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Pratt is not just a wine enthusiast; he is a man possessed. Dahl writes that Pratt’s "nose was enormous and full of sensitive, quivering passages" and his mouth was "a delicate instrument." This obsession dehumanizes him. Similarly, Schofield is so obsessed with his wine cellar that he gambles his own daughter’s future. Dahl warns that passion, when untethered from morality, leads to destruction.
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First published in The New Yorker in 1945 and later collected in Someone Like You (1953), "Taste" is a quintessential example of Dahl’s adult fiction. It does not feature giants or BFGs; instead, it features a dinner party gone horribly wrong.
The Premise: The story is set in the lavish dining room of a wealthy London couple. The narrator, a guest, watches as two men engage in their traditional after-dinner wager: Recording provenance: Save source URL, download date, and
The wager is deceptively simple. Pratt bets Schofield that he can identify not just the vintage and vineyard of a specific Bordeaux wine, but the exact château and year while blindfolded. The stakes escalate from a modest bet to something terrifying: Schofield offers to bet his daughter’s hand in marriage—or a sum of money large enough to ruin Pratt.
What follows is a masterclass in tension. Dahl shifts from polite dinner conversation to a psychological duel. As Pratt swishes, sniffs, and tastes, the room holds its breath. The twist ending—involving a mislabeled bottle and a fly—is one of the most shocking in Dahl’s bibliography. If you want, I can: (a) run this
Published in 1945 (and later collected in Someone Like You), “Taste” is a masterclass in tension. The plot is deceptively simple:
A wealthy food connoisseur, Richard Pratt, is famous for his arrogance and his palate. During a dinner party at a London townhouse, Pratt makes a bet with the host, Mike Schofield. The wager? Pratt claims he can identify not just the vintage, but the specific château and year of a Bordeaux wine served blind.
The stakes start at a case of claret, but soon escalate to something far more dramatic: two years of Mike’s daughter’s salary or even her engagement ring. As a third-party guest narrates, we watch Pratt go through his theatrical ritual—swirling, sniffing, and sipping—while Mike grows visibly ill.
Dahl does something brilliant here. He doesn’t write about murder or monsters. He writes about humiliation. The monster in this story is ego, and the weapon is a glass of red wine. The final twist is one of the most beautifully cruel endings Dahl ever wrote.