What rare and expensive foods have you tried? How are they?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

35. Sommeliers are not scam artists.

They are people who have a kind of knowledge about wine that most of us don't.

Several years ago, listening to a call-in show on my local NPR station with a local wine expert, someone called in and said essentially, "I just don't get it. What are you talking about? I see no differences between wines." The local expert replied, "You are right. Those of us who get all fixed on these various things are the exception. For most people, you like this wine, you don't like that. Please go with your own assessments and don't let people like me influence you unduly." What a wonderful thing to say!

The wine expert in question is Doug Frost, who is in the Kansas City area. I'm not sure if he's still actively doing wine stuff, but here's another story about him.

Around the same time, a couple of days before Thanksgiving, at the same NPR station, he was holding a wine tasting. This was in the early 2000s, and I tried to find the show but couldn't, however I'm sure it's out there. Anyway, he's opened two or three bottles, the staff has tasted, and his point is that you don't have to be an expert, you don't have to have some sort of "refined" or "educated" palate, but you can learn what you like. Then he opens the next bottle, and he starts to say something, then stops himself. Each one of the staff samples the wine, and each one says, "I guess there's something wrong with me, but I don't like it." He lets each one say exactly the same thing, and then he says, "As soon as I opened this bottle I could tell that it had gone bad. And this is why I want you to have faith in your own taste. What you tasted wasn't simply something not to your liking, but something that had gone bad, and you could tell."

It was a wonderful example of how we all do need to have confidence in our own palate, and that a wine gone bad is a wine gone bad, which is different from something we just don't like.

I've only once ever opened a bottle gone bad, but plenty of times I've opened a bottle that I didn't like very much.

Anyway, your point about blind tastings is correct. The reality is, we all like somewhat different wines, although (as I said above) a wine gone bad is a wine gone bad.

Too often people who like wine and know a little bit about wine will lord it over others and too often mock their tastes. "You like sweet wine??!!" with the unspoken "What's WRONG with your" hanging in the air.

That's just ignorant. So what if someone likes a sweet white and someone else likes a dry red? Bit deal. It only matters if you've been asked to bring a wine to the Thanksgiving dinner and you want to make sure you bring what the crowd likes. Otherwise, buy and drink what you like, and to heck with anyone else.