Brightest Young Things

Wine News to Chase Away the Blues

• You know, this sounds great. I read "Sex, Wine, and Chocolate" planned for a Saturday and I think hot damn, sure beats SVU reruns. But upon further reading this strikes me as more of a draw for the over 50 crowd and I'm not sure I want to be in a room nibbling 90% pure cacao while someone my mother's age complains of a sagging libido. In any case, Coco Sala is hosting "Sex, Wine, and Chocolate" on the 28th.
• Have you gone to one of Vinoteca's weekly wine tasting classes yet? Why not?
• Alliance Française is hosting a gin tasting March 12th which sounds exciting, intoxicating, and frankly a little dangerous for area livers.
• Also dangerous: the Third Annual Single Malt Scotch and Whisky Festival on March 26th. You might want to chase some of this with milk thistle.

Is there nothing more nerve-wracking than ordering wine at a restaurant? Yes. There are dozens of things more nerve-wracking than ordering wine at a restaurant, like having a hangover at work and navigating through a much-too-bright PowerPoint, or riding the X2 to H Street NE and the woman sitting behind you is flicking her Lee Press-On Nails towards the back of your head. Put it into perspective, DC. Buying wine at a restaurant is easy once you know the protocol. It’s a funny, nonsensical dance that does nothing but shows that both you and the waiter/wine steward are somewhat cultured and can mimic pretentious, fancy behavior in a Macarena-esque display of tradition. Read on and avoid the anxiety surrounding wine purchases when you're enjoying Restaurant Week.

Generally when you order wine by the glass there’s no “funny stuff” – no corks to sniff, no wine to swirl, nothing. Buying a bottle is a whole other story. At places as diverse as Charlie Palmer Steak and The Diner there’s an odd ritual that occurs when you buy a bottle. Unsure masses are wringing their anxious and sweaty hands when staring down the barrel of a Cabernet Sauvignon hoisted by the help. Here’s a primer.

You're dining with that special someone, or by yourself, or maybe you're out with a NSA random sex partner you met off Craigslist and want to show them a good time and get them ridiculously drunk. What do you order? Take a peek at the menu. You recognize the heavy hitters - Cab Sav, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay. You think you may have heard of this one bottle or seen it at Whole Foods, so why not get that one? WAIT! Restaurants knowingly put popular bottles or well known varietals on menus because they know people will gravitate to what's safe. Odds are you're more likely to go with the Hope Estate Chardonnay that you've seen in stores rather than the Macon-Villages Chardonnay that you can't pronounce. Restaurants know this and will knowingly mark up the more well known wines. Your best bet is to choose something less notorious, unless of course you really happen to love the wine in question in which case go for it.

Nice waiter comes up to the table, and shows you the wine, label side out. Is this what you ordered? Great. It sounds like common sense, but what if they misheard what you ordered? What if you can’t pronounce Cahors to save your life, but want that wine? Speak up now, sailor.

The waiter opens the bottle and shows you the cork. What do you do with the cork? Do you….touch it? Smell it? Chew it?
Answer: the proper, posh thing to do is to inspect the cork visually and then give it a sniff. These days you don’t have to smell it – just take a look. In the old days this was done because a restaurant might sell you a nice bottle of wine but instead have filled the expensive bottle with a cheap house hooch. Diners would look at the cork to ensure that this was indeed the wine they were buying. The cork was smelled to determine if the wine had gone bad – “corked”, that is if air had gotten into the bottle and ruined it. You’ll know corked wine when you smell it; it smells and tastes just like wet cardboard left to rot in a basement. In spite of this tradition you can’t really judge a wine’s taste by the cork, so smelling it is, like all pomp and circumstance, inherently silly. To me it's like putting a sweater on a poodle. The damn thing already has a sweater.

The waiter pours you a small amount. Chug? Sip? Why is the waiter still staring at you, expecting you to do something?
Answer: this one is more beneficial but still a little intimidating. They’re letting you taste the wine first to make sure it’s 1.) not corked and 2.) what you ordered. Nod if you want the waiter to proceed, or politely (or impolitely, your call) speak up if the wine tastes funny or not what you ordered. Trust your gut (or tongue) if you think the wine is corked. Even if you don’t know what the wine should taste like you’ll know when it’s so bad it’s undrinkable.

You want to go home, or to the park, or the backseat of your Pinto to woo that Craigslist tranny. Do you have to finish the bottle or can you take it with you?
Answer: Don't let an unfinished bottle of wine get in the way of sweet, potentially lethal lovin' - you can take this bad boy home. The Restaurant Association of Metrpolitan Washington has some great tips on sealing your wine so you can seal the deal. Wink wink.