Late-Night Dining
- Thread starter justlooking
- Start date
Cellar is generally 55 - 58. Red wines are served at around 62 - 64.
If you're taking three hours to eat, you can order your reds ahead of time. That way they will have been opened for awhile and also have had time to come up to the correct serving temperature.
In a hurry, though, I'd rather have the over-chilled wine on my table than in some back room. Newton's law of cooling dictates that the wine will come up to temperature much faster in a glass than it will in a bottle. So, for me, it's no great disaster to get the wine into the glass a little ahead of time since it generally means I'll be able to enjoy it sooner. There's oxidation issues to mind, too, but I tend not to drink many wines that hate air.
Strictly speaking, though, I believe that classical service dictates that you shouldn't be presented with anything that isn't ready to be consumed.
If you're taking three hours to eat, you can order your reds ahead of time. That way they will have been opened for awhile and also have had time to come up to the correct serving temperature.
In a hurry, though, I'd rather have the over-chilled wine on my table than in some back room. Newton's law of cooling dictates that the wine will come up to temperature much faster in a glass than it will in a bottle. So, for me, it's no great disaster to get the wine into the glass a little ahead of time since it generally means I'll be able to enjoy it sooner. There's oxidation issues to mind, too, but I tend not to drink many wines that hate air.
Strictly speaking, though, I believe that classical service dictates that you shouldn't be presented with anything that isn't ready to be consumed.
But that's a problem if you order something they don't have a big stock in. With high-turnover wines they can keep a bunch in a cool spot upstairs for immeidate consumption with their reserves being kept in the cellar. But if they only have one or two bottles of, say, 1996 Tertre Rotebeouf, they're going to be kept in the cellar and brought up only upon an order. What can they do? It's not like they have all afternoon to chambrer it in anticipation of your arrival.
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I'm glad I decided not to post the really long and cumbersome post that inelegantly made that same point.
There's other issues like timing with the kitchen. Ultimately, though, I think a lot of the rules of good service form were formulated under very different dining conditions from those of most American casual restaurants.
There's other issues like timing with the kitchen. Ultimately, though, I think a lot of the rules of good service form were formulated under very different dining conditions from those of most American casual restaurants.