and they didn't tip either

One day each weekend I work at a local winery. I started there when I first moved here and was still looking for work, and after I found a full-time job I stayed on for the fun of learning about and being around wine. I really do like learning and talking about wine, and an amazing variety of people come through the door: there's the typical Midwestern (as long as it's sweet enough to rot my teeth in under 5 minutes, I'll like it); there's the typical Californian (they don't grow these grapes in California, so this can't be good); there's the typical wine-tasting novice (I can't describe why, but I like this); and then there's a rare breed that I've never had the pleasure of witnessing until Saturday (I was taught how to taste wine by a person that didn't really know much about wine).

This man tasted 5 or 6 wines, and each sample provided him with the opportunity to swish and sniff and gargle with such flamboyance that even I was embarrassed. Judging by her reaction, I can only assume that his girlfriend knew no different; she watched him do it and was unfazed. I'd pour him a taste, and he'd take 3 huge sniffs in the glass and a couple huge sniffs out of the glass, in the glass, out of the glass, swirl, in the glass, out of the glass. Then he'd dump the whole pour into his mouth and swish and gargle. A little smack of the lips and he'd suck several big gulps of air through his mouth and smack smack smack his lips again. Now, to be fair, several of the dramatic things he did actually do have merit when it comes to tasting wine, but it was the drama that made his behavior so outrageous. Of course you want to swirl the wine to coat the inside of the glass so when you stick your nose in it the aroma of the wine is encompassing, but trying to vacuum the wine into your nose is unnecessary. Of course you want to move the wine around in your mouth to let it touch the different taste buds, but the hard mouthwash gargle is excessive.

I could've excused the outlandish behavior because the man might have really perfected his own experience with wine. He might have tried all methods of tasting wine and found that his own noisy, obtuse method provided him with the most complete sensory experience possible for him. But then, after one round of inhale, exhale, gulp, swish, suck, he looked at me with stars in his eyes and said, "Wow, the oak on that one is almost cedary!" The wine he'd just tasted was a very fruity stainless steel-fermented semi-dry white. He wanted to talk about what the pH level of one wine was. He needed to know what the filter type used on another wine was. And he yammered on about how we do "such a good job making the wines so well balanced."

We can't expect every patron to buy wine. But when two people try several wines each, usurp 2 employees' time, spend 30 minutes praising the "amazing quality" of the product, and buy only a bottle of water, it's about enough to drive a girl to drink. Wine.