Ask a Sommelier: When Is It Too Late to Ship Again a Bottle of Wine?

If you happen to’re at a restaurant with correct wine service, you’ll doubtless witness what appears to be like like a well-rehearsed dance: A visitor thumbs via a binder of choices and consults the sommelier a few times earlier than reaching a choice for the desk. The somm presents the bottle, and takes it away to open it and subtly check it for flaws. Then the server returns, presents the cork, and pours a style for the visitor for additional inspection. The diner offers the go-ahead with a barely awkward “that is nice, thanks” or, if the wine is flawed, sends it again to start out the method another time.

This ritual between sommelier and visitor normally stops when each events approve the wine. However what if a diner has second ideas after their wine is poured and the somm has moved on? VinePair tapped Mackenzie Khosla, sommelier at New York’s wine-focused pizza joint Pasquale Jones, to assist navigate the difficult scenario.

It’s vital to ascertain that the standard back-and-forth outlined above isn’t actually in place to get the drinker’s opinion on the wine, however as a substitute to gauge whether or not or not the wine is sound. With this in thoughts, the one purpose a bottle of wine a visitor picked out could be rejected at any level is that if it’s exhibiting off flavors that sign faults like warmth harm or cork taint.

Now, if the sommelier completely insists on deciding on a bottle and urges the visitor to strive it, that modifications the dynamic. If the visitor doesn’t just like the somm’s selection, their server could also be open to swapping it out for one thing else extra in step with their typical preferences.

“If I like to recommend one thing to you that you just don’t like, or if a bottle isn’t exhibiting accurately, you completely can ship it again and it’s my job to take it again,” Khosla says. “However for those who order one thing by yourself after which resolve you don’t prefer it when it arrives, that doesn’t put the onus again onto the restaurant to take the loss.”

Let’s say that the visitor accredited and loved the wine on first sniff — however after a couple of minutes, some unsavory aromas emerged. Khosla means that at this stage, it’s completely applicable to voice these issues to the somm, as potential flaws can seem after a while within the glass.

“Once I open a bottle, there’s normally some indication that the wine could develop a flaw quickly, however in that situation, I all the time let the visitor know: ‘Hey, I feel that is good, however let’s keep watch over it and if it goes within the improper path, we’ll get one thing else open.’”

So sure, that first glass does go away some room for dialogue, but when the bottle is nearly empty, effectively, that’s a distinct story.

“For me, it’s in the end a quantity factor,” Khosla says. “If you happen to drank half the bottle however then resolve one thing was improper the entire time, there’s not a lot I can do about that. On this case, I’d say ‘too late’ has much less to do with how a lot time and extra to do with how a lot wine.”