Fine wine serving at a dinner table doesn’t require that you have a traditional wine tavern to do it properly. All you need is to know the do’s and don’t’s, as well as the proper etiquette of wine serving at the dinner table whenever you have guests in your place. And everything should be in their correct order.
Wine service is the standard serving of wine bottles to guests at fine dining. It usually comes with a wine waiter or a sommelier and a wine server in providing a perfect wine to your dearest visitors. So let’s take you for wine tours to enlighten you with some of the best wine service manners and decorum you can achieve even at a small restaurant you have.
The Rightful Way of Serving Wine
Serving wine etiquettes is a broad and extensive art to learn. Some countries even have their own academy to train and educate aspiring sommeliers to serve wine properly. But here, this will only discuss some of the fundamental procedures of wine in service that anyone can perform.
1. Prepare a List of Available Wine to Present to Your Guests. All the guests who ordered wine service should be presented with a list of available wine. This is the first step you need to perform whenever you are serving wine to customers. So list down all the wines you have at your bar and present it formally to each guest. Remember, do not put the wine list at the guest’s dining table; instead, it should be personally handed over to each guest.
Customers may be asking some inquiries about the wine list, so whatever question they may throw, you should be fully prepared for the answers. Some frequently asked questions would be about the quality of the wine, the perfect food pair with a particular wine, and even wine vintages.
Single orders of wine glasses do not require full wine service. As an alternative, orders are sent to the wine bar to be poured individually by the bartender before sending it back to the table.
2. Prepare a Set of Wine Glasses. Wines have different kinds, such as red, white, and sparkling. And these kinds of wines are served separately in various sorts of wine glasses. So as a restaurant owner, you should be fully aware of this and impart this knowledge to your bartenders and waiters.
Serving wine glasses should be free of stains, blemishes, and even fingerprints. So, make sure to inspect all wine glasses before serving them to guest tables, or better yet, wear a pair of gloves. Wine glasses must also be placed on the right-hand side of each guest at the dinner table.
3. Know the Serving Temperature for each Wine. This is an essential yet often neglected factor in wine service. Wine serving temperature differs for each type of wine, whether red, white, or sparkling. You should prepare a wine refrigerator to easily control the temperature for each kind of wine.
The appropriate temperature must be below room temperature for red wines, usually between sixty-two to sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. While white wines and roses should be served chilled between fifty to fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Sparkling wines need to be stored at fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, but providing them to guests should be brought down to between forty to forty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
4. The Proper Way of Opening Wine Bottles. This procedure in wine service could be challenging for some as it requires proper handling and experience to deliver it correctly. Opening wine bottles need to be performed before the guest table if they ordered a full wine bottle. So, if you struggled in opening them, you denied your guest of wine service etiquette.
In opening a wine bottle, always remember holding them in the air and never placing them down on the guest table. Announce the details of the wine to the guest for confirmation before opening it. Then carefully remove the cork from the bottle with your wine key.
Clean the lip of the wine bottle and cork after opening it. Then present it to the guest by placing them down on the guest table to match the wine details with the bottle. Afterward, you can proceed with pouring the wine.
5. Pouring Wine Etiquette. Once the guest has approved the wine bottle, you can proceed with the wine pouring. In most cases, the oldest woman at the dining table is served first, then always pour the wine glasses at the right-hand side of each guest. Estimate each pour to deliver an entire bottle of wine to all guests at the dining table. Never pour wine more than half of the glass.