More Faux Pas

I'm sometimes amused, but honestly it doesn't help when it comes to gratuities. If I am at a family style restaurant or a little hidden away neighborhood favorite, my expectations are far less. But, when we go to a restaurant that is really pushing their wine list, I expect the service to be pretty darn right. 

I'm not talking perfect. I'm not expecting that every server will handle a bottle and its service with the aplomb of a Master Sommelier, but if I'm looking at a list where as many bottles as not weigh in at more than $100 and many for those who want to spend that much are more than double that, I expect that the servers will have had some basic training in wine service. It's incumbent on the restaurant and its proprietors to do that and frankly, the dining experience of guests is better and they tend to tip more when there just aren't any faux pas.

To digress for a moment, I remember a significant debate in Wine Spectator on tipping in a restaurant on wine. The consensus, and many of the people who weighed in on this were in the service industry, was that you should expect to tip on wine the same way that you would on food, but that in return you should expect service commensurate with the bottle in question and the restaurant you are patronizing. In fact, one server who if I recall correctly worked at a well-known upscale chain steakhouse said and I am paraphrasing here that he would expect a gratuity on his wine service of 15 to 20% if his service was excellent.

Before returning to the subject at hand, I digress even a bit further. Many restaurants allow corkage; that is, you may bring your own bottle (do not ever knowingly bring a bottle that the restaurant has on its wine list as that is the epitome of tacky) that the restaurant will uncork, perhaps decant in their decanters, and serve in their wine glasses. For that, they will charge you an amount that varies typically from $15 to $75 (occasionally, you'll find a place that does free corkage). If you are doing this and if the service is excellent, you should tip on the bottle service based on what you would expect to pay for that bottle if you ordered it off the restaurant wine list. In other words, you bought a bottle at your favorite wine shop for $50. So, you guess the restaurant would pay about $35 meaning they would charge $105 off their wine list. Tip a percentage of that $105.

But, to receive a tip like that, the service should be commensurate with the wine.

Recently, all in one sitting, I experienced a number of faux pas each of which has the potential to detract from the experience and also sometimes the gratuity. That's a matter of opinion how things like this should be reflected. Sometimes, it is the server putting her or his biases ahead of the diner. Other times, it is clearly a lack of training and I blame that more on the establishment than the server.

But, back to the faux pas. The bottle was brought to the table and presented, but not in a way that made it easy to observe the label. That's very minor. The proper way to do this, however, in addition to presenting the bottle is to tell the customer what you are serving them. So, for example, the server might say something like, "We have the 2020 (that's bad for wines too, or so it seems it will be) Boone's Farm Eau de Skunk." In this particular case, I had to struggle to ensure that the vintage matched the wine list (in this particular case, the vintage was going to make a huge difference).

Next comes the removal of the foil, the insertion of the corkscrew, and the cork pull. In truly proper service, this is all done while the bottle is still properly presented to the person who ordered it or to the table as a whole. In our case, the corkscrew was not inserted quite far enough (that happens). So, the cork pull was difficult. Proper, if you are not going to give the corkscrew the necessary one more turn is to gently turn the cork to facilitate removal. This will ensure a gentle removal. In our case, the pull was done with great force creating a pop and a spillage of wine (minimal amount) on the table. This cannot be good. This is training, but it's also common sense. At a casual dining chain, I would consider this a bit humorous, but at an upscale restaurant, it's disturbing.

Next it's time to offer a taste to ensure the bottle is not tainted. Service 101 -- the cork and the taste are offered to the person who made the selection. If that's not clear or if the selection was not made by an individual, then the server can ask. At our table, the cork was offered to one person and the offer to taste to another. That's just weird.

Once the wine has been approved, the wine is poured. It is customary that the person who was offered the taste be served last. It's also customary, although becoming less so, that women be served before men. Again, this is basic stuff. It's so easy to get it right. Experienced servers should know this. Less experienced servers should be taught.

In any event, other than the horrendous cork pull with the bit of a splash, none of these were a huge deal. But, they do add up. What's the proper gratuity generally speaking? That's a matter of opinion. When I was growing up, it was very clearly 15%, but it has inched up over time. Should that be reduced for less than appropriate service? That's also a matter of opinion, but my opinion is that it should be and that similarly it should be increased for exemplary service.

But, if you are a server, trust me. Get these things right and you have a better chance at a tip you would really like.