First, before we get started, Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! Shiver me timbers and a bottle of rum or something.
Back to the quiz:
Last week’s question was rather straight forward: what do you do when presented with a cork by the waiter at a restaurant? Some (most?) people feel like they are supposed to smell the cork, but many have discounted this practice, however, the idea or ‘custom’ still lingers. Many of you chimed in with great responses with the most common comment a variation of:
“I examine the cork”
This could mean making sure the printing on the cork matched the label or that the cork seemed moist and therefore indicated (or implied) that the bottle had been stored on its side (and thus been stored more or less properly). None of you, however, gave a theory or a hypothesis as to why it has/had become convention to smell the cork. 
Back in my teaching days, this would have resulted in a serious tongue lashing for not having completed the assignment. Good thing I am no longer in the classroom, I guess.
For me, there is no clear answer to this question–only conjecture. I feel that when you smell the cork, above all else, you are going to smell… wait for it…
cork.
Certainly, you might disagree and you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong you are, but I think the whole smelling of the cork thing is completely moronic.
Let me pose a simple question:
‘Which do you feel is more valuable: smelling the cork or smelling and tasting the wine?’ (I helped you out a bit by underlining the ‘correct’ response.)
Unless you are an imbecile, you will agree that smelling (and tasting) the wine is much more insightful than sniffing the damned cork! My point: the bottle is already ‘consumed’ once the cork has been pulled–why waste your time with smelling the cork?!? For the cigar smokers out there–once you have cut a cigar, do you examine the jettisoned tip? Would you buy a ticket to a movie and then demand a refund after seeing the opening credits? Would you send back a steak based on the aromas emanating from the kitchen? Well, if you would, your an idiot. This is not like a swimming pool where you can dip your toe in and decide whether the water is to your liking. I’m sorry, but the smelling of the cork is almost by definition a waste of time. If you send back a wine based solely on the cork, well, I have run out of derogatory terms….
So why has this become convention? My theory: the early aficionados of wine understood that wine needed to be stored on its side. They also understood that one of the more sensitive areas for the detection of moisture was/is the lips. Therefore, they held the cork to their lips to try and determine if the cork were moist–which would indicate proper storage. Other posers and wannabes saw this and they thought the cork was being sniffed, and thus started the ‘tradition’. Is that a perfect explanation? Certainly not. But since none of you answered the question, I get to be the one that gives the ‘right’ answer….
Now to this week’s quiz. Continuing on with last week’s ‘theme’ of not really being trivia, I pose this scenario:
You invite four couples you know (at least casually) over for dinner and they all know you are a ‘wine guy’, a ‘wine gal’ or a ‘wine questioning’. However, you commit the ultimate wine-guy-dinner-party-faux-pas and do not let your guests know what you are making for dinner. As a result, the four couples each bring a bottle of wine, but not all would meld well with your dinner. If you are a visual learner, imagine you made some halibut with a lemon/caper/prosciutto sauce (I guess I should put that recipe up at some point) and your guests bring a Right Bank Bordeaux, a Napa Zinfandel, a (white) Sancerre, and an Austrian Grüner Veltliner. 
Two of the wines would certainly work with the dish and two–not so much. What do you do? Would you serve all the wines that your guests brought? Would you serve only those that ‘worked with the meal? Would you sequester all the wines off to the cellar?
To add a little complexity: what if your boss/partner was effusive about his/her wine–stating it was the finest wine ever produced, blah, blah, blah (you feign attention since it is your boss, but the guy [or gal] is a blowhard and has no idea what he/she is talking about) but it was just a looming disaster if paired with your delicate creation? What if the Sancerre was brought by the one wino in the group, it was perfectly chilled, and was the perfect match for the dish?
What do you do?!?
the drunken cyclist 
In my circles in Germany it was custom for the host to serve the wine he had picked for the dinner. Guests bringing wine knew that their wine was not necessarily to be consumed that evening for exactly that reason. After all, the bottle you bring is a gift for being invited. It does not imply that the wine is to be used for this particular dinner. Especially given that the guests in your scenario had no clue what would be served.
That said, I would explain politely that I had already picked wines to be served with dinner, and that I am happy to provide these wines just as I am providing dinner. I will let them know I put thought and effort into composing the meal, and hope that they will love the pairing. And that I am really excited about trying the wines they brought at another point.
And then I will make damn sure that I let people know that this is how we do it, Germany-style. I love to pull my “Hey, I’m a foreigner, I don’t have to follow your conventions when I think they’re stupid” card!
There you have it. 🙂
PS: Regarding last week’s quiz, I thought I saw something in the comments section that was quite similar to your assessment (people seeing aficionados bring the cork close to their face to check the printing on the cork, and then going off imitating that by smelling)…just sayin’.
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Thanks for the input! There are certainly a lot of ways to answers to this conundrum, and yours is certainly well thought out. As for the previous ‘quiz’ you certainly are correct, but I was in the mood to be a little snarky….
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Trick question: Since you didn’t tell them what you were making, it was likely not intended as a guest supplied wine pairing/tasting. You are not obligated to open any wine that a guest brings to dinner. Depending on your relationship with the guests, you might open the perfect pairing…but I think I would thank them, shove them in the cellar, invite them back for a meal that works with their wine…or not…that one probably depends on the guest…and the wine.
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Trick question? Moi?!?
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The Gruner or the Sancerre. I wouldn’t serve Bordeaux or Zinfandel with seafood… tell your friends you can have another special meal and pair the food around the wine they brought, on another night.
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Exactly what I would say.
Cheers!
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Another excellent suggestion!
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this is an interesting subject for discussion, where you can write a few [extensive] blog posts about. There are way too many factors which need to be taken into account when deciding how to solve this situation.
Typically, if I would be planning for specific food/wine pairing, I would stay with what I selected for the pairing, as this usually requires some thought. But also in this case I would probably let my guests know in advance that it will be the case.
If I was not planning any pairing before hand, then it really doesn’t matter – I generally don’t care if I have fish and dense Cab on the table – you can always consume them independently.
But without any regards to planned pairing or not, when someone brings the wine in the house, I would assess situation each time independently – if I politically have to open the bottle, just to show respect, I will do that. If this is not the case, then I might tell someone that this wine needs some time and I think opening it is premature. Judging by myself, when I’m bringing the bottle which I would like to have opened that night, I would directly tell the host/hostess that I would appreciate if we can open the bottle I brought and I would also explain why I’m making such request.
In any case, this is always an interesting problem to solve.
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Yes, there are multiple factors here and none are easy to have a hard and fast rule….
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I agree with Oliver from the winegetter. When I inivite people over for dinner then I pick the wine and if they bring wine over a gift then it gets stored in the cellar. Sometimes after dinner if we finished up the wine I picked we might open either a new bottle that I’ve had in my cellar before or the wine they brought over.
Friends sometimes tend to bring over wine that just doesn’t match the food you have and I might bring wine as a guest to a friend that doesn’t fit to what they’ve been cooking. Therefore in Germany and in Italy it’s usually the host picking the wine for dinner. Does this differ in the United States? I suppose it does otherwise you wouldn’t have asked that trivia question.
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I think there are a lot of differences among all types of people—not just you foreign types 😉
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The Zin and the Bordeaux would strike me as clashing with the lemon … thus I must go with the other two.
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Exactly! Great choices….
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Woo hoo!!!
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I think I would start with the Gruner and knowing some of my friends, they would start to want more wine and not care what went with the food. Ultimately, it is likely we would finish off all the bottles by the end of the night. I am wondering if we are the only ones who might do this….
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Barbara I am with on this–my motto: you bring it, we’ll drink it! I used to only drink those bottles that would pair well, but that set up a weird dynamic. I felt that those who brought the wine that was not consumed would wonder if I thought their wine was not ‘worthy’. Then I would feel guilty and feel the need to keep that wine until the presenter dined again, chez nous. It all became too much and just fed my neuroses. Now we just drink ’em all and let the liver sort them out….
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