Dear Etiquetteer:
I’m not even sure why, but lately when I go out to restaurants I turn my wineglass upside down as a sign to the server that the glass can be cleared away. You know how restaurant tables can get crowded sometimes with too many dishes. This was my thought to help make some space.
Someone I had dinner with recently questioned what I was doing, and since I really don’t even know why I started doing this, I feel like I have to ask you if this is OK. So Etiquetteer, is it OK for me to turn my wineglass upside down if I don’t want any wine?
Dear Dining Without Wining:
An upside-down glass is not a universally recognized symbol for “Please take away this unwanted glass,” so you should stop doing this. Asking your waiter or waitress to remove it is more direct and Completely Unambiguous. In fact, depending on where you are in the world, an upside-down glass could have several different meanings according to Dear Kid Love Mom, including (in Australia) that you can fight anyone in the place and win. Not, Etiquetteer fancies, the message you’re trying to get across.
Etiquetteer is relieved to read that you’re only turning your glasses in restaurants, because to do so in a private home would be insulting to the hosts, implying that their hospitality was insufficient. The correct way to decline wine at a private dinner is to say “No thank you” or to shake your head. You may also cover your glass with your hand if the Threat of More Wine becomes imminent, but this is perhaps less common than hitherto.
Now it may happen that you end up with an unwanted glass of wine in front of you. Poor Fanny Logan* was faced with a rainbow of undrunk glasses, “the butler having paid no attention to my shakes of the head.” We must remember the Very Old Custom that the butler used to get all the undrunk wine after dinner as his perquisite. Yes, that does mean wine left in people’s glasses at table and not just what remained in open bottles, and yes, that does feel gross now in our more hygienic times. At any rate, this is not something to make a fuss about. Remember the words of Igor in Young Frankenstein: “Say nothing, act casual.”
Thanksgiving 2021 has come and gone, and Etiquetteer hopes You and Yours enjoyed a Great Feast of Perfect Propriety. Etiquetteer commented over on Instagram that one of the most American Thanksgiving traditions was to serve cranberry sauce in the shape of the can from whence it came. What could be more Perfectly Proper? Opinions were strongly pro and con! What do you think about it?
*In Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate.