Best Wine List of any US Brewery? Suggestions welcome on improvements.

So I began assembling a wine cellar at my brewery taproom/restaurant early last year. Admittedly, it is short on CA wines (based on my personal preferences) and Bordeaux (based on high wholesale prices for BDX in MD) and heavy on Burgundy and Rhone. The concept is to keep prices reasonable for most as compared to current market but also enough margin to be able to offer regulars a standard discount from listed pricing. Wines are served in a casual setting in that the bottle is presented, opened and once tasted…is left at the table with glasses to enjoy. We don’t offer table service, but rather, have a beer hall/fast casual feel. What apparent holes do you see in this list? Open to suggestions. Thanks!
Jailbreak-List.pdf (90 KB)

Wait a minute - is this for the brewpub that serves burgers, tacos, and flatbreads? It seems wildly off target if so. (but yeah, those are some nice wines!)

You need more affordable wines. Something you can buy for $30-$50/ bottle. I would recommend some inexpensive Gigondas and the surrounding Cotes du Ventoux. Usually nice QPR’s.

Hey now, not just any burgers, tacos and flatbreads. Everything made fresh daily neener But seriously, we sell a good bit of lower end wine by the glass (the $15-35/btl variety) but then very little demand beyond that until you get to the $200+ per bottle category. We have a bit of an underground following for high end wine and spirits. Its a bit like those random dive bar Burgundy joints who have DRC and Raveneau on the list. Not something you see often in the US.

I assume the $2-3k wine(s) are for a regular or 2 who actually buy them, otherwise why have them?
And you need more aged Bordeaux :slight_smile:

Need Zins! Turley, Bedrock, Carlisle, more Ridge…

Here are my initial thoughts:

  1. More Riesling options (both affordable and delicious with just about any food choice)
  2. More Beaujolais (again affordable and drink well young. A lot of the wines on your list sound great in a decade)
  3. Gotta get 1 affordable white champagne on the list, even if it’s a a mediocre bottle.
  4. More CA Zin/field blends

Overall awesome looking list that I’d swoon over if I saw and wasn’t expecting. So much better than lists that are filled with affordable but obscure wines. Where is the Brewery?

TW

Why is the 09 Dom $50 more than the krug NV? The krug a good deal :slight_smile:

That’s a killer list. Not sure if you have the regulars to buy that at a brewery but if you do, what a treat!

Lots of boxes to check there. If you’re going for the full Monty, you’ll need some DRC, Selosse, Rayas, Mascarello (B), Soldera, and WTF, some Noval Nacional.

You must sell an assload of KL and Wildman BTG to get those allocations! Well done!

That Beaucastel and Faury Cote Rotie are great prices for someone paying attention. Both are probably killer with the burgers (although the Dal Forno with burgers is probably even better and I’ll definitely do that next time I’m in Naptown). Do you do MD pit beef? The Beaucastel would be great with that. I really miss a good pit beef sandwich.

Given we’re a brewery, the vast majority of our alcohol sales is beer. We do, though, have healthy wine by the glass sales as well as pours of spirits. Ive tried to feature wine sales by the bottle of more affordable offerings but it didnt do well. The high end seems to be of larger interest to our corporate clients and wine geek friends. Unfortunately, MD is a three tier state so getting older releases is difficult which is why most selections are more current vintages. As I build the list and over time, I might opt to incorporate a wine/spirits bar as a separate component of our current operation. Given the scarcity of some of these bottles and the hurdles needed to overcome just to get a single bottle of many of these, the list will take a while to build to any great extent.

Pretty amazing that you’ve already done enough KL and Wildman business to have what you do already. That’s a great start.

We feature many locally raised meats. Our next investment will be a meat aging locker. The goal is long dry aged philly cheesesteaks.

I really want to open a MD pit beef spot down here in NC. Either I’m a genius or lighting $$ on fire.

Without knowing the style of beer you produce and clientele you attract. For me, more $75-125 Bourgogne Blanc, Chablis, etc…Cru Bojo…along with some still Rose, Ca. Zin, a NV champagne or 2 like Charles Heidsieck or Taittinger.

Basically interesting entry level wines to get people to go Grand Cru, Tete de Cuvee, etc…

I would rid myself of the seemingly random selections from Argentina, Veneto, Abruzzo, Sweet and Fortified selections, they seem out of place and add to a mixed message the wine list delivers. It needs focus, then depth of vintage and price point, pick your regions and own them.

I would definitely frequent your brewery all points aside.

Quibbling aside, I find that to be a pretty impressive wine list for a brewery.

Very nice list, Justin! Would love to go there.

That’s a great list for any restaurant. For a Brew Pub I would worry (in my part of the world) that the wines are too high-end for my patrons. I would want to have a BTG option that was somewhere around $9-10/glass. We are just a tap room (no restaurant), and we offer two wines, both of which come from a keg - Goodfellow Ribbon Ridge Chardonnay and Cameron Spritz (lightly carbonated Pinot Blanc & Pinot Noir) that we sell BTG for $7. The wines are served in Riedel Burgundy glasses.

Where’s the SQN? [wow.gif]

We have five BTG options at $7-10 per 5oz pour (4 from keg) plus two rotating premium BTG offerings that are kept on a Coravin. All served in Reidel glasses. These accommodate the general non beer consumer who happens to come with a group or with a signicant other. They move fairly well at about 150-200 glasses per week. From there, our wine consumers show a gap in the mid to low high tier range and pick back up at the “collectible” bottle tier. We’ve tried the value bottles and mid tier but the bottles never move. I’d sell more Rousseau and Raveneau than well priced CA cabs, chards and mid tier French selections. Most of our prices are 1.4-2x wholesale with a few gems being higher.

If only they had distribution in MD😢