Posted on Tue, Apr 06, 2010
If you are ordering a bottle of wine at a restaurant the server should hand you the cork after the bottle is opened. You may think the proper thing to do is smell the cork and if you do, it will smell like a cork and doing so gives you no information about the wine pro or con.
Taste and smell the wine to ensure its quality; the reason the cork is handed to the patron is to check if the name on the cork matches the name on the bottle label, if they're different send the bottle back.
Remember, a cork is just a cork!
George W. Heath III
Bacchus Wine Consultant
Twitter: @BacchusWine