If you wander around the wine-focused chat rooms of social media, you are almost certain to come across complaints about wine snobbery, and a few defensive claims from knowledgeable wine people that it doesn’t exist.
These have always reminded me of complacent middle-aged white men dismissing the potentially hurtful impact of racism and sexism.
Of course wine snobbery - showing off one’s superior knowledge, experience, and ability to afford ‘finer’ wine - exists. Who hasn’t met a wine snob: a person, quite possibly a sommelier or wine shop manager, who made them feel just a little bit inferior when discussing wine?
Wine, with its bewildering mass of regions, grapes, producers, vineyards and vintages could have been created to facilitate this kind of snobbery. But so could music, or sport. Wine snobs laugh at people who mispronounce Riesling, but unfortunates who don’t know their Handel from their Haydn, or who haven’t kept track of which team Ronaldo is playing for may suffer a similar fate when among football or music buffs.
The inconvenient fact is that any sector of human activity in which people become passionately involved is almost bound to be a breeding ground for knowledgeable individuals who lack the requisite social skills when it comes to sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm with others.
Sometimes, they don't even have to feel especially passionate or enthusiastic. Just listen to the way otherwise reasonable people dismiss anyone who drinks instant coffee, or enjoys fast food, or watches the 'wrong' kind of TV programme.
When talking to women, some of these 'reasonable' men are quite fairly accused of condescendingly ‘mansplaining’, but how many are aware that they are doing so?
In an ideal world, of course, snobs and mansplainers wouldn’t exist. And nor would bullies and people who love to boast about their achievements. But the planet we inhabit right now is full of human beings who, quite possibly because of an awareness of their other inadequacies, behave in various ways that make the people they encounter feel quite uncomfortable.
Can we change these human traits?
Not, I fear, while so many of us still think men who display them are worthy of high office.
