To Send It Back Or Not?

It’s somewhat comforting to hear that even veteran restaurateurs get squirmy when the subject is returning a bottle of wine. Wine is intimidating to many diners, and most of the time, when they think a bottle is bad, they lack the confidence to complain and end up drinking that should be poured down the sink.

On the other side of the equation are the wine boors, who know too little to accurately judge a wine’s quality but are only too eager to pronounce it inferior.

Sirio Maccioni, who rules over Le Cirque in New York, deals summarily with them: when someone complains about a perfectly good bottle, the captain will summon Mr. Maccioni,

“Of course we will replace it,” he says, adding that he finds nothing wrong with the wine. The waiter then says that he finds nothing wrong with it either. Another captain might be consulted; he, too, will pronounce the wine fine. By then the cocky customer will be looking for a table to crawl under.

The send-back problem has been compounded in recent years by the huge rise of the prices in restaurants, and the increasing number of “serious” wine drinkers. People who have little or no idea of what a great wine should taste like assume that anything they pay $300 a bottle for is going to be superb. And it may well be, at least to someone who has been drinking wine for years and knows how to look for a 20-year-old Bordeaux.

A newcomer in music is not expected to rhapsodize about Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Why should a wine neophyte be expected to find joy in an austere St. Estephe from 1975 or even 2000?

It’s the job of a good sommelier to see problems brewing and head them off by suggesting, delicately, something more appropriate. If the customer persists, he shouldn’t complain afterward, assuming there’s nothing actually wrong with the wine. If a wine is truly bad, if it’s corked, for example, a good waiter will replace it without question.

In turn, most wholesalers who supply restaurant wines should take the bottle back and not charge for it. Unfortunately, this rule does not quite apply in Indonesia yet! But if it’s an older wine, one the restaurant may have had it in its cellars for a long time, it’s hard to blame the distributor, or even the producer. Some restaurants in Europe and the U.S. have a policy not to replace wines 20 years old or more, and they let customers know this when they order them.

Corkiness (also called T.C.A.) is the most common wine problem. The cause is a mold in the bark of the cork oak tree. Proper treatment during the cork-making process eliminates it, but affected corks can and do slip through. They give wine the smell of a moldy, damp basement and impair the taste as well. Corkiness is found in both young and old wines, which is why some wineries now use only plastic corks or screw-top caps.

Granted, on a $150 bottle of Cabernet, this raises eyebrows for some of us! Unfortunately, few restaurant customers know how to identify corkiness.

“Too few bottles are sent back” says one prominent Bali restaurateur. “If you look at the statistics on corked wine, you know there should be more returns.”

Ten years ago, the problem of corked wines was serious, with some distributors and retailers claiming to find a corked bottle in almost every 12-bottle case. Faced with mass defections to plastic corks, the cork manufacturers have improved quality considerably.

But even if only 1 percent is contaminated, a busy restaurant can expect to serve one or two bad bottles a night.

The easiest way for a diner to handle the problem is to ask the waiter or the dining room manager if he or she thinks the wine is “off” in some way. If they think it is, they will gladly replace it, because they want the customer to be happy. Asking the server’s advice is flattering and nonconfrontational.

In a good restaurant this approach almost always works, but in restaurants where wine is not often served or where the staff knows little about wine, you may have a problem.

How to detect corkiness?

If the wine has a moldy smell, even a faint one, it’s probably corked. Other wine problems are rare or easier to deal with. Wine that has been aged prematurely by exposure to air, usually through a dried-out cork or a bottle opened for a few days (watch those wines by the glass!) is oxidized and should be returned.

Older wines, even great ones, will often throw a sediment, which collects at the bottom of the bottle. It has no effect on the wine and can be eliminated by decanting or filtering the wine through a clean strainer.

Tartrate crystals, the clear granules that are occasionally found on the bottom of the cork in a bottle of white wine, are also harmless. European drinkers tend to shrug them off, but they make squeaky-clean Americans nervous, so wine producers strive to eliminate them before the wines go to market.

Then, too, there is wine that is just plain bad: for one reason or another, it has turned completely. It will smell of vinegar, and you don’t have to go to wine school to recognize that, do you?

Christian Vanneque was head sommelier of La Tour d’Argent in Paris and professor at L’Academie du Vin in Paris. He served as a judge at the legendary 1976 Paris Wine Tasting.
He is the publisher of Bali’s Best Bets Guide since 2002. 
Contact: Christian@TheWineCircus.com

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