Very interesting article about screwcaps

2) The ceremony is great if the waitpersons has a clue to what they are doing. In most cities about 5% of the restaurants have interest in wines. A wine steward is a luxury. For the ill prepared an "Ah-So" is better than a cork screw. A few times I pulled the cork myself after the young waitperson was clearly inept. Last time I did that some fellow diners asked me to open their bottles----I could have pocketed some "tip" money. The funniest was in South Carolina in an Italian bistro which used marinara sauce & had a Ruffino Riserva chianti on their meager list. First the waiter tried & tried to place the screw into the metal capsule--I signaled No. Then the rest of the staff tried(after removing the capsule) and managed to break the cork off. I was ready to use an "Ah-So" if they had one, but by now the manager went looking for an Ah-So when one of the owners interrupted his bowling...it was like a Marx Brothers movie---finally I convinced them to gently push the remaining cork in. The wine was fine & on the house. IIRC it was somewhat over the hill because it was stored at too high a temperature, but still enjoyable.

The only places that know anything about wine service, take reservations weeks in advance and after doing a credit check on you.

A friend of mine, sold some wine to a local Carabbas, and when he made his monthly visit, saw that only screwcapped wines were depleted. When he pointed this out to a manager, he pulled over a few waitpeople, Brandy, Luke and Capricia---they all said it took much time to open wine with a cork so they "pushed" the easy to open wines. My buddy offered he said to take all the wine with cork back in exchange with screw capped wine--the general manager by then was in on the conference and said most of the wines with cork were from Italy and he didn't want run an italian restaurant with nary an Italian wine---this guy was ancient about 30 years old in a staff who just started shaving. The general manager had a brain storm---why not have the salesmen come in and teach wine service & review the features of the wines on the list, Duh????????? So my buddy asked me how I did this when I was ITB---I said quickly because these 20 year olds had real short attention spans.

N