Learning tact
Of course, some guests want to show off whatever wine knowledge they have, and learning to deal with a confrontational customer with tact is all part of the experience. Occasionally, you have to learn the hard way, as Nash found out.
“Generally speaking it’s not best to correct people, but in my younger days I recommended a wine to a guy who wanted a cheaper version of Chablis. I gave him a chardonnay and he kicked off. Then, in my lack of experience I corrected him…”
A little bit of knowledge, she said, can be a dangerous thing.
“If you meet people who make the wine, they’re typically fun, down to earth, creative. And you get consumers they often enjoy wine in a fun environment and somehow in the middle it goes wrong.”
Nash’s advice is to remember that, no matter how far along you get in your career, you are always, always learning.
“What drives me is demystifying things that sometimes I haven’t understood in the past, and bringing that information to someone else is really rewarding.”
