Wine and Going Out

Going out is nice. Going out and having drinks is nice. But going out and having wine is not always nice. Here are some reasons:

- stemware:

All too often restaurants serve their (often overpriced) wine in clunky stemware. If I'm paying good money for decent wine, I want the stemware to match it. This leads me to a) ask about what type of stemware they are using (which I won't do because I feel like an ass), b) scope out what glasses are on the surrounding tables or c) don't drink wine except when at a winebar/restaurant, which will have the good stuff.

- uncertainty:

I once had wine at a northeast restaurant and it was served lukewarm. Not room temperature, but actually warm (I believe they store their wine either above the espresso machine or in the hot kitchen). It didn't do much for the wine or the experience.

Also, when you order by the glass, how long has that bottle been opened? Bottles get opened and go undrunk often (part of the reason why restuarants/bars will have the price of a glass be near the wholesale cost of the bottle). I want to know how long it's been open or if it's a fresh bottle.

- pricing:

Venues are charging upwards of 300% above the wholesale cost of your bottle of wine. Some places are even moving that markup to 300% above retail. There are all sorts of reasons for this: good stemware (when they're using it) is costly and breakage works into that, sommeliers (when employed) need to have a salary from somewhere, proper storage, the fact that when people have a bottle of wine they hang around at the table longer (therefore reducing quick table turnover/more business) and pay a premium for it and of course because this practice represents a bloody cash cow in a business that is notorious for having financial problems. It takes a lot of money to open/run a restaurant and having customers that are willing to pay these premiums help add to those slim margins.

So what do I do? Well, I usually only drink wine when I go out to a place that also functions as a winebar. This usually minimizes some of my risk. I also will usually just have a beer or cocktail with my meal. The next good option is to bring a bottle of wine from home. Do some research before hand and check out what the corkage fee is. They will usually run around 10 - 15 dollars. This can save you some hard earned cash while insuring the wine you brought is in optimal condition.

So I suppose all of this grief just reflects my growing standards for what wine is, should and can be.