Wine Snobbery for the Profoundly Lazy

If you’re like me (and you are), you want to be a major hit at dinner parties, dazzling others with your bon mots and displaying extensive knowledge of both food and wine. But learning a lot about something takes time. Time that could be better spent napping or writing a rock opera.

Wine in particular has always been an intimidating field. The endless variations of grapes and seemingly random adjectives picked to describe the final product would prove baffling to even the most powerful minds on earth. Albert Einstein himself was quoted as saying “I pretty much invented the Theory of Relativity, but a party full of wine snobs gives me the heebie-jeebies.” (Please do not attempt to verify this fact).

Luckily, Uncle Jordan is here to give you vinophobes the tools you need to conquer any wine-related encounter. I’ve synthesized all the information you will ever need into this guide for your reading pleasure.

Here, now, the Jordan Posner System for Seeming Like a Wine Snob But Not Actually Being One:

1. Know a Few Facts. How many facts about wine do you know? Three? Four? That’s actually far too many. Forget one or two of those, because it’s just taking up space in your brain. You can fill that space with the phone numbers of attractive people. Focus on a few key things: Is the wine a Malbec? Mention that Malbec grapes are prone to poor fruit set. Express concern for the grapes. Ask how the wine is holding up. Is the wine comfortable with you drinking wine from other, healthier grapes? Can you get the wine anything at all? No, it’s really no trouble.
2. Get Passionate. The world’s best Pinot Noirs are more or less universally accepted as those coming from Burgundy, France. If your host offers a Pinot Noir, make sure everyone at the party knows that you would rather be cut in half by a laser than drink a Pinot from, say, Oregon. People will see your passionate theatrics and assume that you have the knowledge to back it up. Otherwise, why would someone behave this way? Learn phrases like “Italian Pinot Grigio annihilates French Pinot Gris!” or “An oaky California Chardonnay is truly a kiss on the lips from all the Gods of Mount Olympus!”
3. There is no “wrong” way to taste wine. Just make sure to smell it first, because that’s going to give you a nice preview of how the wine is actually going to taste. Do you taste fruit other than grapes? Good! What is it? What about other things? Truffles? Vanilla? Nuts? Duct Tape? Don’t be afraid to get weird with it. My favorite wine (which, incidentally, is the Black Slate Priorat that we sell at The Chopping Block) tastes like peppery shoelaces. Don’t ever let some actual snob tell you that you “don’t taste” something. That guy is using wine knowledge for evil. He probably had a traumatic, Carrie-esque high school experience that he’s still reliving. Which brings me to my next point…
4. Being a snob doesn’t mean being a jerk. Snobs have strong opinions, to be sure. But, in all seriousness, no matter how you feel about American Pinot Noir, anything is better than no wine at all. The one thing that the novice and the expert have in common is an essential love of vino. We accumulate this knowledge to better describe the wonderful things about a bottle, to enhance our vocabulary, not to make others feel inferior (much). We can all share in this appreciation. Plus, I hear it has alcohol in it. So that’s nice.

If you'd like to really be an expert in the field of wine, check out The Chopping Block's Wine Academy coming up in March.