How I order wine/How most people order wine

How I order wine:

First I try to determine how many bottles of wine we'll drink as a group. If it's just my wife and myself, it's either one bottle or wines by the glass. But in a group of four, it's probably at least two bottles, unless one of us is a teetotaller like the Republican Presidential ticket. In that case we just drink the Kool-Aid.

But seriously: when dining with most people, we get about one bottle per two diners. I don't think about ordering duplicate bottles unless it's a group of more than six.

I read the wine list and wait until the table has decided what food we're having. I ask for the sommelier. I wait 10 minutes. If it's any longer than that, I just order.

The sommelier arrives and says, "Do you have any questions about the wine list?" Every fucking time. Every single motherfucking time. But usually no, I don't have any questions about the wine list. I mean, I'd like to know what your markup is. Maybe what font it's printed in. Did you type it yourself or cut and paste? Maybe in sommelier school they tell them to open with that inane question. Am I missing something? Do lots of people have questions about the wine list? Like, "What was your inspiration for the Pinot Grigios on page 3?"




Sometimes I ask some smartass question like that, depending on how long I've been waiting. But usually I skip straight to business. I tell the sommelier what we ordered. I ask for a suggestion. By this time I have some wines in mind, but I want to hear her opinion.

If she makes interesting suggestions and has good reasons for them, I usually go with it. In San Francisco I go with the sommelier's suggestion more than 60% of the time. But that leaves 40% (higher in other cities.)

Sometimes I'm simply not in the mood for a wine she recommends, even if it's a good pairing -- can't drink Riesling every night. If she's trying to upsell me, I say, "I don't want to spend that much money" and ask about a wine in my price range. If she ignores that and keeps trying to push me too high price-wise, I realize I'm on my own. And sometimes she recommends wines I simply don't expect to like.

If I'm on my own, I try to make better pairings for other guests because I don't need a perfect pairing. I try to make sure the first bottle of wine we order for a group of four is delicious because there might not be a second. I usually, not always, order one white followed by one red. This is not a hard and fast rule but it gets us some diversity. I prefer to order wines I haven't tried, but with dining companions who aren't wine people, sometimes I fall back on favorites of mine for greater certainty, and also because I want to be able to tell them something about the wine, as the fact that I'm ordering without the somm's help means I can't expect help in that area either. To me, wine is more enjoyable with context, even if it's just knowing the story of the region.

Dining as a couple with my wife, I prefer wines by the glass because we can try more things. But sometimes the by-the-glass selections aren't interesting and/or there's a bottle I really want to try, so we do that. Once in a while there's a bottle I want so much that we arrange our food order to fit it, but usually we're food-first, wine-to-match people.

Do I survey the other diners for their input on the wine selection? Sure, but if I'm the one ordering, I usually try to stretch them into something they haven't tried. I don't try to make people drink a wine they tell me they dislike. I hate when people do that to me. But if they say they always drink Chardonnay, maybe I order a white Rhone blend, or if they don't know the grape that goes into white Burgundy (more common than you might think), I order one of those.

I'm not shy about sending back by-the-glass wine, especially if it was recommended. In fact, I usually ask for a taste of any by-the-glass wine before agreeing to it. Wines by the glass are rarely corked but 15-20% of wines I order by the glass are oxidized enough to be tired. I'm pretty shy about sending back bottles of wine I chose even if I don't love them, but I will ask the sommelier to taste it and tell me if it's supposed to taste this way. This is always worth doing if you don't love the wine. Maybe the bottle is off, or maybe the sommelier will ask if you'd rather have something else. I don't push for this option if I chose the wine, but I do want to drink a bottle of wine we enjoy. Most of the time we do.

How most people order wine:

The busboy arrives with water. They tell him, "We'll have a Pinot (scanning the list, looking for the second-cheapest one): this one."

Dammit. With all that extra time in a year ...

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