Hello Nils,

I certainly try hard not to be snobbish when dealing with inexperienced
drinkers. "So you like Mogen David Kosher Concord? Go for it!" Of
course, it can be very tempting to try to "correct" someone if he says
that Sutter Home White Zinfandel is "the best wine I EVER tried!" But
the best you can do in that case is to recommend something more classy
that might suit his taste, like an Auslese Riesling or Moscato. That's
the best way to avoid being seen as a snob.

Dan-O

Nils Gustaf Lindgren wrote:
> Hello good gentles all,
> The last few days have seen (in the wake of a perfectly legitimate and
> courteous question from a lady wishing to learn more) rise the spectre of
> wine snobbism. The possibility has been mentioned that so and so is a wine
> snob - others have embraced the term with sincerety.
> Of course the group is heterogenous. It contains francophils and
> francophobes, cork dorks and screwcap fans. There are members from New
> Zealand to Norway and beyond. Newbies come and all too often go, whether in
> pain and anger, or wonder and mystfication, or, having found out that it is
> preferable to get a life, they being, apparently , very useful to many
> things, some of which has nothing to do with wines whatsoever.
>
> I wanted to look into the matter. To start with, what is a snob (I know what
> wine is)?
> Google-san-wa anata-no tomodachi-desu as I always say - and found that the
> roots that I had heard, that it was short for "sine nobilitas", i e, without
> nobility (which would have meant we were ALL snobs [1]) was, in fact, false,
> and that it apparently originally meant shoemaker. I am not aware of anyone
> on the group having proclaimed to be a shoemaker.
>
> A snob is, then, "a person that adopts the world-view that other people are
> inherently inferior for any one of a variety of reasons including supposed
> intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, etc".
>
> Do we do that? Does anybody here consider other people "inherently inferior"
> because of their taste in wines? Harsh words, dangerous grounds ... Anybody
> tempted to share their thoughts?
>
> Cheers
>
> Nils Gustaf
> [1] Except Lord St Helier of course
> --
> Respond to nils dot lindgren at drchips dot se