Wine vs. Beer

A lengthy excerpt from Sir Kingsley on the subject (there was much more than these bits but I don't wanna cut 'n' paste the whole damned section on wine)...

But, before I get to a more positive approach, let me describe, in careful stages, not what you should do when serving wine to your guests, but what you nearly always do (if you are anything like me): 

1. Realize that They will be arriving in less than an hour and you have done damn-all about it. 

2. Realize, on your way to the cellar or wherever you keep the stuff, that the red wine to go with the roast beef will be nowhere near the required room temperature if left to warm up unassisted. 

3. Realize, on reaching the stuff, that it has not had time to “settle” after being delivered, and that you should have realized six weeks—or, if you had wanted to give Them a treat, ten years—ago exactly what wine you were going to need tonight. 

4. Decide that They can bloody well take what They are given, grab some bottles and take them to the kitchen. 

5. Take the foil off the necks of the bottles. (Now that the bottlers have mostly decided they can cut costs by leaving the lead out of this, your present task is like removing nailpolish with a fish-knife.) 

6. Look for the corkscrew. 

7. Having (we will assume) found the corkscrew, unscrew the cork that somebody has left screwed on it and open the bottles. 

8. Find something to take the gunk or crap off the bottlenecks and take it off. 

9. Decide that, while any fool can tell when wine is cold, and nearly any fool knows nowadays that a red wine is not supposed to be cold, hardly anyone knows a decent glass of it from a bad one, and stick the bottles in a saucepan of warm water. 

10. Spend parts of the next hour-and-a-half wondering whether old Shagbag, who is reputed to know one wine from another, will denounce you for boiling out whatever quality tonight’s stuff might have had, or will suffer in silence. Also wonder whether the others will think 1971 a rather insultingly recent year for a Médoc, whether to get up another bottle on the off-chance that They can force down what you have “prepared” for the table, whether to boil that too or to bank on Their being too drunk to notice or too polite to mention its coldness, and kindred questions. 

11. Do not enjoy the wine much yourself when you come to drink it. 

Now let me contrast the procedure when serving beer: 

1. Do nothing at all before you get to table, beyond ensuring you have enough. 

2. At table, inquire, “Anyone not for beer?” 

3. Subtract the number so signifying from the total sitting down. 

4. From larder or refrigerator bring one tin of beer for each person concerned, tear off the tabs and start pouring, in the total certainty that the stuff will be all right. 

5. Say, “If anyone wants any more he’s only got to shout.” 

Streamlined version of the above: 

1. Five minutes before everybody goes “in,” put one tin of beer at each place. 

2. Let the sods open and pour themselves. 

The point is that wine is a lot of trouble, requiring energy and forethought. I would agree without hesitation that (if the comparison can properly be made at all) the best wine is much better than the best beer, though many would not, at least in private, and many more will bless you under their breath for giving them a decent Worthington or Double Diamond instead of what they too often get, Algerian red ink under a French label.

Heh.  The more I read, the better it gets.  Count me among those who would not agree that the best wine is better than good beer.  Sir Kingsley isn't dismissive of wine, in fact he makes some solid recommendations on the subject, not the least of which is one I've practiced for years:  always drink wine with your meal when dining out.  This isn't to say I order wine at Mickey Dee's or my local taqueria -- far from it -- but I always order wine in the better restaurants I frequent.  And there's usually a bottle of burgundy in the cupboard, too.

A final note:  Ah, Worthington.  We DO miss Ol' Blighty.