Accept No Substitutes

I ordered a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon that was listed by name on the wine list. The waiter nodded, returning in a few minutes with a glass. One whiff told me it was Beaujolais, not Cabernet.

I got the waiter’s attention and told him the wine wasn’t what I had ordered. He mumbled something about the bartender, grabbed the glass and hustled off. He returned in a few minutes with another glass.

This time the wine was Cabernet all right, but it was far from the wine listed on the menu--weak, thin, watery. I called him over again and asked to see the wine bottle. He grumbled and came back with a bottle of wine that sells for half of the one I originally ordered.

“This isn’t the wine I ordered either,” I said.

“But you ordered the Cabernet, right?” he asked.

“Yes, but not this Cabernet,” I said. “Your wine list has another wine listed.”

“Well, the bartender said we ran out of the other one, so we substituted this one,” he said.

Substitution. It is considered by many in the restaurant business as a reasonable solution to the problem of supply. If one wine runs out, just substitute another one. Who’s to know? I can cite a dozen examples of substitution in wine by-the-glass programs. Most are innocent, but occasionally I feel the substitution is a conscious effort to make an extra buck.

Some years ago a restaurateur told me that the wine he sold by the glass would always be “the cheapest stuff I can buy because people don’t ask what it is. They only want $3 worth of wine, and if it’s cold, they’ll drink it.”

That cynical approach may be sound business for those whose wine lists say only “Chardonnay . . . . $3.” But when the wine list has the winery’s name and the restaurant substitutes an inferior brand without telling you, it’s worse than bait-and-switch. It borders on fraud.

It happened to a close friend about five years ago in a San Francisco hotel restaurant. The list offered Korbel Natural, which has a retail price of about $10 a bottle, by the glass. What my friend got was some sweet bubbly of indeterminate parentage. After he took one sip and realized he was drinking swill, he did the right thing: He asked to see the bottle. And when it arrived, he raised quite a stink about paying $5 for 4 1/2 ounces of something that sells for $3 a bottle.

It’s dangerous to make any assumptions with wine-by-the-glass lists. Just this week, I was eating dinner in a small Italian cafe. Listed on the table card was a wine called Gabbiano San Giovese. I chuckled, assuming this was probably a Sangiovese-based wine from Castello di Gabbiano. At $3.50 the wine sounded like a good value.

But cafes like this have a way of substituting wine without thinking, so before ordering a glass of it, I asked to see the bottle. Out came a Valpolicella. No Gabbiano. No Sangiovese (or San Giovese). “We’re out of the other,” said the waiter. I passed.

Restaurants do other nasty things with wines served by the glass. The worst is to leave the bottle open for more than a day and then try to serve it. Such wines, if not blanketed with an inert gas (such as nitrogen or argon) or refrigerated overnight, become oxidized and have a flat, cardboard taste.

I also hate it when the glass of wine you’ve ordered arrives and it is six ounces in a 6-ounce glass, leaving no room for swirling. Restaurateurs do this because they feel diners will become upset to see a wine arrive in a half-filled 14-ounce tulip-shaped bowl.

A few restaurants are adopting new approaches to wine by the glass. Some serve 187-milliliter bottles of wine, which contain 6 1/3 ounces. A few restaurants are serving wine by the glass in small carafes, alongside an empty glass.

The Claremont Resort, Spa and Tennis Club in the Berkeley Hills offers diners one of eight older wines from a Cruvinet dispensing machine. Diners may choose either a 3-ounce or 6-ounce serving, which is delivered with a tall, empty wine glass.

Some restaurants take the trouble to bring the wine you’ve ordered to the table and pour your glass from the original bottle--a nice touch. And some restaurants display the wines that are offered by the glass--whites sit in an ice tray, the reds are on a bar. Both are admirable, as long as you’re sure they’re opening the wines the day they are served, or are carefully protecting them when they’re holding them longer.

What should you do when confronted with a glass of wine you suspect isn’t the one you’ve ordered? Ask to see the bottle, and if the host can’t produce it, reject the wine in front of you. Or expect an unpleasant surprise.

Wine of the Week

1990 Domaine de la Gautiere ($7.50)-- Fifteen years ago, non-vintage wines marked “Vin de Pays” from the Provence region of France sold for $3 a bottle. They were the bargain-hunter’s secret: Tossed into blind tastings with $10 and $12 wines from Gigondas and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, they would inevitably stun the tasters.

Now this superb example of the breed, vintaged and fresher than in the past, is being imported by Kermit Lynch. Although the price is higher, it still represents wonderful value. The aroma is lightly fruity, with hints of roses and pepper, and the texture is medium-bodied and dry. Though not heavy, it’s rich enough to go with strongly flavored foods. Because it is a Syrah-Grenache blend, it should age nicely for three to five more years. But who can wait that long?