Dominic Sandbrook

Pliny offers lists of all the great wines.

He discusses viticulture, the different varieties of grapes, the influence of the soil, when you should drink a wine, when it should be young, old, and so on and so forth.

whether you should store it in clay or in wood or whatever.

And Tom, you will no doubt bring a lot of expertise to this discussion of why I like your hero, Pliny the Elder, because I have seen you sampling wines in the Napa Valley, in Sonoma, twice in the Barossa Valley.

In Australia, and I will never forget the occasion in the, I think it was the Sonoma Valley, when the guy doing the wine tour put down two wines.

He said, now, one of these is a very heavy, rich red, and the other is a very light Pinot Noir.

Please identify which is which.

And unerringly, you chose the wrong one.

And it was a tremendous moment.

But you're going to bring the same level of forensic expertise to this episode.

I have an incredible ability to taste and all of that.

What was it?

The man, the bloke said that you got it wrong because you were, and I quote, were you a super taster?

I was a super taster.

So a super taster is somebody who unerringly will get it wrong every time.

Is that right?

No, I'm so right that I'm wrong.

And in being wrong, I'm right.

I think that's how it works.

Because your taste buds are so overdeveloped.