing the Manipulation Stigma from Winemaking” seem to be doing a bang up job.

Seriously? I see a heated discussion driven by differing personal philosophies relating to wine. What posts (or positions) are pretentious to your eye?

I like this one:

“…as a wine judge of 42 years, I can work with that. I certainly think it is no great trick to pick out a California wine in a group of French offerings, be they Burgundies, Bordeaux, or Sauvignon Blancs. A single European wine will be the one that’s funkier, with more taste dimensions, lower alcohol, higher acid and less fruit. If a single CA wine is in a group of French, it will seem like KoolAid - simple, fruity, and often poorly integrated in its elements of herb, oak, ML and the like.”