I like drinking wine in Italy. It’s not just the wine, it’s the attitude toward it. It’s just a drink. You have it with meals. Almost everyone does. It’s relatively cheap. When it’s really cheap, it might not taste like a great wine, but at least it’s not bloated with sugar and oak to appeal to the big-gulp soft drink addicts like it is in the US.
But the other reason I like drinking wine in Italy is the service. Mostly, the waiter just plunks the bottle or carafe down on the table and doesn’t touch it again. White or red, it doesn’t matter.
This, dear friends, is heaven.
Is there anything more annoying than a waitperson who hovers and is constantly dribbling streams of wine into your glass while asking if there’s anything (s)he can do for you? “Keep your meathooks off the wine bottle” comes to mind. But then, that’s rude, isn’t it? So you keep quiet and fume deeply inside.
The next most annoying wine trick is to insist that the ice cold bottle of white wine you ordered be put in a bucket full of ice. What could they be thinking? “Ah, now they’ll not try to touch the bottle because it’s wet and messy to pour! I’ll have my way with annoying them—and the wine will freeze their taste buds so flaws in the food will be erased and they will tip me like never before! Whoopee!”
Gimme a tiny trattoria and a rickety table with a carafe of the house best teetering on the edge and I’m a happy camper. I wonder how many of us silent wine-overservice sufferers there are?
More on Wine in Italy
6 Italian Wineries Not to Miss
Serralunga d'Alba: Where in Italy to Chill Out in Late Fall
The Cinque Terre Wines of Walter De Battè