On Ignorance, Condescension and Playing Nice

In the world of wine, that is

I may be editor of Inside IWM, but strictly speaking, I’m not a wine person. I enjoy wine, and thanks to the beneficence of IWM’s Sergio Esposito, I’ve developed a wee palate that can differentiate the most obvious traits. But I recognize that I’m not much of an expert. I can talk long and pseudo-knowledgably about wine varieties, growing methods, bottling techniques and regions, but my knowledge is more or less limited to what I’ve written about and therefore researched. I’m a pretty poor excuse for a wine writer, really (but I’m a good writer in general and smart as a whip, so that gives me some great leniency).

Which is all to say that I’m delighted by Tom Wark’s March 22 post in his wine blog, Fermentation. The post, called “Responsibility of the Wine Experts,” uses as its basis the top ten questions about wine on Ask.Com. Wark writes,

The other day a representative from ASK.com sent me the top ten wine questions asked at the site. Here they are:

1. How many calories are in a glass of wine?
2. How do I make wine?
3. What is port wine?
4. How many bottles of wine are in a case?
5. What is marsala wine?
6. What wine goes best with chicken?
7. Who is the god of wine?
8. How long does wine last once opened?
9. How do I remove red wine spills from carpet?
10. What is the best way to open a bottle of wine?

Eye these questions real closely. Are they not the exact questions you’d expect of a group of folks with little or no knowledge of wine but who drinks and uses wine?

Wark continues, “Perhaps the exception is question #7: Who is the God of Wine?” To which my answer is most assuredly not me. I’d go with Bacchus, but you might have your own answers.

Rather than using these questions as a springboard for smacking down people who have even less wine knowledge than I do, Wark uses them as a way to suggest that rather than be condescending, wine experts should be gentle with us who are still wine toddlers. Wark even acknowledges his own desire to be sarcastic when confronted with a question like, “How do you open a bottle of wine?” I can understand that knee-jerk impulse. I am sarcastic to the bone. I cherish irreverence and I {heart} flippancy. And yet, Wark makes a really good point about reining in the condescension.

“The point is,” Wark argues, “among the many things that those of us who work in and around wine should remember is that we can really help turn a person off to wine by the kind of responses we give to the simplest questions.” There’s nothing like a smart-mouth answer to a sincere question to make the questioner feel like a fool—and then slink away slowly in shame.

Wine is difficult enough as it is. Those who are fortunate enough to be experts need to bear that in mind and play nice with those of us who still ride the wine bike with our training wheels. And should my training wheels ever come off, and should I ever give a cutting answer to a simple question, I hope you’ll remind me I wrote this piece about my wine salad days, when I was green and inexperienced.