Ep 582: Back to Basics – Wine Etiquette

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This time I revisit a show from long ago on Wine Etiquette. In this Back-to-Basics episode, I cover the three main places you would use etiquette - a dinner party, a restaurant, and a tasting room.

I address:

The Dinner Party: What to bring a host, a good welcome drink, whether or not to open a bottle that a guest brings, the etiquette of what to do with the last glass in the bottle, and the point in the night to serve your best wine. I also talk about the proper way to pour, how high to fill a wine red or white wine glass, and whether or not to display a bottle you have decanted.

Source: Des Moines Register

The Restaurant: I review every step of wine ordering from perusing the menu to looking at the cork to approving the wine. I discuss the interaction with a sommelier and what to do with large groups, and how to handle a restaurant that serves less than fresh wine by the glass. I touch on giving the waiter a taste of a special wine and some ideas of what to do at a BYO restaurant.

Tasting rooms: When to make a reservation, what to wear, tasting room fees, spitting, commenting/ask questions, and the most pressing question people have: what to tip tasting room staff.

I tried to cover everything, but if you still have questions, feel free to reach out!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:15.7	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and Certified Wine Dork.
0:21.3	Do you want an awesome selection of wine delivered right to your door?
0:26.1	You don't even have to think about it.
0:27.5	If you go to Wine Access.com slash normal, you get four shipments a year of six amazing bottles that I select around a theme for just $150, which includes shipping.
0:38.4	Wine Access makes it easy to learn about and explore the world of wine.
0:41.9	And so do I with the Wine Access Wine for Normal People Wine Club.
0:44.9	Check it out today, wineaccess.com slash normal.
0:47.6	Listen in the middle of the show for more details.
0:51.1	Well, this is the week that I have in my home before I head off to Sicily.
0:57.6	I was in Croatia last week.
1:00.0	I need to give another shout out to Brett from Walk and Wine, who sponsored this trip for me.
1:06.3	And I am hoping that I can take some of you with me at some point to Croatia.
1:10.4	It is an amazing place.
1:12.7	Beautiful, scenic, historic, so much there that I didn't even know was there. And it is an
1:20.1	emerging wine scene. It's only been a country for about 30 years. Obviously, it has a much longer
1:25.1	legacy than that. But the wine industry is fairly new. So for those of you who are
1:29.5	adventurers and willing to see what an emerging wine region is like, I think this could be a really
1:35.6	eye-opening and very cool trip. And gosh, it's gorgeous. So who wouldn't love to go there? So again,
1:40.6	thank you to Brett and to Marie, his mom, who was also on the trip and to Jackie
1:46.0	and John and all the other people who made that trip so special. And now I'm about to roll
1:50.6	into my other trip with the patrons to Sicily. I am so excited. Cicely has some sort of like
	...

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