When to Send Back a Bottle?

[Auburnwine]

When is it appropriate to send back a bottle in a restaurant?

Only when it's corked?

Is there a time when one should return a wine to a shop -- or is it always "buyer beware"?

[Innkeeper]

Any tainted wine for any reason, cork or otherwise, should be returned in the restaurant or to the store. I was in Wine Expo one time when a guy came in with a bottle that had been opened in his hand. Roberto ask when he needed. The guy said there was something wrong with it. Roberto said, from twenty feet away where we were talking, "leave it there, and pick up any other one at the same price." That is how to run a wine a wine store.

[Drew]

I think the only time not appropriate is if the wine is not flawed but it's not your "cup of tea"...and that's given the shop didn't talk you into it.

Drew

[Thomas]

In a restaurant, when the waiter pours the first taste for me or my wife to give the thumbs up or down, we just smell the wine, never taste it. There are only a few things to look for: corked, oxydized, volatile--all can be told in the smell. If there is nothing technically wrong with the wine, the taste is subjective, and that is no reason to send it back.

Same holds for wine bought at retail, but like Roberto, at is-wine we take back any wine a customer returns, provided he or she hasn't consumed most of it. After we test it and we find it has not gone bad we still exchange it but we also explain to the customer that we think perhaps it was simply a matter of taste preference.

[winoweenie]

Agree with Foodister wholeheartdely. If that suckers bad, send it back. If I made a bad shoice, pay up and get another. WW

[wineguruchgo]

In our restaurants (we have 4) most people only send back a wine if there is something wrong with it. We then will give it back to the distributor and they will replace it.

If one of my waiters suggests a wine to a customer to expand their horizons, they are not obligated to keep it if they don't like it. When we are asking you to try something you have never had we give you a money back guarantee. Customers love it and we sell a lot of wine!