Once Upon a Vine: Speaking up about wine may get you a better bottle

By Gabe Saglie

It took guts. But a few months back, during an outdoor lunch on a beautiful afternoon at a popular Santa Ynez Valley eatery, I decided to call the server over and return the bottle of wine we'd ordered. I really felt it was corked. I had my father-in-law Claude try it and he, too, thought it was corked. We discussed it awhile. For some reason, we felt a little intimidated. What if we were wrong? How embarrassing. Gulp. But I waved the waitress over and presented our dilemma.

She had no problem taking the bottle back in. But soon enough, the manager walked out, the same bottle in hand, and put it back down on the table.

"It's not corked," he said, somewhat abrasively.

"Are you familiar with the way pinot noir is supposed to taste?"

This question alone is enough to make any novice wine drinker sink into his or her skin and want to slide down their chair to hide beneath the table. I, though, could comfortably say I knew pinot noir very well and that I'd tasted many pinots, including the very bottle we'd ordered, many times before.

"I know the guy who made that," I told the server, "and I guarantee you he would not want you serving it as a representation of the wines he makes."

With a huff, he turned around and reluctantly sent another bottle out. Much better. But what an intimidating experience. We really had to struggle to put that interchange aside and enjoy the rest of our lunch.

In all fairness, this kind of experience is an anomaly. Most restaurant servers and managers know better. They will not confront you and force you to prove your case. They've learned to trust the palate of their clientele. And if there is an honest and thought-out attempt to, at the very least, have a server confirm your impressions that a wine may be corked or may have turned, odds are you will find it to be a pleasant and learning experience.

Restaurants can be a springboard for our wine experience. Think of them as viticultural classrooms where a wine list becomes a wine drinker's text book. I peruse the wine list every time I go out to eat, even if I've brought in my own bottle and don't intend to order wine off the list. I'll ask about varietals or labels I'm not familiar with, or I'll engage servers in discussions about food and wine pairings. The restaurant experience, I feel, should always encourage the very same inquisitive nature in the dining public that will keep them coming back for more.

This past weekend, I recommended one of my favorite Santa Barbara restaurants to a visiting family friend.

"The stuffed chicken breast," I suggested.

And because she's a self-declared "wine ignoramus," I gave her a couple of local wine names to consider off the list. And when she ordered a bottle of pinot noir, she began to second-guess herself.

"It smelled like dirty socks," she told me, "and just tasted weird."

And she thought plenty hard about how silly she'd feel if she was wrong. But she decided to be a brave diner. She called the server over and, amidst a lot of apology, suggested the pinot noir in her glass may have seen better days.

"What a relief," she said to me, as she went on to describe how cordial the server was and how accommodating the staff was, including the manager, who came out, apologized, confirmed the wine was corked, and replaced the bottle right away. The manager even thanked her for having spoken up.

"We get credit for corked bottles," he said.

Everybody's happy. Except maybe the winemaker, who's probably already been grappling for months with whether or not to consider the screw cap over the cork as a means of preventing corked wine. (Screw caps are a column, or two, for another day.) On the other hand, consider how happy even the winemaker himself will be, knowing a potential return consumer was not left equating a negative drinking experience with the caliber of the wines he makes. My friend ended up really enjoying her wine and plans on looking for it at her local store back home.

This lesson learned also applies to wine shops, by the way. You can take a bad bottle back to the Cables, owners of East Beach Wine, for example, and if they confirm it's corked, they'll happily hand you a new bottle and return the bad one to their distributor for credit. And then you, too, can be a satisfied repeat wine customer.

That's the very simple point I was trying to make to that aforementioned restaurant manager. Last I'd heard, by the way, he'd been fired. The restaurant's owner told me he'd received way too many complaints about his aggressive demeanor. Too much corked wine, perhaps. Or maybe just sour grapes.

Gabe’s radio show, “The Grapevine” airs from noon-1 p.m. Saturdays on KZBN AM1290. He can be contacted at gabe@thegrapevineshow.com.