I have become precisely the kind of wine bore that I used to humiliate at dinner parties
/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 yin 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 winetasting. 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 Cm 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.
Of course, being a wine snob is ruinously expensive, but there are some savings. For instance, I no longer go out to restaurants because I can't drink anything on the wine menu that's less than £60. Knowing, as I now do, that the same bottle costs £20 in Majestic, I simply cannot bring myself to part with the difference. I know I'd get much more pleasure from spending the money on, say, a bottle of Château Trotanoy 1999 Pomerol and drinking it at home with a nice steak.
Nowadays, the only thing that makes going out bearable is bumping into a fellow wine bore. There's nothing I enjoy more than standing in a comer with some oleaginous Frenchman, comparing notes on different vintages of Pinot Noir. Occasionally, I even have the good fortune to discover that the host of the dinner party I'm attending is a wine snob himself.
'This is far too good to waste on my guests,' he'll say, eyeing up the label. 'Come with me.'
He'll then take me down to his 'cellar' — usually some dingy, cobweb-ridden basement — and the two of us will drink the bottle ourselves as our wives shriek out our names above our heads. Heaven!
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