Corked, or the decanter? A Saturday-night call
Saturday, 8:40 pm, 120 covers with 60 booked on the second turn. A regular guest orders the last bottle of 2016 Barolo on the list, $165 (bottle cost $62). It was stood upright at 4 pm. You open it at the table: the cork is stained 3 mm up one side and smells faintly musty. The wine goes into a decanter that came off the shelf and was polished with a cloth 20 minutes ago. The guest tastes, pauses, and says: 'This is corked. Bring me something else, and I'm not paying for it.' You smell the glass: faint dusty, wet-cardboard character, plus a whiff of struck match. There is a second bottle of the same wine in the cellar that a colleague put aside.
1. What could be causing what you smell, and what checks do you make at the table in 90 seconds?
Read the worked answer
Differential diagnosis - the obvious answer is not the only one.
- TCA. Detectable from a few parts per trillion; reads as wet cardboard and dust, flattens the fruit, and leaves a dry, stripped finish. The musty cork is suggestive but is not proof - plenty of musty corks sit on sound wine.
- Reduction. A struck-match, flinty note is a reductive character common in young Nebbiolo, and it usually blows off with air. It is not a fault in the same sense and should not cost the guest a bottle.
- The decanter. It came off a shelf and was polished with a cloth - a damp or dusty decanter will put a musty note into a perfectly good wine. This is the cheapest possible explanation and the most embarrassing to miss.
- Sediment. A bottle stood up only four hours, then decanted, can throw fine bitterness and a dusty texture into the glass.
90-second checks: smell the empty decanter on its own; pour a fresh glass straight from the bottle, not the decanter; give it two to three minutes of air. Decision rule: if the fruit stays muted and the finish stays dry after air, treat it as TCA. If the struck match blows off and the fruit returns, it was reduction - say so, and pour it.
2. Write your table script and your resolution: what do you pour, what do you charge, and who absorbs the cost?
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Script - agree, do not defend. 'I think you're right, and I'm sorry - let me check it properly.' Smell it in front of them, name the fault if it is there ('that's corked, you're right'), and remove both the glass and the decanter. Never suggest it 'just needs to breathe' when a guest has already called it; that conversation only gets worse.
Resolution:
- Offer a taste of two alternatives and steer toward something at the same or a slightly lower price, so the guest does not feel upsold on your mistake.
- Do not charge for the faulty bottle. Full stop, regardless of how much was consumed.
- If they want the same wine, open the second bottle - but check it first, in the back, before it reaches the table. Two bad bottles in one night is a different, much larger problem.
- Keep the bottle, the cork and the lot number; log the date, the wine and the guest's table.
Who pays: the house absorbs it tonight, then claims it. Most distributors credit confirmed TCA-affected bottles, so the real loss is often zero - the $62 is only lost if you bin the evidence. File the claim Monday with the lot number.
3. Close the loop: what does the incident actually cost, and what do you change on Monday?
Read the worked answer
The cost. $62 bottle cost, plus the wasted pour and the decanter wash, less whatever the supplier credits. Note what is not in that number: if you had argued with the guest, the cost would have been the table, the regular and the review - far more than $62. Against a $165 list price, one credit note a month is noise; a guest who feels called a liar is not.
Monday changes, in order of payoff:
- Audit the decanters. If the mustiness lives in the glassware rather than the wine, you have been pouring away sound bottles. Store them covered or inverted, and stop polishing with a cloth that lives in a damp cabinet.
- Track TCA by supplier and by lot. A single bottle is chance; three from one shipment is a conversation with the distributor and a reason to change closure or producer.
- Train the differential. Staff who can tell reduction from TCA save bottles; staff who cannot either give away wine or argue with guests.
- Check the second bottle before it ever leaves the cellar, and log the credit - an unclaimed credit note is the only part of this incident that is pure loss.