You mean they not only poured those glasses but they forced you to drink them too early? That’s poor service.
If a restaurant cares enough about wine to have a sommelier then I would expect that person to be professionally trained and be able to follow simple or even complicated requests. I would not hold normal waitstaff to the same expectations but if someone is working under the title of sommelier then they should be able to honor any reasonable request. And most likely you are paying for that service in either food, wine or corkage fees so why not expect to get what you pay for. It has always been my understanding that the person who orders the wine is poured the taste. I have never had a bad experience with a somm but then again I live in Sonoma County and we have a lot of people in the service industry who are passionate about wine.
Damn truth there. In NOLA if I wanted to keep a certain BYO bottle for entrees I’d be buying a white wine right away; it’s a drinking town and I’d expect wine services folks there to pour by habit.
By pouring the wine too early, yes. It’s already been mentioned how fragile that particular wine is in that state. Waiting an hour for the meal may have been fatal to the experience. So, in a way, they were forced to drink it lest have it degrade.
If that bottle was well stored, I would be more worried that a giant crab would climb out of it than about it falling apart in the glass.
I HATE this. Most times a dine out and order off a list I order a wine BTG, or more often a cocktail, to start and then shortly after order a bottle to go with the entrees. I always do this well in advance (generally before ordering the entrees) and make it very clear that I would like the bottle at my table, opened, and tasted BEFORE my entrees arrive.
More often than not, this is screwed up some how. Even at very nice restaurants in NYC I cannot tell you how many times we get our entrees and my bottle is nowhere in sight. At that point I have to choose whether to eat my entree while its hot and wait on my wine service, or to allow the food to suffer and wait. Either way, not cool.
Welcome to post-Katrina service in N.O. restaurants. Actually, I was expecting something more basic like not offering a tasting pour to see if the wine is flawed or pouring for the men before the women, both of which I’ve experienced at a 5 star N.O. restaurant.
I remember ordering a btl of roulot perrieres off a list in Vegas. I asked the somm for small pours, which she did. When I went to the restroom about twenty minutes later, I come back and see the waiter filled every glass up (5 ppl) and killed the bottle.
Sigh.
The one rule is that if the customer makes a reasonable request (e.g., let us handle our own pours) neither look at them like they are crazy nor immediately ignore the request. That is not being a wine snob, that is customer service 101.
Glenn, that’s definitely good advice for New Orleans. We’re usually good for a round of cocktails at the very beginning, and a glass of wine to go with our appetizers.
Not to mention the whole Ice Bucket thing, where the somm insists on chilling your delicate white burg down to a proper 32 degrees F serving temperature.
Just the inability to care.
Strand bookstore a few years back: I purchase from the rare book room an item that is both old and expensive only to have the checkout person drop it into a shopping bag smashing a corner.
if the restaurant/bookstore does not take the time to educate thier staff, I certainly can’t–it’s too costly.
Ha that too. 
I’m sure Jason. I agree with the above, and know from friends in hospitality there, post-Katrina the service pros have really failed to return to New Orleans.
Years ago we were a four-top at Dickie Brennan’s and bought an aged Ornellaia, before those got out of hand price-wise. Waiter poured it out like it was grocery store wine and just brought us a second bottle without even asking. Assumptions in NOLA being what they are!
Always an interesting concept to discuss - and one that certainly should be hot right now with increased interest in finer wines from younger folks as well as a plentitude of ‘somms’ or ‘wine directors’ out there.
I concur with those who say that if a restaurant is going to have a ‘sommelier’ rather than just waitstaff, they should therefore understand how to pour wines and listen to their customers - and provide ‘decent’ glasses at worst. Look, a restaurant does NOT have to stock a full array of Riedels (or whatever brand) to meet the different varieties folks may bring in, but PLEASE do not have a somm and then only offer 8 oz Libby glasses!
I agree that there is oftentimes a disconnect between the somm and the waitstaff and the latter seems to believe that the faster they pour the wine out, the greater the chance that you’ll reorder another bottle. They seem to want to maximize potential revenue - and this goes for how food is spaced out when served as well.
As an aside, I dined in a wonderful restaurant with my son, a budding ‘foodie’, and his best friend. I ordered apps for the table and when the server asked if we were ready to order the rest of our meal, I said ‘not yet’. I explained to the boys that, if we wanted the meal spaced out and not ‘hurried’, the best way to ensure this is to space out our ordering. Yep, we risk not having food arriving in a timely manner, but I would rather see that then what eventually ended up happening - salads appearing before the apps were finished.
I do believe that we as wine consumers need to continue to expect better wine service at better places - and we should ‘complain’ without coming across as pompous to get the point across. Without doing so, these problems will continue and we’ll just have to put up with them . . .
Cheers.
If you were a surgeon you’d know how to hold in your pee. Problem solved.
A couple of years ago, we dined at a white tablecloth restaurant on the Avenue, with a deep but very expensive list. I had a connection to the front of house by way of a close friend who was a regular, but chose not to take advantage of his clout. I brought in a 95 Lafite being almost positive it would not be on the list. We were not even in our chairs when the server was informing us of the $25 corkage.I assured him that was fine and asked to have the Som present the wine. When she appeared, she asked if I wanted the wine decanted, without commenting on the wine itself. I responded that I would like a tasting pour and would then decided on whether to decant or not. She handled the wine roughly and broke the cork. In the attempt to retrieve the piece remaining, she knocked it into the bottle. I then said that I guess we would have the wine decanted. When she finished, I handed her a Jackson and never saw her again. She left about 2 ounces of wine in the bottom of the bottle, which turned out to have virtually no sediment. I’m sure she was quite disappointed when she returned after we left, to find the bottle empty. We ordered a sparkler off of the list, had an average at best meal, paid the $25 corkage, and have not since returned.Too many restaurants in N.O. to put up with this type of attitude.
You tipped her before the meal was over?
George
I didn’t want to either leave it with the server or have to go find her at the end of the meal. To paraphrase Jim Morrison: I was hoping to change her mood from mad to gladness.
BALLA.