wine pairing at Alinea

Have a dinner at Alinea coming up. I am really excited about trying their food. Unfortunately they do not allow corkage.
Does anyone have experience with their wine paring program? Should I do it?
I just hate to have a nice meal without wine…

I have never been but when I almost went the near-universal advice was not to get the pairings but order off the list instead. This was about 3-4? years ago though.

Alinea is great. I didn’t have the wine pairing when i went. I have done the wine pairing at Next (same owners) and it was completely dreadful!

I’ve had the pairings a few times and I have found them to be mediocre at best. It is anything but a wine place and the focus is (and absolutely should be) the food. The way it is served is not conducive to pairings because the “dishes” many times are single bites… you may get 25 things in some cases. In addition, the pairing is offensively priced for what it is. IIRC, the premium pairing was $250 per head and included such $15 selection as Weimar Dry Riesling and a tasting of an $8 bomber of beer.

My suggestion is that if you planned on budgeting for the pairing, get yourself some serious champagne off their list and enjoy that. Champagne pairs with the vast majority of dishes they serve.

For the past few seasons they have done a red meat or duck dish that is a little more substantial about 2/3 of the way through. You can always get a single glass of whatever red they paired with it just for the hell of it. It isn’t worth splurging on a special bottle just for that one course.

Thanks. They do not have a wine list online. And I was not sure they even have one. I probably go for a nice bottle of white for most of the dishes and then a glass of whatever red for the meat dish.

That is my biggest hangup with Alinea. Don’t know the food and don’t know the wine, so it’s impossible to plan.

Their list (as you might expect) is not cheap. I’ve done the pairings a number of times (which have had a number of decent wines, but generally tends to skew to the arcane and “hipster”). As Izzy notes, they are expensive for value, that is until you look at their wine list. I usually try to do a champagne and a red burg, but be prepared for pain if you head that way. No need to make your decision now, though. You can look at the list and ask the somm about the pairings and go from there.

Thanks, David

Seems a lot of pain to plan ahead. Did you ever try to ask them for a wine list prior to the meal?

Yes. And they’ve always told me it wasn’t available. Maybe that’s changed in the last year

I went recently and did the wine pairing. It was a good pairing, but nothing high end and nothing that stood out except a nice Pradeaux Bandol with the two-bite steak course.

Was it a regular pairing or premium one? BTW, how was the meal?

I have been to Alinea a fair number of times. Have done pairings and off the list. The list is not available via email. The list is quite expensive. That being said I would definitely order off the list. There were 4 of us there last time and we ordered a bottle of Champagne, a Riesling and a Red Burg and that worked really well. Wine with the 20% service charge was about $1100. Michael Bowden was with us and did an excellent job of picking out the wines. Hopefully he will chime in with the exact bottles and his thoughts.

George

If you don’t mind the lack of pretense and table cloths and using your hands on a couple of courses, Alinea is awesome

I don’t remember Alinea offering more than 1 pairing. Next does 2.

George

Did the wine pairing at Next and it was a total ripoff, clouded the whole experience especially with the ticket system. Would recommend the bottle list if you can stomach big markups, or maybe do one wine pairing and split it across two people, since otherwise it’s way too much booze.

I’ve had the (premium) pairing once and ordered off the list twice. Cost isn’t a truly significant factor; you will be paying a lot either way. But I would recommend against the pairing, for a number of reasons.

First, the pace of the meal and its presentation – which includes the descriptions and, when necessary, instructions – means that you will have significantly less time to drink, appreciate, contemplate, etc. the wines. Especially under the assumption that you will be discussing the food with your dining companions.

Second, it ends up being quite a lot of wine. That’s fine if you’re the sort that’s up for a significant quantity (and the reverse of one of my more common complaints about pairings), and they will slow or stop anyone’s pairings if asked and charge you only for what you consume, but I don’t think it’s completely clear to most diners just how much wine they’re going to be offered. As a result, anyone who’s not in it for every drop but doesn’t realize it until halfway through gets left out at the end, which I think makes for a less enjoyable communal experience. Not to mention that trying to drink faster than one wants can lead to its own lack of enjoyment…especially given the number of courses that are yet to come.

Third (and this may have changed if the personnel are different since I did the pairing), it can be difficult to get them to understand your stylistic preferences, if you have any. If you have a more catholic taste in wine, you’ll be fine. But I was quite clear about what I didn’t want, and even supplemented that clarity with pointed reactions to the early wines, and still received a number of pours that were almost exactly the opposite of what I’d choose to drink…to the point where, by the end of the savory courses, I was asking what the next wine was and, on multiple occasions, asking them to provide alternatives.

(I need to add that the wine service in all cases was excellent. Even when I was being difficult, they handled it beautifully.)

In the end, I agree with Izzy: you’re there for the food. You’re going to be thinking about it and talking about it when you’re not eating it. The wine is essentially forced to be an afterthought just by the very nature of what the restaurant does. Acknowledge that ordering by the bottle means wine/food nirvana is only going to be reached by accident, and order something that you enjoy but that isn’t overtly demanding or flashy.

And don’t forget that there will be a lot of sweet courses, so keep that in mind while judging quantity.

I very much enjoy Alinea, though I certainly understand that it’s not for everyone. I hope you have a great time. The best non-wine advice I could give is: don’t take it seriously. Everything about the restaurant seems solemn and challenging, and too many people go in prepared to do battle and leave feeling like they’ve been in one. But the fact is the food is enormously playful, often subtly or overtly humorous, and is vastly more enjoyable if treated as such.

I think we need to be clear. Alinea and Next are both Achatz restaurants. The wine pairing at Next is terrible. The wine pairing at Alinea is acceptable although ordering by the bottle, in most peoples opinions is a better way to go. Next does not have a bottle list (except for 1 menu). Neither restaurant allows corkage.

George

I thought that Next stepped up its pairings at the last menu (not Trio). But wine service has always been the Achilles heel of both restaurants

I just wish there was an option. Why can’t Next do a bottle list??? Or even allow corkage at $50 per or something!

George

Spot on advice. Few restaurants make me smile and laugh out loud as Alinea. Part of the fun for me is watching the reactions of other tables when those courses are brought to them.

In any top restaurant where they do a large and varied dego style menu I have found this to work better than anything…and/or substitute or add in a white burg.