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Saturday 22 November 2008

Status anxiety

I have become precisely the kind of wine bore that I used to humiliate at dinner parties

‘Over my dead body,’ she said.

The thing that makes this affectation so baffling is that, until recently, I was a militant inverse snob when it came to wine. This dated back to the time I sat next to a man at a dinner in Cambridge who claimed to be the possessor of a half-blue in wine-tasting. The reason they spit it out after swilling it around, he explained, is that if you drink so much as a single glass, your taste buds become completely anaesthetised. Not only can you not tell the difference between good and bad wine, you can’t tell the difference between red and white — and anyone who claims otherwise is a charlatan.

Believe it or not, this is true. My favourite dinner party trick used to consist of asking anyone who claimed to know anything about wine to raise their hand. With a bit of luck, it would be some Mr Toad-type who’d made a fortune in the City. I’d then blindfold him and pour out three glasses: one red, one white and one a mixture of the two. Provided I started with the mixed glass — ‘Golly! This is harder than I thought’ — he would nearly always be incapable of identifying the colour of the next two. I would end the trick by inviting him to calculate just how much money he’d wasted on expensive wine, given that he couldn’t distinguish between Grand Cru and a bottle of plonk.

I am now that man. These days, when I attend dinner parties, I bring an expensive bottle — usually a good Burgundy — and, after reluctantly handing it over, keep a beady eye on it until dinner is served. I then try to position myself as near to it as possible and do my utmost to make sure no one else has any. It is not sharing my bottle with my neighbour that I object to, but the possibility of having to share his once mine has run out. Indeed, I’d gladly bring two good bottles — one for me and one for the table — but my wife wouldn’t allow it.

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