... unless you are at a wine-tasting.
Tonight we poured at Mercy Wine Bar's fifth anniversary celebration. (Yes, I'm in Dallas now.)
For the most part, these tastings are fun. People show up, you introduce them to your wines, you chat a bit, share thoughts and observations, etc. And everyone feels very happy.
But then there are the vultures. These events seem to bring out the worst in some people. They start trying to steal anything and everything they can -- it's like they think a wine-tasting is one gigantic opportunity for freebies.
Tonight we saw one guy swipe an unopened bottle off of another winemaker's table. He just grabbed it and walked off through the crowd as fast as he could. Luckily, this guy got caught. I've poured at tastings where I've turned my back to grab a new bottle, and when I turned back around, one of the bottles on my table had mysteriously disappeared -- no sign of where it went.
And people don't stop at the wine. Our broker here in Dallas said he once saw a woman put an entire wheel of cheese in her purse at a tasting. In fact, sometimes people even bring Tupperware or plastic bags and load up.
We've had people steal wine glasses from our events at the work -- one woman drove away with a set of six Riedels, even after we had told her the glasses were rented and not for guests to take home. People have stolen the buffet signs from our events (I have no idea why you would swipe a buffet sign -- what the hell would you do with it?), table decorations and even sugar bowls from the coffee stand.
I just don't understand it. The people who go to wine-tastings are usually fairly well off or at least somewhat comfortable -- I mean, admission to these events isn't exactly cheap! If you have money, why the hell do you have to steal a bunch of things that you can probably afford to buy on your own? Doesn't make sense to me at all. In fact, it downright disgusts me.
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