Sommelier Breaks Down How to Order Wine Like a Pro

Hey, I'm Sommelier Andre Hueston Mack,

and today, I'm gonna teach you how to order wine

like a pro in a restaurant.

From picking wines to ordering wines

and to that very first taste.

This is how I drink wine in a restaurant.

So when you're ordering wine in the restaurant,

what are your priorities?

You wanna feel confident in what you're doing

and how you're ordering.

And then probably the most important thing,

you wanna get your money's worth.

And I think that's a common ground that we can all stand on.

This can be extremely, extremely intimidating,

but it doesn't really have to be.

Just some key things that you need to understand

that can make you feel confident in any situation.

I think we should start off with like ordering the wine.

You walk into the restaurant,

when should you order your wine?

When should you be looking at the wine list?

What happens is you sit down, you greet it, you're seated,

you're handed menus and generally a wine list.

They're trying to get you started.

A cocktail or something to drink at the beginning

is somewhat of a pacifier, right?

Like keeps us interested.

We can look at the menu, build an appetite.

Conversely, on the other side.

Generally, you selected the wine

after you chose what food you were gonna have.

Peruse the menu, figure out what you would like

and what other guests at the table are going to be ordering.

And then from that, you can order your wine.

To make for more seamless dining experience,

it's best that you probably choose all the wine

ahead of time.

After you've ordered the food

and then you've ordered the different wines

that you want to have.

A lot of times when there's lots of wine ordered up front,

the server will come over to you

or the sommelier will come over to you

and come up with a game plan on when you'd like

to see those wines and serve which dishes.

So the more information at the beginning

because you're already ordering

means less time that the server

or somebody from the restaurant

has to come back and interrupt.

Let's talk about wine list.

A wine list is just really a list of inventory

and it can be as basic as that.

Here is a wine list.

This has 69 pages in it. It's pretty thorough.

This is from Michelin two star restaurant Saga.

So this is upper echelon.

First thing that you see is wine pairings

and then you have wines by the glass.

This is kind of a window inside the rest of the list.

The wines by the glass should be the foundation

of what the list is built on.

So there'll be offerings here for sections

that they believe deeply in or that they have a depth

and breadth selection on the wine list.

Wines by the glass are generally have been open

or could have been open, you know,

reputable restaurants one day, two days.

And so, some people think

that you may not be getting the freshest,

but also you get to pay a fraction of the price

to just have a glass and not be committed to a bottle.

You do pay a premium.

Some places it could be the bottle cost to the restaurant

just for one glass, right?

That preserves the cost.

Wine is a living breathing thing

and goes bad once it's open and exposed to oxygen.

So ideally, you know, the restaurant wants to be able

to break even by charging what they pay for it by the glass.

From wines by the glass,

you'll jump into your bottle listing,

what they call the list.

From sparkling to white wine to red wine

and maybe to sweet wine

or what they would call dessert wine.

And then from there, it's really broken down geographically

from country, and then from country into region

and so forth.

You're flipping through the list, it doesn't make any sense.

Your mind is turning and spinning

and at this point I feel like you should

summon the sommelier or let your waiter know

that you'd like to talk to someone about wine.

The sommelier is basically a wine waiter.

I talk a lot about guests coming into the restaurant

and just giving up their power completely.

And you shouldn't, you shouldn't give away your power.

The whole idea is that you're an expert in what you like.

The tour guide is there, so you want to convey to them

what wines you'd like to drink for tonight.

In the case of like you not being able to describe

what you like, you can just say we'd love Chilean wine.

And as a sommelier, you know,

we're kind of like detectives, right?

Like trying to pick up clues, trying to figure it out.

Chilean wines, if you like Carmenere from Chile.

You know, we really don't have anything on that list,

but you know, maybe I can find you something.

The most important thing about this whole situation

or the dialogue that we're currently in is the budget.

Have a budget and be upfront and clear about that

so we all know the playing field.

At dinner with your friends, you know,

I think the last thing that you kind of want to be

blurting out is prices of anything.

I've always, you know, encouraged people

to just point to a price point on the wine list.

So you just say, Hey, you know what?

We'd love for you to choose several bottles

of wine for us tonight.

We'd really like to stick around this per bottle.

And then that really conveys to them,

okay, they have their marching orders,

choose the wines based on the dishes coming out

and really the pressure is not on you anymore.

So at this point you can just kind of sit back

and wait for the wines to be presented to you.

When we talk about presentation,

this is probably somewhat more scary to a lot of people

than actually ordering, you know, the wine in initially.

When the wine is presented to you,

it should be presented fully closed.

It means that it hasn't been opened,

it hasn't been manipulated.

What's in the bottle has always been what's in the bottle.

There's exceptions to that rule.

If you came to the restaurant and you asked me, Andre,

you said, Can you select the wines for us?

And I said, Yes, I would show up to your table

with this bottle of wine open

because I tasted it in the back already.

I need to make sure that that wine is tasting the way

that I've known it to taste and reinforce the fact

on why I selected it with those courses.

So I would pour myself a small tiny taste, taste it

and then I would present it to the guests

and say, this is what I have selected for you.

One of the important things here is just to confirm

that all the things on the label were on the wine list.

So this is the correct bottle of wine that you ordered.

You want to get what you paid for.

As it's being presented to you, they'll talk you through it.

They'll say this is Don Melchor, this is Cabernet Sauvignon,

this is 2021.

So you want to pay attention to,

is this the name of the wine that I ordered?

Okay, correct. Is this the varietal that I ordered?

I ordered Cabernet Sauvignon, I ordered the 2021.

Yes, those are all correct.

Secondly, a lot of the wine labels look exactly the same.

So different cuvees can just have a slight name

underneath it and it's just one word that could mean,

you know, two to $300 price hike.

As you're going through confirming these things,

at some point you want to touch the bottle

with the back of your finger and I kind of follow along,

but I touch the bottle, I can touch the label underneath,

but I touch it with the back of my index finger

very ever so slightly.

And that's a way for me to check the temperature

without grabbing it like this when they have it

and putting my hands all over it.

Most red wines in restaurants are served too warm.

When you serve warm wine, it really accentuates the alcohol

and you don't really get to taste the nuances

of like what you paid for.

If it's cold to touch then it should be great,

but if it's not, doesn't have a chill on it or that

upon tasting it just to reconfirm,

you might want to ask them to dip it in an ice bucket

for two or three minutes.

At this point, they're ready to present the wine,

they're ready to open it.

Whoever orders the wine is to be presented the wine

by the sommelier to receive a taste of that wine.

I think a lot of people are nervous at this point.

They're just asking you to bless it. You're the king, right?

They're asking you to bless it.

So you should feel confident in that.

And this is freehand, so I didn't leave the table,

I'm standing right beside you

and a lot of restaurants don't allow this.

They wanted to be on a surface.

So you have it like this and they'll start opening it.

I'm standing here, the label is still here,

so all your guests can still look at me

and see what we order.

And at that point, you know,

the glass is to the right of the guests.

You would go in and pour this taste.

This is kind of the weird part, right?

Where you're just kind of expected to know what to do.

You're supposed to be evaluating the wine,

tasting the wine for soundness.

Really what that means is you're tasting the wine

to see if it's spoiled or if it's gone bad

or is it affected by cork taint.

So swirling the wine.

Swirling the wine is just aerating, right?

So it's been in the bottle anywhere from two years

to 50 years whenever, hasn't received any air.

So when they pour your taste,

you want some of the off odors to blow off, right?

It's been cooped up in the bottle.

So you want to aerate the wine a little bit.

So to get some air into it, you wanna swirl.

At this point, you know, if you're uncomfortable

with taking it off the table like that,

a lot of people just do this.

And you know, this is a way of aerating the wine.

You want to put your nose in it and like don't be afraid.

You know, I got a big nose, so like, you know,

put it in the glass and you want to inhale through your nose

and exhale through your mouth,

opens up your olfactory senses.

You wanted to smell. Are there any off odors?

Does it smell like rotten eggs? Does it smell like vinegar?

Those would be faults

that would indicate that the wine is spoiled.

In this situation,

like it's all can be a learning experience.

So you know, follow your nose,

the person is standing next to you

so you can say the smell, it's like,

Hey, you know, this smells a little off.

Can you like confirm this or can you smell this too?

And they will gladly smell it.

That's how you're learning, right?

Just because you're spending the money

doesn't mean that you can't learn from it.

And I think that's what's great.

If you don't smell any of those,

then you can move on to tasting.

Are you tasting this wine to see if you like this wine?

The answer is no.

You're not tasting the wine to see if you like the wine.

That's not the purpose of this thing.

It is to see if the wine is sound.

If there was a chance or an opportunity

that you said you didn't like this wine

because of the way it tasted,

this would probably be the moment to say that.

So I know I'm wishy-washy like, Dre, what you saying here?

But like to simply taste it and say I don't like it.

Ultimately, in a restaurant,

they're not gonna make you pay for it.

They can take it back, but like that's frowned upon

and that's always a gray area.

At this point, everything's good to go.

All they're looking for is some type of communication,

whether that's a head nod, verbal, thumbs up,

anything like that.

And that just signals to the sommelier

that he should share the wine with your guests.

And now, the fun part and the part that we're all good at

is drinking it.

Peep the scenario. Like we're looking at it.

Yeah, we're at the table, we've been joined some white wine,

they put the white wine on ice, it's on a bucket.

You're like, Okay, should I pour the wine

or should I not pour it?

Depending on what restaurant you are in,

if it's on an ice bucket on the table,

then to me that means that you have access to it,

then you should buy it.

By all means, pour your own wine.

If it was in the ice bucket and off the table

and like on a stand, then I wouldn't go over

and pick it up and pour it.

Get someone's attention, you know, somebody walking by

and you said, Hey, you know,

we'd love a little bit more wine and let them do that work.

We're gonna hop into my mindset here.

I'm working this table and I look at it and say,

okay, all right this person glass is empty

and everybody's really low.

You never wanna get to this point, right?

Where a guest has no wine in their glass.

Because this glass is empty, I would pour this person first,

but even when I come to the table,

everybody has varying levels of wine in the glass.

I would come back in and top everybody else off

and it doesn't single out the person who's drinking fast.

If I only came to the table three times in a row

just to fill up one person, everybody else is noticing me

come to the table and only pouring that one person.

So I would start with that person

and then I would top everybody off very lightly.

If this person is drinking fast,

I wanna make sure I hold some back

because they might drink their wine

before they finish their food,

which would leave you in a place where, you know,

they have half a dish left and the wine is empty.

Ideally, I never want to pour out a bottle of wine

on one initial round of the table, you know?

Now, if it gets up to 12 people or something like that,

I think I've made it around the table, 12 or 13 people,

one bottle of wine.

So being able to pour evenly so everybody got a taste.

So I kind of pride myself in that.

But if there's a five top five people at the table,

six people at the table, one bottle of wine,

I'm gonna pour enough for everybody

to have a taste in their glass

and there'll still be wine leftover.

I get this question all the time, like,

can you bring your own wine to a restaurant?

And most places I believe

that it operates in somewhat of a gray area.

Generally speaking, if you have a liquor license,

you're not allowed to let people bring their own alcohol in.

But a lot of restaurants make an exception to that,

especially here in New York City.

But there is a fee that's associated with

in most restaurants, $5 corkage, $6 corkage,

all the way up to $175 for corkage.

And that's the right to open a bottle of wine

in that restaurant.

Corkage fees are really high

because the restaurants really don't want you

to bring your own wine.

It's kind of like showing up to a steakhouse

with your own ribeye.

They don't really want you to do that,

but they understand, you know, the magic in wine.

They understand that like maybe you have a special bottle

that, you know, that you have sentimental value to

or something like that and you want to enjoy it

with this great meals.

So people aren't just bringing run of the mill bottles,

they're bringing, you know, stuff that generally

in a lot of the high and restaurant,

things that are considered priceless.

The high and the steep corkage fees are there,

so it's not a free for all and you don't negate the system.

It's not to be confused with the BYOB places that,

you know, there's a lot of them in New Jersey

and then, you know, some in New York as well

where they don't have a liquor license

and you're welcome to bring wine in.

It's not as lax or free like that.

Generally speaking, if it's a place that has it,

it uses the term corkage

and they charge you to bring those bottles in,

then that's a different type of BYOB

where you're not hands-on with the bottles

that you bring in, you're expected to surrender those

to the restaurant and they will open it

and do the service on those wines

and bring them to the table at the appropriate time.

Hopefully by walking you through this,

you feel a little bit more confident

that it's really just a head nod and a finger up

and a A-OK, this is meant for everybody.

You too can enjoy wine at any different level.

No matter what the cost of the bottle,

those are all the same steps that you have to go through.

So hopefully that makes you a little bit more comfortable.

If not, hit me in the DM and I'll talk to you some more.

That sounded weird. [laughing]