What is the correct way to hold a Dry Martini?

Or a pint of Guinness?

The way that won't make people who know about these things laugh about you behind your back.

I only ask because Wine Folly has posted this invaluable guide for anyone uncertain how to hold their glass of Chardonnay. It includes advice on using your "thumb, forefinger and middle finger" (heaven forfend that you might accidentally hold the stem with three fingers rather than two!) and on "sipping from the same spot on the rim each time."

This last trick will apparently "provide a more consistent tasting experience" as opposed, presumably, to the undesirable inconsistency of attacking the glass from a different angle.

Historically, I have been a fan of the way Wine Folly has provided good basic information about wine using infographics and accessible text and, for a moment or two, I thought this might be a bit of satirical fun.

And maybe it is. After all, there's a reference to holding the glass in the 'wrong' way getting you "kicked out of the country club."

But, if it is, it's too close to the truth, because the internet is full of similar, evidently straightfaced instructions.

Googling "the correct way to hold a glass of wine" sent me down a rabbit hole I never want to revisit: 25 YouTube and Insta clips, only one of which - William Hanson's camp etiquette-instruction diversion on not clinking glasses - possibly (hopefully?) seems intended to raise a smile.

My only question, at a time when wine consumption is falling globally, and young people (no, not just Gen Z) are giving it an increasingly wide berth, is whether anyone really thinks that telling them how to hold a glass of Pinot Grigio or Merlot, or the ideal dish to drink it with, is really going to reverse that trend.

A wine glass, like a whisky glass, a Martini glass, a tea cup or a coffee mug, is a receptacle.

Its use is very simple: get the liquid into the largest hole in your face without spilling it.

Everything else is theatre.