Wine, women and restaurants

[Zinner]

Well Nancy, if you really miss the south, you should come on down and visit it sometime.

The southern men are mostly still chivalrous.

And guys, when I go over to a friend's home for dinner (usually dragging a lot of wine along) and the men come running out to the car to carry all my stuff in, I let them. They can open the door for me too, if they like. Although if they really have their hands full, I will open it for them.
Courtesies are nice for all of us.

Nancy you might like to hear that the store in our town with the top wine sales has a woman wine consultant running things. I don't know if the guys will let her schlep wine out to the car, but they sure will buy it from her.

I'd have to agree though that some restaurants can be slow in recognizing women as wine knowledgeable. I find if I can start a little conversation with the sommelier, making some comments about the wine list and asking a few pertinent questions they 'get it' a lot faster. And when they do, usually they're very helpful.

Then there's the occasional one that makes your blood boil. At a 'hot' Napa Valley restaurant, I was served an absolutely flat glass of sparkling wine(Mumm Napa). Of course, I sent it back, but the waiter and the guy behind the bar had to have a big debate over it before they would send out a fresh glass and by then the course I had intended to drink the wine with was gone. Couldn't help but think that if I had been a guy, they would have taken my word for it.
Why should I have to tell them that I had been at the winery just that day tasting all the products in order to write a column about them? Or that the day before I was at a luncheon at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco sipping the French stuff, including old vintages, with some of Mumm's folks.

Yes, of course, I mentioned it to Mumm Napa, when I called them again for the story.
I should have complained to the restaurant management too. At the time I just thought that they had way too much competition for me to be bothered and I didn't go back. Oh well. Live and learn.

Fortunately most places I go do better than this.

[This message has been edited by Zinner (edited 11-14-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Zinner (edited 11-14-1999).]