A pretty simple post from Steve Heimoff on a growing phenomenon in nicer restaurants and wine bars - offering a greater selection of olders wines BTG.
Here’s my big question - should be purchase one of these, and they do not ‘live up to’ either your expectations or what the somm/server says they should, do you return or ?
Cheers.
http://www.steveheimoff.com/index.php/2016/07/18/older-wine-in-restaurants-not-worth-the-risk/
Larry, This is my post on Steve’s website:
This is the “Francois Audouze” question. It is all a matter of taste. Some people love the tertiary qualities aged wines take on. It is a acquired taste. A somm should find out if the customer likes the kind of qualities aged wines acquire such as dropping fruit and becoming more herb scented. People who prefer up front fruit in their wine will undoubtedly not appreciate a 20 year old CA cab that lost fruit but gained spice nuanced aromas and flavors. Perhaps a small taste would be justified.
Just my 2 cents.
I’m excited about the trend towards older wines BTG. It gives me a chance to try wines that I’d probably not want to purchase an entire bottle of, whether at retail or in the restaurant.
As Mark points out, not everyone likes aged wine. I think if you know what you’re getting into, and the wine doesn’t meet your expectations - either as it’s flawed, or otherwise not ‘correct’ - then you should not be charged for the glass.
A very sensible approach.
I think the commenter in the original linked post who noted that some of the high end bottles are not selling, and the BTG programs are a response to that, is spot on. Even people who aren’t very knowledgeable about wine can easily check their iPhone and figure out how much of a premium they are paying for something. Maybe once upon a time it was easier to get away with that (for the restaurant) but it seems harder to me now.
It’s tough…while we were in Tampa with some friends they ordered two glasses of older wines and I ordered one as well. I would not re-order the wines they got…but thought about getting a bottle of the glass I had. Doug seemed to agree. So I think there can be some dogs some of the time. However, part of the experience is that you get to taste these older wines…and some will not be as exciting as others.
This quote had me scratching my head. Heimoff knows better, and frankly the sommelier should as well (although perhaps the tastevin should be cause for concern).
I had a very similar time once in one of Carmel’s top restaurants, when I was persuaded by a somm (complete with silver tastevin around his neck) to invest in a 12-year old Spanish Albariño he guaranteed would be fantastic with my scallops sautéed in butter. The wine was completely dead and tasted frankly awful.
If a sommelier hand sells me a glass of old wine and it is dead he is going to be asked to address it, but if I make that conscious choice on my own, I think I should assume the risk, provided the bottle is sound (e.g. not corked, not obviously heat damaged, opened reasonably recently). It’s really no different than cellaring a wine for 15 or 20 years at home at that point. I have a bottle of 1995 Maximin Grunhaus Riesling Kabinett Abstberg ready for dinner later this week. Granted it’s Grunhaus, so in all likelihood it’s going to be fine, but let’s face it, I held a kabinett for 21 years. There is risk there - my risk.
if the author considers a 12 year old Corison Kronos “old”, I’m pretty sure we have a different definition of the word.
im also quite certain he’s never had Silex or Pur Sang at 20 years. Which is fine- more for me;)
I was wondering when David was going to join this thread!
I follow like 5 people on Twitter, David and his wine bar Augustine are one of them. I must admit it’s like porn for wine lovers to see the interesting by the glass selections David puts on his chalk board! 
David,
Glad you joined this as well.
Question for you - do you, Matthew or someone else try the order wines you pour by the glass before you pour them for your customers?
To me, the biggest issue here is what to do if the experience is not as ‘expected’. Now that’s a bit of a rabbit’s hole because some do not know what to expect . . . but assuming either a consumer does OR the somm or server spells out what the experience should be and it does not live up to that, would you ‘refund’ if not happy? And let’s say this is a new customer - not one of your regulars . . . does that change things?
TIA for your perspective - I really appreciate it.
Cheers!
It’s a judgment call, but I expect you’d tend to err on the side of making the customer happy if it’s at all a close call. The BTG concept allows you to offer the customer a small sip first so you can avoid wasting a full pour in questionable situations, and it allows the restaurant to sample the wine before serving it that night in case it’s flawed or shot (granted, those terms have some subjectivity to them).
I think it’s a great concept. Us WBer types get to taste mature wines more often, but to your more casual wine lover, getting to taste a good 20 year old Bordeaux or something is probably quite a treat.
I would approach this a bit differently. Regardless of whether a wine is young or old, it is possible to gauge its broad appeal. At the same time, a competent somm will find a few weird gems for the wine nuts among his customers. While it is not feasible to check every bottle in the middle of a crazy dinner service in a time/cost efficient manner, bad glasses can be sent back and btg can always allow for a small taste in doubt.
Also, there are Sooo many mature wines with broad appeal. Granted ‘mature’ is a subjective term, so I think ‘with some bottle age’ is a better descriptor. In any case, the beverage director should be competent enough to know about bottle variation with older wines-understanding THEY are taking a risk, the risk shouldn’t be on the customer. When a bottle is glass priced roughly to the wholesale bottle cost, sent back glasses should never be charged… Especially when it is customary for the distributor to refund these bad bottles.
Yes, a good approach. Being good to the customer is important, but I wouldn’t go overboard on it. A place like Bern’s, they know older wine and pour it by the glass. If someone complained, I’d have a waiter/bartender/somm taste it to confirm it is truly dead and not just “old”. If the wine is how it is supposed to be, and you talked about it in advance, I wouldn’t bend over backward.
Hey Larry-
Every vintage bottle that we open is tasted (usually by at least 2 people) before we even offer a smell to the customers.
If it’s obviously flawed (i.e.: corked, cooked…) we just tell them unfortunately the bottle didn’t survive.
They’re usually pretty understanding.
If it’s otherwise sound, but on the tired side, or we’ve had better examples, that’s a judgement call on our part.
We’ll offer a taste and they have the option to decline; we’ve also occasionally knocked the price down to be more in line with the condition of that particular bottle.
9 times out of 10 I feel like we’re accurate in our assessment of the wine, and what they should/could expect. But occasionally we miss. It might be a busy night, and we’re opening a second or third bottle from the same case, and maybe this one isn’t as good, for whatever reason, but in the rush of a busy service it gets poured out and we miss it.
It happens; not often, but it does.
And we all feel terrible that we didn’t give someone a good experience with an older wine.
Because honestly- that’s what we (and I imagine most places that have a vintage program) are trying to do ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
This is a difficult question to answer.
Usually I LOVE to find interesting mature bottles on wine-lists (at decent prices) … it´s getting less and less common nowadays, in many restaurants they offer only recent (and far too young) vintages … often purchased only months/weeks ago from retailers or producers (to spare cellaring costs).
A main issue is: what kind of mature wine in what kind of restaurant!
How high are the odds that this particular bottles has matured gracefully in the own cellars - or has it been purchased at auction some time ago … maybe travelled around quite a bit?
Ordering mature Burgundy in a Burgundian restaurant - or Rhone wines in a Rhone restaurant - or Bordeaux in Bordeaux is far less a risk than the other way round - and I always prefer to drink the wines of the region.
I have had some great bottles in France that have been well matured in the own cellars for 1-3 decades since release …
Usually I ask for this circumstance … or ask to bring the bottle to inspect myself.
I also ask to open it well in advance … and often to decant it right before serving.
Rarely have been any issues of undrinkability (except obvious TcA) with bottles that looked good initially … ok, sometimes the wine was older than expected, or not as great as hoped - but this is totally normal if you know the field …
A wine totally over the hill should have already shown some bad signs in the closed bottle (low fill, bad colour etc.) - or is generally of a kind not suitable for long aging …
Sure I do have advantages over a consumer not that well educated in wine and who has to rely on the somms suggestions …
Another problem can be if the somm HAS to sell some bottles that don´t move themselves … ![[head-bang.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/b1cd199e4b2b2988b5107c3c9598fd28dc92a776.gif "[head-bang.gif]"){kind=small}
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I experienced that 2 or 3 times … and always refused to order the suggestions.
So FYI, that '95 Grunhaus Kabinett was lovely once it had been open for an hour or so. It needed time to blossom (as did some other old Grunhaus wines at the same dinner). Honestly, if it had been poured from a freshly opened bottle at a restaurant I might have been disappointed. It needed a lot of air, but then it was delicious.
Gerhard, in the US we obviously do not have the regional options you reference… the risk factors here are potentially very strong…
My cynical side is focusing on the opportunity for abuse running wild:moving those poor purchases, bad/weak, or poorly stored bottles and not taking the loss could never be easier. Ethics vs profit.
Definition of terms, please what is old defined–for risk assessment?
Free tastes are profit cutters and particularly problematic in a dining room.
Precisely where was that bottle since release? Our buyer, Mr Barnum said…once upon a time…
I would get the refund/exchange policy perfectly clear before ordering.
Caveat emptor, you are on thin ice, especially if you are an unknown at the establishment.
Cynicism is a pretty horrible dinner companion.
If I were that worried about being cheated/scammed/abused etc, I would probably opt to dine at home, with wines I personally watched every step of the way from bottling to delivery.
David,
Agreed. Unfortunately, not all businesses are as straightforward and consumer-oriented as yours is.
Cheers!
Hey Larry,
I’d really like to think (or at least hope;) that most of the restaurants/bars people on this board frequent would care enough about their programs and customers that any trepidation about the authenticity of a bottle shouldn’t even be a consideration.
There will always be bad bottles of wine, no matter the provenance. There might also be over-enthusiasm on the part of the staff trying to share something old/rare that might be “interesting” at best. But I’ve never really been exposed to anything I felt was nefarious on the part of a somm or wine director.
Running a vintage BTG program is far too time consuming, hard, and expensive to try to purposely foist bad bottles off on customers, whether first-timers or regulars.
I could be grossly naive, but I honestly believe that most (not all, obviously) places that serve older/high-end wines actually really care, not just about the bottles, but customer service as well.