Share a wild wine story/experience you've had in a restaurant

WINE TALK
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Share a story, either a wonderful or dreadful experience you had at a restaurant that involved wine.

I was inspired to ask this because of Wil’s post in this thread: When do you send wine back at a restaurant? - #33 by Wil_Raley

Give Wil’s short story a read, really entertaining. I cannot imagine having someone pour and combine the wrong wines together then attempt to charge me for it :rofl:

Story:
My wife and son were not around one Sunday evening and I didn’t feel like cooking and had a huge craving for steak, so around 9pm I went to a great steakhouse about 10 minutes from me. It being 9pm on a Sunday I knew it was going to be a little bit slow so I sat at the bar hoping to find some conversation while I ate and drank.

When I arrived at the bar, I was greeted by the bartender and served the wine list. While I was making my selection, I happened to notice that the bartender was inebriated, but holding is own. I decided on a bottle of 2001 il poggione brunello. 5 minutes later he arrives with the bottle. He starts rambling on about how he has always wanted to try this bottle off the list because he is a big fan of italian wines and heard good things. He pours me a taste, I confirm the bottle is great and he decants it for me.

Immediately after decanting the wine, he whips out a second glass, pours himself a glass, and begins to drink it in front of me. First, I am stunned. I have never seen a sever help themselves to a guests wine. Second, I understand you’re drunk on the job, but how did this guy think it was okay to help himself to my wine without me offering? I typically offer a taste anyways, but it was so blatantly rude, that I was stunned in my seat.

I took a beat to contemplate bringing this up to the manager when the evening took an opposite turn. I think the bartender realized what he did was rude because he began to treat me like royalty in front of all the other guests. He proceeded to do the following: Gave me a free blind tasting of 3 cabs, brought over a free side dish, then brought over 2 other wines from the back for me to taste that a distributor left behind, followed up with free dessert, then a free dessert wine.

Ultimately, I chose not to bring up that I found it rude that he poured himself a glass of wine I payed for because i probably had north of $100 worth of free food and drink.

Was a wild rollercoaster of emotions. The entire time every person at the bar was looking at me wondering why I was getting everything for free.

Do you have a fun story worth sharing? Good or bad?

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In the mid eighties, we were in Nantucket, and decided to treat ourselves to a special dinner at the best restaurant there. I looked at the wine list, and they had 1971 Petrus on the list for $300. That was a lot of money for us at that time, a lot. After a discussion, we decided to take the plunge and bought the bottle. The somm opened it, gave himself a healthy pour, and brought the decanted wine over with an approving nod.

We ate, and drank some of the wine, and he came back asking if we would mind very much if the he gave the owner a pour. I told him I minded very much, and that basically was the end of any decent service for the evening. Anything we needed was done slowly, and in sullen silence, which was a pity because we enjoyed the food.

Again a long time ago, there was a delightful restaurant called Dudleys in Ossining. One of the owners was a serious wine guy, who loved Piedmont wines. One evening, he suggested we should try this dude called Giacosa. It was a 1978 Riserva, and of course I fell in love. That cost me a lot of money.

And finally, a restaurant in Brooklyn called Tomasso. Tomasso was rightly a legend, the food was superb, the wine list was magnificent, and Tomasso’s voice was pretty damned good.Every now and then he would break out into an aria, when he was excited by a particularly fine dish or a special glass of wine.

Of course he specialized in great Italian wines, but one night, a friend had organized an evening of all the assorted red wines of 1985 DRC. Possibly the most memorable wine experience I have ever had.

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That petrus story :unamused: I would’ve been so mad.

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Years ago, my wife and I went to an inexpensive restaurant for dinner. The wine list was small and nothing on it was particularly interesting. I ordered a red Mouton Cadet figuring that it would be fine. The waitress brought out a bottle of white Mouton Cadet. I politely told her that we ordered the red version so she took back the bottle of white wine only to return with it a few minutes later. She told me that she had asked the chef and he told her that the white wine was actually made with red grapes so it was really a red wine. We drank the white wine.

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Great story, welcome to WB!

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A few years back, I noticed that the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, about 90 minutes from where we live, had the 1983 Rousseau Chambertin on their list for $350. At the time, that was more than I had ever spent for a single bottle, but it was even then way less expensive than what it was going for, especially at a restaurant.
So I and my partner and our young son (@3 years old) went down there. When we got there, we tried to make a res for dinner (and of course to drink the wine)–the food was pretty serious at that epoch–but they were hosting the Kentucky derby association or something, and the dining room was closed. I had spoken to the somm about the wine and fortunately had her cell number. I called her and she said she could bring the wine to the room. In the meantime, our son had come down with a fever, so I soothed him while waiting for the somm and the wine, while my partner went around the corner and picked up steaks for us at a prime joint around the corner. She returned; my son fell asleep; the somm came with an assistant and, as I recall, candled the wine, though she needed to borrow my Durand to open the bottle. (They charged us an extra $100 for the room service.) The Rousseau remains the single best bottle of red I’ve drunk; the steaks weren’t bad either and when my son woke up his fever had passed. In the end, a good night.

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John E. I would eat at that bar anytime!

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@Brad_England next time you’re in NYC we’ll go and see what happens!

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I was in Monterey in the summer of 1997 before a Prodigy offline hosted by Art Nathan at Smith & Hook/Hahn and went to the Whaling Station for dinner. After perusing the wine list, nothing jumped out at me so I ordered a glass of Pinot before checking out the menu, but I was a little tempted by a 1989 Lynch Bages for $100.

Looking over the menu, I noted a small list at the bottom of wines from the owner’s cellar. I perked up when I saw it included 1989 Lynch Bages for $50. When the waiter returned for my order, I asked him what the difference was between the $50 Lynch Bages on the menu and the $100 Lynch Bages on the wine list and he responded “$50.” I smiled and requested a bottle of the $50 Lynch Bages, which was delicious.

I drank about 1/2 of the bottle with dinner and shared the rest the next night with a friend from college and her boyfriend. I’d randomly run into her in a supermarket parking lot earlier that day and it turned out that she had enlisted in the Army and was in the foreign language school there. Neither she nor her boyfriend had ever had a wine of that caliber before, making sharing it all the more special.

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I have too many stories from the glory days of consulting and unlimited expense accounts, some of which I can even tell…

One of my favorite was when I lived in Vienna; we were eating at a now defunct French restaurant, I asked to see the wine list, and tried to order several bottles which weren’t available so I asked if I could just go to the cellar and they were agreeable; it was like Aladdin’s cave with shelf after shelf of 50-60s first growths, grand cru burgs, and very old Yquem. We grabbed a bottle of 61 la tache, some old (can’t remember the year, early 60s maybe 61 latour, and I was digging through the Yquem and found a 1899 which we grabbed. I can’t remember what the total bill was (and didn’t care) but it was much cheaper than I expected.

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Aladdins cave sounds right!

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Reminds me a story of Terry Robards, who used to be the wine critic of the New York Times. A downtown restaurant he loved with a great wine cellar changed hands. He went back, and the list was generic. He asked if there were any wines from the old list, and the waitress showed him a small piece of brown paper with some handwritten wines. On it was an old La Tache for very little money. He ordered it, and the waitress brought the bottle showed it to him, and then tried to unscrew the capsule.

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The scene: A trendy new off-Strip steakhouse here in Las Vegas.
The wine: 2004 Schrader from my stash.

Wine on the table. I asked for it to be decanted and was told the somm would be right over…all of a sudden, a young woman comes out of nowhere and without a word, grabs the bottle and heads for the other side of the room. I resist the urge to spring from my chair and tackle her from behind; instead I track her movement and she stops at a decanting table. OK, so I’m watching…she opens it with a Durand, pours a small glass, has a taste, decants it and walks away. Hey, bring that over here! My wife senses I am very uneasy so she grabs the next server who walks by and asks to have the somm come over. After a couple of minutes, she does, and I ask, hey, how did my wine taste? Would you mind bringing it over to my table so we can taste it too? She apologizes, gets it and laughingly says, they’d charge $1500 for that wine if it were on their list. I replied, well, that’s kinda why I’d rather have it on my table not out where anyone can help themselves….

It all seemed kind of strange.

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Glad I could inspire this thread - these are all great :joy:

Cheers!

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When I was a young whelp, I was invited to a 1990s boondoggle with capital markets crowd at Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence. I get handed the wine lists , which are two red books, each with the dimensions of legal pads. One is French wines, the other Italian. I open the French list and it’s very small print. The list demonstrates ridiculous depth. After a few eye strain - inducing pages I close the book and tell the rest of the table “I think we can have any wine, by any producer, in any vintage, that we can think of.” The boondoggle sponsor - a good friend - suggests I put my theory to the test. The somm comes over and asks if we have made a selection. I ask for a wine at random, having not even gotten to the burg section of the list — 1985 Leflaive Batard- Montrachet. “Right away, signore.” It was great, btw.

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Oh those carefree days before premox

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Reminds me of an experience when we were stranded in Houston, eating at one of the few restaurants open late at night. I ordered a glass of wine to go with kebabs of some sort. Selection was limited, to understate. I asked for the Zinfandel, figuring that even a cheap Zin would match mystery meat.
The wine presented was sort of white. I told the waitress that I had ordered a Zinfandel, and of course, she responded that Zinfandels are always white. Doh! I should have remembered. I ordered a beer.

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holy…well perhaps they went out of business for undercharging. How was the 1899!?

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Buca di Beppa in the mid-90s with friends. I’m starting to learn about wine, so I ask the waitress for a wine list. She says, without a hint of sarcasm, and yet with a deep weariness, “The wine is red. It comes in a wicker bottle.”

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About 15 years ago, when we spotted that our flight from Manchester airport was delayed by an hour or so, my partner and I decided to eat in what looked like a pretty generic bistro. We figured that we had enough time for mains and cheese and ordered a bottle of reasonably priced white Bordeaux. It took a while before the waiter returned, saying that they didn’t have the wine we ordered (the only white Bordeaux on the list - I can’t remember what it was) but that we could have two half bottles of this other white wine (which wasn’t on the list) for the same price. It was the 1983 d’Yquem. I was quite surprised and asked was he sure - this was a very nice wine he was offering… He said they were closing down a few weeks later and had been told to get rid of stock. I don’t think he even realised that it was sweet… We thanked him and drank water with our main course (which arrived as we were speaking) then enjoyed a half bottle of d’Yquem each with a leisurely cheese course. When I spotted that our flight was further delayed we ordered crème brûlées and the waiter came over with a third half bottle “on the house”!

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