On slow wine

ossobuco · Posts: 46618 Location: New Mexico

There was an article in today's New York Times by a - from what I remember from reading him years ago - particularly crabby and funny Roger Cohen, about the experience of drinking wine in restaurants, and dealing with some servers in that regard. What he describes is news to me, as, all together now, we don't do that in California. Or at least we didn't when I was last there.

For your edification or disagreement, here it is then:
LINK to article

Of Wine, Haste and Religion
By ROGER COHEN
Published: April 21, 2008

I was dining the other night with a colleague, enjoying a respectable Russian River Pinot Noir, when he said with a steely firmness: “We’ll pour our own wine, thank you.”

This declaration of independence was prompted by that quintessential New York restaurant phenomenon: a server reducing a bottle of wine to a seven-minute, four-glass experience through overfilling and topping-up of a fanaticism found rarely outside the Middle East.

I know I’m being elitist here, a terrible thing in this political season, and quite possibly nobody in small-town Pennsylvania gives a damn how wine is poured. But I don’t care and, come to think of it, last time I was in small-town Pennsylvania — at Gettysburg — I drank rather well.

Acceptable cappuccino was also available throughout the commonwealth at Dunkin’ Donuts outlets, which makes one wonder if liberal elitism really begins and ends in Cambridge, Hyde Park and Berkeley these days. I even saw a Volvo somewhere west of Harrisburg.

But that’s another story, albeit important, of seeping American sophistication-cum-Europeanization.

The liberation I felt at my colleague’s I’ll-pour boldness was intoxicating. That’s right, I thought, we need to take our lives back. Drinking at your own pace is the best revenge.

It’s humiliating to pay through the nose and suffer at affronts to good taste. Wine should glide, not glug, from a tilted, not tipped, bottle. The time that goes into the making of it should be reflected in the time it takes to drink.

That’s so obvious that I got to wondering why wine glasses, even at fine New York tables, get filled almost to the brim, and refilled to that unseemly level, every time you’re distracted from Second Amendment-authorized armed guard of your receptacle.

As with many things, there’s a generous view and a mean one.

The kind interpretation would be that, through a gross misunderstanding of the nature of pleasure, servers and the restaurant managers behind them are convinced that solicitude is measured by the regularity with which a glass is topped up.

The uncharitable view would be that, guided by an acute understanding of the nature of commerce, servers are told by restaurant managers to hustle clients through a meal and as many bottles of wine as possible.

After long reflection, of at least 12 seconds, as measured on my elitist Rolex, I’ve decided the second theory is more convincing.

It’s more plausible partly because it tracks with another unhappy New York dining phenomenon at some remove from the languorous pleasures of Manet’s “Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe.” I refer to the vacuuming away of your plate, at about the speed of light, the second you are deemed to have consumed the last mouthful.

Just as you prepare to dab bread into the unctuous leftover sauce from those slide-from-the-bone short ribs, the plate vanishes. The fact that others around the table may still be eating — and to be without a plate is to feel naked in such circumstances — does not trouble the stealthy masters of this Houdini routine.

As usual, in such matters, the French have it right. If you deconstruct the leftover, you find something that’s yours, a little messy, even mucky, but yours. No wonder there’s pleasure in poking around in it a little. Manet’s revelers are surrounded by their picnic leftovers. Nobody’s whisked them away.

In the same way, that mix of soil, hearth and tradition the French call “terroir” is personal. You poke around in it and discover that some ineffable mix of the land, its particular characteristics, and a unique human bond has found expression in a wine – not a “Cabernet” or a “Pinot” or a “Merlot” but, say, a Chambolle-Musigny Derrière La Grange.

That’s because “derriere la grange” — behind the barn — a small parcel of land produces a Burgundy distinct from another 50 yards away. Discovering this takes time, just as it takes time after bottling — perhaps a decade — for fruit, tannin and acidity to attain their full harmony.

American wine is rushed onto the table, as well as into the glass. Most is drunk five to ten years too early. But, hey, this is a country in a hurry: Google’s founders made a couple of billion dollars overnight last week, an un-French achievement. This is a great nation.

Perhaps it’s so great I should wear an American flag lapel pin. Perhaps it’s so great I should put myself in a duck blind this weekend. Perhaps it’s so great I should join the great U.S. blood sport of anti-intellectualism. Perhaps it’s so great I should go bowling more often. Perhaps it’s so great I should stop praising France and conceal the fact I speak French.

But I don’t want to grow bitter. Maybe I’ll just cling — yes, cling — to my glass and the religion that’s in it.

DrewDad · Posts: 14234 Location: Silicon Hills

I agreed, mostly on the "hustle-em-through" economics aspect.

I've had my dinner arrive before my appetizer on many occasions.

ossobuco · Posts: 46618 Location: New Mexico

I don't think I've been anywhere where they do the glass topping thing. Ick.

Not that I go to that many restaurants of the excellent type, though I have been to some and appreciate them - but I've been to some where they don't hover, but watch generally from afar to see if you or others are reaching for that empty glass.. but then they ask.

I've only been to NYC, lately anyway, that one week of good memories back in 2003, and I don't remember it happening then either. On the other hand, I and my pals went to sort of bistro places, not and places with multiple stars by the restaurant name.

Smartest situation re serving staff in my experience was in italy on three trips, almost always in ordinary trattorias, a few times when I was by myself on that last trip, for a mid afternoon meal at a place of review regard.

I'm kidding about the California stuff, as for all I know they are doing this in LA now too, especially as the restaurant business has more economic knives coming at it. But, hey, there, I think they'd at least pour wine into the glass in a glide.

ossobuco · Posts: 46618 Location: New Mexico

I do remember posting on a2k before about the 'is everything all right passby x 4 or 5 or 6' but that's a separate subject.

Joe Nation · Posts: 11270 Location: New York. What about it?!?

A long time friend and I had dinner Saturday night at La Vineria, a tiny restaurant near 55th & 5th, it's one of those places in NYC that locals go to to eat and talk. A bottle was selected to go with the meal. (Buffalo Mozzerlle salad & Veal Something. ) You can order anything there, it's always good. S. knows more about wine than anyone I know. I know that it comes from grapes.
So, we are talking and eating and talking (Kids who are post 35, the election, the health or lack of it in a close friend.) and eating when I reached for the wine to re-fill my glass -pow-zoom- the waiter is there!
"So sorry, allow me." he says while simultaneously smiling and wearing a grimace.

He pours. He leaves.

"Always let them pour." says S. "It tells you if they know what they are doing. A good waiter will never overfill a glass."

Joe (and if they do, I think, we can still drink it as slowly as we wish.)Nation

farmerman · Posts: 18288

I only eat at places where I look up, not down , at the menu.

Bi-Polar Bear · Posts: 14670 Location: Raleigh NC

squinney and I are just hicks in Barneyland... but after our first pour.... which is NEVER to the top.... the servers around here, no matter where we go, leave us alone to drink at our own pace.

I have had them offer to pour while doing a routinte table check, but that's it.

They occasionally even offer to let us smell the screw top.

BumbleBeeBoogie · Posts: 20256 Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

I think that server pouring is more about justifying the tip than doing right by the wine.

BBB

ossobuco · Posts: 46618 Location: New Mexico

A good restaurant in our area in northern california had, by virtue of the owner's fascination, a major wine selection. It was connected with a hotel and bed and breakfast, and he gave wine lectures, etc. Anyway, they had a wine steward, and he, or she, helped people, if they wanted help, chose what wine would go well with their food and their price level. Not snobby, just helpful. What I can't remember is if it was he who came back to see if you wanted more in the glass. In any case, it wasn't obtrusive.

Still, if the kind of pouring is going on that Roger Cohen described, I can imagine insisting on pouring it myself. But, more likely, since I'm fairly forthright, I'd say 'hey!, don't fill it to the top'. And I'm naturally resistant to speeding my dinner along. On the plate thing, I'd ask for it back if it was snuck away and I wanted to linger over the 'jus' with some good bread. (How would that happen, anyway. I'd say 'don't take it', please')

farmerman · Posts: 18288

We ate at a really great restaurant near Fair Hill Park (called the "Fair Hill Inn"). We had a meal that was of the quality served at the InnAt Little Washington.
I opened my meal with a serving of cherrystone clams in a wine rosemary garlic sauce. Afetr finishing the clams I was soppin up the sauce with their really excellent crusty bread and the waitperson came over and said"ill remove that for you' I said,
"Dont you dar, this sauce is so good that Im sitting here just soppin it up" She went away and the chef came out and was asking what did I like most about the sauce. WE made friends with that meal.