I am not alone. There are many of us out there that are very unhappy with restaurant wine selection, prices, and service and my opinion was confirmed by a recent poll conducted by Wine Spectator. Okay they’re not Gallup polls but they had enough responses (18K or so) to their query to produce valid and statistically meaningful results. Yes, they polled wine connoisseurs but if you’re reading this then it applies to you; otherwise you’d be reading some other blog about what the First Lady wore to her and her man’s inaugural gala events.

Not all sommeliers are bad – only most of them. And most of them do not know vine from Shinola unless it’s on their wine list and their knowledge then extends only to what they have been told by whomever is buying for the restaurant. It is downright blasphemy that many of these people call themselves wine experts but few of them have experienced the real pleasures wine can offer.

Our dear friend Igor had a birthday recently and as we do on birthdays, we go out to a nice restaurant to enjoy fine food and drink as we celebrate the occasion. On his past birthday we went to a quite upscale Chinese establishment (not a franchise) that served up great food in a very beautiful environment. Their wine list looked quite decent really with typical high-end wine offerings: all the usual suspects from California, off-vintage and too young to drink Bordeaux, and the du jour smattering of other regions, all at the typical restaurant markup of three to four times retail price.


As is customary each year, Igor and I buy each other fine wine for birthdays. For this occasion I brought him a ’95 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou for his birthday (95 Wine Spectator points and their Wine of the Year in 1998). Although we perused the wine list thoroughly he did not find anything he wanted to enjoy and announced that we should open his gift instead. Well, it was his birthday. How could I argue with him? So after determining the corkage fee ($35) I told our server that we would require a decanter because of the wine’s age. I can remember 1995 like it was yesterday but still, doing the math revealed this wine was already 13 years old!

The server had no clue as to how to properly decant an older wine or even why we would. The bar staff who should also have been trained to any extent did not understand either. I gave up asking for a flashlight and grabbed our candle off the table. The server insisted on serving but really didn’t know how so I helped, much to his embarrassment. I told him to carefully open the wine and pour it in a single fluid motion into the decanter, while I held the candle under the bottle. I further instructed him to stop pouring as soon as he started to see sediment – it was a joint effort and we got through the decanting experience.

 As also is customary, I offered him the opportunity to pour himself a taste of the wine, which is just good etiquette when one brings their own bottle into a restaurant. He declined and that’s when I wanted to beat him upside the head. How in the world (I asked him earlier if he enjoyed wine and he told me he did) could anyone turn down the opportunity to taste great and mature Bordeaux? He totally missed the boat because this wine was really excellent.

My point is that wine service for the most part is really poor, even in so-called fine dining restaurants. I would much rather learn something from a sommelier than to teach him something – after all I’m paying for his or her service one way or another. I’d be interested in hearing about your dining experiences with wine and wine service. Maybe it’s just me (and 18,000 other Wine Spectator subscribers).