Completion of the Course

You want to win friends and not bore them.

Most guests expect not only pleasant service but correct service also and will reward you more if the service is up to their expectations.

A wine towel or napkin is often called a serviet. It catches wine drips but if you roll the bottle about a half turn as you finish pouring a glass, you may not need the napkin.

Any tool can be used to remove a cork from a wine bottle, but some are more efficient and make less of a mess than others.

Filtering out solids and oxygenating an older wine are reasons to decant. But ceremony is not a primary or even a secondary reason to decant.

Unless you have a prix fixe menu with a wine pairing that the chef has chosen, it is likely that guests will have different wine and food tastes. Thus let each guest choose their wine even if it is just by the glass.  You will have more wine sales that way.

For choosing the best wine match to his or her meal, each guest may want to know what choices are available.

Chilling suppresses all wine aromas but those white wine aromas are usually stronger than red wine aromas and can still be appreciated at cooler temperatures than red wine.

Drinking temperatures that are too cold suppress wine aromas and if too warm, let alcohol evaporation interfere with the enjoyment of red wine aromas.

Sparkling wines can be chilled more than most wines because the bubbles carry the aromas to the nose and the colder temperature makes the wine more refreshing.

Direct, cold temperature contact is needed to chill the fastest. Salted ice water gets colder (lower freezing point) than plain ice water. Practically, though, just ice water without salt is used in restaurants and will chill a bottle rapidly

Heat can dramatically affect and destroy chemicals in wine that govern aroma and taste.

There are accepted protocols for food and wine service. You should be aware of them.

The goal is to have the guests finish their glass of wine all at the same time and by giving a lower pour amount than would use up the entire bottle at once, you will have more wine left to refill glasses of those who drink faster.

If the outside of the cork starts crumbling, you don't want to continue using a perforating corkscrew. The Ah-so cork remover is less likely to allow the wine side of the cork crumble because you are placing the prongs on the side of the cork, not thru it.

If the wine tastes off, a cork can give clues for what the problem might be so it is saved for the guest but a screwtop doesn't give you any such information.

Because sparkling wines are under high bottle pressure care must be taken not to injure others from a flying cork and glass shards. Sabering a Champagne bottle is done at the junction of the neck and shoulder of the bottle but it is NEVER a good idea in a restaurant because of pieces of glass flying uncontrollably

Decanting is used to remove any settled particles as well as to introduce oxygen to the wine which may enhance favorable flavor-inducing chemical reactions. Older red wines are much more likely to have sediment and they may be in need of a dose of oxygen to "open up" with their aromas.

Small amounts of retained wine or water from rinsing after previous pours can change the taste of new or different wines.

Women before men, and the host filled up last.

A wine opened for one hour even in direct sunlight will not taste oxidized. It would take longer especially for a young wine.

Dessert wines are almost always sweeter than food wines with natural sugars preserved by stopped fermentation of the wine grapes. Most dessert wines produced commercially do not have added sugars after fermentation is stopped. The sweetness is from the natural sugars left in the wines when fermentation is stopped before all the grape sugars are fermented into alcohol

Labels on sparkling wines will let you know the sweetness levels of the wine from very dry to sweet. From less sweet to more sweet, those labels are: brut natural, brut, extra dry, sec, demi-sec, and doux

Sparkling wines from outside of the Champagne region of France go by different names. Wines that are produced in other areas of France outside of the Champagne region, but using the traditional production method used by Champagne (méthode champenoise or traditional method), are called Crémant

complementary tastes in acidity, soft with soft or hard with hard, usually make the best pairings

Acidic foods are considered to produce a "hard" or "sharp" mouthfeel and food with wine is best paired with similar mouthfeels so as not to make the wine tastes funny.

Some methods are better than others to remove red wine stains from textiles. But hot water can "fix" a stain and make it more difficult to remove with washing

Room air contains about 20% oxygen and it is the oxygen that spoils the wine if the wine is exposed to it for too long

Balance in food is best matched with a wine that is balanced

acidity in wine is relative and depends upon how low the pH is

A dry wine is simply not sweet and it may or may not be astringent. Astringency is usually due to tannins from red grape skins or even from tannins in oak barrels

Pair the food to match the acidity level

Capsaicin in peppers, or even piperine, which causes the hotness in black pepper, is extracted additionally from the lining of the mouth by alcohol in wine and while you may enjoy the "hotness" in the food you have chewed, it often tends to ruin the taste of subsequent wine by overpowering it.

Matching the fullness of the wine with the fullness of the food or the sauce (whichever gives the"heaviest" feel) keeps the food and wine in balance for a good pairing

Good pairings may or may not make the food taste better but they usually make the wine taste better because they condition your mouth. Bad pairings tend to make the wine, not the food, taste worse.

Fish and shellfish are light bodied food and can be paired with light red wines such as Pinot Noir produced in cool climates. Red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat is only a guideline that has many exceptions.

All are good pairings except for high alcohol (above 14.0% abv) with spicy pepper food. Zinfandels and Syrahs are very often higher in alcohol at 14.5% abv or more and are ruined with high capsaicin food.

Oils in certain fishes can clash with fruit tastes in younger wines. If you need to pair wines with oily fish, the wines do better if they are older than 5 years old and their the fruit tastes have become more muted.

Any food that is smoked or roasted will carry aromas and tastes similar to or that pair well with that of oak barrels used for aging wines.

Tannic wines tend to balance out fat and salt and ribeye steaks are usually fatty and cooked with moderate salt

California Chardonnay wines that have been oaked, tend to be full-bodied wines or at least not very light, andat are lower in perceived acidity than a wine such as a Sauvignon Blanc or Albariño wine because they commonly go through malolactic fermentation which softens the acids.

Cabernet Sauvignon wines often have moderate tannins similar to black coffee or strong tea. Tannins in wine are often a defining taste preference

"Engaged newcomers" are usually quite interested in learning about wines and have questions, as opposed to an "image seeker" who just goes by price as quality, or a "satisfied sipper" who only wants their favorite wine every time.

A response of "fine" with no other comments usually is just a guest's polite way of not offending you, the server, when in fact there was something they did not like about their food or wine. It is important to proceed and get more feedback for you future recommendations

Distilled spirits and cocktail drinkers are generally accustomed to high alcohol levels (albeit in a smaller volume) than those in wines. Thus higher alcohol wines are more in balance for their tastes

Eating food usually slows down the absorption of alcohol in the stomach as it is mixed with other liquids and foods.

There are many myths about what a drunk guest should do to sober up but most don't help or may be harmful. Time for the body to clear the alcohol from the system is the only treatment that helps.

Behavior changes can be red flags of a guest who has become inebriated, but raising toasts would not usually be considered a red flag for drunkenness, whereas loss of balance, aggression, boisterous behavior or slurring of words would be red flags.

There should be a plan to have several staff participate to keep a drunken guest away from other guests. Be sure you know what the plan is and how to launch it.

The situation needs to be deescalated. Refrain from touching the guest since an inebriated guest may get angry when touched by someone other than a close friend.