
We all know that one awful guy who likes wine and is knowledgeable about it but really enjoys the being-knowledgeable part more than the wine. His oenophilia is oriented toward performance rather than consumption: surveying the wine list, making a few well-informed observations about the offerings, enjoying the deference offered him by the other, less confident drinkers at the table, the little ritual of the probationary pour and the cork. What he is imbibing is not the 1982 Lynch-Bages so much as the ceremony — and, most important, what it says about him. The grape juice is mostly beside the …