What am I checking for when the waiter pours me a small taste of wine out of a new bottle?
Typically, I drink the glass, give the guy (or girl) the thumbs up and say "It's great, thanks".
What should I be checking for?
Am I just making sure that the bottle isn't bad?
Is there a "correct" process to this event? Should I be swishing the wine around the back of my tong or smelling it?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$3 Answers
The swirling of the glass will indicate the overall sugar content of the wine and give you an idea of its sweetness. A wine with a high sugar content will have "legs" and cling to the glass just a bit more than a wine with a lower sugar content. The swirling will also release the "bouquet" giving you your first taste of the wine through smell and your first indication of whether or not the wine is "off" or "corked". The sipping is the final quality control and is done by the host or whomever at the table ordered the wine. This is for a final judgment and is letting the entire table know that the wine is good or bad before the wine consumption goes any further. This is also your last chance to decide if you like the wine or not and for any reason ask either for another bottle of the same wine or another different bottle altogether.
I was a bartender/server for years. I have watched and participated in this process literally thousands of times.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
If the bottle is corked, it is appropriate to send it back. If it is fine but just not to your liking, its bad form to send it back, in my opinion, as ultimately it is a matter of taste, not a defective bottle.
Corked bottles sent back to the winery are generally credited back to the buyer for the next order.
One of the reasons that some wineries have switched to screw top caps is to eliminate wastage via cork fungus. It seems gauche, but it prevents loss of good wine. It also prevents a wine from going sour from an air leaking dried out cork. There are many expensive wines that are now bottled with screw caps.
Per Cellarnotes.net
"If you get a 'corked' wine, you should return it to the store from which it was purchased or refuse it at the restaurant. Most wineries completely stand behind their wines and will work to ensure customer satisfaction. Do make sure that you check the wine when it is opened and before it is poured around the table. Wineries and stores are less likely to accept the return of an empty or nearly empty bottle with your claim that it was bad. The tasting ritual of a freshly opened bottle of wine developed over the years to allow the host to check and make sure that bad (corked) wine was not poured for guests."
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Well, that's the thing. I should know what I'm doing.
If I buy a bottle of wine at a restaurant rather than a glass, it's usually on the higher end of the list. I try to pair wines to the food that we're ordering (especially the appetizer). I've drank enough wine and experimented with enough flavors to know (basically) which wines work and which wines don't.
However, the basic requirements of the initial tasting elude me.
This is a great start, but I'm still not 100% sure what to do.
The background information is very interesting - knowing that I'm "checking it for the table" is great, but what exactly am I checking? How should I do it?
Rob did you have a seemingly correct answer in your mind already and maybe you were just hoping to have one of us repeat what you were thinking?
The answer I have provided is exactly correct. I have been trained by professionals in both the service and tasting of wine there is no more to the process than the items I have mentioned above.
This whole process is actually a courtesy given to the wine drinker for pomp and circumstance. Really in the 12 years I spent serving wine never once did anyone send a wine back at this point in the service. Weird I know. Initially you should look at and touch the cork checking for uniformity in the moisture pattern this will enable you to determine right away if air has penetrated the cork and sped up the oxidation of the wine. This is really the most important part of the "check the wine" serving process. If you encounter a dry or non-uniform moisture pattern then it is reasonable to smell the cork for another opportunity to see now how far along the oxidation has gone. This is the only reason to smell the cork. In my experience most folks who smell the cork really do not know what the are doing.
After inspecting the cork and finding in acceptable you are basically checking the wine for the smells, sugars, flavors and taste described on the wine label. If the label describes a "oak and butter aroma", look for that in the bouquet, if the label describes a "unexpected sweetness" then look for that in the swirl as the sweeter wines will leave clinging legs as it falls back down the side of the glass, if the label describes a flavor combination of "lemongrass and citrus fruits" then look for those flavors in the taste. These checks are to be sure the wine served is the wine described. I have heard of unsavory wine merchants serving wine that was re-bottled and with a bit of slight of hand at the table the servers were able to distract the diners from noticing the re-corked status of the wine. This is easily prevented as a diner when you initially handle the bottle and are sure the foil is intact over the cork at initial presentation.