3 pain in the ass problems with wine at restaurants

Ever wondered about what a wine lover just can get frustrated at a restaurant? If not, you can skip this one and do something more useful. Like drinking a glass of wine…

Ok, you still are here, so let me start. The other day we had the new year’s family reunion, well at least my wife’s family, at a restaurant in Sevilla. As usual, the wine list ended up in my hands. And here the frustration starts.

1. Press F1 for help

I just like to wander in wine lists. My wife always warns the people at the table that I’ll return to earth within half an hour. But I also need some help, so pretty please with sugar on top put a F1 button on your wine list and provide me with some useful information.

The wine list which got stuffed in my hands only contained the name of the winemaker, name of the wine, the region and a tasting note. Not a Word on the D.O. (“Denominación de Origin”), the grapes in the wine and the taste style.

I just like to know which grapes are blended into the wine and preferably a little word on how the wine is elevated. Is there any wood (barriques) used or is the wine only matured on inox cuves? In this way, I at least can get some kind of impression on how the wine would taste and with what kind of food I would match it.

2. Temperature

So I struggled myself a way through the wine list and finally came up with some alternatives. The first was a red wine from Rioja, Bodegas Beronia. Afterwards, I opted for a Reserva of Muga, but apparently this wine was sold out and the waiter suggested me something else. Well, I like surprises and I like to taste wines I do not know so what the heck, I told him that I would try his alternative.

Up came the bottle and the first sniffy sniff and whaaaam there was the alcohol attack. I consulted my inner thermometer and guessed it would be about 22-23 degrees Celsius. I quickly looked around and saw all the bottles nicely presented in the restaurant and nicely undergoing this temperature of 22 degrees Celsius. Conclusion, this wine was just served too hot, and that’s what pronounced the alcohol.

Ok, the wine had no faults so I nodded to the waiter that the wine was alright, but I was frustrated by this common mistake in restaurants. If you have a restaurant and are now reading this: DO NOT SERVE YOUR RED WINE TOO HOT, for the sake of Dionysus!! Think 16-17 degrees Celsius.

3. Sniff the wine

Finally we ended with another bottle of the same wine. Again a mistake that frustrates me. The waiter thinks it is the same wine so no sniffy sniff is needed. Wrong! Every time a new bottle is opened let the sniffer on duty do his job. Preferably take out a brand new glass and let the wine be sniffed. It can always happen that a wine has a fault.

Are you a restaurant and struggling with these problems, go and get’ya a problem solver, somebody like John “Yippie-kay-yay” McClane and do it preferably today…

If you enjoyed this post, make my day and buy me a glass of wine.

New Year’s eve

A brief look at some of the wines we “digested” yesterday evening, December 31. And if you put a bunch of winelovers together, you can imagine that some great wine asses will be kicked…

As an aperitif we of course popped a bottle of Champagne, one of the few good aperitifs. As a side note, please get rid of all these sweet stuff as aperitif! Just think acidity! Okay, having said that we thus started of with Charpentier, a great champagne from the Vallée de la Marne and composed of ship loads of pinot meunier (about 70%). And oow yes, I just love loads of red grapes in my champagne, just makes it fuller, rounder, heavier. Actually you maybe are getting more a wine than champagne. And also this Réserve of Charpentier did the trick. Just lovely my dear.

This was followed by a magnum bottle Soave Classico of Prà, a gift of Graziano Prà himself. More specifically this was the Monte Grande harvest 2002. Montegrande is a specific cru or vineyard from which only the best grapes are destined to end up in the Monte Grande wine. Composed of the grapes garganega (pronounce: gar-GA-ne-ga) and trebbiano di soave, this wine just injects you with honey blossoms complemented with some stony minerality (just do the Garry Vaneyrchuck thing and sock some rocks and you’ll now what I’m referring to). This bottle, well the wine in it, has just aged wonderfully well.

By now, it was time for some serious work. We dynamited our way through the meat dishes with a superb selection of reds, starting with one of my favorite grapes, pinot noir. But no, not a French example, neither an American, nor a New-Zealandian. None of these, we went for a German one, Jean Stodden and his Recher Herrenberg Spätburgunder and for all I can say an outstanding one. This is just a text book pinot noir, tons of red fruit infused with earthiness and a drop of truffle aroma. Yammy stuff.

Then it was time to take a plain to la bella Italia. And we landed in Tuscany where we went for the confrontation with the leading example of the so-called Super-Tuscans: Tignanello. Harvest 1999 and Piero Antinori together with Giacomo Tachis did an outstanding job. Ooh boy was this a nice wine. I just dig sangiovese (the wine is actually made of the following grapes: 80% sangiovese, 15% cabernet sauvignon, 5% cabernet franc). Think sour cherry cream topped with dried tea leaves and a slice of mushrooms. All this just keeps on lingering in your nose. And in the mouth, aaaaaah, what a balance, a balance between the stiff tannins, the juicy acidity and the sweet roundness.

Finally we headed to France, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Our partner in crime was the Château La Nerthe 2003. Without any hesitation the best Château9 I drank last year! And the blend is just amazing, usual suspects such as syrah, grenache and mourvèdre are complemented with grapes that just sound outer space: cinsault, picpoul, counoise, etc.

And today, well today I just try to ignore my headache…