What is some important things a waitress should know about wine?

Question

I just went on a job interview at an Oyster Bar Restaurant. The manager asked me one question, "What do you know about wine?" I told him all I knew about wine which wasn't much. Just that red wine is good with steak and white wine for fish. What should I have known? He asked things like, "So you don't know how many provinces there are in France?"

Answer 1

you answer as good as mine but I'll suggest do a homework before you do go for an interview...it doesn't  hurt but it helps...

Answer 2

you should know the major types of wine, like merlot, or pinot  noir and other kinds. know where the big wine areas are and just research it on the internet and learn as much about it as you can. This is a good website for learning about wine http://www.winehq.org/site/about  

Answer 3

Next time tell the employer that you are eager to learn more about wine and that you are ready to familiarize yourself with the restaurant's wine list so you can give the guests appropriate recommondations and information.

Explain that you are a quick learner and ask for suggestions of educational material, the restaurant might have a "Wine Bible" or wine magazines, but it's important that you focus on the wines that they feature, you can fake yourself through the basics with just a few key words.

Ask if the most experienced server will be able to train you, it's really important that you are comfortable with the sevice of the wine (like opening a chanpagne bottle...).

Often the wine distributor's sales men are happy to host an education class for the employees.(especially to teach about the wines that they distribute and want you to sell).

Good job being honest and humble and I doubt that the manager would have been able to list France's wine regions himself. I can.

Alsace

Bordeaux

Burgundy

Champagne

Corsica

Jura

Languedoc-Roussillon

Loire

Provence

Rhône

Savoy

South West France  

Answer 4

Not only don't I know at my ripe old age, but I never even met anybody who knows. I'd be willing to guess most French don't know.

Answer 5

white red wines

Answer 6

Here's are 2 websites that will teach you a lot about wine:

http://www.winepros.org/wine101/wine101.... or http://www.wineandleisure.com/wine101.ht...

There are way too many things to know about wine to list here.

I work for a wine distributor and have been in the business for 14 years. You basically need to know the different varieties of wines, the various wine growing regions around the world, which wines pair well with each food group, etc. This sounds really simple, but this is a lot of knowledge.

The best way is to taste. If there are wine tastings in your area - go and experiment. There are professionals that are being paid to pour wine at these tastings and share their knowledge with consumers so that they can educate them and get them to become repeat customers for their products.

Answer 7

He got you with a good one.  Hopefully, he was just showing off and not using it to intimidate or affect your interview outcome.  Good Luck.

As for what to know about wine.  I'm not sure that's a prerequisite to getting work at restaurant, although it might be tie breaker.  Any decent restaurant will train you and teach all that you need to know.  If a restaurant has a sommelier, you'll get the training, so I wouldn't stress too much about your lack of wine knowledge, as long as you have a real customer service outlook.  And handle the stress of waiting.

Even the basic of wine is too much to go into in this small space.  Other writers have already listed some websites for you to look at.  

Wine has always been about making food taste better for me.  As a waitstaff that's pretty important to you.  But also, knowing that wine easily adds 30, 50, 100 bucks to the tab on one bottle that has mayble 5 servings is huge.  Drop that at your interview.  Turn the question on the interviiewer with how much revenue and profit wine generates.  That wine on the list for 30 bucks proabably cost 7 or 8 bucks.  

How many provinces are there?