Excuse Me, This Wine Tastes Funny

What's the rule of thumb when someone has a good experience in a restaurant? They tell two friends. When they have a bad experience, they tell at least four friends. And if the experience was memorably bad, the story is retold for years and years.

This begs the question: "Is refusing to take back a bottle of wine -- even one that you know is perfectly fine -- important enough to destroy a relationship with an existing customer and a dozen or so of his closest friends?"

Almost invariably, the answer is "no." The reasons folks return or don't return bottles is driven by their own sensitivity, expertise and expectations, which can run the gamut. Sometimes the guest may perceive the wine as "off" when it's perfectly fine. Or the wine simply might not have met their expectations.

In some cases, flaws may go undetected by a guest. For example, it is not unusual that people don't pick up on a bottle with volatile acidity. In this case, this is more harmful than sending back the good bottle, since they will not fully enjoy the wine, without realizing why. This is one reason why you and your servers need to be aware of common flaws, so you can help your customers avoid a bad wine experience, when their own palates and noses are not sufficiently refined. Another reason to become attuned to wine flaws is so that you are able to determine whether a returned bottle is actually fine, and fit to be sold by the glass. (For more information, see "Terms of Art: Wine Quality Terminology You Should Know," on Page 50 of this issue.)

The good news is that the incidence of returned bottles "is not very common," says Joe DiGiovanni, owner of Joe D's Winebar and Joe D's in Kansas City, Missouri. "I think it happens six to 10 times a year and usually the bottle is bad," he says. "The ones I worry about are the bad bottles that don't get sent back and the customer has a bad experience that we don't know about."