Editor's Note: $50 to open a bottle of wine? Monthly columnist Evan Dawson tries to broker a deal between restaurants and consumers, and elicits some interesting comments from both sides of the debate. –Tom Mansell, Science Editor
Editor's Note: "Hatred of a straw man is a powerful force," says Blake Gray in this column from June of this year. The monthly columnist comes to the defense of so-called "wine snobs," those much maligned élitists of movies and New Yorker cartoons. However, the people to whom the term is applied are usually the everyday enthusiasts like you and me. –Tom Mansell, Science Editor
Imagine dining at an incredible restaurant with a group of friends. You peruse the wine list—and then you notice your friend smirking as he pulls a bottle out of a brown paper bag. He didn't warn you that he was going to bring his own and pay the corkage fee. That might be annoying enough, but then you notice that the bottle is Two Buck Chuck.
Fan: Do all wine snobs always wave their pinkies in the air?
Law: I drink beer, so I don't know.
The "wine snob" is a pernicious villain in modern America, a witch of Salem that must frequently be rooted out and publicly flogged.