We all love the idea of by-the-glass. It’s the reality that many of us find disappointing, especially in bars and cafes.
Setting aside the limited range, the particular examples on offer and the often ludicrously high price, the usual complaint is over the lack of freshness. Even if the establishment hasn’t simply served a bottle they resealed with a cork the previous day, their effort to preserve a three-quarter-empty one using a Vacuvin may have been less than effective.
Wine from a different bottle?
But all of this presumes you are getting the wine you asked for. A video investigation by Matthieu Hennequin published by the le Parisien newspaper reveals that visitors to the French capital are regularly being ripped off. As ‘Sarah’ who has worked for 30 years in the sector toid the reporter, it is not unusual to blend the dregs of different bottles to create wine to serve during ‘happy hour’. Cheap wines are often substituted for ones costing four or five euros more. And, she says, tourists never spot the difference.
To verify her accusations, Hennequin visited several cafes with sommelier Gwilherm de Cerval, and specialist wine merchant, Marina Giuberti. The video clip shows de Cerval’s reaction to a cheap Sauvignon he was served after ordering Chablis, and Giuberti’s on being given a wine that was not the Sancerre she had requested.
Under French law this kind of trickery is punishable by two years imprisonment, but I doubt this is much of a deterrence. Who is ever going to see or know that it’s happening? And when it does, it will have been an ‘accident’.
Click HERE to read the full article.