A story of
miscommunication, wine glasses, and international intrigue
It’s kind
of ridiculous, really, to get that worked up about the size and shape of a wine
glass. I’m not talking about my
brother-in-law, who leaves a set of special huge bowl-like stemmed wine glasses
at our restaurant so that he can adequately enjoy the hearty
taste-like-the-soil-they-were-grown-in super Tuscan reds that he favors. He
maintains that it’s necessary to swirl the wine and then burrow into the glass
with your nose and inhale deeply. Then
you loudly slurp the wine into your mouth and siphon it through your teeth, swishing
it round your mouth before allowing yourself to swallow. Then he smiles while
he describes the licorice and leather while you marvel at how quickly his teeth
became temporarily stained.
No, I’m talking about how worked up
I get about my own preference in wine glass. I prefer drinking wine out of a
glass without a stem – what some people might call a tumbler, although that
term is now sometimes used for glasses that look like stemmed goblets with the
stems removed, and that isn’t at all what I’m talking about. What I like best
is a glass that looks like it might have contained Smucker’s grape jelly in an
earlier life. At the fanciest, I will accept the kind that’s short and tapered
and fits perfectly in your hand.
In fact, that’s just what I found
on a recent trip to Venice. I stopped at a little wine bar near St. Mark’s and
ordered a glass of local white wine. In my just-adequate Italian, I asked the
waitress to serve the wine in a small glass. She explained that they usually
only serve the house wine in a tumbler and that this is called an “ombra”, but
that she would serve my wine this way if that’s what I wanted. Later I found out “ombra” means “shade” and
that in the old days, the wine had to be stored in the shade at sidewalk cafes
in order to keep it cool. An unpretentious neighborhood bar might serve your
ombra in a tumbler, while a fancier place would serve the wine – always a small
portion – in a stemmed glass.
I remembered learning that it was
important to drink white wine out of a stemmed glass – and to hold it by the
stem – so that the heat of your hand wouldn’t warm the wine. I like the feel of
cupping the glass in the palm of my hand though, and figure that I’ll finish
drinking it before it gets too warm. The little tumblers seem like something
that my Italian grandmother would have used – they’re unpretentious and
friendly – something you would use if a friend dropped by with a bottle of wine
and you quickly grabbed a couple of glasses from the shelf.
Later in my visit to Venice, this
time with my son, we stopped by another wine bar and again I ordered some white
wine, requesting a pair of tumblers. The
waitress told us, without a trace of a smile, that that would not be possible,
and poured the wine into stemmed wine glasses. I tried to explain to her and a
nearby waiter that it was a quirky preference of mine, that I own a restaurant
back home and that the waiters all know about my curious tastes in glassware.
The two servers consulted and the waitress agreed to switch glasses for us, but
the stern face never changed.
As we sipped our wine, my son
pointed out to me that someone was talking to me. There was another waitperson
on the other side of the room, preparing some food. He was staring at me and
speaking directly to me, in Italian. I
couldn’t understand everything that he said, but I picked out the words
“cattivo”, “vino” and “bicchiere” – bad, wine, and glass. He seemed to be
scolding me, telling me that it was bad to drink wine out of inappropriate
glasses.
I was a little taken aback and
didn’t know how to respond. I tried to explain in a playful, joking manner why
I was amused by drinking my wine out of a humble, ordinary glass, but I didn’t
have the adequate grasp of Italian to state my case. The man’s expression and
the way he spat the words at me conveyed that he was not in the mood for a
lighthearted exchange of wine-drinking philosophy.
Needless to say, we finished our
wine rather quickly, paid our bill and fled from the decidedly unwelcoming
atmosphere. As we walked the streets of
Venice, in a kind of delayed reaction, I became angrier and angrier and more
and more puzzled until my son had to tell me that I was making way too big of a
thing out of a little wine glass.
As often occurs when something
unsettling happens to me, I went over the event again and again in my head. I
tried to figure out what had happened and worked out different scenarios of how
I might have responded. First I had to consider why the bar employee might have
become so incensed. This is what I
decided:
1. He
felt that I was not showing significant respect to the wine. I could not
adequately appreciate the delicate aromas and flavors if it were not allowed to
breathe properly and if it’s temperature were negatively affected by my sweaty
foreign fist
2. I
was putting on airs by claiming to be a restaurant owner who knew better than
the proprietors of a Venetian enoteca how best to imbibe an Italian wine
3. I
was suggesting something that was not the usual way of doing things, was
contrary to the rigid standard of how food and drink is served in Italy and was
not to be taken seriously, especially when accompanied by bad grammar and weak
repartee
4. The
American restaurant dictum “the customer is always right” which would require
an American restaurateur to allow a customer to drink his Chateau Lafit
Rothchild out of a soup bowl if he so desired, was not something that was adhered
to in Italy.
5. The
person who was speaking to me was simply a boorish, irritating and contemptible
fool
My ruminations didn’t just stop
there, though. That wouldn’t be any
fun. After returning to the U.S. I often
told friends about my adventures – which were 99 percent of a positive nature.
Eventually, though, I came back to the sad story of the wine glass, because it
still wasn’t resolved in my head. The more I talked about it and the more I
played the scene out in my head, the more I was able to develop alternate
endings to the confrontation. Here are
some of my favorites:
1. I
return my adversary’s glare and hiss, “Are you talking to me?” in a Joe Peschi
accent as I vault over the bar, shattering wine glasses – all of which will
soon be stemless as I make my way toward the terrified wine shop flunky, grab
him by the lapels and curse at him in flawless Italian as I explain to him the
concept of American-style hospitality.
2. I
invite my wine-etiquette expert to join me for a glass of wine. Using the “kill
him with kindness” approach, I suggest that he convince me of the merits of
using the traditional stemmed glass. We become best of friends and ever after
exchange Christmas cards written in Italian.
3. After
becoming frustrated with trying to explain myself in what must sound like the
conversational ability of a three-year old, I explode in a fifteen-minute
English rant all roughly formulated on the concept of the wine tumbler, but
really just an excuse to feel fluent once again. I circulate amongst the other
patrons of the bar, speaking to no one and everyone, just enjoying the sound of
my own voice until my horrified son and I are physically removed to the
cobblestones outside.
So now months have gone by and
I’m almost over it. I found a local restaurant that serves wine in even tinier
versions of the “ombra” and call it a “smidge”. I order wine in our restaurant
and the waiters serve it in my preferred vessel, with a smile. And on Christmas
day my daughter gave me my own set of wine tumblers.
Did I make a big deal about a
little thing? Yes, I did. Have I been obsessing about it for way too long? For sure.
Have I been driving friends and family a little crazy with all of the telling
and retelling and asking of opinions on the subject? Most definitely. Am I
going to go back to Venice some day and order many glasses of wine? I’m
thinking so. But now I have a new question to ask my friends.
Should I put my tumbler in my
carry-on, or the checked bag?
