Wine study week two / Introduction to the customer service

It's me in the service uniform

Can Riesling be sweet?

The week was quite busy. In addition to wine class I had another class for four days in the mornings - Introduction to Customer service. That class was a basic training for the waiting tables. In one short week, right after wine class we start our restaurant classes - half of the group will be cooking, the other half serving, after six week we will switch.

Wine class was about Europe. The biggest difference between New World and the Old one is labels. In New World the wine labels are straightforward - country, region, producer, grape type, vintage year. In the Old World labels are not so obvious. There will be the name of the region (sometimes just a village name), quality level (vin de table, Appellation d'Origine Protege, etc), maybe the name of vine - Chablis for example. Based on the region and village name you suppose to conclude the grape type or blend type.  Chablis is made with 100% Chardonnay in the region of Chablis. In case of
vin de table you never know what is the grape type exactly. But probably this is not important. In you like the wine, just remember the label and call it a day.

This week I discovered Riesling. I always thought that Riesling is very dry acidic wine. It could be true, however there are many varieties of Riesling available. Some of them are very sweet, like a dessert wine. I liked two of them: Dr Loosen 2012 Riesling Wehlener Sonnerhuhz Kabinett Mosel (not so sweet, with very good aroma) and Gunderloch 2011 Riesling Spatlese Rheinhessen Germany (very sweet for the white wine, also good aroma).

Customer service class was a fun. I've never waited tables before, so for me there were a lot of new information: how to set up table, how to take an order, how to take care of the guests. We learned different styles of the service: banquet style, American, Russian, family style. The Russian style is the most difficult, because a waiter should serve the guests using fork and spoon as a tongue and they are hold in the same hand at the same time. Actually the class was not bad at all and only once I dropped a fork on the floor. Will see how it is going to work with a real customers (we served students so far).