Should I Always Wait for the Somm to Pour My Wine at a Restaurant?
While dining out at a restaurant, reaching the bottom of your glass can be both a blessing and a curse. Sure, you just enjoyed a great pour of wine. But if you ordered a bottle that’s sitting on your table in a decanter or ice bucket, you may be on the edge of your seat wondering: Is it OK to reach across the table and top off my own glass? Or should I wait (for an unknown amount of time) for the sommelier to pour the next round?
To help navigate this awkward situation, VinePair asked Erin Healy, the head sommelier at New York City’s Michelin-starred Restaurant Daniel, to share advice for these eager diners. In the case of the empty glass, Healy notes that while it’s absolutely fine to reach for the bottle and pour your own wine, that question should never even cross your mind during dinner service if a restaurant is performing as it should.
“I’ll be frank, if someone is topping up their own wine because we haven’t gotten to the table fast enough to pour for them, that’s a problem in our service,” she says. “Someone should not get empty and need to top up themselves. At our level of fine dining, we should always be taking care of that for them.”
According to Healy, sommeliers are trained to keep a close eye on your table to anticipate when glasses are emptying, especially in French fine- dining restaurants like the ones where she’s spent the bulk of her career. So if you do take the bottle to pour your own glass, the team may take note and adjust to visit your table more frequently to handle the pouring.
Once a bottle of wine is presented and poured, some guests may want to take the reins from there to control the timing and volume of the refills. If that’s the case, Healy recommends communicating that with the sommelier team so they can best cater to your preferences.
“That way I understand the assignment and it makes it very clear how I can take care of guests in the way that they want me to take care of them,” she says. “In fine dining these days, the version of etiquette that we all practice is modernizing. It’s not that one way is the right way. Now it’s about just making sure the guest is comfortable in an elevated way.”
While wine is served with intense attention to detail in fine-dining restaurants, beverage service can take many shapes depending on where you’re dining. At a laid-back neighborhood wine bar or a more casual restaurant, pouring your own bottle may be welcomed or even expected. Still, Healy believes that filling up a glass is a pivotal part of wine service that should be handled by the professionals whenever possible.
“It’s a piece of service that really shows that you’re paying attention and clued in to the pacing of the table,” Healy says. “In a world where wine is more expensive than it’s ever been, people are paying a lot of money to have wine service. To me, that means the initial service until the end of the bottle.”
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