At some point everyone has felt lost, overwhelmed or embarrassed trying to order wine at a restaurant or wine bar. Follow these simple tips, compiled with help from five wine hospitality veterans, and it never has to happen again.
Going out for dinner is supposed to be a fun experience. With someone else cooking the food, pouring the drinks and curating the playlist, diners can relax and enjoy each otherâs company. But even if restaurants have dialled back the airs and graces over the past few decades and focused on making their guests feel more at ease, wine lists remain a point of anxiety.
People are embarrassed by their lack of knowledge, embarrassed by their palate, embarrassed by their budget, worried about choosing the âwrongâ wine for the table and so on. And no matter how friendly and helpful the sommelier may be, their shoulder-level lurking often ends up compounding, not relieving, this unease.
Itâs happened to all of us at some point on our wine-drinking journey. Regardless of your knowledge or experience, it neednât continue, though. These simple tips, compiled with help from five wine hospitality veterans, will see you through any situation with confidence.
This point may seem obvious, but itâs not always heeded or used to its full potential. Sommeliers are employed specifically because wine lists are hard to navigate. Itâs their job to help, and theyâre always going to know more about the list (and wine generally) than you do. This should be cause for comfort, not disquiet. Do you worry that your doctor knows more about medicine than you?
âI donât think thereâs anything wrong with saying, âI know absolutely nothing about this,ââ says Shanteh Wong, Head Sommelier at Sydney restaurant Quay. âIf I walked into a bank and I was about to get a mortgage or something I hadnât done before, I would say, âI have no idea where to start with this, all the language is so unfamiliar.ââ
Shanteh Wong encourages drinkers to embrace the expertise of a restaurant’s wine staff.
If a sommelier canât speak in terms that make sense to you, thatâs a failing on their part, not yours.
âWe train all our guys to only speak in plain language,â says Matt Swieboda, co-owner of Sydneyâs Ragazzi, Dear Sainte Ăloise and Love, Tilly Devine. âIf youâre visiting a place thatâs worth visiting, I would hope that the servers there would be able to speak to you in language that youâll be able to understand.â
And if youâre not connecting with your server, itâs perfectly okay to engage the next staff member who wanders past the table.
âSpeak to the sommelier, speak to the waiter, speak to the manager,â says Leanne Altmann, beverage director at Andrew McConnellâs Trader House group in Melbourne (Gimlet, Cutler & Co, Supernormal, Marion, Cumulus Inc). âFind that person whoâs really excited about the wine list and wants to share something with you.
â[But] make sure that theyâre advocating for you and looking for the sort of thing that youâre looking for, not just what theyâre excited about.â
Be frank
Sommeliers can only help you as much as you let them â which means being open and honest. Tell them if thereâs something you donât understand or donât like. Even if youâre comfortable with wine and wine jargon, budget can often be an impediment here.
â[Itâs] the embarrassment of how to communicate price without showing your hand,â Altmann says.
This comes up most often when people are dining with clients or a group theyâre not especially close with. Even in these situations, thereâs still a way forward.
âItâs really great when people just hover their hand near the price or say, âI was thinking something like thisâ and point to the wine they were thinking of,â Altmann says. âThen I can aim appropriately.â
And if youâre comfortable with it and the situation allows, itâs helpful to be more direct about budget, reckons Eleanor Cappa, co-owner of Brisbane wine bar Maeve.
âDonât be afraid to ask about price point,â she says. âI think thatâs one that really gets a lot of customers. They feel a bit shy to ask for what they want in terms of price. But I donât think thereâs as much judgement as people think.â
Eleanor Cappa says there’s no reason to be afraid to talk about price point.
Apart from overcoming the price taboo, honesty on both sides is generally just important for managing expectations and avoiding disappointment.
âIf you ask the sommelier for something quirky and interesting, you ha
e to be ready to get something quirky and interesting,â says Pierre Stock, Sommelier of Melbourne institution France-Soir. âOften people say, âOh yeah, whatever, do this, thatâs great.â And then when the wine arrives, theyâre quite disappointed because itâs not what they asked for or thought they asked for.â
Sommeliers need something to work with. Anything. In many ways, choosing a wine is a process of elimination. Thereâs a literal world of possibilities out there. The more you can narrow down the choices using concrete examples, the more likely you are to get a recommendation that suits your taste.
âIf you can give an example of something you enjoy, the sommelier can take cues from that wine or those varieties and help you understand what your palate is,â Wong says.
âIâve had people show me images of wine on their phone, tell me brands that theyâve enjoyed, regions that they enjoy,â Altmann says. âEven if they know the Barossa shiraz that they like to drink from Dan Murphyâs, that helps me select a wine for them â now it might not be Barossa shiraz, but it might be that style.â
âIt can be as simple as, âI know that in the past Iâve enjoyed Yarra Valley pinot noir. Do you have any good Yarra Valley pinot noir that youâd recommend, or something similar to that?ââ Swieboda says.
If youâre dining with a large group, or with people you donât drink with regularly, itâs a good idea to get an overview of the tableâs preferences and pass this on too.
âIf someone says, âShe likes to drink chardonnay and I prefer to drink riesling, what do you recommend?â Thatâs certainly helpful,â Altmann says. âMy next question would be, âWhat is it you like about riesling?â or âWhat is it you like about chardonnay?â to see if I can find something in the middle or something appropriate for both parties.â
As the examples above illustrate, you donât need wine jargon to communicate your preferences. In fact, sommeliers would probably prefer you donât use it. If nothing else, speaking in everyday English reduces the chance of embarrassing yourself.
When Stock is drinking elsewhere, for example, he likes to try wines heâs never tasted before. He tends to say something like, âI want something quite clean, maybe slightly natural but not mousy, not too old but fresh, that I can actually drink without eating, and my budget is 100 bucks.â
âIf you speak in plain language and donât try to be more articulate than you really are, I donât think youâve really got an opportunity to make a fool of yourself, Swieboda says. âBe confident with your server, but listen to them as well. Itâs probably going to work out better for everybody if people donât try to feel that they know too much.â
Matt Swieboda shuns technical terms for plain language. Photo by Trent van der Jagt.
Cappa agrees with this last part. In this arena, the old adage of âfake it till you make itâ is terrible advice.
âPeople that know nothing, theyâre wonderful and really easy to please,â she says. âPeople that know a lot, fantastic, you can have a different kind of conversation thatâs engaging for both parties. But the people who donât know a lot but think they do, theyâre the trickiest to talk to. Youâre not talking the same language.â
âAs a sommelier, do I need to tell the client the wine has violet notes and leather and coffee? No, I donât think so,â Stock says. âThose things are quite jargon-y and itâs good to look at the tasting notes if you want to match wines and things like that. But the customerâs not looking for wine thatâs got violet notes or leather. Theyâre looking for the big line. If itâs light, medium or fuller ⊠if itâs quite woody or heavy or young. The big line.â
While thereâs rarely a need to get technical when ordering wine, knowing some basic descriptors is helpful. In terms of time and effort, this is a small investment that can pay big dividends.
âIt doesnât hurt to expand your wine vocabulary to be able to give more detail, but really simple things â like whether itâs light-, medium- or full-bodied, or low to high acidity, or low to high structure â will begin that conversation,â Swieboda says. âEvery time you enjoy a bottle of wine when youâre out, write it down or take a photo of the label. And when you get home, jump online and see how other people described it. Thatâs the way I learnt about wine.â
If you know someone well-versed in wine, you can also lean on them and ask them to describe your favourite wines using this kind of language. âFind a few tag words and take them with you to the restaurant,â Cappa says. âOr even use the sommelier or waiter at the time. You can say, âI loved this wine and want to be able to order things like it in the future. Can you give me three or four words that I can tell the next person I like in a wine?ââ
âPick the second-cheapest bottle on the listâ is an old and oft-repeated bit of advice. While that may have been useful at some point in the past, itâs not anymore. Wine is more diverse and idiosyncratic than ever, and picking a cheap bottle at random is likely to backfire. Restaurants are also a chance to stretch yourself and try something that might be impossible to get at a bottle shop â which often entails paying a bit extra.
âIâm always really proud of the wines we have at the cheapest price points. The other buyers and I work really hard to find inexpensive wines that are sound and represent good value,â Altmann says. âBut thereâs always going to be more story, more experience, more complexity and certainly more sustainability at a higher price point.
Leanne Altmann suggests there are a number of ways to talk with a sommelier to find a wine to your taste, from asking questions, to even showing photos on your phone of other bottles you like. Photo by James Morgan.
âIf I really didnât know anything and thereâs no one to ask,â she says, âI would look to the regionality â for a region and a variety that is known for being planted there; known to be successful in that region.â
Almost every wine-drinker knows the Barossaâs reputation for shiraz, for example. There are many other examples of this, such as Margaret River cabernet sauvignon and Mornington Peninsula chardonnay â all just a quick Google search away when youâre reading the list (e.g. âwhat is McLaren Vale known forâ).
With all this in mind, thereâs absolutely no reason to feel lost, embarrassed or intimated when youâre out ordering and drinking wine. Itâs supposed to be a fun experience, remember? No one expects you to know everything. Indeed, not even the pros know everything… We’re all on a journey of discovery in wine. So just relax and take it as it comes.
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