Cool article by Evan Dawson found on Facebook today. He begins with:
There is a maddening chicken-and-egg problem with most restaurant wine lists: Are wine lists stupid because customers don’t know much about wine, or are customers uneducated about wine because restaurant wine lists are stupid?
Interesting proposition - have a better, shorter wine list, and both geeks and non-geeks might have an easier time. 200-1000 selections is maddening, not necessary, and most often pretty weak. I’d love to see a small, well-selected and well-priced list.
A dozen wines on a list, as referenced in the article, seems pretty thin to me. In my opinion, most restaurants don’t have the talent to pull it off. I’m with you on “well-selected and well-priced”. If those two characteristics are in play, I’ll take the time to hunt and peck through a longer list, or more likely ask the sommelier something like “what page are the Piedmont reds on”.
Perhaps the best list I ever saw was at Alinea. Quite short by the standards of a high end restaurant, well edited with no junk (and lots of things I like, which helps), and very well priced–especially when compared with the absurd mark-ups one finds on most NYC lists.
Most of those kind of places seem to think that their list needs to be as thick as the phone book or else they have lost face with their peer-competitors.
I have no issue with long lists. Would you walk in to a wine store that sold 12 bottles? You don’t have to read the entire list. Plus you have a Sommelier to help you narrow down your selection.
It’s not a wine store, it’s a restaurant. Around these parts, what passes for a sommelier is probably not the same as what you might be used to. I’ve argued with a sommelier that ‘meritage’ is not a grape/variety, for example. I don’t need to choose from 18 different vintages of the same Napa Cab, nor have 1000 selections of California wine and 3 options for Italy and France combined (with the latter likely being Perrin or super low end Jadot)
My main issue with restaurant wine lists (besides the usual obscene markup) is that bottle selections are either a just released vintage or aged bottles from a crappy vintage.
They have a reserve list, if you ask, with a decent selection (a bit over-priced), but the basic wine menu they give you is great. It’s on one page and broken into 4 price sections: $20, $30, $40, and $50 per bottle (with glass and 1/2 glass prices). For each price section, you get 10 white selections and 10 red selections. Each block of 10 will include a sparkler and a dessert.
Some really nice wines by the bottle or glass. For example, Baudry at $8/glass and and La Vielle Cure at $10, with decent pours.
I cannot tell you how many times my wife and I have eaten outside on a sunny cool day with a wood-grilled pizza and a $20 bottle that was decent. I will drink Baudry all day long!
I really think that NYC at least seems to be entering a golden age of wine lists. From Pearl and Ash to Rouge Tomate on the geeky side to Jungsik and Marea on the higher end side I keep finding wines that I’d like to drink at reasonable prices. And those are just 4 lists I’ve happened to look at recently.
It used to be that if I couldn’t do BYO I’d drink water rather than pay outrageous markups for boring or shut down wines. But at my anniversary dinner at Jungsik I had no trouble finding plenty of excellent <$100 bottles on the list as well as exciting bottles if I wanted to spend more.
Personally I like both the small well selected list and the larger list so long as they have wines I’d like to drink. The one in the article has Clos Roche Blanche Pif so I’d be ecstatic.
yes. Speaking generally, of course. When I dine out (seldom, anymore), I tend to visit the exceptions to the rule, progressive establishments, if you will. I’m price elastic up to about 1x, that’s about it.
It is MUCH easier to sell people wines that they know. So if you’re going to go with a list like this one, you need to spend time & effort educating the staff so that they can give good advice to diners about which wines to select.
Yes, a lot of wine lists are much longer than they “need” to be–they are more like an encyclopedia. A typical restaurant really only “needs” 3-4 pages max of a well-chosen wine list. But if you’re running the kind of restaurant where patrons expect top mark Champagne, First Growth Bordeaux, Super Tuscans, etc., then you’ll end up with a very lengthy (and probably very pricy) list.
I do appreciate restaurants that make a concerted effort to populate wine lists with wines between $30 and $60 (give or take) that are actually ready to drink.
the best wine list is a long one with below-retail prices on aged bottles that have been stored since release. but given that not every restaurant can be troisgros (or the handful of us restaurants that fit that description), i very much appreciate small wine lists – so long as they are very well curated
one of the best restaurants in houston (or anywhere) – oxheart – has a very short, well-curated list that changes regularly. the list includes a highly diverse selection of reasonably priced wines that go great with oxheart’s unique menu, and the entire staff knows the list backwards and forwards. it also includes a lot of wines that the customers will never have tried, but are crowd-pleasers nonetheless. the restaurant also allows byo with a reasonable corkage if you don’t like their selections. for me, short of a list with low-priced treasure, a list like oxheart’s is basically the ideal situation.
(edit: i just looked at oxheart’s current list online and the prices have crept much higher than they used to be. but the theory holds.)
Generally, well-selected and well-priced trumps a behemoth tome of 30 pages of over-priced selections. However, 12 selections can be a bit skimpy, depending on the restaurant.
Restaurants are not one-size fits all, and wine lists should reflect a restaurant. If I’m going to a smaller, less expensive restaurant, I’m ok with a smaller list. But if I’m going to a more expensive restaurant with more complicated dishes or that is more celebratory, I would expect more selections.
Ryan, I’ve yet to try oxheart, but it is on the list for the near future. What do you think about Underbelly? Their list plus the BYOB policy is pretty good in my opinion and there are some things that go great with the more unusual menu items as well.
i love underbelly. another great list with some interesting wines. you can of course byo there too. food is awesome and very eclectic. as you’d expect for a menu that changes frequently and covers so much ground (everything from korean , to charcuterie, bbq, vietnamese, bycatch fish, etc etc), the food can be a tad inconsistent, but you can craft a really awesome dinner from a series of small plates, for a reasonable price, with good drink. it’s also among the most fun and lively restaurants in town. in my mind it’s one of the better regional restaurants i’ve been to, anywhere.
I have to start by saying that my household bread gets buttered by the evil empire, so I’m slightly biased. But I get exposed to the results of various lists and am also a wine geek personally. One thing I do know is that plenty of lists that might be loved by people here or are crafted by somms do not succeed.
I find the article off-base. Though I can understand the opinions coming from a wine geek. The problem with looking at a list is that it is hard to look at it considering the experience, knowledge, emotions, and preference of various other people. That’s often the problem with much of what we come up with here. The average drinker is a very different animal. I’m different than most in that I think people should worry less about what someone else wants or likes if it doesn’t largely detaract from their own opportunities.
To me this points to a longer winelist. A dozen wines is a ridiculous target, unless one is pricing them all at wholesale The bottom line is that less wine will be purchased, and in the end fewer people will find it a great list. While I can see that there can be a time-obligation and a diminishing return once one gets past 200 selections, I find the argument against a 150 bottle list pretty weak. More selections just means more opportunity for everyone to find something of the type and price that they are very comfortable in buying. You don’t like Napa cab, then take the extra five seconds that it takes to just pass by the 8-10 selections. The drawback to a long list is the inventory burden and potential accompanying price increase because of it. Then there is the risk that a novice might be intimidated. But a long list by design typically includes some mainstream selection that the novice might find comort in, and if a somm can hand-sell selections off a short list then they can suggest off a longer list too.
I think the current L.A. lists bear this out. They certainly don’t bear out that lists are any more dominated by the main distributors than anytime in the past. That can be a good thing and a bad thing. Many local lists end up these short affairs of somewhat esoteric wines often displaying the somm’s own preferences. Perhaps similar to the list in the article. Good for them until few people buy wine and more people want to bring wine which is what occurs at many of my new L.A. favorites. I don’t mean to rant, but having four oxidative whites on a 30 wine list is going to appeal to fewer people than 3-4 Napa Cabs. Everyone doesn’t want to experiment and learn something new when they are out to dinner paying 3 times retail for bottles. Many people just want to spend their money on things they know, whether that be brand or type.
The short, esoteric lists fail without a ton of hand-selling. That requirement often does not get met in a busy restaurant. So people glance at a list and without someone at the ready to help them just order a beer, a cocktail, or nothing. Plus, even as a wine geek, I don’t have resounding success in letting somms. chose wine for me when they’re hamstrung by ten red selections.
I guess my answer to the original question is that both winelists and customers are stupid. But customers are the one’s paying so perhaps the stupidest thing is to consider them stupid. Personally I’d rather have more options on my list including those for the geek that wants Gravner’s orange wine and the Mondavi napa cab for my aunt Marie. If we all sat at the table neither would like the other’s wine but we’d all be satisfied and the restaurant would sell a lot of wine.
I haven’t found that much corellation between good and bad lists and long and short lists. It’s mostly just about pricing, selection, quality, maturity, suitability to the food; the usual suspects.
I’ve gotten spoiled, I can take wine to every good restaurant in OC and LA, and I mostly just glance at wine lists out of curiosity now. Even if there’s a relatively good deal, like some good $100 bottle for $175 on the list, I’d rather just have brought something I know I like, is ready to drink, is suitable for the restaurant, and not have to add another $225 to the check.
Stupid story written by someone with an average IQ. None of it rings true. Of course, I don’t order wine or bother to look at wine lists at simple restaurants that I would never expect to have a meaningful wine list. Nor, by definition, would I expect them to. If a wine geek is interested in having wine at a simple restaurant, and not willing to bring their own, then I guess this could be a problem. I wonder if his next article will be about how movie theaters could sell higher quality candy under the ridiculous presumption that it would result in happier customers and better profits. Those who truly care are probably 1% of customers.
The bottom line is that less wine will be purchased, and in the end fewer people will find it a great list. While I can see that there can be a time-obligation and a diminishing return once one gets past 200 selections, I find the argument against a 150 bottle list pretty weak. More selections just means more opportunity for everyone to find something of the type and price that they are very comfortable in buying. You don’t like Napa cab, then take the extra five seconds that it takes to just pass by the 8-10 selections. The drawback to a long list is the inventory burden and potential accompanying price increase because of it. Then there is the risk that a novice might be intimidated. But a long list by design typically includes some mainstream selection that the novice might find comort in, and if a somm can hand-sell selections off a short list then they can suggest off a longer list too.