A sommelier has detailed the correct way to check your wine when a waiter gives you a sample, revealing exactly how to identify any ‘flaws’ in the beverage before you commit to buying a bottle or a full glass.
Warner, from California, is a 30-year-old ‘snob-free’ wine educator who frequently shares tips and tricks about her favorite boozy beverage to her more than 66,000 TikTok followers.
Most recently, Warner revealed how to properly examine your wine when a server pours a small amount for you.
She explained that when you are given a tiny sample, the restaurant is allowing you to ‘check for flaws.’
Warner, from California, is a 30-year-old ‘snob-free’ wine educator who has detailed the correct way to check wine when a waiter gives you a sample
She frequently shares tips and tricks about her favorite boozy beverage to her more than 66,000 TikTok followers
Most recently, Warner revealed how to properly examine your wine when a server pours a small amount for you, noting that you should be looking for flaws
Warner explained she would help her viewers ‘confidently order wine’ before revealing what you should be looking for.
‘So when the waiter or sommelier comes over and they pour you this tiny taste of wine, what they’re doing is actually allowing you to check for flaws, not for you to try the wine and see if you like it or not,’ she explained.
Warner revealed that the first and ‘most common’ flaw is something known as ‘corked wine.’
She explained that this wine has something inside called ‘TCA’ which seeps in through a cork.
‘This can make it smell like moldy cardboard, wet newspaper, or kind of a dog. Basically all of the fruit characteristics have gone away, it’s just not a good smell,’ she added.
Warner said that this was mostly due to heat damage. She explained she had experienced this before, and the wine she ordered smelt like a ‘jammy’ and ‘fortified wine.’
She noted that when she asked to see the cork, she saw that the wine had seeped all the way up the cork.
‘This told me that the wine had heat damage. Basically if wine gets too hot the pressure of the bottle increases so much that it starts to push wine out of the top and into the cork and sometime seep out of the cork,’ the snob-free sommelier explained.
She added that a wine with heat damage won’t ‘kill you’, but it is ‘not going to taste good at all.’
Warner then dived into the next thing to look out for when having that first sip of your beverage.
Warner revealed that the first and ‘most common’ flaw is something known as ‘corked wine’
‘This can make it smell like moldy cardboard, wet newspaper, or kind of a dog. Basically all of the fruit characteristics have gone away, it’s just not a good smell,’ she added
The second thing you should be checking for is ‘too much sulfur.’
‘If you find too much sulfur in your wine, you would smell something like burnt rubber, rotten eggs and garlic. It means it might have been in a reductive environment so there wasn’t a lot of oxygen,’ Warner said.
She added that you will be able to identify this because it will taste like vinegar.
Warner ended her video by giving a disclaimer for your next night out.
‘For the most part, flaws are not common in wine, usually restaurants are taking care of their wine storage, but if there are any issues, tell your waiter or sommelier, they will smell and identify the problem as well and most likely give you a new bottle,’ she explained.
Viewers flocked to the comments section and praised the wine educator for her help.
Viewers flocked to the comments section and praised the wine educator for her help
‘I needed this lol,’ commented one person.
‘Thank you! I am happy to know what to do at this moment,’ wrote one person.
One person added: ‘Super helpful. Thank you!’
‘The more you know! Thank you,’ commented another user.
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