Antonio Baker

…al. First, you will be presented with the bottle to confirm that it is in fact the one you ordered. Don’t forget to check the vintage here. You’d be amazed how often servers pull wines from a year that’s entirely different from what you ordered.

…ow can we communicate our price range to the server without revealing it to our companions? Simple! All you need to do is open the wine list, point directly to a price that you’re comfortable with and say, “I‘m considering a bottle like this.” There’s an unspoken understanding in the restaurant business that this translates to “This is precisely how much I’d like to pay, but I don’t want to say it aloud.” It works like a charm every time.

‘House’ Wine: Avoid this swill at all costs. While glasses of ‘house’ wine are the cheapest available, the markup is massive. It’s not uncommon for the restaurant to charge for a glass what they paid for the entire bottle. Egregious markups notwithstanding, the quality of this wine is inferior and very little thought wen…