When I was asked this question last week, I nearly fell to my feet.
I mean, I've been around the block a few times on both sides of the counter and consider myself fairly knowledgeable about our wine list. Well, I can qualify which Chardonnay one should drink based on buttery, dry or in between. I can talk about crisp and clean, sweet or not sweet, our dry Reisling vs. our Gruner Veltliner called Mozart with reasonable confidence, but "finished in a steel drum," (while his date giggled and looked clueless) I was absolutely dumbstruck.
I decided as usual to tell the truth and tell him that the person who buys our wine is on vacation and no one else could really answer the question with any level of accuracy. So the gentleman says "all you have to do is read the back of the bottle, it's always listed there." I felt like such a total idiot (Oh yes, and by the way it's so not listed on the back).
After work, I spoke to our General Manager ("the person who buys our wine") and she said that nearly all white wines are finished in a steel drum and that the entire comment was just silly. She also said that essentially reds are finished in Oak barrels and whites in steel drums. At that moment I felt so stupid once again. I pride myself on having pretty good thoughts on my feet, but this was so frustrating that if I had known that, I could have been ever so clever and said well, many crisp, and clean Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Grigios, Fume Blanc white wines are finished in a steel drum, so do you have any other criteria I can use to find a perfect glass of wine for you sir? Now that would have been hilarious!
Customers are so silly, seriously, people expect so much out of a little restaurant with a few fun menu items, but basically, we are in a fancy building, but not fancy folks and certainly not set up to answer endless wine questions. We aren't a wine bar. Ultimately, what I think is so funny is that this customer only ate 12 oysters and had a glass of wine. It wasn't as if he ordered a bottle or was having an ongoing lucious meal it was a silly dozens oysters.
Lastly, my visit with him and his date couldn't have ended on a better note: "Wait, I'm not at Hog Island Oyster" he said looking blankly up at the sign in front of him that says Ferry Plaza Seafood. I said no sir, you are at Ferry Plaza Seafood. To which he responded, "Oh, well......, that's disappointing." Once again, I nearly dropped to my feet at how rude, abnoxious and to top it all off stunned I was at this parting comment.
Oh well, it's alright, these two folks were nestled right between and amongst a bunch of regular customers of ours and they all said he was just silly! When you come visit us, come with love and understanding and most importantly a fun attitude with every intention of relaxing you will have such a fun time! To that end, I did research the information for this blog and found it most enlightening. So thank you "table 30 and 31." Next time someone asks me about a Steel drum, I will have all kinds of thoughts.
