On Saving the Good Stuff

Over at The NY Times Wine Blog, The Pour, Eric Asimov has an entertaining (and uplifting) piece up on what I'll call the reverse-Jesus scenario. Remember in The Bible when JC turned water to wine and his guests commended him for saving the good stuff for last? Well, Asimov discusses the idea of opening a good bottle of wine for yourself, and serving plonk to your guests. It's not all that uncommon, and he points out one of the more famous examples in the post - which comes from Richard Nixon.

From the blog:

"Nonetheless, secretly reserving a wine for oneself while serving something else to the guests violates numerous rules of etiquette. Not that it’s uncommon. The most famous such anecdote comes from “The Final Days’’ by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in which Richard Nixon is depicted entertaining Congressmen on the Presidential yacht Sequoia, serving them a modest Bordeaux with their dinner of tenderloin while the stewards poured Nixon Margaux 1966, the bottle wrapped in a napkin to conceal the label. Tricky, Dick!"