Wine police: How to avoid people pulling you up for drinking ‘incorrectly’

In 1958, the big question was what people would drink in the future, and using a time machine, it was concluded that in 2010, the rich would drink beer and the working class would drink wine. The bottom line was: “Wine snobbery is becoming more and more widespread: people drink wine because they think it gives them a certain status. The wrong people, devoid of class, are starting to drink wine; pubs and beer are starting to be seen as a way of distinguishing oneself from the masses,” says the protagonist of this story.

This is not true; it is a story written by Kingsley Amis in the middle of the last century, parodying how far the nonsense surrounding wine could go. But is it now the case? At what point did wine stop being just another drink and become an object of worship, a status symbol, a product around which only the chosen few can dance, those who define themselves as connoisseurs, that endogamous club you have to earn a few stripes to be admitted to?

The pressure of points

“The problem began when we winemakers started making wine for the points, the guides, and the press, and turned our backs on the consumer. That permeated everything, including the language and the way of communicating,” says a winemaker who prefers not to be quoted so as not to anger those who decide the points, edit the guides, and write the articles.

There’s a scene in the series Futurama where Bender, a robot fuelled by alcohol and prone to asking for a certain part of his “brilliant” anatomy to be kissed, asks the sommelier for three of the most expensive wines on the menu. The sommelier nods proudly and replies: “Excellent choice, sir.” To which Bender replies: “And mix all three in a jug for me.” Good for Bender — I don’t know of any sector of the leisure and entertainment industry where its ambassadors are more eager to show off what they know than to help you choose a product.

You order a wine and you’re lucky if you don’t get lost in the explanations and airs of the sommelier — there are many that are excellent at their job, but there are others that should be forced to go on Got Talent to see if they are really as knowledgeable as they claim — or if someone at the table corrects you when you pick up the glass, or if they look at you askance if you ask for a cooler to chill red wine.

“Wine has reached a level of exclusivity that excludes”

Accessing a tasting or oenology course has never been easier — there are thousands on the internet — and more and more consumers are eager to get their money’s worth by delivering a speech at the table. These are the wine police, but they wield a decanter instead of a baton. The wine police do not want to help you choose a good wine or enjoy it more: the wine police only want to correct you to show how much they know. And not everyone wants or needs to be a wine expert to drink wine.

Toni Massanés, who runs the Alicia Foundation, dedicated to helping us eat better, explains that “wine has reached a level of exclusivity that excludes. It has generated dynamics that if you don’t control them, make you feel uncomfortable. There are things that are forbidden. If every time someone drinks wine they are expected to find the tertiary aromas, it’s going to happen. Why are you going to spend a lot of money on a bottle just to have someone come and tell you that you’re not worthy?”

Here is a short guide to help you spot agents of the wine police. They are everywhere, but sometimes they are harder to unmask than the replicants in Blade Runner.

Clues to unmask the wine police

A good way to identify them is to look at the type of corrections they give you. The wine police will correct you if:

You don't care whether you know how to taste or not

Requiring someone to know how to taste wine in order to enjoy it is as unnecessary as requiring you to know the theory of music in order to enjoy a concert.

You chill your reds

Wine is best drunk at room temperature, but the advice refers to the temperature in the wine cellar, not the temperature in Seville in August. If you have to put the red wine in the fridge or an icebox, you can do so without any qualms.

You use glasses from Ikea

Very few people notice the difference between drinking wine served in one glass or another. Even some who say they do, do not.

You like a $10 wine more than a $30 one

The price of a wine is very subjective and often depends more on marketing than quality.

You put too much wine in your glass

The point about not filling a glass to the brim is to better appreciate the aroma, but it’s not a big deal. Just pour yourself whatever you want and don’t pay any attention (as long as you don’t have to drive afterwards or operate heavy machinery).

You use a jug instead of a decanter

They serve the same purpose and the first one was invented earlier. It has a handle, it’s easier to clean, and it also looks nice on the shelf. These are all advantages.

You put ice in the white

Yes, it's true, it's watered down, but it's better to drink a slightly watered down wine than a warm one.

And what can I say if it's in red wine?

Don’t drink mulled wine, really, you’re spoiling it. If the only way you can cool it down is by adding ice, don’t worry about what anyone says.

You buy a wine because you liked the label

A wine is not better for having a pretty label, nor is it worse for having an ugly label, and you won’t know until you try it. But if it is pretty, it at least shows interest on the part of the person who made it.

Because the winemaker is from your town, or because the last time you drank it was with a particular person

The reasons that lead someone to buy one wine or another have little to do with the wine itself, but rather are due to reasons that reason does not understand. And this is something that the wine police will never understand either.

In short: You’re wrong for not liking what they tell you you have to like. The novelist Nick Hornby also portrayed this in High Fidelity, when the character Rob Fleming ruminates on his father’s penchant for sampling wines: “He must be terrible to work with the morning after a wine-tasting session: not because of the reek of stale booze, or the bloodshot eyes, or the crabby behavior, but because of all the facts he has swallowed.”

Kingsley Amis died in 1995, and he never lived to see his dystopian vision of 2010 come to fruition. He can be thankful, because not only has it, but the reality has far surpassed what he imagined in his story 60 years earlier.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition