Don't you tell me it's perfectly normal and natural!

I'll get into my background later and a bit into how I found myself in my current position. But, for the moment I need this as a place to vent. As a place where I can say the things that I just can't say to customers. For I am of the school of bite your tongue, nod and smile. Don't anger the scary customers any further. Allow them to say their piece, void something off their check and move on to happier friendlier tables.

On one of my first nights as sommelier at the restaurant (which will remain anonymous) I was called to a table by a server. One of the customers found some sediment in their glass of wine and wanted to talk to the sommelier. Easy enough, I thought.

Now, the wine in question throws some serious sediment- That is just a plain fact. Domaine des Roches Neuves Saumur-Champigny 2009 (pictured) is %100 Cabernet Franc farmed biodynamically and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Fining and filtering are two very different processes that are generally used to remove little bits of stuff from the wine. They are also two processes that some winemakers feel may hurt the wine and compromise its true expression. I'm simplifying this all greatly of course. In the case of Roches Neuves, the wines are very clearly more expressive and intriguing, but yeah, there's some sediment. The 2009 Saumur-Champigny from rock star producer Thierry Germain is a beautiful straight-forward Cab Franc with meaty red fruit and stoney minerality. The deliciousness of the wine wasn't the problem though, they had drunk it all up. But what was left was apparently too offensive for their delicate sensibilities.

I approached the table with a big grin on my face and addressed the empty glass with sediment guiltily loitering in the bottom. "Yes, that is just sediment, it is perfectly normal and natural." At once I felt I was transported in to the wedding scene of "The Graduate." You know, where Dustin Hoffman is banging on the glass and the film goes silent but all you can see are the wedding party's teeth gnashing and their old, grimaced faces spitting angrily.

"Don't you tell me it's perfectly normal and natural!" screamed the Dragon Lady.

I buckled immediately, these were not people you reasoned with.

Me: "Yes, I'm so sorry, I will take it off your bill."

DL: "If you're going to be charging these kinds of prices, you should be serving better wine."

Me: "It's a very nice wine ma'am. Sediment is just something that happens in wine."

DL: "Not in good wine."

Me: *sigh* "I'll take it off your bill, I apologize."

DL: "I've been drinking wine for 70 years and I've never seen anything like this before."

Now, after a statement like that, I am reminded of one of my favorite MAD Magazine staples, "Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions." Some responses that came to mind:

"Really? I always thought Franzia was boxed unfined and unfiltered."

or

"Wow, you're really f*&%ing old."

or, the more poignant, dramatic approach.

"I pity you."

Because, I really did. It's sad to me when someone doesn't understand how amazing wine is- that it's a living thing, that the same wine can taste differently from one bottle to the next, that it can throw sediment. But, it was obvious to me that this woman's father had been killed in a horrible wine sediment related accident so I just bowed away from the table and went along my merry way. First stop the bar to pour myself a little delicious sip of Domaine des Roches Neuves Saumur-Champigny to take the edge off and remember why I'm here.