Not Being Wined by Business

Doesn't it annoy you when you patronize a business and give them your hard earned money and all they give you in return is a bad experience?

A few months ago on a Saturday evening, a group of friends and I went to Fish Public, a restaurant in Kensington. It was about 2 weeks after the restaurant had opened. We had all heard good reports and were eagerly anticipating the experience. We are a bunch of Foodies - we like to eat and drink good food and wine. We were seated and served by a waiter who was very knowledgeable about the food selection. He offered good recommendations. The food was fairly tasty. So far so good - no problems.

Unfortunately, the wine service was another world. There appeared to be a separate wine staff. Problems began early and never ceased....
Firstly, a couple of us had brought bottles of wine. When our first wine waiter, a young woman, opened the bottle that I had brought (which was in front of me) she offered the taste of the wine to the man sitting next to me. Not a big mistake but ... I corrected her,  and tasted the wine. No big deal.
Secondly, when we ordered bottles of wine from the wine list, we found that the wine staff did not know the wine list very well. The wine list was not long or complicated. Why have a designated wine staff if they are not trained?
However, the biggest mistake occurred with the last bottle ordered for the evening - a Italian red wine, a Barbera, not that expensive. One of the guys at the table had tasted it and said it was OK, that there were no flaws. The wine was poured. However, when I tasted the wine, I noted that it was 'corked', affected by TCA. I called the wine waiter over and told him this.He disappeared, ostensibly to get another bottle....
Alas, that was not the case. A gentleman in a suit appeared at the table ( we had never seen this person before) and proceeded to tell me, without smelling or tasting the wine, that I was wrong! that there was nothing wrong with the wine, it was just a cheaper Italian wine, and a new bottle would taste exactly the same, that I just did not know what to expect! (I am very surprised that he did not add "since you are a woman"). The problem with that statement was 1) the wine WAS corked, very evident of TCA 2) he never smelled nor tasted the wine to assess it himself, and 3) THIS woman IS trained in the sensory evaluation of wine and its defects (I studied winemaking at UC Davis). I had the very strong impression that this gentleman saw a middle-aged, glasses-wearing woman and made the very old-fashioned assumption that women do not know anything about wine! Bizarre! He also never introduced himself - I gather he was the wine manager. He strongly suggested that we should choose another wine, that he knew that the 'defect' was just a property of that wine. I was adamant in asking him to bring the same wine again. Not once did he taste the wine. Incredible! Finally he gave in and huffily brought another bottle of the same wine. Quel surprise! This bottle was TOTALLY DIFFERENT in taste and smell! and not corked. He never apologized or did anything to help make up for the bad experience.

So what does a person do these days with bad service but Yelp their displeasure..... However, I was a social media novice then.... so no Yelping, no Facebook comments, no tweeting, nada!

What DID I do? I did the old-fashioned thing -  I bitched and moaned in person to all the friends I could reach about my bad experience!

This dated approach was not as effective perhaps as social media because it did not reach so  many people and it also did not allow the restaurant owner to address the problem. But it still allowed me to vent and feel better.

So what if I had Yelped? What would their response have been? Would they have responded at all? Hopefully they would have addressed the issue and resolved it in some positive way.
However, I am not at all sure because my husband had previously experienced problems with wine knowledge and rude, untrained wine staff at their sister restaurant, Cucina Urbana.

So who knows, would using social media have made someone listen?? Maybe I should write a review now and see what happens?? What do you think??