Wine Has a Design Problem
How London Underground maps might offer a vision for easier-to-understand restaurant lists.
There’s a great scene in Diamonds are Forever, a 1971 James Bond movie, where the villain’s henchmen are posing as waiters. One pours Bond a glass of Mouton Rothschild; Bond remarks he’s surprised they didn’t serve a claret. The villain apologizes for not having more clarets in the cellar, revealing his ignorance about wine. As any cultured sophisticate (and gentleman spy) knows, Mouton Rothschild is, in fact, a claret (duh). The henchman’s ignorance is exposed, and Bond can thus dispatch him.
Today, quibbling too much about châteaux classifications could be a giveaway that you’re actually a spy — or at least someone not to be trusted or liked. But the bigger issue in the wine world is how much knowledge drinkers are expected to know in order to get a bottle they can enjoy. It’ s no surprise that a recent tweet about the obscurity of wine lists, from food writer Helen Rosner, caused a minor, but heated, debate online:
