The New York Times today published an article titled "Should Restaurants Offer Guests That First Taste of Wine?". In short, it introduces an increasingly popular wine-service etiquette in higher-end restaurants where instead of allowing the diner (who ordered a bottle of wine) to taste the first sip of wine to determine quality / authenticity, the sommelier takes over the responsibility and acts as the 'guardian' of quality. The diner is 'relieved' of this task, and depending on how the diner perceives this ritual as either pleasant or unpleasant, it might or might not be missed at these restaurants.
This got me thinking: from a rational perspective, why would a restaurant take over this responsibility? Assuming a diner gets first taste, if the wine was absolutely stale, a mildly discerning diner would notice and reject it. If the wine was in good condition, and the diner approves, all good, and the diner feels great. If the wine was in good condition, but the diner disapproves, he runs the risk of being 'wrong'. The trade off between the sommelier and the diner having the first taste appears to be one of reinforcement - if the sommelier 'approves', won't the diner be more likely to enjoy it more and not less?
I agree, Yen - the benefit of replacing the diner with the sommelier in this case is not immediately obvious to me. I think the equivalent would be having a chauffeur or race car driver test drive a new car for me. Because the customer (not the sommelier) has purchasing power, his quality criteria (unsophisticated and perhaps "wrong" by technical standards) are what ultimately matter in this scenario.
ReplyDeleteI actually like this process referred to in the article. I know many friends who get uncomfortable with having to be the "judge" of the wine and pass the responsibility off to someone else at the table that they perceive to know wine better. Maybe an additional benefit to the customer is that the sommelier will know if the wine has gone bad and so the customer will never have to taste that corked wine taste. I think if restaurants proceed in this fashion, it's still best to either ask the guest if he or she would like to taste first or to come back after a few minutes and check if they like the wine.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the crux of the matter is whether diners should be allowed to reject a bottle of wine that they do not like after a first taste? Traditionally, the first taste is not for preference but to check whether the wine is "corked". If the sommelier has already checked for that, then perhaps the diner just needs to accept the wine, just like how they have to accept a main that they don't really like?
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