Great meal... shame about the wine

Great meal ....shame about the wine

We live in a time of super fast communication. The Trip Advisor world gives affirmation and defamation instantly. The biggest complaints usually refer to the inadequate service or quality of the food. If I'm honest I prefer to complain to the owner and give him a chance to rectify it himself instead of telling the world. However, if it's great I'll wax lyrically on Trip Advisor.

The one complaint that comes at the bottom of the list is wine quality, service and staff knowledge, something that is neglected far too often. I must confess I find this baffling. It's like buying a new car and having a cheap music player in the dash board.

Top sommeliers will be trained to choose a wine that matches both the food and the customers price point and serve it at the table correctly.

Is this a privilege of the wealthy only? Do we not care about the quality and service of our wine?

I have been in to many restaurants where the white wine is served warm, with ice, without a wine cooler, in dirty smudged lipstick rimmed glasses, ridiculously overpriced or ridiculously short on choice as if to be an after thought. Maddening.

Being in the wine business I leave my wife to look at the menu whilst I dissect the wine list. I find it tells me as much about the establishment than the food menu does.

Here's a good wine tip when eating out. Most businesses look to make a profit on their wines by 70%. So if they buy the wine for £5 it may very well be selling at just under £17. This doesn't buy you a lot of wine quality, and to be fair some restaurants try to reduce their mark up so as to sell more wine but take this into account when expecting quality sub £20.

Ask your waiter what wine they recommend with your salmon. They really should know. If they don't know this what other training haven't they had? Ask for clean glasses and insist on your wine being served at the right temperature, and yes a cooler would be good unless you are planning on drinking the bottle in 20 minutes.

At 70% markup they will make more money out of this than the food so it should be great.

Don't stand for second best. Your drinks, if like me, will come to more than your food bill. If it's bad wine then make sure you whine.

Food & Wine by Paul Sheerin
Pshearse@gmail.com