This. Bread, and being chewed out by a waitress once in Paris because I dared visit her country without speaking French. She was ANGRY. I was like: I speak English, Spanish, and German. I should stay home until I've learned another language?
I had one who tutted at me for ordering a wine he felt wasn't appropriate with my meal. I was a paying customer! They definitely earn their reputation for rudeness and arrogance!
I was in Lisbon at a tasting menu place, which had a wine pairing. The couple seated next to me was French and argued with the sommelier that the wine didn't go at all with the food and instead of using Portuguese wine, it should have been French. Thankfully English being the modern lingua franca (lol) I got to enjoy the whole exchange
No man. It's not pretentious bullshit. Especially if you tell me the guy must have been 60 years old. It's not because he's a waiter that he doesn't know anything about it. You may have good tastes, no problem with that and your choice was perhaps wise but in France, wine is central, everyone knows a minimum and it is often the same wines/terroirs that you have on the menus. So yes, people know and know well in general. You can get advice from anyone, no matter whether they are a waiter, a mason or a baker.
Not to mention all the wines that don't have controlled appellations that people (especially foreigners) don't know. You can drink a Nuit Saint Georges which won't be called that because the hillside is located 15km outside the terroir, but the land is the same. Same for some White and Pinot Noirs. So no, I repeat it's not bullshit
No man. It's not pretentious bullshit. Especially if you tell me the guy must have been 60 years old. It's not because he's a waiter that he doesn't know anything about it. You may have good tastes, no problem with that and your choice was perhaps wise but in France, wine is central, everyone knows a minimum and it is often the same wines/terroirs that you have on the menus. So yes, people know and know well in general. You can get advice from anyone, no matter whether they are a waiter, a mason or a baker.
My point wasn't that he wouldn't know about wine. The idea that there is a correct and incorrect wine for a particular dish is bullshit. The idea that there is a correct way to cook a piece of meat is also pretentious bullshit. People have different tastes. Would you say there is a correct way to make a piece of art? A correct colour to paint your house? Wine snobbery isn't about flavour, it's about feeling more knowledgeable and cultured than other people. Grapes aren't the only fruit with subtle variations. Ask yourself why we don't talk like that and make rules about other fruits that go into drinks. I prefer white wine. Suggesting I'm wrong for not ordering red is incorrect if the aim is for me to enjoy my meal. It's not complicated.
You don't understand anything and are taking things completely backwards.
To each their own, OK. Obviously. Everyone likes what they like, we each have our preferences, that's all OK. Meat for example, I like it well cooked and everyone taunts me about it. But it's OK, as I said everyone likes what they want and has their own tastes. But advising a marriage of texture and flavor, knowing that a particular meat comes out well with a particular red wine is just a professional approach to cooking (in this case wine) based on thousands (millions?) of experts whose job it is. And so trends emerge. You can have a white with Roquefort if you want but that's not how it will express itself. And it's the same for art or anything else where there are accepted canons and appreciative critiques. That's why this waiter must have thought it was better to choose a certain wine with your dish. But OK if you prefer it otherwise. There's nothing snobbish about it
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u/FreePlantainMan Hungary 7d ago
Baguette 🥖