Saturday, January 24, 2015

Should I expect good wine service when I am ordering a $50 steak?

Why, yes, I should.

We had delicious filets. The salad and sides were more than satisfactory. The timing of the presented food was spot on. Our bus person was prompt and courteous.

But I left extremely tweaked over this bottle of wine while dining at Buckhead's.

Chateau Cantenac

A nice Bordeaux. Not the most expensive item on the list; not the cheapest either. Our waiter opened the bottle and presented without a hitch. And then we never saw him again until it was time for dessert/coffee. I was forking over $50 for a hunk of beef and I could not get decent wine service?? I want to support local restaurants, but the upscale chain steakhouses have the service bit nailed. Sadly, Buckhead's did not demonstrate this concept when we dined. Maybe I have to order a $200 bottle? Is there a wine service monetary threshold?

Many years ago before I even started this blog we dined at Buckhead's and the waiter then attempted to steer me towards a wine that I already knew I did not like. He assumed I knew zilch and thought I was taking too much time perusing the multi-paged list. And the evening spiraled from there. We forgot about Buckhead's for a long time. When we finally returned we still experienced wine issues.

At least our waiter did not lay some wine BS on us like he did at a neighboring table.

Bottom line - if I have to pour my own wine, I want my meal to be comparably priced.

1 comment:

Hank Langford said...

I kind of prefer to not have my glass filled when I order a bottle. It makes me feel rushed when the guy keeps topping me up, also tannic steak wines need to open up, the wine I
've been swirling and enjoying and watching evolve gets killed the moment the guy splashes fresh wine into my glass. For good wine service I do expect the wine to be stored and served at the correct temperature, proper stemware and of course the list should be well thought out and interesting.