Napa, California
A wine tasting at an upper tier winery in Napa is fraught with expectations. Will it be truly special enough to make the specials feel that they are special? It is the feeling of the thing that matters, and feelings are subjective. Will the experience make one forget that all pleasure is a mere vacuous distraction from this long march to the grave? Will it be enough to make some VP of accounting for some random exceedingly important widget maker feel the weight of his exalted position in life? And what happens when it falls short, when it isn't bourgeois enough?
Just such an experience afflicted poor Renard McPhereson and his new wife Trina just recently. After some time recovering from the encounter, they felt the courage to open up about the harrowing experience.
“I don’t even know where to start,” said Renard indignantly. “It all began when we pulled up to the enormous metal gate with the logo of the winery on it. We used the gate keypad to dial in, explaining that we had a tasting appointment. Ridiculous! It felt like we were on some squawk box ordering Mc Donald’s.” At this the 26 year old Trina plaintively mewled, “Eww!”
“Surely they could have had an actual person, perhaps a footman at the gate with a splash of bubbly there to greet us. Instead we had to wait until we pulled all the way up to the winery parking lot to be greeted by some millennial with a $200 haircut, sculpted beard, and Patagonia vest. Where was the properly dressed footman? I don't mind the pretensions of the proletariat as a general rule. Hiding class distinctions in the capitalist structure is helpful to prevent things like guillotines, but this is Napa!"
On Renard went, bravely telling his tale of woe, with Trina chiming in occasionally with an “Oh my gawd,” or “seriously," or her favorite, “eww!” His critique began with their pedantic host. His title was “Executive Enological Experience Expert," and somehow that all fit on his name tag. He had little interest in Renard or his bouncy bride, and spent the time name dropping about this celebrity winemaker and that celebrity winemaker, and how the clay loam this and alluvial that and the Sun on the ridge at 4:33 pm each day made truly exalted wines worth $2000 a bottle. But in all of this, Mr. Shimmering Beard oil audaciously ornamented with the fat watch clearly didn’t notice how important Renard and his trophy wife really are, how they like to name drop too, how they like to talk about their wine collection. He showed no interest in them at all! It was as if Mr. Italian Loafers thought Renard and Trina were the lucky ones to be there; that they were just another appointment printed on special linen paper.
Not only that, but they didn’t even call to see if Trina likes black truffle, which she doesn’t! The whole tasting menu lacked any personal touches. The Iberico ham leg displayed in the tasting room was a nice touch, but it wasn’t even from Huelva!
The interview ended with Renard simple dissolving into incoherent ranting. “It was all so derivative, unsurprising, more ponderous lighting of barrels and perfectly appointed rooms and polished glass and pretty gourmet food bites of caviar and cheese from some terribly important farm. And the multi-million dollar architecture merely to introduce them to Mr. Fake Smile. Where was the footman? And every one of these places is like that, with minor variations for the style of the fountains! I’m just bored with it all! Bored! Bored!” And he began to trail off and stare blankly, obviously compensating for his pain with anger.
