Service Standards

DESCRIBINGAND SELLINGFOOD & WINECONTINUED

WINE There are 4 basic pieces of information that you should understand when evaluating and describing a wine:

SIGHT The visual appearance of wine offers many clues and indicators as to body style, age, grape and region. The main components to evaluate are color (an indicator or grape skin thickness or amount of contact with the skins), opacity (also an indicator or grape skin thickness or amount of contact with the skins), clarity (a possible indicator of whether a wine has been fined or filtered), consistency of color (a possible indicator of age) and viscosity (a possible indicator of glycerol/sugar levels in thegrapes). NOSE Our sense of smell is both much stronger than our sense of taste, as well as inherently linked to it, and is thus a key element in being able to evaluate a wine. The smell of a wine can range from over 2000 possible aromas, so it is important to isolate common, simple scents such as fruits, vegetables, spices, woods or flora. Other factors to consider are pungency (the concentration or strength of the smell), freshness (undesirable smells may indicate a spoiled or corked wine) and heat (a product of alcohol content). PALATE How a wine reacts to the palate is the easiest to evaluate, as it is the action with which most people are most familiar, but the range of possible flavors can sometimes be overwhelming, and thus difficult to pinpoint. The sensation of a wine on the palate can include many of the same flavors as smell: fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices and flora. However, it can also include flavors associated with non-edible/organic items such as gases, solvents, minerals, soil, chemicals, woods and various other micro-organisms. Every person’s palate and taste buds perceive flavors differently, so there is inherently no right or wrong answers when evaluating a wine on the palate, only differences in opinion. Other factors to consider are body (the “weight” of a wine on the palate), finish (how long the flavors linger after drinking the wine) and balance (whether the components of a wine are harmonious, or if one particular element stands out). FOOD PAIRING In addition to being a sales person, first and foremost, you are a food and beverage professional. As such, your job is to provide a complete experience that includes understanding how and why flavors, components and textures in certain beverages pair well with corresponding foods. As a rule, flavors in food and beverage should either complement or contrast each other so as to maximize both of their enjoyment, so you must not only understand what elements are present in a dish, but what beverages would in turn enhance those elements by either complementing or contrasting them.