Proprietor’s Note: Below is our first column by Jim Bacchvs. Jim, whose portrait you may recognize from our home page, will write about the history and traditions that lie behind wine culture today. Prior to condescending to write for Vinapedia, Jim was a party planner and a minor Roman deity.  

My! How times have changed. Dinner guests of 118 years ago would be shocked — shocked I say — over today’s wine etiquette!

This is from “Gaskell’s Compendium of Forms — Educational, Social, Legal and Commercial” by Prof. G. A. Haskell; published by Standard Publishing Co., Chicago, 1889.

In his chapter on dinner etiquette, he discusses wine:

At small dinner parties, or ordinary family dinners, all wines are put upon the table, and each guest must help the lady next to him and himself, and then pass the decanter. At the best or large dinner parties wine must be brought and handed around by the servants; the taste for light wines, which is now prevalent, makes a variety indispensable. There must be provided sauterne and sherry for fish and soup; with the joints the choice of Hock, Chablis and one or two kinds of claret; with game, Burgundy may be given, and there should be port on the table for the few who choose to take it at this time. Then the “ladies’ wines,” as they are sometimes called, still or sparkling Champagne and Moselle. For dessert, provide Port, Sherry, Madeira and Claret. Port accompanies cheese.

Hock, Champagne, Moselle and Chablis, and some few other wines are brought to the table in bottle, the choice varieties of Claret in the basket in which they are imported; Port, Sherry and Madeira are decantered; ordinary Clarets and Burgundy wines are handed around in Claret jugs, either of glass or silver.

With regards to wine etiquette at the table:
- Never hold a wineglass by the bowl, but by the stem.
- Never drink a glass full of wine at a time, nor drain the last drop.
- Never propose a toast, nor drink another’s health; this old time practice is out of fashion.
- Never drink from a glass without first wiping the mouth with a napkin, and also after drinking.
- Never speak of sherry or port as sherry wine or port wine.
- Never take but one kind of wine at dessert.

Bit stuffy, what? But very interesting, especially the line, “…then the ‘ladies’ wines,’ as they are sometimes called, still or sparkling Champagne and Moselle.” Ladies’ wines? Still champagne?  And what the heck is Hock? Plenty of material for more columns there!

This knowledge, by the way, comes to us from professional paper pusher, M.G. Mattis, who also happens to be The Proprietor’s father. Vinapedia.net = Nepotism “R” Us!

—Jim Bacchvs