“Reds on Ice? It’s Not Heresy”
July 3rd, 2008I went out on a first (and last) date once with a cop. It was an online thing, and based on his picture, I wasn’t all that enthused. But I went…and then interacting with him face to face, I was even less enthused.
It wasn’t just that I wasn’t attracted to him. There was also the fact that he was one of those people I’ve met over the years who like to make “funny” comments about my Ivy League education (”Did you take golf lessons? Did you take lessons on how to walk with your nose in the air?”). Folks like that reveal their ignorance about the reality of the Ivy League (the diversity of it), and often, their own insecurities or feelings of inadequacy–but it’s always presented as “humor”, and I can either confront it (and come off sounding defensive), or ignore it by “laughing” it off. Now, I’ve since realized that those kind of comments should have gotten this cop the ax. But I was going through my “Try to be open-minded! Meet new people!” dating phase.
So I resigned myself to dinner with this guy, but before we ordered our drinks, I knew I would never see him again.
I guess I didn’t do such a great job of hiding my lack of interest. He watched as I made a private game of dangerously spinning my bottle of Corona, proud of the fact that I didn’t spill a drop. “Bored?” he asked.
The conversation then went from beer to wine. He made the declaration that he liked nothing more than to kick back with an ice-cold glass of red wine. “Hmm,” I said. “I’ve never had red wine served chilled.”
But what he heard, apparently was, “I went to Yale, and therefore, ignorant little policeman, I am superior to you in every way. Only idiots serve red wine cold.”
So he replied, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “All that stuff about which wines to serve chilled is just a bunch of American wine connoisseurs trying to act European. And the REAL reason that Europeans don’t chill ALL their wines is that they have small refrigerators and only a little bit of ice, but here in America”–and here, though he is a black Pennsylvanian, he put that good-ol’-boy-Rebel-Confederate-flag-waving spin on it so it sound like Amurrrica–”here in Amurrrica, we have big refrigerators and LOTS of ice, so we can serve everything cold.” Boy, was he ever proud of our very large Amurrrican refrigeration capacity. Any moment, I expected him to start waving a flag with 50 little refrigerators on it instead of stars.
“Well,” I said, “I’m not a wine connoisseur”–I didn’t say oenophile because of course that would have been way too Yalie of me–”but I’ve always assumed that serving different wine at specific temperatures had to do with differences between the composition and flavors in red and white wines. Now I may be wrong about that. But the refrigeration thing doesn’t make logical sense. If the problem in Europe was small refrigerators, people would chill wines randomly, not based on color, and there would be no conventional wisdom about chilling whites and not reds.”
Again with the dismissive hand wave, he says: “All I know is that MOST Amurrricans like things cold with a lot of ice.”
I could have left it at that. I didn’t need to be right. But ignorance in adults hurts my feelings. And it’s a pet peeve of mine when people start off with, “All I know is…” Why is that all you know???? Don’t you want to know more? Don’t you want to make sense?
I couldn’t stop myself. “That may well be true, about most Americans, and chilled red wine might actually be good,” I said. “But the European refrigeration thing…I’m not following the logic.”
His voice is raised now. He starts ranting about snobbish Americans just trying to copy Europeans. The illogic is making my heart race. I start raising my voice. Before I know it, we are loud and the waiter is trying to give us our food. He’s (the cop is) so mad, he can’t even eat. Not me. I’m hungry, and I dig in. Oh, but I’m still furious. Mad that we are arguing… about wine! Mad that he’s such a dolt, and that I wasted my time. That had to be the smallest table in the world because we were sitting practically nose to nose, looking everywhere but at each other.
Neither of us is speaking, until he starts mumbling, fussing at himself for screwing up. He sighs…a lot…heavily. I’m eating the best crabcake sandwich ever. The waiter comes back and asks if we need anything. I say, “The check.” The waiter, who is clearly disturbed by us and wondering what this means for his tip, brings the check back, and I reach to take it out of his hand so that I can pay for my meal. The cop reaches for it too, and the poor waiter just drops the thing on the table and steps back. The cop insists on paying, but he’s still mumbling to himself like a crazy person. I ignore him and put my credit card down. The cop puts down enough cash for the whole check plus tip. The waiter returns, and is once again confused. I tell him to put my meal on my card, please. The cops says no. I insist.
The waiter comes back with a slip for me and change for the cop. The cop refuses the change then grumbles, “That’s a helluva tip.” I sign the slip, tip the waiter generously for my role in making things awkward, and bid the cop “Good night.”
Well, I was reminded of this little drama when read this New York Times article about cold red wines this morning. This FoodandWine.com article on the subject is also interesting.
Neither article, however, addresses limited European refrigeration capacity. 
