You might be a wine geek if...

Do you find yourself always scouring the wine aisles looking for a label you DON"T recognize? Do your friends automatically (and somewhat fearfully) hand the wine list to you when you go out to eat? Do your friends wonder why you have no savings, then look into your cellar and mumble something about bad fiscal planning? Congratulations, you're one of us...this blog's for you.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Some thoughts on service, what to expect as a guest...


While I'm the first to speak out on bad service when it rears its ugly head, I wanted to spend a few paragraphs outlining what actually constitutes good and bad restaurant wine service. I posted a bit about this and a few people have asked me to elaborate on what they should expect from wine service when they are out at a restaurant. This is likely to be a bit dry, but informative and I promise some new reviews and more fun topics in the coming week. You see, the problem is that lots of people misunderstand the ritual of wine service and what elements are necessary and which are simply for show. To that end I'll give a (somewhat) brief description of wine service basics.
Stemware.
There is no excuse, in this day and age, for a restaurant with a wine list...any wine list...to not have, at the very base level, acceptable stemware. This does not have to be top shelf, varietal specific Riedel or Spieglau crystal (although it's nice to be certain). Simple stemware with a relatively large bowl suffices and is now available on the cheap from every restaurant supply store and catalog. You should be able to pour six ounces of wine in the bowl and leave it only half full or less, allowing room to swirl. If it is the sort of restaurant that has an extensive wine list containing multiple vintages of first growth bordeaux, you can expect more, but if not, be satisfied with a glass you can swirl without recoloring the tablecloth and your girlfriend's new blouse.
Presentation.
This is where it gets tricky, as all sorts of different types of service get involved, but I'll stick to the basics here.
The server should retrieve the wine in a timely fashion and show you the bottle first, pointing out on the label the five necessary pieces of information; Vintage, Winery, Varietal, Appelation and Vineyard (or Proprietary Name when applicable). This prevents any confusion about which wine was ordered. If you're not sure that the bottle presented is the one you ordered, stop, look at the winelist again to confirm. This can save confusion and money (the wine might be a different vintage than the one you ordered and many times the price), so be thorough.
When you're satisfied that it is indeed the correct bottle, you should gesture to the server to begin opening the bottle. The server should use a waiter's tool with a knife to remove the foil from the bottle, below the lip, not on top of it (shards of foil do not taste good, trust me). The server should not spin the bottle as they do this, they should cut around the stationary bottle to prevent strirring up any sediment that might be resting calmly at the bottom of the bottle.
The server should then remove the cork, again NOT spinning the bottle, keeping the bottle as stationary as possible. There should be no audible "pop" as a bottle of still wine is opened and there is little need for flourish here. Champagne is another matter, but you still should only hear a brief hissing sound.
If the server hands the cork to you, and this is NOT necessary, feel it to ensure that the end which was in the bottle is indeed moist. This will tell you that the wine has been stored properly, on its side, not vertically. You can smell it if you want to, but it's not going to help too much...corks smell like cork.
The server should then pour a small amount into your glass (about one ounce) for you to sample.
This, people, is your moment to shine. At this juncture, it falls on you to ensure that the wine is free from flaws. To put this in the simplest terms, the wine should not smell like wet cardboard (cork taint, or TCA), nailpolish remover (volatile acidity), rotten eggs (sulfur dioxide) or burnt rubber (mercaptan). It should also not smell like vinegar...
If you're pretty sure the wine contains one of these flaws, simply inform the server that this must be an off bottle, and please bring another. If you have any doubts, or don't trust your palate completely, ask the sommelier or manager to sample the wine, this is common practice and certainly nothing to be embarassed about, assuming that you're not making a scene.
If you are satisfied that the wine is showing nicely, gesture to the server to pour around the table. The server should serve the ladies first, then the gentlemen, pouring last to the host, or the person who selected the wine. Now you get to relax, enjoy the wine, eat your steak and try to ignore your in-laws slightly off kilter political leanings...
Oh, one last thing, if you order multiple bottles during the course of a long dinner, this process should be repeated for each and every bottle. Never, I repeat, never allow a server to pour from a new bottle until you have tasted it, even if the wine comes in a screw cap. And yes, it's ok to drink wine that comes in a screw cap, even red wine...but I'll make my arguments for alternative closures at a later date...
Cheers
TRC

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