The Blind Tasting

In the eleven years Sunniva had organised the Quillon Wine Circle's annual blind tasting, one tradition had been treated as sacred: the outsider. Each year the committee slipped a single cheap bottle in among the twelve grand ones, decanted and anonymous, so that the ten judges, serious people with sensitive noses and ample opinions, might be gently humbled. The outsider had never placed higher than ninth. This year, to the horror of the committee and the quiet delight of the waiters, it came first.

桑妮娃在奎隆品酒会组织年度盲品的十一年里，有一个传统一直被奉为神圣：局外人。每年，委员会都会在十二瓶名贵的酒之间悄悄混进一瓶廉价酒，倒进醒酒器，不留名字，好让十位评委——那些鼻子灵敏、意见丰富的严肃人物——受到一点温和的敲打。这个局外人从来没有排进过前八。今年，委员会大惊失色，侍者们却暗自欣喜：它拿了第一。

Sunniva announced the result herself, reading the scores from an envelope while her voice grew steadily smaller. The winning wine, number seven, had been bought that same morning at the supermarket on Fenner Road for roughly the price of a sandwich. Ursula, the senior judge, had once written eleven hundred words on the smell of a wet cellar floor. She had given this wine nineteen points out of twenty and called it "generous, with a quiet confidence." Several judges looked as though they were privately reconsidering their lives.

桑妮娃亲自宣布了结果，她从信封里念出分数，声音越念越小。夺冠的是七号酒，当天早上刚在芬纳路的超市买来，价钱大约只够买一个三明治。资深评委乌尔苏拉曾经用一千一百个字描写潮湿地窖地面的气味。她给了这瓶酒二十分里的十九分，称它“慷慨，带着一种安静的自信”。有几位评委看上去像是在私下重新思考自己的人生。

Sunniva did not believe in miracles, and she believed even less in coincidence. Over the following days she treated the evening as a crime scene, if a rather damp one. Somebody must have switched the bottles; it was the only explanation that spared everyone's pride, hers included. She studied the photographs of the decanters, counting. She interviewed the caterer, who remembered nothing except that the cheese had run out. She even rang the merchant who supplied the real wines, asking in what she hoped was a casual voice whether any of his stock might have been mislabelled. He laughed for so long that she had to hold the phone away from her ear.

桑妮娃不相信奇迹，更不相信巧合。接下来的几天，她把那个夜晚当成了犯罪现场，一个有点湿漉漉的现场。一定是有人调换了酒瓶；只有这个解释能保住所有人的自尊，包括她自己的。她研究醒酒器的照片，一个个地数。她询问了餐饮承办人，对方什么都不记得，只记得奶酪不够了。她甚至给提供真正名酒的酒商打了电话，用她希望听起来随意的口气问，他的存货里有没有可能贴错了标签。他笑了很久，她不得不把电话从耳边拿开。

What nagged at her most was a small, undignified detail. Before leaving that night, she had poured the last inch of number seven into a jam jar, out of what she now recognised as suspicion. She took the jar to the merchant, who sniffed it, sipped it, grimaced with great politeness, and confirmed that it was exactly what she had paid for. There had been no switch. There had never been one, and the only people left to suspect were the judges.

最让她耿耿于怀的，是一个微小而不体面的细节。那天晚上离开之前，她把七号酒最后一寸倒进了一只果酱罐里——出于她现在才承认的疑心。她把罐子带给酒商，他闻了闻，抿了一口，极有礼貌地皱了皱眉，确认这正是她花钱买的东西。根本没有调换。从来就没有过，剩下可以怀疑的，只有评委们了。

She cornered Ursula at the end of the week, in the Circle's cloakroom, among the umbrellas.

那周周末，她在品酒会的衣帽间里，在一堆雨伞中间堵住了乌尔苏拉。

"Did you think we were fools?" Ursula said, a little hurt. "We were asked to rank what we tasted, and that is what we did. It was the best wine on the table. Not until the label came out did any of us remember we weren't supposed to like it."

“你以为我们是傻瓜吗？”乌尔苏拉说，有点受伤，“我们被要求给品尝到的东西排名，我们就是这么做的。那是桌上最好的酒。直到标签拿出来，我们才想起来自己本不该喜欢它。”

"It cost less than the cheese," Sunniva said.

“它比奶酪还便宜。”桑妮娃说。

"Then the cheese was overpriced."

“那就是奶酪定价太高了。”

Walking home, Sunniva turned that over. It was not the wine that had failed; it was the experiment. For eleven years the Circle had tested its judges for humility, and in the one year they were tested for honesty instead, they had passed with distinction. Had she known the joke would end this way, she would have chosen a different evening for it, or at least a better cheese.

走路回家时，桑妮娃把这话想了又想。出问题的不是那瓶酒，而是这个实验。十一年来，品酒会一直在测试评委们是否谦逊，而在唯一一次改为测试他们是否诚实的那一年，他们以优异成绩通过了。要是她早知道这个玩笑会这样收场，就会换一个晚上来开，或者至少换一块更好的奶酪。

On Sunday she opened the second bottle she had bought, in case of spills, poured a glass, and drank it slowly, alone, in the manner of someone conducting research. Then she took out next year's agenda and, beside the word "Outsider," wrote in pencil: "Not from the supermarket."

星期天，她打开了为防洒漏而多买的第二瓶酒，倒了一杯，慢慢地、独自喝着，像个正在做研究的人。然后她拿出明年的议程，在“局外人”这个词旁边，用铅笔写下：“不要来自超市。”