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In a restaurant, you are at the mercy of your server, unless a wine steward is available. The server may be somewhat knowledgeable, or they may enthuse over a particular wine because it’s the first wine they’ve ever tasted. Mentioning one of your favorites and seeing if anyone can think of something similar is a good policy.
The day of the wine steward, with clanking wine cup and snooty attitude, has nearly passed. Instead the few wine stewards left in America are good, honest wine lovers who genuinely want you to drink something you like. In my restaurants, we have a policy of 100% guarantee and I find more restaurants adopting the same posture.
In short, if a customer isn’t drinking something they like, they’re probably not going to enjoy their experience and will be less likely to return. So if a customer tastes a bottle and it’s not what they had in mind, I make it disappear and bring something | |
different. From a business standpoint, I can always sell it by the glass. And I end up making a friend for the restaurant.
What are the rules for food and wine matching?
There are no rules. The old rules of white wines with white meat and red wine with red meat are in the dumpster, where they belong. The new rules are not rules, they are recommendations.
However, don’t assume that things are ever going to be as simple as the previous misguided concept. Consider instead that the new recommendations are based on the following happy coincidences:
Shellfish tends to go well with light-bodied, tart white wines. But some simple preparations of shellfish are perfect foils for the best Chardonnays. Seafood dishes do well with dishes of similar weight. Steakier fish (tuna, salmon, and halibut) like heavier | |
