Why Is the Sommelier Drinking My Wine?

Published on Tuesday, May 10, 2011, by Helena Echlin / Edit Post

Dear Helena,
What is up with the sommelier taking the first taste of your wine? When I buy a nice bottle of vino, I will be the judge of whether I like it or not.
—Confident Palate

Dear Confident Palate,
I can understand why you object to this practice. It can look like the sommelier is trying to sample fine wine without paying for it. But that's just not true, says Brad Haskel, a wine consultant and seasoned sommelier. "I don't need their wine; I have a chance to taste an awful lot of pretty great wine. I just went to a tasting for six or seven people where we opened $15,000 worth of Champagne."

Traditionally, the sommelier always tasted the wine before serving guests, says Madeline Triffon, wine director for the Matt Prentice Restaurant Group. The silver cup worn around the sommelier's neck, known as a tastevin, is just for that purpose. When Triffon embarked on her sommelier career in the late '70s, "the tastevin was an accepted part of formal service, like wearing a tuxedo." The custom did not fall out of style until the early to mid-'80s, she says. This was perhaps because consumers became more educated about wine, and more confident in their powers of evaluation.

But the first sip isn't taken in order to evaluate the wine. It's poured for one purpose only: to find out if there is a major flaw, such as the wine being corked, or blighted by oxidation or improper storage. That's an objective assessment that the sommelier can make just as well as you. And since it is not pleasant to taste a wine that is redolent of armpit, you should be quite happy to let the sommelier take on that task.

This is particularly helpful for customers who are less wine-savvy than you. Some people may choke down a bad wine, thinking, "Maybe it's supposed to taste like licking a dungeon floor." Rebecca Chapa, a wine educator and sommelier, says that when she was working at Jardinière in San Francisco, she served what she thought was a nice wine, without tasting it. "At the end of the night the table said: 'We don't want any more; you can have it.' When I tried it, it was completely corked."

Unfortunately, only restaurants with a dedicated sommelier can save you from this experience. At more casual places, servers usually don't have the time or space to sample bottles, says Chapa. This is because the proper way to test a bottle is to take it to a side area to open it. Sampling the wine at the customer's table is likely to "obstruct the flow of conversation," and it also feels a little invasive, like taking a bite of your entrée. So if you're just dining at your neighborhood spaghetti joint, it's up to you to watch out for cork taint.

At restaurants with a formal wine service, sommeliers need not pretaste every single bottle. If there's something really wrong with a wine, there are usually "obvious warning signs," says Haskel, "such as weeping down the side of the bottle" or a weird smell. Even then, the sommelier should never assume it's OK to serve himself, says Triffon. He should ask the customer's permission, explaining—in a discreet fashion—why he's doing it. There's no need for him to be overly specific (as in, "This bottle appears to have been stored near the dishwasher and I'm worried it has suffered from heat damage"). Triffon simply asks, "May I take a small taste to check the wine?"

After the sommelier has made sure the wine isn't flawed, of course it's up to you to decide if you like it. He can't decide that for you, any more than he can say whether you liked a particular novel or movie. If the wine is not to your taste but you picked it on your own, you're stuck with it. However if the sommelier helped you choose, then you can always blame him and send it back.

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POST A COMMENT |13 Comments

COMMENT

  • There's a whole thread here where many people took umbrage at a server's offer to taste the customer's wine. So I wouldn't say that it's a given that anybody expects this. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/778757 (Yes, there's a difference between a server and a somm, but presumably any server who's bringing the subject up knows at least something about the wines being served.)

    Fact is, many...+READ

    There's a whole thread here where many people took umbrage at a server's offer to taste the customer's wine. So I wouldn't say that it's a given that anybody expects this. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/778757 (Yes, there's a difference between a server and a somm, but presumably any server who's bringing the subject up knows at least something about the wines being served.)

    Fact is, many (most?) taints are fairly subtle. And yes, a screw-top wine can be corked. (TCA can come from the barrels the wine is aged in.) The whole point of the exercise is to serve the customer a wine that tastes like it's supposed to. What's so hard to understand about that?-COLLAPSE

  • I would wonder about a sommelier who did not take a taste of the wine when it was opened. If a restaurant has a good enough wine list to merit having a professional sommelier, then they do not want to take the risk of serving a corked or cooked bottle of wine. Anybody who has been into wine for any length of time knows that corked wines are a fact of life. Sometimes you can tell a soon as they...+READ

    I would wonder about a sommelier who did not take a taste of the wine when it was opened. If a restaurant has a good enough wine list to merit having a professional sommelier, then they do not want to take the risk of serving a corked or cooked bottle of wine. Anybody who has been into wine for any length of time knows that corked wines are a fact of life. Sometimes you can tell a soon as they are opened, sometimes the wine is just a little flat or off but not so noticeably that someone who was not familiar with what the wine should taste like might not notice or know better.

    I bring wines from my own cellar to many restaurants and I've never (unlike some wine snobs I know) have any problem with the sommelier having a taste of the wine I brought before serving it, much less one I purchased from the wine list.-COLLAPSE

  • The thing is, sometimes people will
    a) drink a corked wine and just think "well, I guess I'm not a wine person"
    and better,
    b) try to send back perfectly good wine because they don't "like" it. I had someone complain that a wine with a screw-cap was corked. Er... really? That deserves a taste.

    Sad but true-- I once sent back a CORDIAL because the cork in the bottle was tainted. Bartender...+READ

    The thing is, sometimes people will
    a) drink a corked wine and just think "well, I guess I'm not a wine person"
    and better,
    b) try to send back perfectly good wine because they don't "like" it. I had someone complain that a wine with a screw-cap was corked. Er... really? That deserves a taste.

    Sad but true-- I once sent back a CORDIAL because the cork in the bottle was tainted. Bartender thought I was nuts... until he tasted it.-COLLAPSE

  • Nicole, it has nothing to do with the price of your bottle. Tasting is an old custom that had all but died out. It has begun to regain popularity with the resurgence of the sommelier position in general.

    I ask my guests if I may taste for them, as I can say with confidence I'm better at detecting flaws than the majority of them are. If they say no, I pour and go. If they say yes, I smell and...+READ

    Nicole, it has nothing to do with the price of your bottle. Tasting is an old custom that had all but died out. It has begun to regain popularity with the resurgence of the sommelier position in general.

    I ask my guests if I may taste for them, as I can say with confidence I'm better at detecting flaws than the majority of them are. If they say no, I pour and go. If they say yes, I smell and taste about an ounce, and am then on my merry way.-COLLAPSE

  • I'm finding some of the responses to this story very condescending. If I am uneducated about wine, how do you expect me to educate myself by always ordering wine in my "comfort zone"? I don't recall any rules that one must go to x number of wine tastings and be familiar with every "rule" before ordering an expensive bottle of wine. For the record, I am wine "ignorant" but my husband is the sheer...+READ

    I'm finding some of the responses to this story very condescending. If I am uneducated about wine, how do you expect me to educate myself by always ordering wine in my "comfort zone"? I don't recall any rules that one must go to x number of wine tastings and be familiar with every "rule" before ordering an expensive bottle of wine. For the record, I am wine "ignorant" but my husband is the sheer opposite. He has ordered insanely expensive bottles of wine with me and I have never seen the sommelier taste the wine.-COLLAPSE

  • confident palate sounds like a confident a hole.

  • Aramek, this reminds me of a Henny Youngman quote: "My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle."

    That's me in 50 years.

  • I keep hearing that it is a paux pas to chug, heartily, directly from the wine bottle, during a nice dinner.

    Chow Senators, can you confirm or deny this for me? This is very important.

  • almost no one on chow is that backwards or naive. and vorpal you are hardly a novice here. there are people who are just graduating from boones farm or bartles and james wine coolers / arbor mist. they are quite likely unfamiliar with wine customs.

  • enbell: I aim to please.

  • Very. Poor. Choice. Of. Words, Vorpal

  • Have to agree with Vorpal. I'm wine stupid, but even I knew the answer to this. If you're ordering a very expensive wine and don't understand why a sommelier is giving it a first taste, then you have no business ordering a very expensive wine. It's kind of like asking what the gas mileage of a Rolls Royce is.

  • Did this really need to be asked? I'm about as wine-retarded as one person can get, and even I knew right away upon reading the question precisely why the sommelier would taste the wine prior to serving.