As ducks need a puddle of water to be happy, human beings need to be able to impress. Making an impression, however, need not be as time-consuming an enterprise as, say, learning everything there is to know about computers, or as demanding as hang-gliding. Instead, all you need do is learn to choose a good wine, serve it with a good meal, and toss off some remarks about matching food and wine. The choice can be as modest as a $7 bottle of red wine and beef stew made with wine. But even if you select a rare Lafite or an old Château d’Yquem with a genuine Alsace foie gras, the whole thing will still be infinitely cheaper than collecting antique cars or Boulle furniture. In short, if you want to impress, become a wine snob.
Wine snobbery has been with us ever since man learned to ferment the grape. We read that the Assyrian King Assurbanipal made a ritual of pouring wine over the carcasses of four lions, and that he frequently enjoyed a cup of it with his queen in the palace grape arbor. Wine was a delicacy among the upper classes in ancient Egypt—King Tut stocked his tomb with 26 bottles from his personal vintner, Res—while ordinary folks drank beer. Greece, until the first century of the Christian era, was the world’s most famous producer of wines —it was to Roman wine lovers what Burgundy is to modern Americans. Wealthy Romans imported their wines from Chios and Lesbos, while the less wealthy drank local red plonk. The Golden Age of Italian wines began toward the end of the first century with the Opinian wines which pleased Rome’s smart set, who later discarded them for Falernian squeezings.
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