I cannot remember when I became a wine bore. It could have been when Majestic opened a branch in Shepherd’s Bush — or it might stem from the first time I saw Sideways. Perhaps it is just a sign of growing old, like the realisation that you can no longer get away with wearing Converse. But there’s no getting around it: I have become a howling wine snob.
Take the birthday dinner I attended last week. The host had very kindly agreed to pay for everyone and, as you would expect, he had chosen the wine in advance. Unfortunately, it was Sauvignon Blanc. What to do? I stole a glance at the wine list and discovered a perfectly respectable Chablis. The trouble was, it was £15 more expensive than the vin de table. I approached the host and asked if he’d mind if I ordered a bottle of the Chablis for myself and just gave him the money. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘This is my treat. Order whatever you like.’
I was about to do just that when I caught my wife’s eye.
‘Behave yourself,’ she hissed.
‘But darling, he said it was fine.’
‘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.
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