I am encountering more and more people who tell me that they prefer to stay at home or meet at someone’s house instead of venturing to a restaurant or wine bar.

Many reasons have been put forward but the most recurring, especially among wine lovers above the age of 35, is that it seems that very few venues are offering the right choice of wines at the right price.

Of course, what is the right price for a 40-year-old wine lover is not necessarily the right price for the accountant of a newly-opened restaurant or a struggling wine bar. Neither is the appropriate choice of wine the same for the wine lover as it is to suppliers of wine, some of whom have tied catering establishments under contract, very often helping commercial, foreign and/or local wine producers shift their wines and in the public eye.

This problem is not new. I remember writing about this 10 years ago, when the wine bar culture had just started to boom. At that time, I had anticipated that things would improve rapidly, in the assured knowledge that Maltese businessmen would quickly adjust to the increasing demand for good wine and wine service.

Well, I suppose things did improve slightly on the service side, in the sense that most venues today offer the right sort of glass and, in general, we have a better understanding of wine. However, there are very few, if any, places that can excite and entice the enthusiastic, knowledgeable and passionate wine lover, either with the choice of wine on offer, wine suggestions, innovation or wine conversation .

There are naturally a number of issues that need to be highlighted and understood. Firstly, there are, of course, those establishments that are not interested in attracting the wine-loving crowd and not much can be done about that.

Let’s face it. We wine lovers are a bit demanding and in the mid-40s we do become less tolerant. Then there are those who think that we are all stupid. These are generally the ones with very average wine lists and a few ‘expensive’ wines thrown in for when the ‘stupid’, ‘rich’ wine people come in.

You can normally recognise places like this. You know… the huge pepper mill… the Freudian philosophical statement on the menu… this is not a restaurant but a lifestyle… the best in this and that, etc.

But I have a feeling that the vast majority of owners of catering establishments would like to offer good wine and wine service at the right price because, at the end of the day, it is good for their reputation and, finally, I believe good for business too.

Wine has become an important part of our society and Maltese consumers have become more demanding. It is therefore very important to have enthusiastic, well-trained people

Let’s have a specific look at wine bars.

The Oxford Dictionary defines a wine bar as ‘a bar or small restaurant that specialises in serving wine’. Wikipedia goes into more detail and, among other essentials, it suggests the following:

(a)The wine bar phenomenon offers the taste before you buy philosophy;

(b) Wine is offered by the glass or in sample size portions;

(c) These bars expose people to different and interesting wines they would either not know existed or be too intimidated to inquire about;

(d) They seek to remove the association of wine with upscale clientele and overwhelming wine lists and replace it with a more casual and relaxing atmosphere;

(e) Wine bars look to embrace the intellectual stimulation linked to wine; and

(f) Modern wine bars have begun to incorporate a larger variety of food choices. Traditionally associated with cheeses and desserts, wine bars are looking to combine wine with appetiser-sized gourmet selections to enhance the palate.

So while it is relatively easy to conclude that most Maltese wine bars fail to meet Wikipedia’s version of what a wine bar should be like, it is slightly more complicated to assess what wine lovers expect.

Discussing this issue with a number of managers and proprietors, it seems that there is a big problem in finding quality people to work as wine waiters and in the catering industry in general.

One of Malta’s top foreign someliers who looks after all the wine requirements in a top five-star complex, told me that a costly advertising campaign for “people who want to work within the wine service industry with training and good salaries offered” resulted in a handful of applications with no one found to be suitable.

Over the years, the government’s response to problems of this nature has been the setting up of training and teaching institutions, such as Mcast, the ETC and various student/work schemes, just to mention a few.

When it comes to the catering industry, the official responsibility for providing and preparing the manpower needed falls in the hands of the Institute for Tourism Studies (ITS).

While I am not convinced that the best way to teach catering skills is in a tourism organisation, I think it is about time that the authorities take a serious look at how this institute is spending our money and how successful it is in preparing and supplying the catering and hospitality industry with its human resources.

Wine has become an important part of our society and Maltese consumers have become more demanding. It is therefore very important to have enthusiastic, well-trained people to work within the service of wine.

The natural breeding ground for such people would, of course, be ITS but as yet nothing much has been done. Although the institute runs a number of internationally-recognised wine courses, these are largely geared towards the retail and wholesale trade.

Without exonerating the industry itself from the responsibility to provide training, ITS needs to get its policy right and act together.

This institute is not there to prepare our children for exhibitions and competitions or to subsidise some teacher’s ego trip.

ITS should be planting the seed of enthusiasm and nurturing it through equally enthusiastic lecturers, together with an exciting, challenging and relevant curriculum.

Yes, ITS should be preparing people mentally and technically to do the jobs that wine bar and restaurant owners so desperately need to fill.

Ultimately, I think it’s a fundamental rule of good hospitality. Wine lovers want nice, suitable venues with good wine and service at the right price.

Occasionally, they would like to try something new and to have the appropriate food. Really… we just want to have fun!

mike@michaeltabone.com

E-mail your suggestions on how Maltese establishments can improve their wine service.