After ordering a bottle of wine, there are a few steps that unfold before you actually get to take your first sip. And though it can be fun to buy into the pomp and circumstance of traditional wine service, some things are more necessary for a proper experience while others are relics of the past that could be just fine to skip. For example, if the sommelier at a wine-focused establishment fails to show you a bottle before opening it, that’s a pretty big red flag. Neglecting this step could lead to some costly miscommunications like, say, preemptively opening a $600 bottle of Burgundy when the guest actually meant to order the $60 Beaujolais. But what about the long-standing tradition of presenting the cork itself? VinePair consulted Liz Rogero, the general manager and beverage director of Brooklyn’s Fausto, to get some answers.
Rogero says that showing the cork to the guest isn’t an essential step nowadays, and is actually just a holdover from wine services of previous generations, when businesses may have been less trustworthy.
“Presenting the cork dates back to a time when guests were concerned about fraud — ordering a nice bottle of wine and then receiving something else entirely,” Rogero says. “In a market where guests rely on the restaurant or the wine shop to navigate this esoteric world for them, people inevitably are taken advantage of. Shady businesses could swap out bottles or the wine inside them for a cheaper alternative.” In this case, seeing that
