Wine Tasting | David Mitchell's Soapbox

David pops his cork over the issue of wine tasting.
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David Mitchell, star of UK TV favourites Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look, brings us his unique perspective on the issues facing men of the world today.

• Category

  Comedy

[Naddig74]

David, David, David...any _decent_ real ale pub will happily provide a small taster on request.

[hazaraku]

All he said is he wanted to replace wine-tastings with beer-tastings, because he doesn't know anything about wine but he knows a thing or two about beer. What a horrible snob indeed!

[Stacey Waldron]

This is great viewpoint but sometimes etiquette prevails.

[tSp289]

I have to say having worked in a mansion hotel as a waiter and bar staff I don't have a fucking clue about wines. They never paid us nearly enough to actually order anything more expensive than a half of Boddingtons at the end of a particularly tense shift. You'd think the odd box of leftovers when they made too much for a buffet was a perk, but it's really just so we didn't look too emaciated in front of the customers.

[Naddig74]

Wetherspoons pubs are not decent real ale pubs. 

[wainwj11]

I'm 20 and I know far too much about ale.

[beingatliberty]

… especially whetherspoons pubs, but your media status probably precludes you from entering with the commoners ? Sadly I find often that the swankier and more expensive a bar is, the less likely it is, to allow you a taster, As the moneyed class based coercion toward conformity is in fact much heavier handed.

[joeplace36]

i'm young and i like and know about ale!

[Nulono]

So corked means the cork is rotten?

[rynegade]

The bottom of the cork should be wet, indicating that there was no air in the bottle. The cork should not be musty smelling as the cork can transmit bacteria or fungus if it's been soaked through because it wasn't stored properly. There's also the issue of whether the wine was stored at too high of a temperature, but I don't know what the signs of this is. It's not a big deal if a little fleck of cork gets into the wine while it's being opened, it's just annoying.

[cyanmanta]

Well, obviously not at a restaurant; but I've watched episodes of The Mole UK where the French attendants tell all the British visitors how important it is that they don't drink the wine at a vineyard tasting. It's crap.

[Simon Marvig]

You're not expected to spit it out at a resturant. You're expected to see if there's floating little pieces of cork in the wine. If they don't do that, well then you're drinking in the street.