It has happened to all of us at some time. You order wine in a restaurant, even the wine offered by the glass rather than a whole bottle. You taste it and feel that something is wrong. This happened to me the other night when I dined with a friend at one of my usual haunts. The wine I ordered, by the glass from an opened bottle, was one that I had tasted many times and thought a fine quaff, a Spanish syrah, 2004, a great year. So when I sipped it that evening I had a measure of what it should have tasted like and it didn’t at all. There was a kind of burned rubber taste to it, an indication to me that the bottle from where it was poured was faulty. Because I was a regular customer, the waitress, whom I knew by name, quickly offered to open a new bottle, which tasted fine.

What about tasting a wine that doesn’t feel right in a restaurant where you are not known, an anonymous customer? This is always problematic because when you say it isn’t right, or you feel that something is wrong—cork taint, bad storage—it could be that the wine is in fact faulty or it can mean to a sommelier that you simply do not like the wine, or it doesn’t meet your expectation. But Faulty wines have very distinct traits—the taste of wet cardboard, a sense of barnyard odors, perhaps, as in my case, the taste of rubber. When a sommelier opens the bottle, he should smell the cork, which would reveal this right away; that’s the point of his smelling the opened cork. Pouring from an already opened bottle, obviously he will not do this. Should you say something? Yes, definitely. You can, and should, make your wishes known in regard to wine you think is not right, even if you are not a connoisseur or an experienced taster. Would you not do that if the meal you ordered was too salty, or overcooked, or not hot, or displays another fault? Of course you would. If the restaurant does not replace the wine, then they should lose your business.

When I was in Italy two years ago with my family and a friend of my daughter, we dined at a wonderful restaurant terrace near the beach, and for the occasion I ordered a Brunello, which I usually don’t because it’s not cheap. The first sniff told me it was faulty. I said as much to the waiter, who brought me another bottle. Guess what? The first sniff told me it was faulty as well. Brunello should not taste of cardboard, so again I asked the waiter to replace the bottle, as my family looked on in horror thinking no doubt that I was a snobby wine maven who wanted to assert my authority and show my stuff. The third bottle arrived and again it was not right, same problem. As I grimaced smelling it, my family said not to make a fuss, let’s drink it anyway, and enjoy our dinner, but I called the weary waiter over to report that it was not as it should be. This time, inevitably, the owner of the restaurant came over and asked what the problem was. I explained, he tasted, and we agreed there was a problem. We went through three more bottles before getting one that was not tainted. I was charged for only the good bottle, as it should be.

The point is that for numerous reasons a good wine could be spoiled. As a consumer, this should not be tolerated. If in a restaurant, ask the waiter to take it back, replace it with another bottle. If bought in a store, the same applies. I don’t know the exact statistics on tainted bottles—about 2-5% of all wine, I’ve read—but all tainted bottles should be returned. No question about it, without shame or hesitancy.

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