Time to take a stand

I completely agree with Mr Matheson (‘Hands off my wine, please’, Letters, October 2022). It is impossible even for the most assiduous of sommeliers to provide the required degree of diligent attention in refilling glasses, even in a moderately sized dining room. We all consume wine at different rates and require refilling at different intervals. Only we know exactly when and to what level we want our own glasses refilled. Sommeliers should ask diners whether they want the bottle left on the table and this should be the norm unless diners request otherwise. Recently, as a sommelier was disappearing to a remote part of the dining room clutching our bottle, I called him back and requested the bottle be left on the table. A couple seated nearby applauded our stance and demanded the same. We have even on one occasion had our bottle of water spirited away to the other side of the dining room. We are equally capable of pouring our own water, rather than it being forced repeatedly into our glasses in the hope that we might purchase another bottle. On one occasion, a bottle of claret that had been decanted was left at the outer reaches of our large round table. After we had watched our empty glasses rather glumly, I got up and reached for the decanter only to be slapped on the wrist by a female sommelier. On another occasion, in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Burgundy, our empty glasses were ignored for more than 10 minutes before I marched across the dining room to retrieve the bottle. Service thereafter was rather on the chilly side. It is time we diners took control and demanded that the bottle be left on the table.

Prof. Sandy Ghandhi, Herefordshire, UK

My wife and I were visiting a restaurant locally with two friends, several years ago, to celebrate a birthday. We had a rather good bottle of Chablis sitting in an ice bucket beside the table. As our glasses began to empty my friend reached for the bottle. At that moment the waiter rushed over and attempted to wrest the bottle from my friend’s hand, at which point he snatched it back, glared at the waiter and said, ‘you’re too late’.

Bill Steele, Boxted, Essex, UK

In the late 1990s, we were dining in an upmarket French restaurant in London. The waiter insisted on pouring our wine and then frustratingly leaving the bottle out of reach on a sideboard.

However, part way through the meal we started to notice that two different waiters were each topping up our glasses from different bottles located on sideboards in different parts of the room. We of course decided to avoid any potential waiter embarrassment and stoically drank our way through the best part of two bottles.

We never found out which diners had bought the other bottle, and why they were such slow drinkers!

Tim Foster, by email

Well said, Mr Matheson, this is a worrying trend which seems to have no logic. Surely once the customer has selected a wine, it must be within their control as to when they choose to drink it?

Chris Mealing, Dorset, UK