Old Wine and Restaurant Overreach
The Wine Curmudgeon posts on what is, to me, the scariest aspect of restaurant wine:
When the wine did arrive, it was oxidized; obviously, the bottle had been open for a considerable period of time, and the wine had started to turn. It no longer tasted especially like chardonnay, but like bad sherry, with burnt wood and caramel flavors.
Ah, yes: the compromise in non-wine-intensive restaurants between the trend toward expanded wine-by-the-glass selections and the fact that those restaurants don’t really sell very much wine. So the wine sits open, sometimes for days, and no one notices until it befouls a customer’s dinner.
Even in good restaurants, wandering slightly off the beaten track in ordering a glass involves significant risk. I find myself shying away from the more interesting offerings, defaulting to the most frequently ordered brands or better-safe-than-sorry alternatives like Sauvignon Blanc. When I’ve experimented, it has not always been with happy result. I ordered a Gamay in a nice restaurant once and ended up with a viscous brew that might as well have been prune juice. The restaurant apologized and opened a fresh bottle, which was fine except that the fresh bottle then went back behind the bar to sit for a few days or a week or a month until the next person opted out of the house Merlot to try something more interesting.
The growth in wine availability at casual dining restaurants has been a boon to wine drinkers. The expansion of the white-red-rose wine list to include a half dozen alternatives is designed to attract relatively upscale wine-drinking customers, and it has been a big success. What some operators miss, however, is that there is a risk that accompanies catering to wine drinkers. Malcolm Knapp, who tracks trends in the restaurant business and who I interviewed for a recent Vineyard & Winery Management article, says that people who are attracted by expanded wine menus will be driven away if they’re served substandard wines.
“People are paying for performance now,” he says. “They know the difference. It has to taste good or they’re not coming back.”
A “wine program” requires commitment. Wine Curmudgeon talks about training programs, but just as important is the commitment to dispose of wine left over at the end of the night, before it gets to the next day’s customers. With mid-price restaurants selling single glasses for almost as much as they pay for a whole bottle, that’s not too much to ask.
September 9th, 2011 at 10:53 AM
You are right, it isn’t too much to ask. The risk should be the restaurant’s, not the customer’s. Imagine if they treated fish the same way.
I’ve experienced the skunked bottle side effect enough times to grow comfortable with sending them back and asking for a fresh glass. But there are two very easy options for restaurants/bars offering these expanded BTG lists to help offset the risk:
1. Use a preservative like Vineyard Fresh or other inert gas to help forestall the funkification of the open bottles.
2. Offer curious customers a taste of something they otherwise wouldn’t order.
This second one has so many positive implications, it ought to be rote regardless of how much volume an establishment is moving. After all, a test drive is the best way to make a sale.
September 9th, 2011 at 4:29 PM
Thanks for the shout out,Tom. The thing that makes me crazy about restaurant wine, and chains like Chili’s are far from the only culprits, is that restaurants treat their wine inventory so differently from the rest of their inventory. Would they leave chickens out on the counter? Of course not. But for whatever reason, it’s fine to treat wine that way.
September 9th, 2011 at 5:47 PM
This is probably the biggest reason why I don’t usually order wine in restaurants. You’ve got to love that sight of a bottle of wine behind the bar with the visible ring of dried wine an inch above the current level. I haven’t worked in the restaurant industry, but I’ve always thought this would be a fun system:
1) Keep the wine by the glass collection short, rotating, and eclectic.
2) Sell by the glass for 48 hours after opening a bottle. After 48 hours, your leftover Assyrtiko and Pinotage become discounted and unnamed house white and house red. Capture the folks that want a bargain, or the people who like a glass of wine but don’t really care about the names or grapes.
3) On the weekend, anything still open becomes the base for sangria during lunch and brunch.
September 9th, 2011 at 11:15 PM
Happened to me tonight. Otherwise decent place that is a Michellan Bib Gourmet joynt. The loss is theirs; I have thousands, literally, of dining options and this kind of thing is inexcusable. I won’t be returning.
September 10th, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Whenever I see the word “caramel” to describe a wine, I think of cooked (along with oxidation).
Whether or not a restaurant keeps wine open on a shelf for days, have you ever seen how many restaurants store wine? When I sold wine on the street, scores of restaurants had the wines delivered through the kitchen, where many of the wines wound up in storage, proving that contrary to what Curmudgeon may think, they do treat the wines the way they treat the chicken…