A sommelier explains why you should buy the cheapest bottle on the wine list

[vellavu]

Why you should buy the cheapest bottle on the wine list

Sommelier Mark Oldman knows your eye goes immediately to the cheapest wine on the list.

And he knows that many of us then move our glance over an inch, to select the second or third-lowest bottle so as not to seem, well ... cheap.

Another thing he knows? You're better off sticking with the cheapest.

In his book "How to Drink Like a Billionaire," Oldman writes that wine directors, restaurants, and sommeliers are on to your craftiness, and they've parried your move long before you arrived.

"Knowing that it will sell swiftly," writes Oldman of the wine director, "he may have slotted an overstocked bottle into the position on the list. Even worse, he may have marked up this wine more than any other, making it potentially the worst value on the list."

 

[YummySushiPJs]

"Knowing that it will sell swiftly," writes Oldman of the wine director, "he may have slotted an overstocked bottle into the position on the list. Even worse, he may have marked up this wine more than any other, making it potentially the worst value on the list."

Or... he may not have.

I don't want to drink wine like a billionaire, I just want to go through life without "experts" trying to make a name for themselves by thrusting onto everybody unwanted tips and "lifehacks" on everything under the sun that nobody asked to know. 😀😀😀

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Actually it goes beyond just wine. It's human instinct. That's why the second option of a three-tier plan is always the one highlighted, as its the one they want to sell. It's crazy when you look at the statistics and eye tracking on how people look at and view things.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

 

[Nix]

I guess it depends on if you know anything about wine.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

I generally like red more than white wine. Does that count? 😛

 

[Ethan Reigns]

This doesn't just happen with wine - funeral homes sell caskets the same way. The occupant never knows the difference, so it's not done for the deceased, it's done by and for the living.

 

[Bluebird]

The wine of choice in my neck of the woods is good old Buckfast, for when you want a sugar high to go with your booze. Scottish people live fast.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Oh those delicacies from Buckfastleigh, where Buckfast Abbey resides, makers of the original mead.
It was the joys of Buckfast that first caused GwenRaiden to be aware of my presence, more news on the terrible ailments of drinking plonk later.

HowiMetdaSlayer,
the usual question that is asked is where does the name of the group UB40 come from?

Now this is where I need to be really careful, cautiously looking all about for persons who are proud of their Scottish descent. As a Sommelier is a person of Scottish descent, and while in this instance it may refer to wine it actually refers to a job, that a Sommelier is a person who put the label of an expensive wine over the label of the cheapest house plonk available.
The Sommelier was the name given to a person who changed the Whisky label, as due to an oversight Irish Whiskey was delivered instead of Scotch Whisky. The main difference being in the spelling of the name Irish = Whiskey and Scottish being Whisky.

Looks over hunched shoulders for odd looking people with blue and white flags, then runs away like Usane Bolt.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

Sounds like a kind of plane, but read somewhere that it came from some sort of tax form or something?

 

[ILLYRIAN]

HowiMetdaSlayer,
close, sort of. In England and possibly all of the UK, UB40 was the name and number for the form that was to be signed each week for folk to get their unemployment benefit.