Many people, much smarter than I, have opined that people are generally at their worst during the holidays. Most point out that they find it ironic that so much bad behavior occurs when people are supposed to be the most thoughtful and forgiving.

Or something like that.

This is not a post about holiday rudeness, whether you are smarter than me (or I), or even the meaning of “ironic”. No, this post is a public service, of sorts; a caveat of what you should not do pretty much ever.

In this space, I have mentioned that we love to host people at our home and we do it all the time. Wine tastings, wine dinners, weeknight, weekends, even when we are on vacation. I love to cook and drink good wine (duh) and usually when people ask what they can bring, our response (other than the occasional “dessert”–I don’t eat dessert any more and making it has thus become cumbersome) is usually “nothing” or, if I am feeling clever “thirst” or “hunger” (or both).

While I do not keep anything close to “statistics” I would hazard to guess that on average, we host people at least once a week, and that skyrockets if you count when I cook for my in-laws (they live right behind us, have I ever mentioned that?).

The fact that the offer is rarely reciprocated does not bother me at all. We have lived here for eight and a half years and there have been many people that we have hosted dozens of times but I have yet to even know where they live let alone actually ever stepping foot in their house.

And we are fine with all of that, really. I do find it a bit odd, but whatever.

These past couple of weeks, however, there were a few instances that have served to try my patience and sanity. The first was innocuous enough and happens all the time, so you think I would be used to it. We had some friends over for dinner, people we have known for a while, folks with whom we have shared countless bottles of wine (both from my cellar and theirs). They came over, with arms full (I think they had a dessert) but upon entry, one of them said: “I wouldn’t think about bringing wine over to your house for dinner.”

Huh?

Not only have we shared enough wine over the years that you should know that I will drink (or at least try) anything, you have brought wine over to our house countless times. What happened in, I don’t know, the last two and a half weeks(?) to suddenly turn me into the judgmental wine ogre?

I have no idea.

The next (I am going slightly out of order here for dramatic effect), happened just a couple of days ago. Good friends were in from overseas (it should be stressed, that this family, former neighbors, are not subject to any of the derision inherent in this post) and they were determined to drink the Nebuchadnezzar of champagne that they had left in my cellar when they moved overseas.

For those not familiar (or Google-phobic), a Nebuchadnezzar is one of the larger bottles of champagne, holding 15 liters of wine, the equivalent of 20 regular 750ml bottles, or about 100-120 glasses of bubbles.

So it’s a lot.

That tiny bottle is a regular-sized bottle of champagne.

For the task, there were six adults “recruited” and one of them was my wife, who had to work the following morning at 8:00am, so she was not all that much help. Even if she were to be keeping up, that meant three-plus bottles of bubbles per person.

Yeah.

My first time opening a Nebuchadnezzar.

About an hour in, and barely having made a dent in the bottle, I suggested we might need some reinforcements if we were going to finish the bottle (which was the stated goal of its owner, our former neighbor). So I texted a few of my wine friends to see if they might be interested in coming over to help with the bottle. I made it fairly clear that while the champagne was still good, it was certainly old, and, as I have stated here before, old champagne is a bit of an acquired taste. I also stated the goal: to finish the bottle.

One of my wine pals agreed to come over and join in and brought a friend. Fine. Perfectly fine. They showed up shortly thereafter. Empty-handed. Again, fine. There was plenty of food and more than enough champers left in the bottle (I doubt it was even 25% empty at that point).

About two glasses in, and probably no where close to halfway through the Nebby (which I began to call it for some slightly inebriated reason) the aforementioned wine pal turned to me and asked if I could open up another bottle of champagne.

Huh?

I said “no”. I know that was perhaps un-host-like, but I will get to the reason in a moment (I promise). The same request was proffered again at least a couple of times, almost as if the belief was that I did not hear it at first. The reply was the same each time. After all, there were approximately 10 “bottles” of perfectly fine (if a bit old) champagne already open.

I guess I could have handled it with a touch more tact, but this episode came on the heels of another similar encounter a couple of weeks prior.

I held the Seventh Annual Blind Tasting of American Sparkling Wine earlier this month and the day before, a friend, who is very much into wine, texted me to let me know that his girlfriend was in town and he wanted to know if we wanted to get together. What he was really doing was inviting the two of them over for dinner.

Which is fine. We have had them over countless times and we always open a slew of bottles and genuinely have a fun time. Unlike others, we have been over to their house on a handful of occasions, usually as part of a bigger group, and we get along quite well.

So I invited them over to the “after party” of the tasting. This year I had 48 bottles in the tasting, some incredible, most really good or better, and only one or two stinkers. A lot of good wine, all bubbles and I put out a rather impressive (at least to me) fajita bar with plenty of toppings and options.

The goal was simple: no one should leave hungry or thirsty. They came over. Empty handed.

Fine. There was plenty of both food and wine for consumption.

About an hour into their visit (there were probably eight people here in total?), my friend pleaded with me to open a bottle of red wine, “any red wine”. While I looked at him in a bit of amazement and I told him that it was a sparkling wine event, I acquiesced and opened him a bottle. Not even halfway through his glass, he came over and asked did I have any other red wine I could open (clearly not a fan of the first bottle, which I later tasted and rated “Outstanding. 93 Points.”).

Once again, I obliged.

The next day, he sent me a text:

Thanks for including us the other night. Good stuff! (Except the red wine you opened 😂)

Huh? Are you kidding me right now? Exasperated, I responded:

There were literally 48 bottles of wine open. Nothing is stopping you from bringing your own.

To which he responded:

Haha.

Yeah.

Perhaps I am just the grumpy old man that I never thought I would become, or my skin has regressed to paper thin, but is it me or is this a bit out of line? I would have had no problem if either of the latter folks had said, “Hey, would you mind if I open that bottle I brought over?”

The answer would have been a succinct “Not at all, in fact, I will open it for you!” The problem, of course, is that there were no such bottles to open since well, they brought over bupkis. Nada. Zilch. Zippo.

Maybe it’s just my mid-western upbringing, but a) I will never show up empty-handed even if the host says there is no need to bring anything, and b) if I don’t like what is being served, I suck it up and try to choke down as much as I possibly can so as not to appear ungrateful or rude.

I guess it’s just me?

If that makes me a grumpy old man? Well, I can live with it.