Enjoying a glass of wine with dinner is one of my favorite things! And a recent study indicates a substantial reduction in Type 2 diabetes among those who enjoy red wine with their meals. But many find selecting a wine they like intimidating at best. Over the years (OK decades, but who’s counting) of ordering wine at restaurants, I’ve discovered a few helpful hints that will take you from menu to sipping with ease.
FOOD & WINE PAIRING
Wine expert Mark Oldman once said, “Food and wine pairing is like sex and pizza: even when it’s bad, it can still be pretty good.”
There’s a mountain of information and expertise available on food and wine pairing. However, if you’re like most folks, you’re really just interested in selecting an enjoyable glass at a reasonable price. So as far as food and wine pairing rules, I subscribe to the idea that the subjective nature of taste trumps everything except:
HEAT + HEAT = DISASTER: If you’re going spicy on the food, keep your wine low in alcohol and on the sweeter side.
DESSERT + DESERT = DISASTER: A dry and dusty wine can ruin a lovely dessert.
Other than those two rules, you’re really only limited by your budget and the choices on the menu.
WHEN IN ROME…
Drink Local! Not only will grapes vary from region to region, but so will the wine making techniques. Just like with local beers, local wines present a great opportunity to experience something new and different. Most restaurants include the geographic location with their wine descriptions. If they don’t just ask, “What local wines do you offer?”.
FRESHNESS COUNTS
Restaurants differ greatly in how they serve and store wine. Some will keep serving from opened bottles until the bottle is empty. That could be two weeks – or more – YIKES! Unlike aging wine in a sealed bottle, wine does not age well once it’s opened. Most wines, like company and fish, taste pretty bad after 3 days. The official term is “turned.”
On average, 50% of the wine-by-the-glass I order in restaurants is turned. And while drinking turned wine is not bad for your health, if I’m paying $8-$20 for a glass, I don’t want to drink bad wine.
How do you know a wine has turned?
Color, smell and flavor all change. Unless a wine is heavily fortified, like Port, when exposed to oxygen, bacteria start to grow and produce acetic acid and acetaldehyde. The color of the wine will brown and you’ll notice increasing smells of vinegar and fingernail polish remover. You can train your nose to detect these changes by spiking glasses of your favorite wine with these two substances and sniffing deeply – but don’t drink them!
How to avoid turned wine in a restaurant
- Only order wine by the bottle.
- Only order the house wine (boring, but effective most of the time.)
- Ask your server which of their wine-by-the glass offerings are most popular (less likely to sit around open for too long)
- Pick the wine you want, and ask the server to find out when it was opened. If they don’t know, they’ll usually open a new bottle.
Served a glass of wine that looks, smells, or tastes turned? Ask the server when the bottle was opened. If they say in the last day or so, then the winery in question may have faulty wine making practices. It may also be that you just don’t care for that particular style or grape. Chalk it up to education and order something else, and expect the restaurant to charge you for both. Like ordering an unfamiliar item on the menu, as long as it is prepared well, it’s not the restaurant’s fault that you don’t care for it. On the other hand, If the wine is turned, you should expect to be poured a fresh glass and only pay for one.
Save this post for the next time you’re planning to go out to eat and read through to jog your memory before it’s time to hit the restaurant.
Want to learn more about wine and food pairing? Learning about the six flavor components will give you a good foundation to start. To further your knowledge, check out the two main types of pairings. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for more fun wine tips and tricks!
