Excellent guest – a great 2 part episode.

I’m definitely going to get the book – it sounds like a good read.. but it’s £27 ($44) on Amazon.co.uk instead of $21 on Amazon.com!

QOTD – I think sommeliers are so underused.. people rarely seem to use them, yet obviously they know the wine list better than anyone. I find them very helpful, as long as they don’t make faces at you when you set a budget to them. One at Del Posto in NYC was so rude when I said I wanted to spend about $80 on a bottle. Sure I’m not going to get a top-notch Barolo for that, but you got to be able to cater to all budgets.

I totally forgot to track it through the disqus interface…do’h!
ON it now.

We are up here in the middle of VT, where they just started skiing at Killington on Tuesday this week….

QOTD-Eric Renaud at Bern’s in Tampa is the rockin’est sommelier on the planet!!!!

nice show…

QOTD – unfortunately, overall, the wine service in many restaurants is very lacking. If I don’t know they wine on the list, it is rare that the server will provide any sort of meaningful help. a dedicated somm. is often a big help, but many places don’t have such a person every night.

First of all I want to say that Rajat is awesome and this show is by far one of my favorites. I am going to buy that bottle of champagne!! Note: I am not crazy about champagne, but thats mostly because I haven’t had much compared to rioja for example.QOTD: I feel that most places in America are lacking in their selection. For me, its a bit pricey to go to a random restaurant and buy a bottle of something I will 90% of the time not like. However, I am fortunate enough to be in an upcoming neighborhood (Lower East Side/East Village NYC) where everybody from the chef to the server understand food and beverages therefore it is reflected in their choices of wine.

qotd: Finding Great Finds, Service, dishing out knowledge when the guest want to know and sometimes not giving out knowledge.

OH and I love the Sommeliers who find rare one off bottle in their Cellar that wasn’t on the list and offer it.

Awesome guest. Watched both episodes back to back. Great guy. Would love to try his wine. Ignore MJO below. Your solid as ever. The host’s job is to direct the conversation where you want it to go. You have yet to fail me on that….

Such a great set of episodes, great work Gary! Hey, Ian never told me you have Ced Bouchard on the shelves!!!

QofD: too uneven! Great restaurants sometimes have mediocre wine service and lesser spots have motivated and inspiring sommes. Nothing beats when a great somme turns you on to a producer you adore for years and years.

Pet peeve: if you are going to charge real corkage, say $25 and up/btl, for goodness sake have appropriate stemware for the variety being poured!

I was happy to see the last selection. I’m always looking for champagne and don’t have a lot of experience in that area.

QOTD I’ve had some good sommeliers and some who I didn’t care for. My last experience was bad. I asked to speak to the sommelier and he basically came to the table, threw the wine list in front of me and walked away. When I ordered a $250 bottle from the waiter, he came back over to the table and introduced himself and also asked if I’d like to see the Sommelier’s Collection (higher priced wine list) before I made my final selection. I won’t be going back.