"Don't let anyone tell you what you ought to like... Some wines that some experts think are absolutely exquisite don't appeal to me at all"
About this Quote
Cleese is smuggling a small rebellion into the polite ritual of taste. The line starts as friendly advice, but it’s really a jab at the invisible bureaucracy that forms around “good” art, “serious” music, “proper” comedy, and yes, the right bottle of wine. By choosing wine, he picks the perfect battlefield: a pleasure commodity wrapped in status, expertise, and the quiet threat of embarrassment. Nobody wants to be the person who can’t detect “notes of cassis,” so people outsource their own senses.
The intent isn’t anti-intellectual; it’s anti-deference. Cleese isn’t saying experts are frauds so much as they’re irrelevant to the most important data point: whether it delights you. That’s why the phrasing matters: “absolutely exquisite” is the kind of worshipful language that turns preference into dogma. He punctures it with the simplest counterargument available - “don’t appeal to me at all” - a blunt sensory veto. It’s a reminder that taste is lived, not scored.
Context-wise, this is Cleese the comic craftsman talking past the gatekeepers. Monty Python’s entire project was to treat revered institutions (the church, the military, the BBC voice of authority) as material. Here, the target is cultural policing: the way a canon hardens into a personality test. The subtext is permission: you can be intelligent without performing the “correct” enthusiasms. In an era of algorithmic validation and hot-take hierarchies, that’s still a quietly radical stance.
The intent isn’t anti-intellectual; it’s anti-deference. Cleese isn’t saying experts are frauds so much as they’re irrelevant to the most important data point: whether it delights you. That’s why the phrasing matters: “absolutely exquisite” is the kind of worshipful language that turns preference into dogma. He punctures it with the simplest counterargument available - “don’t appeal to me at all” - a blunt sensory veto. It’s a reminder that taste is lived, not scored.
Context-wise, this is Cleese the comic craftsman talking past the gatekeepers. Monty Python’s entire project was to treat revered institutions (the church, the military, the BBC voice of authority) as material. Here, the target is cultural policing: the way a canon hardens into a personality test. The subtext is permission: you can be intelligent without performing the “correct” enthusiasms. In an era of algorithmic validation and hot-take hierarchies, that’s still a quietly radical stance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wine |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by John
Add to List
