A true blind tasting! I had opened and decanted 12 Bordeaux 89 for a tasting and placed on a service table in a certain order with the correct bottle placed behind each decanter. We had clearly specified that we would pour own wines and that I o one was supposed to touch them. While we were enjoying a nice champagne I noticed a waiter walking away with the bottles and the Somm haphazardly placing the decanters on the dining table. We will never know the maker of the superb glass #5.
I am REFUSING to buy that from a man who worked at Archery Summit back in the DAY.
Those were dark times my friend.
I always wondered what that extra complexity was in the PG wines.
now we know.
Got a fun story from back in the day, I guess it could fall into this topic…
A while back, some friends and I went to an open house at a bigger winery in Santa Ynez. Mostly couples but I was solo with another guy. Two of our friends are female and crazy wild. We all get pretty drunk but the ladies took it to another level. They find the barrel room and we sneak in there. Walking around they start getting frisky and begin making out. Things start getting loud and the assistant winemaker comes in and busts them.
After carefully reevaluating the situation he asks if we want to do something cool…SURE!! He takes us in his car and drives us down the property to another facility. Another barrel room where he claims to be really into photography and would like to photograph our female friends if they are up for it…SURE!!
He pulls out his camera and a smoke machine and gets to work! Our friends before long have next to nothing on and having a special type of barrel tasting. I think they made this guy’s dream come true and kept all of us entertained for hours.
A crazy time from a long time ago…
My wife puts ice in all wines except champagne. I try to get her to at least taste the wine before “ruining” it with ice. It is where I learned that there is no accounting for tastes. Even though it breaks my heart to see her do this I have given up trying to change her preference.
And we have a winner!!
Did the guy share the pictures with you? Asking for a friend.
That’s one I’ve never seen. Did you accept the wine?
OK, we need a copy of that video.
Around 1990, NE Philadelphia - tradition for my sister’s in-laws was to go to a diner on Roosevelt Boulevard for Thanksgiving dinner. A bit institutional, but not the worst turkey and dressing I’ve had (or made).
Sister orders rose, waitress goes behind the bar and grabs a bottle of house red and a bottle of house white, and blends a house rose.
I didn’t say a word, and my sister didn’t see it - but she seemed satisfied with the result. So maybe not so egregious after all.
Yes. I immediately got the cube out with my spoon.
It’s how the Champenois do it – that waitress was on to something 
The junior sommelier at Tour d’Argent in Paris dropped my fork and duck into my glass of Chave. Took the glass away, poured out my wine, and never said another word.
Rather tame by the standards of some on this thread, but…
In the mid-eighties I was at a tasing room in Napa very near to closing time. As we were finishing up a group of very obviously inebriated Australians came in. The tasting room attendant told them they were closing up and didn’t have any wine to serve them. They laughed, and proceeded to pass around the dump bucket. They chugged it until it was dry.
Like the other William, I had a similar experience in France, but at a one star Michelin in the country rather than at the formerly three star Tour d’Argent. The server poured red wine into a glass that was one quarter full of white wine, removed the glass, and never said another word. My French guests said that was what they expected.
At a Super Bowl party long ago, a guy pours a 64 Chateau Latour in a plastic cup and chugs it down like a can of beer.
Sister orders rose, waitress goes behind the bar and grabs a bottle of house red and a bottle of house white, and blends a house rose.
Not quite at Ryan’s level with the barrel room story, but this is a great one. Think about how smart they were - they didn’t need to keep track of extra SKUs and they could ask you if you like a darker or a lighter rosé. I’ve never actually seen that but I bet it’s more common than we might think.
I have actually done this on a couple of occasions (over about five decades) when confined with indifferent white wine served way to warm as aperitif.
Many years ago I worked for a few months as the wine waiter in a Sydney restaurant. A couple of guests, husband and wife, made a request for some ice, and would then drop a cube or two in their glasses of red wine as they drank.
These were not Australians (whom one would have inevitably judged) but actually a French couple on holiday and that somehow made it entirely ok. In fact, it’s only as I write this, some 30 years after the fact, that I wonder if it was their way of dealing with bigger, stronger wines than they might have been used to.
Kinda had this in reverse. Invited to a Christmas party. Invite said bring a bottle of wine or a dessert. Contacted the hostess and learned that she was doing Italian cuisine, big-time, labor-intensive, homemade. So we brought 1 bottle of Barolo and 1 bottle of one Chard (maybe $20). Why Chard? Because I knew the hostess loves it, and we brought one of her known favorites. 2 people, 2 bottles of wine.
Turns out, most people brought cheap drugstore wine. 1 bottle for 4-6 people at less than $5 per bottle. Then they, in the hostess’s words later, proceeded to eat everything in sight. My husband and I took one look at the cheap juice on offer then my husband quietly opened “our” Barolo. In that way, we could at least start w/decent juice. As the party wore on, I never did see that bottle of Chardonnay brought out. Well, later the hostess confessed that she was rather upset at some attendees taking unfair advantage. So she took the Chard up to her bedroom closet so she could have it on Christmas Eve.
Can’t say I blame her, and I told her just that. In future years, some of those guests were no longer invited.