"Steve" > in :
| ...
| As with many of Poe's works, you never know if the problem
| was real or just in protaganists mind. Fortunato thinks that he
| is with a friend and has no idea what is going on...there might
| have never been a slight except in the mind of his tormentor.
|
| The slight might just be the fantasies of a disturbed mind.


Very good point, thanks. Some of Poe's characters are pretty explicitly
disturbed.

Just in case it remains even slightly unclear to anyone, the contemporary
sommeliers I've referred to in this thread are very good people whom most
knowledgeable wine enthusiasts would respect and value. The complaint
related here concerns not differences of opinion or information or taste,
let alone fantasy; but rather the occasional customers who are rude and
disrespectful, browbeating sommeliers by choice, or habit, rather from any
real cause. Of course, the situation of bad sommeliers does come up -- as
mentioned later here, and in recent private mail to me. A different topic.