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Original poster

To cringe at DH and FIL being "wine experts"

60 replies

MumblingRagDoll · 20/05/2011 19:37

They're frigging embarrasing...they're from Souh Australia...where wine is one of the main exports....they sit here...in England...drinking wine in an "experty" way....and smelling it and things.

They're getting over-excited over something right now....I don't know why i annoys me...it ust does!

drink the effing wine ffs! If it's nice...then say so by all means but not with some kind of special ritual and words!

OP posts:
GypsyMoth · 20/05/2011 20:46

i did them when i worked at 'bottoms up' Grin

MadamDeathstare · 20/05/2011 20:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FoofffyShmoofffer · 20/05/2011 20:50

Yanbu. It sets my teeth on edge.

Our friend did all that shite in the Chinese Buffet. Chinese Buffet FFS.
Sniffed, Swilled and then nodded and smiled in a knowng way to the waiter.

I wanted to smack her with a duck filled pancake.

The waiter to his credit had a look of "be polite to the pompous arsewipe" written all over his faceGrin

shakey1500 · 20/05/2011 20:52

Dh does this and it's sooooooo embarassing!!! Add to the equation that he's as cockney as Cockney McCock and it just doesn't.....fit? Swills it around, sticks his beak in, ponders for a moment then always compares it to a Chablis (even if it IS a Chablis) because he has not a clue what he's talking about. Takes all my willpower not dissolve into a fit of giggles, especially if my sister is there, who cottoned on fairly quickly.

He also has "stock phrases" he uses in company that drive me mad! His favourite is if people mention Crete. He immediately says, in a knowing voice "ahhh CretA...." to which, quite understandably, said person will say "Eh?" which ives him his opportunity to inform them that it's actually pronounced CretA by the Greeks. Useless (not even sure if it's true) piece of information which serves no purpose but to make him look superior, so he thinks.

TheFarSide · 20/05/2011 20:53

What inverted snobs you all are. My DH does this - he's not pretentious, he's just genuinely passionate about wine and very interested in how it tastes. All those words - oaky, minerally, berry fruit, etc, etc - are ways of differentiating between wines. Special ritual and words is what it's all about.

GypsyMoth · 20/05/2011 20:54

which cru of chablis tho?Grin

shakey1500 · 20/05/2011 21:05

"Eh?" :) :)

I leave him to it :)

FreudianSlipper · 20/05/2011 21:06

my ex is like this thinks he is a real expert and always orders really expensive wine when in a restaurant and then takes ages tasting it Angry

we were ordering wine while in france, skiing, it was a very cold evening, we were having steak, you would really go for red. anyway he asks what do i want red or white so i replied i am not keen of french white wines they do not make any good ones (it was a joke) lord you would have thought i had said i murdered my mother and buried her in the back garden before we came away teh look of shock and dismay on his face

Original poster
MumblingRagDoll · 20/05/2011 22:30

I always used to dread going for dinner with a new man....would he be a wine wanker or not? The problem is that it takes real style to pull all that sniffing and nodding off!

Not many people have it. I imagine Stephen Fry might pull it off rather well though!

OP posts:
hudspur · 20/05/2011 22:34

YANBU although I find so called wine experts very amusing as they believe the nonsense they come out with

deste · 20/05/2011 23:10

Would you like white or red? I'll have a dry white thankyou. Would you like a Chablis or a Sauvignon Blanc? Oh anything will do it all tastes the same. Now that is a real expert speaking. I've been to wine tasting evenings and we are in the Times wine club and I still dont have a clue so all that faffing would not impress me.

MoreBeta · 20/05/2011 23:16
OmniaParatus · 20/05/2011 23:27

Think yourself lucky. DH has just started to work for a whiskey company and is doing all the sniffing rubbish with whiskey.
He also went on a 2 day jolly leaving me at home with a 3yr old, a 2 yr old, and a 7 week old, during which he guzzled the stuff under the guise of work Angry.
Who thinks I should replace one of his nice bottles with Bells blended and see if he notices? Grin

Katisha · 20/05/2011 23:32

Actually if you really want to look as though you know what you are doing, you don't actually swig the wine when the waiter asks you to try it. You are only supposed to be seeing if it's corked, which means it will smell musty.

So you just sniff it and then give the waiter your knowing smile. Swilling it is de trop...

Goodynuff · 21/05/2011 01:06

Both my uncle and my brother are beer judges. Visiting them is awesome, because its always, "Oh, try this one. Then try this. See? Now if you drink this one..."

DontHassleTheBOF · 21/05/2011 01:18

Oh yes. I had an ex who was a Real Ale bore. They are the worst.

AgainWhen · 21/05/2011 01:21

I'd probably be quite impressed.

DoubleNegativePanda · 21/05/2011 01:29

My best friend is a sommelier, and she pulls it off rather nicely. I would feel like a frigging idiot talking about "apricots on the finish" or anything of that sort.

Stangirl · 21/05/2011 07:04

My DP is an actual, real, wine expert. He is a the Buying Director for a wine importer and has one of the best palates in the business. He is a qualified Master of Wine (a worldwide recognised qualification that has only a 10% pass rate and there are less than 300 in the world). He knows his stuff and he would never, ever dream of talking about a wine he was drinking in a restaurant, dinner party or elsewhere. He would consider it extremely vulgar. He is very polite and never tells anyone what he does for a living - particularly if they are going off on one about wine.

Oh - for the record - DP thinks food and wine matching is pretentious bollox and because people taste things differently and have different preferences you can never say "that goes with that". Each person will have individual matching preferences and these can vary hugely. He also always start a drinking session with lager as he gets fed up with wine.

TheSkiingGardener · 21/05/2011 07:18

Each to their own, as long as your not being a aa mer and boring other people. We were once given a pitying talking to by people on our table at dinner. They had noticed we liked to choose what wine we were having depending on what we were eating, we would look at the menu earlier and pre-order so no faffing about. They told us this was totally unnecessary and we should just do what they did, which was a pitcher of house White for her and a pitcher of house red for him.

They could just never get their heads around us enjoying choosing a wine depending on whether we were having sole or steak.

My one wine rule is not to be a wanker about it. It sounds like they are failing OP

lisianthus · 21/05/2011 07:22

To be fair, you could be coming across a cultural thing here. Wine and knowing about it is bit more egalitarian than it is here- it isn't necessarily "posh", just another form of agriculture. Unlike France, where you have to make appointments to see a lot of wineries, it is the USUAL thing in Oz for them to be open to the public. They have playgrounds and restaurants attached and it is a nice family outing to go along and learn something and then have a lovely family meal. It's a bit more of an interesting thing to get nerdy about than say trainspotting or birdspotting.

Over here it's more of a marker of poshness, so if you are interested in using what you have learned then people can get all "ooh er, get him!" about it, as on this thread.

A friend of one of my family is a teacher on the Master of Wine course, and we always found it really interesting to hear what he had to say. Learn a bit yourself rather than sneering- you might find it interesting and fun!

Am very envious of Omnia's DH- would love to know more about whisky.

MoreBeta · 21/05/2011 08:22

Omnia - my wife used to be in the whiskey industry it is really fascinating. I think your DP will enjoy it if he likes really getting into the detail of things.

My wife wasn't so much into the tasting but she was a sort of whiskey 'train spotter' like how much of each single malt whiskey from each distillery was in which casks in which warehouses around Scotland and how much each was exported to each country very year and how much was in each blend. She never used talk about it to people though because the information seemed almost like an industry/state secret.

Stangirl - your DP sounds nice. I've encouraged DW to maybe think about doing the first bit of the Master of Wine qualification as she is at a loose end now. Does it take an awfully long time and does she have to be working full time in the industry like ILoveTIFFANY?

Oenopod · 21/05/2011 09:30

MoreBeta - I'm about to embark on the three year marathon of the Master of Wine course. You have to have 5 years experience in the trade, hold the WSET Diploma (or they will consider a BSc in Viticulture & Oenology or Fermentation Science), plus be personally recommended by an MW, and also be sponsored by your employer (if in the trade) or recommended by a senior member of the wine trade who is known to you personally if you are not yourself employed in the trade.
Of last year's first year intake - 75% were refused entry to the second year. And of those who do go on, only about half will ever make it through to the end apparently. Though you do have 6 years in which to complete it.

TrillianAstra · 21/05/2011 09:36

Got six bottles of wine (all of different cost) and just numbered them one to six. We all had to taste then rank in order of preference followed by order of cost. Brilliant because we were all rubbish.

Er no, you weren't rubbish, you learned about what you like without being biased by the price. The wine that is "best" is the wine that tastes best to you.

This is a really fun game to play and I highly recommend it. :)

MoreBeta · 21/05/2011 10:16

Oenopod - thank you for that.

It frankly sounds like a undergraduate and a Msters degree all rolled into one! So it should be, but what a commitment. Are you planing to do something with it once you are done?

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