When Wine Gets Refused

One
of the most difficult and time-consuming situations for a
sommelier, manager or waiter is when a client refuses a
bottle of wine. This is mainly because it is such a
subjective situation. If a customer sends a dish back
because it is over or underdone there really isn’t any
difficulty because the steak is either the right color and
texture, or it isn’t. And even if the chef or manager
disagrees, I’ve never seen a situation where the response
was, “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” The chef simply
cooks the steak a bit longer or prepares another one. Wine,
however, is a different animal. First, unless you have a
sommelier or similarly qualified person tasting the wine
before it reaches the table, there isn’t any quality control
before it reaches the client. Second, until you open the
bottle there are very few indications that the wine may be
off. Finally, many restaurant professionals are not familiar
with the major faults one could encounter in a bottle of
wine.

The two most
common faults occur when a wine is either corked or
maderized. Corked is not when there are floating pieces of
cork in the wine, but rather denotes a situation when the
wine has become spoiled because the cork has been infected
with a chemical called 2-4-6 tricloroanisole, otherwise
known as TCA. Medium to high levels of TCA lead to a
noticeable smell of wet cardboard or newspaper. Once smelled
for what it is, it is never forgotten. What gets a little
more difficult is when there is a small amount of TCA, which
is not always noticeable. On the palate the flavors,
especially the fruit notes, are astringent or negligible
with a distinct unpleasant dryness. Maderized is when, at
some point after being bottled, the wine has been subjected
to variable temperatures, especially warm ones. The smell
and taste of maderized wine is a sweet cooked note. Smell a
bottle of Maderia, and you’ll understand immediately what
I’m referring to.

So what can you
do if you do not detect a fault, but a client does, or at
least believes that there is a fault? First, try to
understand exactly what it is about the wine that is being
objected to. Your response to “it’s corked” will be
different from “I just don’t like it”. If the wine truly is
corked, the response is easy: apologize, set the corked
bottle aside for a refund by the importer and offer the
client either a bottle of the same wine or another selection
to replace it. But what if the wine is, in reality,
absolutely fine? This is where the art of diplomacy as part
of being a restaurant professional comes into play. If the
customer doesn’t like the wine, or otherwise insists there
is a fault, gently ask questions to better understand why it
is not acceptable. Is it too much acidity, tannin,
sweetness, a particular flavor, or is it not enough fruit,
body or tannin? With this knowledge, regardless of whether
there is really a fault or not, you can help guide the
client to a style of wine that will be much more to their
liking.

It is worth
noting here that there are members of the restaurant
community who support a much more draconian approach to this
dilemma. That is, if a bottle of wine is ordered and opened,
and there is nothing truly wrong with it, that’s unfortunate
but there’s no returning it. Personally, I can’t think of an
easier way to lose a client. At the very least you annoy
them and they never return; at worst you embarrass them by
essentially saying that they don’t know what they’re talking
about and anger them by offering poor customer service. The
argument for such an approach is that if people can return
any old wine they don’t like, it will cost the restaurant a
lot of money. But the majority of wine that this affects
will not be your 1982 Petrus. In my experience, even at
high-end restaurants, it will be wines that cost you between
five and twenty-five dollars. Spending this kind of money in
order to retain a client is a worthwhile
investment.

Besides, the
money is not really lost; there are easy ways to recover it.
The wine in question simply becomes a wine by the glass
“special” for an evening or two if you have a preservation
system, such as vacuvin or argon gas. You can price the
special offering such that you break even on one glass, with
little impact on your beverage cost; sell two and it’s
profit on service recovery. How often does that happen? You
can help to ensure recovery sales by leveraging modern POS
systems to track which servers sell the special and reward
them with a sales incentive. Further, any wine from said
bottle is a great opportunity to train your staff. More
often than not, servers do not have a chance to taste the
majority of the wine list. By education, your servers can
now recommend a bottle with confidence, which always equals
higher sales.

Thus, with a
combination of service, product recovery, sales incentives
and education, a potentially negative situation is
transformed. In this difficult business, we do not get as
much feedback as we would like in order to ensure that every
guest who walks through our door will return. With the right
recovery plan, when a client wishes to return a bottle of
wine, you can confidently use the opportunity to take
feedback, better understand their needs and, rather than
turning off a client, achieve the brass ring – a repeat
guest.