Friends, business partners and dates have seen me make a case out of it. While dining out, or simply sharing a bottle of wine at a food/beverage establishment, a waiter will often come over to “top off” the glasses. When I am fast enough, I will (as politely as possible) thank them and tell them “not to worry about it”, my nice way of saying don’t you dare pour another drop of the wine I just purchased into that glass. I am fully capable of pouring my own wine thank you very much.
This may sound passively aggressive, or even just plain aggressive, to some of you, but it is something I feel very strongly about (among many other things when it comes to wine service). And there are several reasons I feel so strongly about this. The first and simplest reason is that as I continue in my lifelong journey of training my palate I like to swirl and smell the wine in my glass in between sips. But when a server insists on filling my glass as much as 3/4 of the way (or more) the swirling and subsequent smelling is made quite difficult. Along the same lines, as a wine is sitting in the glass it is evolving. By pouring “fresh” wine from the bottle into the “evolving” (and breathing) wine in the glass, that server has taken away my ability to appreciate the evolution of the wine in the glass. There are many other reasons I prefer to pour my own wine, from setting my own pace for drinking (as opposed to being rushed to either leave or order another bottle) to pouring each person only as much as they want, which is not necessarily always an equivalent amount to everyone else at the table.
I bring this up today, and feel vindicated over this seemingly obsessive behavior, following an opinion piece written by Roger Cohen yesterday in the New York Times, entitled “Of Wine, Haste & Religion“. Cohen cited both a “kind interpretation” for the practice (the server trying to be as attentive as possible) as well as an “uncharitable view” – “to hustle clients through a meal and as many bottles of wine as possible”.
I especially liked his opinion that “The time that goes into the making of (the bottle of wine) should be reflected in the time it takes to drink (it)”.
The reasons we feel strongly about pouring our own wine, or the servers feel the need to top off the glasses are irrelevant. Whatever the “reasons” for this practice, they must stop. Unless I specifically tell a server that I am unhappily out with whomever it is and to help me speed things up, I strongly prefer to set the pace of my meal, and not have it set for me.
Happy slow & steady wine drinking!
WTG
Tags: topping off, wine service
OMG, I do this every time. I cannot stand the filled up glass! If we are at a table where I can put the wine where the server cannot get to it without a huge reach I do it every time.
I’m now further vindicated. Thanks!
The funny thing is that I had an argument about this with someone in the food industry. Apparently servers are reprimanded if they are not constantly filling up the patrons glasses.
Thanks for backing me up!
I will admit that I prefer a small volume in the glass in order to swirl and appreciate it, I just don’t get too worked up about it. I’m sure if it was a bottle of 1990 Chateau Magaux it’d be a different story, but for the most part (and with most wines) I overlook an overzealous pour by an unknowing server.
That said, next time you get too large of a pour, ask for 2 more glasses and pour the wine equally into the other two. The server will realize his/her error while you have two glasses of wines decanting until you enjoy the other one!
I do agree with you Michael that it is not worth getting “worked up about”, simply something that has me mildly disturbed and left me wondering why?
[…] revisiting this topic having previously discussed it in an April post given a recent spat of […]