Wine Enthusiast Magazine
Subscribe
If I had the power to change the wine world I would send one type of wine drinker to therapy. It’s a personality type we have all come to know and loathe. Let’s call them “The Misinformed Know-it-All”. Let me tell you a story:
“Côtes du Rhône Is a Grape”
A friend of mine was recently in a wine shop in Brooklyn, perusing some Côtes du Rhône. He asked the clerk about the varietals in a particular bottle and the clerk replied “That’s the grape, Côtes du Rhône. It’s a French grape.” My friend tried to politely inform the clerk that Côtes du Rhône is a region in France, but the clerk adamantly insisted that Côtes du Rhône is in fact, a grape. Rather than humbly admitting fault, he clung to his misinformation with both hands.
I shudder at the thought of how many future customers will get their wine
“knowledge” from this Misinformed Know-it-All.
Need another example? I’ve got one.
“All Rieslings Are Sweet”
I was recently dining at a popular sushi restaurant in New York and I ordered a Mosel Riesling from the wine list. I thought it would be a rather dry Riesling but when I took a sip it was apple-juice-sweet. I mentioned my surprise to the waiter who told me: “Well, all Rieslings are sweet.” I paused and considered how to respond, then responded “Sorry, that’s just not true.” Rather than deferring to my knowledge or trying to learn more, he simply walked away. I felt a slight pang of guilt. Did I sound like a rude wine snob, correcting a guy who was trying to help? Then again, I can’t stand perpetuating confusion so I don’t regret correcting him. I only wish he’d listened.
Wine’s history as an elite hobby sometimes yields an arrogance that we’re just beginning to overcome. The Misinformed Know-it-All has a few facts about wine that he grasps with both hands, frequently getting mixed up in the process. Correcting their mistake is often futile, so we are stuck letting wine myths continue on.
Why do people have this wine arrogance? Some of our own editors have proudly told stories of moments when they’ve learned something unexpected. Wine is a hobby with limitless knowledge and it’s OK to be wrong once in awhile.
The combination of the misinformed and the complexity of wine itself leads to a dangerous mix. There should be a polite way to correct these people, but somehow I always feel like I’ve kicked a puppy. Have you met a Misinformed Know-it-All? How do you handle it?
Filed under: Opinions and Commentary
25 Comments
25 Responses to “Handling the Misinformed Know-it-All”
Please Wait
August 29th, 2010 at 10:25:14 AM
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Maggie Hoffman, Wine Enthusiast and Jean Wilson, richlingering. richlingering said: RT @WineEnthusiast: If had the power to change the wine world I would… http://bit.ly/bEAdIa [...]
August 29th, 2010 at 11:25:31 AM
Ha unbelievable! I’m just beginning in my journey discovery, which is why what Im about to tell you shocked me so much I’m still thinking about it two weeks later. I started working at a very prestigious restaurant, I’m a server, and I was on my third day of training. My trainer was a sweet, but very young girl. One of her guests asked her if there was a Lambrusco on the list. I’ll pause for a second to say that there is a sparkling red Lambrusco that seems to be popping up all over the city at the moment. Anyway, she was unfamiliar and stepped away from the table to examine the wine list. She asked me if i was familiar. I said that it was an Italian grape. It was not on the list. That’s when we ran into the beverage director. Excitedly she asked him if he knew. He looked perplexed. First he said he’d never heard of it. Then he asked if the guest requesting it had accent. I clarified saying I had clearly heard Lambrusco. “Oh Lambrusco with an L not a V? That’s a digestif.” He repeated the word digestif as I stared at him. I was not in a place to question his statement so I said nothing as the girl who was training took a mental note of this new information.
Later that day he asked me if I had signed up for the wine class the following week. I quit.
Please correct me if I was wrong.
August 30th, 2010 at 9:04:17 AM
Hi Jenna- This is a great example. Yes Lambrusco is an Italian grape but it also refers to the style of wine which as you mentioned, is a sparkling red. I suppose it could also be described as an aperitif as it’s nice to have at the start of a meal to kick the taste buds into gear but a digestif? I don’t think so.
August 30th, 2010 at 9:38:04 AM
I have had so many similar experiences and I always find it difficult not to sound condescending. As a younger woman, such as yourself Erika, people generally tend to not believe you anyway when you correct them. One particular experience was with a personal friend which made it all the most frustrating as I imagined he would know my background in wine and believe my correction was well-founded. We were doing some free-wine tasting at some of the fantastic indie wine shops east village when I expressed my love for Spanish wine and red in particular. This unnamed friend went on to say that he too loved Spanish wine and especially loved how the Spanish put strawberries in their reds and the juice of apples and lemons into their whites. I politely informed him that those were in fact wonderful nuances that appear from an experienced winemaker. He went on to tell me I was wrong and that Spanish winemakers put actual fruit into their wine and that’s where the flavors come from. This went on for a while and he continued to tell me he knew he was right and I was the one who was misinformed.
He never conceded to agree with me and to this day it makes me frustrated that he was such a “misinformed know-it-all.” Ugh!
August 30th, 2010 at 9:55:14 AM
There is a nearly endless amount of knowledge one can gain about wine and a pretty significant base-level knowledge needed just to know your way around the wine world. Given that fact, I’m usually not bothered by someone who doesn’t know something. But when that person is in a “position of authority” related to wine, as in your examples, it is quite annoying. In my opinion, restaurants and wine shops should require wine training for their staff.
August 30th, 2010 at 10:17:45 AM
I know that kind of people.
I have many of those stories, the most frequent is Chablis is a grape.
Ones I heard, I love Chablis but I can’t stand wine made of Chardonnay grape.
August 30th, 2010 at 12:57:36 PM
The kind of person described in this post is the opposite of a Bordeaux; a Bore-don’t.
August 31st, 2010 at 5:14:47 PM
Very true Erika… and I think you are absolutely right about the acceptance of being wrong once in a while and the constant willingness to learn. My dad has come out with some great miscues. He is the one who originally got me into wine, and does have a pretty good knowledge. But when his stubborn nature takes over, and he is POSITIVE that Crianza is a region in Spain or that ALL Chateuneuf du Pape is 90% Syrah, I do have to take a step back and laugh a little…. as I have learned the misinformed know it all can sometimes be caused by age and a bit too much of the vino ;)
September 2nd, 2010 at 2:47:34 PM
A friend and I were in a wine store browsing the Bordeaux section when a sales person came over to recommend an inexpensive wine simply labeled Bordeaux Rouge. My friend asked if he knew what part of Bordeaux the wine came from. He looked at the label and replied ” it’s from the rouge region”. He admitted that he wasn’t very kowledgable, so I wouldn’t call him a know it all.
But my pet peeve is when a restaurant lists a wine from BV, Mondavi, Beringer, etc. as “Napa Valley” and when they bring the bottle to the table it’s a lower level bottling with just a California apellation and they will argue with you that it’s a Napa Valley bottling because that’s where the winery is located. Once, I even had the restaurant manager try to prove to me that a BV Coastal Selection bottling was indeed a Napa Valley wine because it said right on the label “Botttled in Sonoma, CA”.
September 2nd, 2010 at 3:44:30 PM
Hi Timmy- WOW that is a new one for me! I’ve never had a restaurant do that. That would certainly bug me too. They’re lying to customers!
September 5th, 2010 at 1:27:14 PM
I had many such experiences with know-it-alls and know-nothings when I worked at a very large wine store. There is so much to know about wine that there is nobody who knows it all. I personally love learning something new about wine, no matter how trivial. Wine consumers need more tools for learning about wine on their own. They also need to learn how to understand wine ratings and wine reviews. So many rely on ratings and reviews when selecting wines, but few understand how the ratings work or what the wine reviews really mean. Wine reviews are the primary reason why wine novices will ask for wines made with “strawberries” or “the juice of apples and lemons.”
September 5th, 2010 at 2:31:56 PM
I find this posting well intentioned but a bit pompous. I am sure the author knows a lot about wine. I am sure that there are people who know a lot more than she.
I think that the pleasure people get out of wine is a social one. In 50 years of enjoying wine I know I have been misled about wine in one way or another — all the more joy in sorting things out. I am sure that I have misled people about wine and I suppose I am sorry about that, but on the other hand maybe they enjoyed sorting things out for themselves.
Let us not take the things that give us pleasure too seriously for that may interfere with the enjoyment. Right now I am in southern France enjoying the wines from around Toulouse, but a bit distracted by strong drink in the form of wonderful Armagnac.
I wish I could share a drop with you, Erika.
September 5th, 2010 at 3:22:30 PM
My wife and I stopped at a restaurant near the up and coming communities in and around Lake Oconee in GA. Because our waitress was only 16, she could not assist us with a wine order. She said she would get someone who could. Before she left us we asked ” What is the catch of the day?” Without hesitation,she replied “chicken.”
September 5th, 2010 at 3:24:56 PM
Wow, Timmy! That is a shocker. I consider myself a novice and even I knew that Napa Valley wineries use grapes from both coastal and valley vineyards. That’s a very basic bit of information I garnered from visiting the wineries. You would think someone in the restaurant business, especially a manager, would be more knowledgable of the wines his establishment sells.
September 5th, 2010 at 4:11:33 PM
Knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially with wine. It seems that the more you know and the more you learn, the more you find out you don’t know. I was touring California’s Central Coast wineries, when I stopped in to a winery to explore their selections. I overheard a middle-aged woman trying to explain to the rest of her group that, “The reason sparkling wine is called Champagne is because if’s made from the Champagne grape.”
September 5th, 2010 at 10:11:58 PM
There are a lot of good and reasonably priced books and videos on wine, and some community collleges offer introductory and intermediate wine appreciation courses (non-credit, sadly).
Depanding on a clerk or waiter in a place that you don’t know is as dangerous as leaving it up to the college-kid waitperson to choose your food — maybe moreso.
That’s a lesson I learned the hard way.
September 6th, 2010 at 11:39:58 AM
I have been in retail wine sales for over 20 years and have heard it all! How about the ones you can’t drink Anerican wines because of the overload of sulfite s but can drink Eurpean wines because there are no sulfites? or the I hate chardonnay but love Poulliy Fuisse? or Pinot Noir is thin and watery… it just goes on and on…. I may write a book!
September 7th, 2010 at 12:09:13 PM
A lot of silence is involved on the vine. One should desire to discern wisdom and express with the finesse of a grape that has endured the elements of nature, coaxing it’s great flavor from the vine to the bottle & into it’s final destination, our souls.
September 7th, 2010 at 1:10:14 PM
I have been pouring wine at a county fair for the public for over 20 years. When I started I was shocked at the lack of knowledge of the general public. Either I am no longer shocked or the general public is now much more knowedgable. One request I still get which confounds me is for a sweet red wine, but not Port. Anyone give me a hint what these people want? BTW, is Spanish wine with fruit in it sangria?
September 7th, 2010 at 1:39:30 PM
I think we need to remember to enjoy the wine and ignore the misinformed. They may be still training, but they can also be a good reminder not to take ourselves too seriously! So smile at them and enjoy the gift of knowing just how far you’ve come!
September 8th, 2010 at 10:20:07 AM
The most common sweet red wine that these people are probably referring to would be Mogan David or Manischewitz Kosher Red Wines made from Concord grapes. It’s shockingly bad stuff, but since it’s kosher, it sells – and that’s what people think red wine should taste like. Or people are looking for White Zin and think that’s red.
September 8th, 2010 at 10:53:35 AM
Answer to RonG’s question about what to serve people who want sweet red wine, but not Port: Cheap Lambrusco of course! ;) (sorry, I couldn’t help myself — see Erika’s post)
September 13th, 2010 at 6:56:56 AM
My favorite was watching someone open a fine October vintage Illinois wine and telling me that it had to “breathe” before it could be consumed. Gotta love it.
September 24th, 2010 at 4:56:21 PM
Hi,
I’ve been gently educating people about wine for almost 30 years. Along with working in various capacities in Sonoma and Napa County wineries, I am a professional wine judge and wine writer. There ia ALWAYS more to learn!
I’ll never forget the time when I was pouring for an older gentleman and suggested he try the Pinot Noir before the Petite Sirah, because the Pinot is so much lighter and more delicate. His response – “What do you know?” I gently informed him of my career experience and that I had actually helped the winemaker craft the wines in question. I wanted to vault over the tasting bar and strangle him, but you just don’t do that in the hospitality business. Sigh.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:46:13 PM
Re:This unnamed friend went on to say that he too loved Spanish wine and especially loved how the Spanish put strawberries in their reds and the juice of apples and lemons into their whites. I politely informed him that those were in fact wonderful nuances that appear from an experienced winemaker. He went on to tell me I was wrong and that Spanish winemakers put actual fruit into their wine and that’s where the flavors come from. This went on for a while and he continued to tell me he knew he was right and I was the one who was misinformed.
The wine your friend is describing is actually Sangria