Wine Lesson #7: How To Order Wine In A Restaurant (Part 1/2)

LESSON #7: How To Order Wine In A Restaurant
In this lesson we take a break from technical wine knowledge to discuss a few useful ideas that might help you to enjoy ordering wines in a restaurant.

"WAITER, a bottle of your best Champagne, please!"

That sort of line doesn't really happen in real life although sommeliers fantasize about it all the time.

What does happen frequently is a customer having a hard time selecting a wine he likes and receiving very little help from the wait staff of a restaurant. Everyone has had some memorable experiences and sadly a few bad ones that are difficult to forget.

Most bad experiences had little to do with the wine itself although spoiled - corked - wines are not all that uncommon.

In a restaurant, corked wine can be returned for a replacement bottle. A healthy bottle that you don't particular fancy cannot be rejected.

Most disappointments are really caused by a combination of inadequate wine knowledge and sub-standard services.

In this lesson we take a break from technical wine knowledge to discuss a few useful ideas that might help you to enjoy ordering wines in a restaurant.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT RESTAURANT

How do we know if a restaurant is well equipped in wine or not? Restaurant guides usually give us ratings on wine, besides food and service. Or we can do a little investigation on our own.

For example, when we call up for reservations, we could ask what kind of wine glasses they have. Names like Riedel, Spiegelau, Waterford and Ravenscroft offer much reassurance that the restaurant is pretty serious about wines.

For additional proof, it is totally appropriate to ask a restaurant to name a few older wines they offer.

The presence of older vintage wines probably means the restaurant has an interesting wine cellar unlike many restaurants that simply picks up what is available in the wine shops around town and mark up the prices by 100% to sell it to their customers.

Click here to read Part 2

Go back wine lesson index

Source: Wine Lesson #7: How To Order Wine In A Restaurant (Part 1/2)