I went to a wedding celebration for friends that eloped recently. It was put on by a wealthy friend of theirs, who happened to be a bit of a wine fanatic. He had hundreds of bottles worth hundreds of dollars each, and basically said "enjoy whatever you want" to the guests.

Most of us were drinking what was already opened, or even the beer in the cooler.. but one guy... one guy, had to talk about every bottle. Go through a glorious ceremony for each. Find the perfect glasses, and people to talk to about it. It got pretty annoying, to the point the wine loving host himself was like, great to meet you, but why don't you and I get together some other time, let's focus on (couple's name) instead.

There you have two kinds of wine fans, one I like, one I couldn't stand being around. My mother is a third kind, the one obsessed with finding the highest quality to cost ratio she can. I'm not sure how I feel about her :)

To play devil's advocate: If you're going to break open the good stuff, drink it right, and proper glassware _does_ matter.

Don't be the dude who grabs a bottle of my good scotch and pours it on ice in a rocks glass. The bottle of Jameson was right next door for a reason.

I mean I guess but again you anecdote here is that one time one guy, while everyone was drinking wine, started talking about wine.

The length and detail annoys me. I tolerate it, I just don't enjoy it. It comes off as pretentious. And it just falls into the "why is this so important to you?" territory.

Thing is, even if you completely ignore wine flavor there is so much to talk about. One, wine is often grown in picturesque areas that make great travel destinations. Wine has it's own battles like oak vs. no oak which brings people to same level of arguing as vi vs. emacs debate. If you're at all a history buff, wine intersects all throughout. Then there are generally cool, geeky things about wine. For example, how the wine in Santorini is cultivated is fascinating: http://www.winesfromsantorini.com/the-vineyard.html

I don't find any of this pretentious, and more general interesting conversation.

Indeed. They should be discussing something everybody agrees is important, like the relative merits of various programming languages or vi vs Emacs.

> "why is this so important to you?" territory.

You mean, "terroir".

Again though how much length is it really and how much length is it you mentally adding because it is for some reason important to you that it shouldn't be important to them. And by 'important to them' I mean: 'discussing the activity while, and only while, they are currently doing it'

Well I don't consider parties to be all about what is being consumed. Sure, it is while they are doing it, but typically a party is a generalized social occasion, not an activity based get together like a book club.

Is there no topic that you like to discuss at length, that others don't enjoy and wonder why it is important to you?