King’s Ransom was the brand of scotch my great uncle Jascha loved best. He’d pour a little on his hands, rub his palms together and sniff them. “It smells just like perfume,” he’d say. This really pissed my father off, because he found the gesture pretentious and the scotch expensive to keep on hand. Besides, his experiments confirmed that any scotch, applied this way, smelled like perfume. One day he filled an empty King’s Ransom bottle with Black & White and served it to his uncle. Sure enough, after anointing himself, Uncle Jascha pronounced it aromatic as always. This “gotcha” pleased my father immensely.
Wine lovers are probably the number-one target of gotchas. They are seen as pompous and elite, and there’s nothing quite like knocking them off their pedestal.
In the story “Taste” by Roald Dahl, a stuffy gourmand dines at the house of a friend, who challenges him to name the wine they’re drinking, right down to the vintage and vineyard. The host is so sure he’s got a ringer that he bets his reluctant daughter’s hand in marriage on the outcome. The connoisseur makes an agonizingly slow business of identification, but eventually works his way from grape, to country, to region, to year, to vineyard. And he scores! As the dismayed host prepares to hand over his daughter, the maid appears with a pair of reading glasses belonging to the guest. Apparently, he had left them in the wine cellar. Gotcha!
California is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the gotcha that launched them as players in the international wine scene. In 1976, English wine merchant Steven Spurrier organized a blind-tasting showdown between France and California. Since California was known chiefly for passing off jugs of plonk as “Chablis” and “Burgundy,” France was a shoo-in to win. Imagine the embarrassment of the French judges when they discovered they had placed a Napa chardonnay first in the white category, beating out a Meursault-Charmes. When it came time for red, much more prestigious, bien sûr, they re-doubled their efforts to weed out the Americans. Alas, a ’73 Stag’s Leap cab beat Mouton Rothschild. The world took notice and the French have never quite forgiven us.
At least those judges were working. In this mode, they take their tasting pretty seriously. From the first sniff, they search for components that reveal the grape, the climate, the region and the winemaking process. They focus and concentrate. Knowing how seductive a reputation can be, they frequently taste blind, and are often delighted to find the wine they preferred was a $ rather than a $$$. In a social situation, however, they too can relax and drink wine like the rest of us.
Springing a gotcha on someone who’s drinking for pleasure is simply cruel. Those who delight in it forget that wine is much more than a liquid. It’s tradition, geography and history in a glass. It’s a name, a label, and memories. It also reflects the context you drink it in. Company, lighting and romance, as well as how many sheets you are to the wind, all affect how wine tastes.
There’s no glory in tricking someone with Coastal Canyon siphoned into a Petrus bottle. Besides, how do you even know your scheme worked? Maybe your mark is just being polite. I certainly never criticize a wine I’m served as a guest. Unless they ask what I think. Which they seldom do more than once.
Wine should be a pleasure, not a trap. Even puffed-up wine snobs deserve some mercy. And I swear I knew it was riesling, not viognier.
© Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
