---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Venkat Mangudi <[email protected]> Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 1:57 PM Subject: Re: [silk] Query on Indian-made wines To: [email protected]
** My previous mail does not imply Charles is a wine snob. :) sorry, Charles. Just that wines have matured in India. Well, Charles certainly qualified his statement with "As of when I left a few years ago". And just because some of us don't like some (or all) Indian wines, doesn't mean that others can't like them. I don't see anything wrong with liking the cheapest and most plonky wine in the supermarket...as long as one is quite confident about it. It's only when there is a need to be "right" instead of standing by one's likes and dislikes, that the snobbery element creeps in. If only we could phrase "XYZ is hopeless to drink/eat/watch/experience" as "I don't personally like XYZ"...but I also think it's implied in the statement that it is one's opinion. Alas, it is easier to don the mantle of superior knowledge and experience by being dismissive of something ( anything, not just wine)..I find that often people mistake self-confident snobbery for actual knowledge. Being dismissive or "damning with faint praise" is also more witty. How do I feel if something I like (er, for example, rhododendron juice, which I saw advertised in the Garhwal region) and someone else dismisses it? I have several options....ignore the opinion, and stick to my choice; protest against the opinion, and stick up for my choice; or quietly "change" my preferences. The third option makes me a snob, as much as the person who says that what s/he doesn't like is actually not good.
