Ordering a Wine You Don't Like

I bet it's happened to you. It's certainly happened to me. You look at a wine list and pick out a bottle for whatever reason and your server (or sommelier if it's a hoity toity place) brings it to the table. There is nothing wrong with the bottle; you just don't particularly like it. It doesn't coincide with your taste preferences.

What do you do? A bit depends on where you are. If your server/sommelier asks you how it is, you might choose to say something like it not being your favorite. They'll get the picture. But, if all they do is offer apologies, that is really their only obligation. In this case, there was nothing inherently wrong with the bottle. You just didn't like it. 

This is not at all dissimilar from when you order a dish that is properly prepared, but it's just not your favorite. You find out that you don't, after all is said and done, love spam a la mode. Similarly, you don't like Domaine de Lots of Oak Chardonnay. Generally speaking, just deal with it.

Once in a while, you might run into a situation like this where the server asks if they can bring you something different. If they do, somebody is likely eating the cost of that bottle and it's not you. It might be the server, but it might also be the server, at least to some extent. If they do this, when it comes time for a gratutity, this server has earned theirs. Be generous. They were generous to you.

There is a more complex situation, though, and I have had this happen. You're eating at a nice restaurant and their wine list simply has nothing familiar to you. You ask for help, have a brief discussion with the server/sommelier and they tell you that they have the perfect suggestion. Great.

They bring the wine to the table and it is either so very different from what you described or it completely clashes with the food. Now what?

This is very tricky. Since it was their recommendation or their choice, they should ask you how you like it. If you don't, at the very least, they should apologize, but should they do more? There is no standard protocol for this.

My opinion is that if they really blew it (that doesn't mean that it's just not your favorite) by, for example, bringing you an off-dry Riesling when you told them you were looking for an extremely dry white wine, that they should offer you a replacement of some sort. On the other hand, if all you said was that you wanted an extremely dry white wine and gave them a price range and they brought you an otherwise fine Chablis that was well within that price range and it's just not your favorite, don't complain. Perhaps at some point, you might have a conversation with them to see where maybe your description went wrong, but neither the server nor the establishment should be on the hook for this one.

Just my opinion. Yours might be very different.

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