“The treatment of noble wines in noble restaurants
Producers of noble wines are looking after a cultural heritage of mankind. What are restaurateurs, especially the big ones, doing with it? After more than three decades of experience in gastronomy, I have to say that mistakes that compromise wine quality are being made in too many top-class restaurants, even by well-trained sommeliers. One essential reason is that there are not enough of these specialists at all. In most restaurants, there is only one person responsible for wine service. He or she needs knowledgeable people on the staff. In my experience, this is rarely the case. Noble wine doesn’t look noble at all when served at the wrong temperature. If you don’t know what’s good, what’s right, what’s best, you might think the wrong temperature is normal. And, out of habit, some people may even find it pleasant. But in truth it’s a diminished pleasure.
In many restaurants, white wines are kept fairly cold. Red wines, on the other hand, often come from cellars that are too warm. A wine that’s too cold is a flaw, but one that can easily be corrected. The cold removes the aromas and pleasant nuances for which the customer has paid. Normally, all you have to do is leave the bottle at room temperature for them to reappear. Heat doesn’t disappear so quickly. By bringing out various unpleasant constituents of the wine, it spoils its taste. When I started publishing restaurant reviews 30 years ago, I got into the habit of arming myself with a wine thermometer. The laughter that this provoked soon ceased, as patrons and sommeliers realized, thanks to my thermometer, just how wrong they were about the temperature of their wines. The thermometer was my best weapon against the assertion, which I often heard, that the establishment’s red wine was correctly 18 degrees Celsius when it was actually 24. The same was true of the whites, which were often 14 to 16 instead of the correct maximum of 10.
When it comes to mistreating wines, I can establish a hierarchy. The most common is wine that’s too hot. Next comes poor decanting, or even forgetting to decant. Then there’s wine that’s too cold, in most cases because it’s been left in the ice bucket for too long. Finally, wine in the wrong glass. Fine dining is very conservative. So I can’t hope that the faults I observed many years ago in a given establishment are not always committed there. Committed in German, French, Italian, English, Iberian, Belgian and Dutch restaurants. Not at all in restaurants with bad reputations. On the contrary – they were usually very good places to eat. Digging through my notes, I counted 25 restaurants with one Michelin star, 20 with two and, I could hardly believe it, 14 with three. Fortunately, I know many restaurants where the wines are treated properly, and with them the customers. But these are not my subject here. The list of faults I’m about to continue was born, as I said, in too many good restaurants not to sound the alarm. Some sixty of them!
My first alarming experience was almost 30 years ago. In May/June 1973 in Frankfurt, I visited a Michelin-starred “Weinstube” called “Heyland” several times. The food there was very bad. But much worse was the red Bordeaux at 28 degrees. The boy even said he’d prefer it at 30! Shortly afterwards, in Paris, a three-star establishment. It couldn’t have been more illustrious than Maxim’s. There, on November 19, 1973, I attended the annual gala dinner of “Traditions & Qualité”, the club of 3-star chefs and a few others almost as good. The crème de la crème for food and wine, surely. The main drink was champagne, and most of the wines were beyond reproach. But Chambolle-Musigny, already quite venerable, had 23 degrees, and a lot of deposit. In 1980, at the star-rated “Ente” in Wiesbaden, it was a white that was far too hot. An Auslese served with foie gras mousse, at 26 degrees, more tiring than pleasant. So, into the bucket! The waiter forgot about it, and in the end the wine was too cold, barely 7 degrees. Some four weeks later I was in Chagny, Burgundy, for the first time. “Lameloise”, 3 stars.
The 11-degree Champagne was far from perfect. Further south, on the Mediterranean, “L’Oasis” in La Napoule, 3 stars: lukewarm Chardonnay. Soon after, a 3-star in Paris: “Le Vivarois”. The whites: very good. But the 1969 Morey St. Denis at Denis at 26 degrees incredibly and unforgivably hot. When I asked the sommelier to chill it, he agreed wholeheartedly: Yes, this wine could stand that too. When I showed him the real temperature on my thermometer, he finally agreed with me that the wine was really too hot. A three-star sommelier… Other 3-stars: Georges Blanc in Vorulas: Montrachet at 16 degrees. In the South-East, Roger Vergé at “Moulin de Mougins”. The sommelier had promised to leave our 1976 Bordeaux Lascombes in the cellar until the last moment, so he finally brought it to us at 20 degrees. The same year, the reds at Inverlochy Castle in Scotland, a hotel-restaurant famous for its treasure trove of wines, were also too hot.
Orléans has long been home to a 2-star restaurant, La Crémaillère. I only remember one episode from my visit in September 1986. “Rather lukewarm”, said the waiter when he brought me my Pouilly Fumé. And he was right. 2 stars also adorned the “Traube Tonbach” in Germany. In July 86, a particularly scorching summer, rosé was served far too hot, and the reds a few degrees too hot. During VINEXPO 1991, I ate at “La Chamade” in Bordeaux. It too had a Michelin star, which I didn’t think deserved. I had invited a lady from SOPEXA, a specialist. She too, like me, judged the white wine much too hot, the red a little. Change of scene: England, 1992. “L’Ortolan” in Reading, French, 2 stars. For food, this was our best experience of this tour of reputed establishments. But after a wonderful 1988 Chassagne Montrachet Grand Cru les Vergers at perfect temperature, the 1981 Figeac that the sommelier had promised us at 16 to 18 degrees was more like 20, 2l.
In 1996, the series is set to continue. First in Périgord, near the famous caves with their cave paintings, in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac at the “Hôtel du Centenaire”, 2-star restaurant: Hot champagne as aperitif A few weeks later, at the “Château des Reynats, Restaurant l’Oison” near Périgueux, 1 star, Riesling Falier, cuvée Théo 1994: The first bottle too hot, the second even hotter. The red was less catastrophic, but also too hot. The following year, here’s what happened to me in Belgium, in a 3-star establishment in Bruges, the “Karmeliet”. To our modest order of a Ladoucette Pouilly Fumé, the sommelier remarked: “Classic, but good. But the wine was so hot that even in a bucket full of ice cubes, it didn’t come down to the correct temperature until the bottle was almost empty. Also in Belgium, at the highly recommendable 2-star “Lafarque” hostelry in Pépinster, Ladoucette would have been delighted with the temperature of his Pouilly. On the other hand, Monsieur Guigal would not have appreciated his Côte Rôtie, which was warm. The reds were generally too hot, even though they had just come out of the cellar.
Italy. 3-star “Don Alfonso” in Sant’ Agata sui due Golfi, not far from Sorrento, opposite Capri. The temperature of the red was well over 20 degrees. The same thing happened in Turin at the one-star “Balbo”. Two months later in Burgundy, at Saint-Rémy near Chalon-sur-Saône. At “Moulin de Martorey”, one star, the red was fine. This surprised us, as the white before, Château de Fussy, had been too hot, and the waiter couldn’t get any more ice cubes into the bucket, which was running out. End of the same year, in Holland. “Inter Scaldes” in Kruillingen, 2 stars. The sommelier, visibly overworked, constantly left open the door to the large air-conditioning room that could be seen from our table. So we weren’t otherwise surprised by the warmth of our white wines, especially the Condrieu from Guigal. As you can see, we’re getting close to the present. In one of Berlin’s most renowned houses, “Der Hugenotte” at the 1-star Hotel Intercontinental, we were astonished to hear the proud information from the sommelier that the red wine cabinet was set at 20 degrees – too hot, in other words! – and when we got to the room, the wine would be 22 degrees and correct.
3 stars in England: “Waterside Inn”, Bray-on-Thames. The Madiran, 1994 Montus, which we had expressly ordered at cellar temperature, arrived at room temperature. In Berlin, the “Vivaldi” at the Ritz-Carlton-Schlosshotel, Grunewald, presents itself as one of the capital’s noblest restaurants. But there I had to send my red wine, Château Beaucastel, back 3 times to cool it down. I made it clear that I needed a bucket with lots of water and very little ice. 3 times the wine came back as warm as before. By the 4th time, however, the decanter was covered in mildew and the wine was freezing cold. We’d put it in the freezer! A few days earlier in Munich, ristorante “Aquarello”, 1 star: the red was too hot. We put the bottle in the bucket that had previously been used for the white. Another such disappointment in Joigny sur Yonne, the “Côte St. Jacques”, again 3 stars in 2000. All the wines were too hot, and seeing the sommelier decant even the Guigal Condrieu was not enough consolation. Late summer 2001, Germany, Restaurant “Windmühle” near Bad Oeynhausen, 2 stars, Chassagne Montrachet, 1er Cru Morgeaut, some 18 degrees. The maître d’hôtel, who also acted as sommelier, complained: “Any fresher and its aroma would disappear. Château Beaucastel, ordered at cellar temperature, was almost as hot as the dining room. A few weeks later, at the 2-star “Résidence” in Kettwig: Cognac at 22 degrees. Worse still, in Paris at “59 Poincaré”, a restaurant inspired and overseen by Alain Ducasse: Cognac at 27 degrees!
Another source of faults for wines in restaurants is the widespread reluctance to decant red wines, which is necessary to aerate them or, more importantly, to free them from their sediment. The first time I was surprised by this was at the 3-star Lameloise. The bottle was brought to our table with great circumspection, but as I put it in the basket, the waiter shook it hard. Then he poured the entire contents with aplomb into the decanter, deposit included. We found it, of course, in our glasses. In Paris at the 3-star “Vivarois”, the sommelier shook our 1969 Hermitage in his pouring basket so hard that we could see the deposit from our very first glass.
“La Tour d’Argent”, 3 stars even more famous, February/March 1981. The sommelier brought the red cautiously into his basket. But he couldn’t keep his hand steady enough until decanting, and our glasses were graced with lots of deposit. At “Lasserre”, also 3 stars, the waiter brought our 1971 Pavie in a basket but stirred it copiously. It was also too hot for the snack. So I asked him to give us another, fresher one, from the cellar if possible, with no deposit. Returning with the new bottle, he said in a very bad mood: “2 degrees less” and put the basket with the bottle on the table with such a shock that we couldn’t be surprised, later, at the deposit in our glasses. Very chic, famous restaurant, the “Bristol” in Paris, 2 stars. Our wonderful vintage 196l Cantemerle, then 13 years old, was so shaken by the waiter that we could only hope that the deposit would be distributed so finely that we wouldn’t notice it. Then he decanted – without a candle. Probably he didn’t want to look at what he’d done.
A few months later I returned to the same place, and once again I asked for this “Cantemerle”. This time the bottle had been decanted elsewhere, where I couldn’t observe it. But the deposit in my glass was very visible. For the next experiment of this kind I sat down, literally, in December 1985, in a strange place: a train. Not just any train. With this one, SNCF hoped to gain a lot of fame and at the same time take customers away from Air Inter. A luxury train with a restaurant was set up between Strasbourg and Paris. It left Strasbourg in the morning and returned in the evening. It was designed for the business world, and the SNCF called it “La Nouvelle Première”. But it was not, of course, closed to tourists. The inspiration for this rolling restaurant was none other than Joël Robuchon, one of the greatest chefs of the time. The wine list was compiled by Hemi Gault, another renowned specialist. All very tempting. In those days, however, there were no rail links like the TGV, especially not between Paris and Strasbourg. The train sometimes reached speeds of 160 km/hour. The dining car was not adapted to these conditions. On the tables, glasses slid from left to right. On bends, they tilted sharply and had to be held in the hand.
There was Les Forts de Latour 1974. Not a wonderful year, but drinkable. I thought it should be decanted, and in this unstable car I expected a veritable dance of the sommelier. But he wasn’t even trying. Then came what was to be feared. There was already a huge deposit in the bottle, about halfway up. Disgruntled, I put our bottle a little to one side in the optimistic hope of giving the wine some peace. But then the “Steward” arrived at once, grabbed the bottle and filled our glasses with great gusto, and with a black cloud. He was obviously crazy to choose such a wine for such a train. In 1993 I returned to the “Tour d’Argent” in Paris. A young boy poured Montus 1985 into the decanter to the last drop. As a result, the last glass was no longer drinkable due to its thick deposit. In 1994, we dined several times at Joël Robuchon’s new palatial restaurant in Paris. Despite his patronage of the train à dépôt, we couldn’t blame him for the SNCF’s shakiness. Yet here, after a faultless white, we were served Château Pavie 1985 – and left quite a bit of deposit in the last glass.
On New Year’s Eve 1994, a new variant of art presented us with the 1-star “Café de Paris” in Biarritz. Our reds – first Pavie 1983, then Giscours 1988 – were raised upright, shaken in all directions (with no ill intent, of course) and finally poured with great energy into the decanter … without a candle! So how could we not expect a deposit? On the island of Rügen, in 1996, in the pleasant Hotel “Sonnenhaken”, the glass in which I was to taste the 1990 Châteauneuf de Beaucastel already contained a fair amount of sediment. Well, here it wasn’t possible to decant, according to the waitress, because the only decanter had been broken. We hadn’t yet found one that pleased the boss… May 1996, Périgord. At the “Centenaire”, we decanted our Hermitage 1988 from Chave in such a clumsy way that the deposit only changed places twice: from the bottle into the decanter, and from there into our glasses.
1997 was to bring me other memorable experiences. The first was at the famous 3-star Ducasse restaurant in Paris, where we were treated extremely well – except by the sommelier. Mugneret’s Clos de Vougeaut 1985 was not decanted, apparently on principle. So we decided that day that the depot shouldn’t bother us. The same year, at Don Alfonso’s, a 3-star Italian restaurant, the sommelier brought in some Ornellaia 1989, shook it well, put the bottle in the pouring basket and disappeared. After a moment he returned with a candle to decant. To aerate the wine and rid it of sediment,” he says. But then you shouldn’t have shaken the bottle and stood it up,” I said. But he’d brought it back from the cellar very carefully,” he replied. In the spring of 1998, I took another tour of Italy. Restaurant “AI Sorriso” in Soriso, Piedmont, 3 stars: the waitress placed a candle so that she couldn’t see anything in the bottle, and then poured everything into the decanter.
The deposit in my glass didn’t surprise me. In Boves, “AI Rododendro”, 2 stars. Ceretto 1985 Barolo, well shaken before filling the glasses. “Decanting was fashionable last year, now it’s not,” I heard with surprise. Outside the Netherlands, it’s a little known fact that there are some first-rate restaurants here. These include the 2-star “Kaatje bij de Sluis” in Blokzijl. Here, too, the red wine, Lagune 1989, was left standing before decanting, which no longer made sense. Among the restaurants where bottles of red wine are shaken excessively, the 2-star “Gill” in Rouen has a special place. That was in March 1999. Two days later in Brittany at the 1-star “Château de Loquénolé”, we had, once again, our undecanted wine full of deposits, Beaucastel 1991. “We decant when we want to, but it’s rare,” says the sommelier.
Also in Brittany, “Moulin de Rosmadec”, 1 star. L’ Hermitage la Chapelle de Jaboulet, 1985, very agitated. The sommelier: “We never decant this one. You have to be careful and pour with caution”. That’s right. Our glasses were full of deposits. At the 2-star Divellec in Paris at the end of May ’99, our 1993 Pichon Baron was brought to us in a pouring basket. Fortunately, it was left on our table, which is rare in this type of restaurant. At the end, I was very careful to leave the rest with the deposit in the bottle. Nothing to be done: the sommelier arrived at once, grabbed the bottle and threw everything that remained in my glass, which then contained almost more deposit than wine. Another way in which the quality of fine wine is often compromised is in glasses for white wine. In principle, people in the food service industry know that wine needs to be aerated, that it needs to develop through contact with air. This is why, in contrast to beer, wine glasses are never completely full in good restaurants, as opposed to wijnstube of all kinds with their regular wine. In principle!
For red wines, over time, larger, more voluminous glasses became the norm. Always with the rule that they should never be filled, that the ideal is one third, at most half. Most classy restaurants use these glasses. However, the lover of good white wine – and almost everyone is a lover of white with fish or white poultry dishes before switching to red for the meat dish and cheese – the lover of white wine is very often at an inexplicable disadvantage. He is almost always reserved the smallest glass in the trio that normally sits on his table, the third, often the largest, being reserved for water. But white wine too, at least the noble kind, needs space and air to flourish. Water doesn’t. I’ve often offended boys in respectable establishments by insisting that they put water in a small glass and white in a large one. Sometimes I hear that they warm up too quickly in the large glass.
It’s a stupid argument. It could only be true if the wine wasn’t fresh enough to begin with. And it greatly underestimates the fact that most people are thirstier at the beginning, with their white, than afterwards with their red. It also shows how little attention is paid to what actually happens at the table: the smaller the glasses, the quicker they’re empty. In principle, at a table with several guests, a waiter should always be there to refill the glasses on time. But there aren’t enough waiters to do this. So the large glass is not only better for the wine, but also a natural courtesy to the customer. In the end, the small glass deprives the customer of the opportunity to fully experience the aromas and optimal taste to which he is entitled. I was surprised to see particularly tiny white wine glasses at the 2-star “Ritz” restaurant in Paris. There were some on our table too. That was a long time ago, in October 1984; perhaps there are better ones today. At the Bristol, too, the white wine glasses were the smallest. At the “Relais de la Poste” in Magesq in the Landes, also a 2-star establishment, at the end of ’91, even the glasses for red wine were tiny.
In the final analysis, it’s clear that all these shortcomings in the treatment of wine stem precisely from those whose job it is to look after it, i.e. the sommeliers themselves. Let’s be clear: we know some excellent sommeliers and, more recently, sommelières. But since additional staff are often lacking, most sommeliers have to do everything themselves. So he or she can’t serve everyone to the best of their ability, especially in a busy room. This is a definite disadvantage for all those who, because of the lack of service, don’t have the opportunity to savor the noble wine to its full potential.
In Holland, near Haarlem, we met an overworked sommelier at the 2-star “De Bokkedoorns” restaurant. We always had to wait for him to return from a distant corner of the room. Wines were served long after the dishes they were supposed to accompany. In Lyon, at the 2-star “Léo de Lyon”, about ten years ago, the sommelier gave me, as usual, a few drops to taste our wine, put the bottle aside, forgot to fill our glasses and disappeared. Instead of waiting too long, we finally served ourselves. At the aptly named “Relais de la Poste” in Magescq, things were no better. It was the Sunday lunchtime between the 1991 end-of-year festivities. A crowd of large and small families and groups, a large room full – and only one sommelier. He too, having finally opened our long-awaited bottle, disappeared. Despite our best efforts, the four of us were unable to procure more than one bottle of white wine. Despite our best efforts, the four of us only managed to get one bottle of white and one of red, the latter after an eternal wait. A festive meal! An equally unpleasant experience with a rarely-seen sommelier: “La Bergerie”, 2 stars, in Luxembourg in summer 1999. To conclude: Perhaps you agree with me that we need to make an educational effort so that noble wine, good wine, is not so often the victim of treatments that diminish its quality – and with it, its reputation.