I learned about great wine through people sharing with me. I want to share the best of food and wine with friends and family. I do not keep the best slice of the roast or the best slice of pie for myself. If the wine or food is great I will have a great drink and a great dinner… I hope everyone is does too.
… just to play Devil’s Advocate here …
Do you maintain your “best slice of roast” stance for the person who insists of having their steak well-done, slathered in Heinz 57 sauce? 
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*****Peter, that is the soundest advice ever. 
****
Hmmmm…Phil : let me tell you a story.
One of favorite and old my wine-friends in Montreal, QC, Canada ( who is from Italy and was also a member of my 2 Ms Club,Montreal Branch ) did share one of his best wines with someone’s wife without letting his wife know about it.
But he was not careful …and got caught by his wife.
He told us about the above incident during one of our regular wine-event meeting ( which is always men only ). So we all asked him, what happened then …
He said his wife was very angry and mad at him, because the bottle was one of his wife’s favorite wines too.
So in order not to start a fight or argument. he put on his cloths and ran away from his house and told his wife : ***Honey, that was not what you think it is **
Two of the members of the club - who were like me, born and educated in Hong Kong - look at him with a smile and then stared laughing very loud and continuously.
As I am the President of the 2 Ms Club, I wanted to maintain the wine event in an orderly manner, I asked the 2 guys to stop laughing and asked them why : they laughed.
Both of them replied : we did that once in a while, but we never got caught !!!
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Name calling is a poor defense,People have expressed different ways they handle opening wine at events. I did not read anyone indicating that their way was superior. Different is not better or worse. I would like to be able ti express my opinion on this board, and so should others, without name calling, I enjoy the differences on this board and have learned from them
Hmmmm…it looks like we are near the end this nice thread.
I would share with everyone the following which is a poem written long ago by the Chinese wine God LEE Bai under the title : Going to drink Wine.
Here is the translation - which is not mine.
李白
See how the Yellow River’s waters move out of heaven.
Entering the ocean, never to return.
See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,
Though silken-black in the morning, it has changed by night to snow.
…Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases
And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!
Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!
Spin a thousand pieces of silver, all of them come back!
Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,
And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!
…To the old master, Cen,
And the young scholar, Danqiu,
Bring in the wine!
Let your cups never rest!
Let me sing you a song!
Let your ears attend!
What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?
Let me be forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.
…Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection
Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.
Why say, my host, that your money is gone?
Go and buy wine and we’ll drink it together!
My flower-dappled horse,
My furs worth a thousand,
Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,
And we’ll drown away the woes of ten thousand generations!
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In the Jewish tradition, the highest form of charity (tzedakah) is to give anonymously without knowing the recipient. A purely altruistic act.
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A friend of the equally great Du Fu. Thanks for this!
Very interesting…merci.
I was recently a guest at an office holiday party where one of the hosts must have had a secret bottle and I, of course, thought of this thread.
This was a holiday office party put on by a nearby well-to-do physicians group practice. I was invited by a friend, who told me that one of the members of the practice had funded her daughter’s entire college education by selling “a small portion of her wine collection”. In addition, she was providing the wine for the party out of her own cellar. So I was excited to go.
Upon arrival, I beelined it to the bar. What was there? Meiomi Pinot, Conundrum red blend, some random Pinot Grigio, and Jadot Macon-Village (which is what I had). No way this wine collector person was drinking that stuff. Can’t imagine she didn’t have a secret bottle stashed somewhere.
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We are legion!
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I believe that is exactly the point where both Paul and you can be right, Sarah.
I love (seriously, I just love it) sharing with people who can’t reciprocate. It is probably for an egotistical reason, but it makes me feel really good.
However, I have also been through situations where people who can very well afford it act cheaply and bring stupidly bad bottles to a BYO where they positively know the level brought by the rest will be distinctly higher. In those cases I will simply try to avoid that type of people in future events. I would understand anyone feeling upset or deceived in these cases.
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Yeah, you’ve cited something rude, but the OP’s scenario was not that — it was not an attempt to free ride but an attempt not to waste a good bottle.
At the risk of regurgitating that which has been digested for good or ill, I’ll point out that it’s easy to jump to conclusions re: the OP. It’s easy to project one’s own events — sharing a good bottle with interested civilians — onto what might be a very different event, one where having a side stash might be much more defensible.
I can imagine, for example, the OP’s event as one in which sharing is not merely pointless, but also could be taken badly by other guests — stacks of cans of beer before, whisk(e)y after, and wine in the middle — who the f do you think you are, you snob? Are there people like that? Are there relatives like that? Are you committed to multiple days with them because of travel and schedule?
Just because a “secret bottle” might well be ungenerous and rude in one circumstance, perhaps yours, maybe it’s less so in others. Let me take an extreme and imaginary example: let’s say I am invited to a Hollywood party (very imaginary in my case) full of heavy hitters, and I bring a bottle of something really good to impress a jaded crowd. Only I get there and it’s one of those parties, where they’re already on the cocaine en route to the underaged prostitution. Yeah I hide my bottle. I also re-examine my life, but that’s another matter.
Now that was of course not what the OP described. That’s not my point. My point is OP’s description of the event was vague enough to allow anyone to insert a lot of details that might be familiar to them, but which might have nothing to do with the OP’s reality.
Maybe a better question is: do you find yourself in gatherings where a side bottle is the best alternative? The answers to that question might generate less moral outrage and reveal something about how fine wine fits into contemporary society, a relevant topic given Current state of wine market.
I’m not arguing with you or with @Sarah_Kirschbaum — the example you cited is to me appalling and one I have witnessed — I’m just pointing out that we really don’t always have the complete picture.
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I suspect the odds of a group of any one of the south central Virginia boys I used to party with and who loved their “many, many cans of cheap beer” at such a gathering actually liking the taste of “a 2010 Bruno Clair Chambertin Clos de Beze” (admittedly, I’ve never tasted this or any other Burgundy red wine) or any one of my nice, aged Oregon PNs is . . . slim, and fast-approaching none.
Now, let’s just say that at least one of those good ol’ boys - we’ll call him . . . Slim! - pours himself a full wine glass of the juice and, lo and behold, utters something like “that thars some good juice!” I would be over-the-moon happy for Slim and his discovery of the pleasure found in that bottle, and would encourage him to have some more.
Now, that said, I’d also approach that party situation hoping to have at least some control over pours, in an effort to avoid the all-too-predictable Slim’s cousin pouring of a “full” glass, sipping it, thinking “this tastes like shit” . . . and then setting down/abandoning that nearly full glass of really nice wine such that it essentially is wasted.
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I was at a party where someone mixed together white and red wine. No lie. That man should not be drinking Grand Cru Burgundy under any circumstances. LOL
I think if you want to bring a really nice wine to a large holiday dinner, be prepared for the fact that some people will not appreciate it and will not differentiate it from a bottle of Josh Cellars.
If there are other wine nerds present, I think there is nothing wrong with secretly sharing a bottle with them.
If you are bringing a bottle of wine to share with people who will not appreciate it, then be accepting of it or instead bring a more modest bottle of value wine for under $25 that will be pretty good, and hey, you are probably not going to pay much attention to the wine, either, while you are talking to people and enjoying the festivities. I know there are many wines under $25 that I like very much. Chianti Classico, Finger Lakes Riesling, Zinfandel, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo just to name a few.
Buddy, I think I can beat your ‘a guy mixed red wine with white wine’ story…
My buddy Tripp (who came from a big, rich, old money family in Dallas) used to pour vodka into his red wine to ‘give it a boost’
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“ instead bring a more modest bottle of value wine for under $25 that will be pretty good”
Those are what I refered to as DECOYS in the OP.
Lol. Allow me to translate that into corporate-speak:
“We here at FreeMix are excited to facilitate a new partnership between Aubert de Villaine and Jean-François Coche to bring you the NEXT LEVEL in wine architecture: the debut of DRC Rosé!”
(Yes I know about Domaine de Triennes 
)
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This is an excellent point. Indeed, context is everything. If I was going to such an event, I would not bring a bottle that I was certain no one would enjoy. I certainly would not bring one that would make me look like a jerk or that I thought would be ridiculed. Secret or otherwise.
“When in Rome…”
Hard to imagine a multiple-day event like that with all meals together. When I visit relatives like that, I resign myself to a few meals or a few days of no wine. I guess if I was really concerned about fine wine withdrawal, I would bring a secret bottle for my wife and I to drink in our hotel room, where the risk of discovery would be close to zero. I just don’t see that happening.
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This thread had me thinking the exact same. Well said!
(That was in response to David Glasser’s comment about the Jewish tradition of Tzedakah)
