An Ugly Day of Wine Tasting

Wine tasting -- just the thought conjures up images of beautiful sophisticates gamboling from one estate to the next, revelling in the riot of bouquets, tastes and assorted sensory pleasures that only Napa's finest can serve.

We must have taken a wrong turn!
Our afternoon was better defined by sweaty hordes of tourists jostling with tech industry warriors in shirts bearing the logo of one 'Synergy' or Paradigm Shift' conference or another. Oh, and outrageous amounts of snobbery from winery employees who had clearly graduated with honors from 'Treat Everyone Like Useless Piles of Shit 101'.

An example of an overheard conversation, Winery Employee "Yes, we are keeping production down to about 12,000 cases this year", Winery Visitor "Oh really, but you have such a large building."

About the snobbery. Each of the wine servers was clearly working on the assumption that every visitor had only one thing on their mind -- squeeze as much free wine out of each port of call. In fairness to the pourers, they were clearly accurate in their assumption. The only problem I had was with their sheer pretentiousness and arrogant disregard for even the most basic levels of humility. It was shocking to see, and I'm British! We invented such attitudinal excesses, but at least we did it in the name of the Empire rather than a bottle of wine soon to be available for $4 at Trader Joes.