Isn’t the problem defining what “doesn’t meet expectations means”? There are an awful lot of people who don’t know anything about wine and if they order an expensive bottle from the list and have the option of returning it because it doesn’t meet an unrealistic expectation, why should the restaurant eat the cost? All it does is raise the costs of doing business, which ultimately gets passed down to other wine buyers.
What is funny is when a restaurant with corkage pours me a taste of my own bottle. I mean – it isn’t like I’m going to send the wine back, so you might as well just go ahead and pour a glass. I’m either going to drink it or not. Old habits and what not.
I am with others who said that the wine should always be opened (and decanted if requested) in my presence. Likewise, if I’m buying the wine, then I want to taste it (or offer to let a guest taste it if they are interested). It should only be sent back if it has gone bad. If the winemaker just made a crappy wine and I don’t like it, well, that’s on me for picking it obviously.
If something seems a bit off but I’m unsure if it is truly bad, I would ask the sommelier to taste it as well to give me their opinion.
I’m of the same mind, but when I was working at the Heathman Restaurant in Portland we also wanted guests to be willing to take risks in their choices. So for most of our guests, we offered them a “mulligan” if they were trying something new. On the rare occasions this happened I used the bottles for staff education.
In addition, I always stipulated that any bottle I recommended to them could be returned if they didn’t enjoy it. No one ever did, but I think that customers really appreciated knowing that we were committed to them having a wine they would enjoy, and regulars often would let me open more esoteric things for them(not necessarily more AFWE).
+1.
But might you get in touch with the source of you purchase if it was a bad bottle?
Unlikely – I rarely am drinking a bottle I just bought. If I’ve had it for some time, who knows what was wrong with it – was it the fault of the retailer who sold it to me? The fault of the winery? Something that happened during shipping? My fault for not storing it properly? Just bad luck?
Yeah I feel like I’ve only now got a total handle on what TCA tastes/smells like because someone specifically showed me, I’ve noticed that smell/flavor many many times before but without someone to positively confirm that it was, in fact, TCA, I’ve always only had suspicions. Some wines are just not enjoyable but now I know which ones are plonk and which ones are just a bad bottle. I was at a winery a while back and thought the glass I was tasting was corked and mentioned it to the person behind the counter. They smelled/tasted it and, looking offended, proclaimed that it was “how it’s supposed to taste” and glowered at me. Because I had never had positive confirmation of what TCA presented as up until that point I took him at his word and felt a little embarrassed. I now know what TCA tastes like and that bottle was DEFINITELY corked and shame on that guy for making me feel like a jerk with a bad palate. I have since tasted that wine again and yes that bottle was horribly corked.
Until I actually got into wine I always felt some serious class anxiety when the somm was standing over me expectantly while I assessed the first pour with almost zero idea what I was even looking for. It felt like a purity test or something with no explanation, but now that I know what it’s for I feel totally fine doing it. If you’re a regular Joe/Jane that has no clue what TCA is you feel like a total dolt and I’ve never had anyone in the service industry explain the ritual to me.
One of the big issues here is TCA sensitivity. There are people who cannot sense this flaw but may know what the wine is supposed to taste like and the TCA has muted or destroyed the aromas and flavor. This is an issue for me when it is a waiter telling me yes or no on TCA. I don’t know if they are even familiar with the wine or what their level of sensitivity may be.
This is more or less what they do at Trader Joe’s. Their policy is that if you don’t like it, they’ll take it back no questions asked. It was explained to me that they want you to try things outside your comfort zone. I did return wine there on a couple occasions – both were around $20ish and were simply bad wines. I’ve all but stopped buying wine there.
As a Somm, I always performed wine service in this manner, taking the bottle away mostly so the guests can continue with their conversation while I struggle with a particularly clingy bit of foil or bad cork. I am surprised that the man quoted as an “enthusiastic restaurantgoer” hadn’t encountered that in NYC, quite common in nice places.
As for offering a taste, it is part of the ritual and should always be done AFAIK. If they brought the bottle I would never ever taste it myself unsolicited, over 50% of the time the host would offer me one anyway. But I would still take it away to open and decant.
Sending bottles back however, was a different story. Anything faulty was immediately taken away of course. I would frequently push people (gently) to order something outside their comfort zone, and would sometimes sweeten the deal by offering to take it back if it wasn’t their taste.
If I had not had that conversation and they tried to send it back b/c they didn’t enjoy what they had ordered, and WERE POLITE ABOUT IT, I would judge if I could recoup costs by selling it BTG at the bar that night, and do so. Often our regulars would leap to try a barolo by the glass for 30$ or whatever so this was a common solution to the problem. Anything left would be used for staff ‘education’ 
This is an interesting article and idea. TCA sensitivity, or lack of sensitivity, on the part of the sommelier, is the main reason why I would always want to be offered a taste. Of all the high end restaurants I’ve been to in the US and Europe where they take the bottle away from the table for opening/decanting, they’ve always brought over a taste before pouring for the table.
I’ve had a few instances where a server or sommelier didn’t agree with my assessment that a bottle had TCA. Two of the most interesting ones were in France. The first was at a restaurant in Beaune, around 2000. We ordered an '88 Dujac Gevrey aux Combottes. The sommelier opened it away from the table and brought me a taste. I smelled it and said, “This is corked (in French!).” The sommelier asked, “Aren’t you going to taste it?” I told him it wasn’t necessary, the cork taint was in the nose. He then took the bottle away. He and his assistant sommelier poured themselves tastes and agreed with me. The next bottle was excellent. So the sommelier didn’t actually disagree with me, he just didn’t like my method of determining TCA.
Another time at a fancy place in Paris, the story took a different turn. We ordered a 2000 Leflaive Chevalier as a first wine. The sommelier opened the bottle at the table, unlike the topic of this thread, and poured me a taste. It was one of those moments where the TCA is there, then you swirl the glass, smell again, there’s no TCA, but there’s also nothing else to the nose. I asked the sommelier to taste it, and he said it was fine. I had my dining partner try it, he agreed with me, faint TCA, but really nothing to a wine that should’ve been amazing. The sommelier refused to get another bottle, since he insisted the next bottle would be exactly like this one. So, we ordered something else.
The difference is that I didn’t put bad wine on my list. 
…and I definitely asked questions.
Everyone here mentions ‘experienced wine person’ or the such. Who would qualify under those terms? I’ve been around somms who could not tell a wine is corked, and around folks who don’t drink wine who can pick out TCA from 5 feet away . . .
Exactly.
Maybe some people are more or less sensitive to TCA. If they’re not sensitive, and they like a wine, wouldn’t it ruin their evening by telling them that the wine is flawed in a way they don’t understand? They would have to go to their safe space and you’d lose a customer that night.
If they are sensitive, who cares what the somm has to say? They either agree that the wine is flawed or the somm insists that it isn’t when it really is.
At this point, I’ve had a lot of wine and I don’t need someone else to rate a wine for me or tell me whether it’s OK. So I’d rather taste the wine myself and spare the somm the anxiety of tasting a wine that might be flawed.
This would be me totally to a T. Thankful someone else can explain it better than me trying to do it! Sometimes when I have suspected a bottle corked of my own I would usually have some self doubt if I didn’t have experience with the wine itself, the producer, vintage (having never tasted what a '89 Cabernet from XYZ Producer or any producer for that matter). I have poured out bottles though that I suspected of it, other times decanted and returned to smell the wine to see if it was just something from initially opening it (older wines). I just don’t have the experience and like you said Bryan if it were in the restaurant setting some sort of ‘class anxiety’ would kick in for whatever neurotic reasons
But if it is corked why do you want a full glass?
No, giving the server a taste is not a reason to expect a reduced corkage fee. The server is not paying the bills to keep the restaurant open. The server is not the one who is giving up the profit that would have been made if you had ordered off the list. The corkage fee goes to the owner, not the server. They are two different people.
Phil Jones
The restaurant isn’t responsible for the soundness of the wine, there’s no reason for the sommelier to taste. Let the customer taste if the restaurant is worried about dirtying excess glasses.
I find this fairly useful. The issue for me is, as Ian said, I tend to get occasional false positives (i.e. the cork smells “corky” but the wine seems fine). When this happens, I become “suspicious” of the wine (and can’t help but continue worrying that the wine might be mildly affected and I just can’t tell).
Thus, the way I use the cork is to CONFIRM but not to PREDICT whether the wine is corked. If, an initial smell and taste of the wine gives me a sense that it might possibly be corked (even, where I don’t smell or taste cork, but the wine seems unduly muted or not quite right), only then do I sniff the cork. (Of course there is no need for the cork if the wine is obviously tainted). If the cork confirms my suspicion then I will believe the wine is definitely corked. If the wine smells fine, I will likely just believe the wine is not so good… There have been 1 or 2 very rare instances where I was initially suspicious, but the cork itself smelled fine, and then the actual taste/smell of cork emerges in the wine later (after some air exposure in the glass) and I am certain the wine is corked, yet the cork itself smells fine. Both of these instances (a “corky” cork where the wine is fine, or a corked wine where the cork itself smells fine) seem pretty uncommon. Oddly enough (and possibly coincidentally), the later seems to have happened to me several times with very young, heavily oaked Argentinian Malbecs–in those cases I’ve wondered if the “cork” perhaps originated with the oak barrels, and NOT the cork, and that’s why the corks smelled fine…Perhaps with some bottle age the cork taint would work its way into the cork itself.