Abusive Winegeek Syndrome AWS

Sorry, from the question I may have expressed it poorly. I hope that this will do better!

I was talking to a particular sommelier about an established phenomenon, in the United States, of brash or heavy-handed wine connoisseurs who (though perhaps truly knowledgeable) like to deliberately put down sommeliers, clash egos with them, etc. I have witnessed this myself. One technique of doing so in the past was for the customer to spuriously declare bottles "bad" and demand that the house replace them. My questions to restaurant wine people about their work have brought up these points repeatedly. This particular sommelier had grown up with wine and was knowledgeable and self-possessed about it, and described his own tactful approaches to that situation, which he said definitely arises with some small minority of customers. I suddenly thought of the arrogant wine collector in Poe's story, and asked the sommelier if he knew it. He did not, so I dug up that link to forward. And copied this newsgroup also, in case of interest.

If you can envision a competent retail wine professional whose job requires dealing with little indignities from the occasional arrogant customer, you might see why that sommelier resonated with Poe's story.

-- Max