Great post, thanks for sharing these real world experiences Thatcher. But this point in particular resonated with me. Restaurant experience is so much about human interaction, and yet most restaurants simply don’t have the time, budget, culture, salary availability, etc. to have someone around who can engage with the customers deeply about any aspect of the meal at all - food, menu, wine, the restaurant’s history, point of view.
In a low priced restaurant maybe none of those things matter, but as prices go up there is an experience value that has real meaning, and is extremely hard to execute. Connect with me as a customer and I will come back over and over. And I don’t just mean about the food, of course.
I love having conversations about wine with restaurant staff. But at the restaurants I go to, that is nearly always the manager/owner, not a somm. Post Covid, the Somms have disappeared.
I agree with you completely. That is why I highlighted The Four Horsemen where every singly person on the floor has the knowledge of a somm. They welcome us warmly and are always happy to talk about what on the list they are digging. Each is deeply passionate and has their own taste so I love talking to them about wine and frequently just say pick me any wine you are excited about. Before Yaacov scolds me ands says this model is unrealistic I get it, but I do think every restaurant could learn from this.
Thomas Keller actually did a collab with them because he wanted to learn a fresh perspective on what type of restaurant was working in NYC. It was wild he was actually bussing tables!
While I don’t think it’s fair to comment too much given they’re a customer, I think it’s okay to state that 4H represents an elite level of wine service in the industry and the results speak for themselves.
You can see this all over the city where great programs attract great talent and the programs get better as a result. If you really love wine then those are the places you’ll want to work. Unfortunately, they are rare. I’d like to think there’s a version of all of this where we can play a part in migrating best practices across a larger network.
your analysis should likely change given the fact the most desirable wines are highly allocated and managed at the wholesale level accordingly. they know what they have.
It also only strengthens the case that an average restaurant would have as the universe of available wines for by the glass offerings wines which are not as highly valued.
But differently, it explains why an average restaurant has by the glass wines from off vintages.
This comment is for the collection of restaurants which are in between the very top restaurants and the sort of restaurants which don’t care about just using wines which taste the same year after year.
The kind of restaurant which does care about having a distinctive wine list but doesnot have the power to get the best bottles.
not sure i follow the off vintage btg bit. btg generally are wines that move fast, are purchased in higher quantities, and are therefore the most recent vintage, regardless of how good that vintage is.
as for a distinctive wine list, most markets have more better wine than they ever did. you can avoid the entire allocation game and still build a distinctive list pretty much anywhere. it might take some work is all.
I don’t appreciate everything that was said above. But it sounds possible to (a) store good vintages, (b) there is always a good vintage somewhere, (c) why can’t they buy direct from abroad (?), (d) taste seriously / why buy whatever is offered, (e) keep less inventory/turn it faster. It sounds like it is more work? And if so… it goes back to idea its not worth it… because they can still sell the plonk as needed.
When 2015 and 2016 barolo were out, I didn’t see them much. High quality vintage even at lower levels. But I saw 2014 and 2017 on the BTG. Small sample set, but it was over 3-4 restaurants where I particularly looked at BTG to try those vintages. Struck me there was a desire for cheapness that overrode recent vintage (if possible).
Retailers are shying away more and more from “off vintages” in a meaningful way, leaving wholesalers and importers to figure out what to do with the wines.
as you note a small set and therefore completely anecdotal. but perhaps you’re also drawing the wrong conclusion from observed facts; the better vintages are being held to sell on the bottle list and aren’t showing as well to pour btg? or those better vintages aren’t being purchased at all because they require much more time and that’s a sunk cost, so buy the lesser vintages that show better?
realize that wholesale cost for the great majority of wines generally go up a few % each vintage, so the cost of a 2017 vs a 2018 of the same wine might be a few dollars per case. the wines may be wildly different based on vintage, but the economics aren’t.
I think you overestimate the amount of energy restaurants spend in determining vintages in their btg particular and their wine program in general (not counting ‘reserve’ lists/wines). What we consider to be off vintages are most often wines that don’t age well, but are otherwise commercially sound. See it pretty much everywhere in the US and Europe.
Example: Recently Jupiter in Rock Center had '20 and '21 Cedric Bouchard Val Vilaine on its list for the same price. I consulted with the sommelier and chose the '20 even though '21 is the ‘better’ vintage because '20 had the additional year in bottle and I was buying to drink that night, not to cellar. It was delicious.
I know that and the irony is they are probably the last restaurant in NYC that needs your help…but isn’t that the way it always is in life! The best always want to get better.
To answer Karl’s question, yes, the better vintages often get swept out quickly and we are left to pick over the lesser vintages.Depending upon where you are on the food chain of restaurants, you might never see or be offered the better vintages.
We are only allowed to sell wines offered to us by the wholesalers. We cannot buy directly from wineries or importers. Different States have different rules. If I bought from an estate sale, I’d have to pay to the State their excise tax before I could resell it. One of the Wholesalers would turn us in if they saw us selling wine they knew didn’t come from them. A wholesaler might be the national rep for a winery but opt to never sell in certain States or regions. There are CA wines, I can’t buy thus sell. I offered to do a 10 case buy of a certain wine and was basically told to pound sand. That large national distributor felt they could sell everything in the big States and felt no need to offer to us, even though it was sitting in their warehouse serving a three State area.
I think there is way too much of an emphasis here on which vintage is being poured vs. what is not.
The average consumer isn’t walking around with a vintage chart in their pocket, nor are they going to be disappointed if they are introduced to a wine that drinks beyond the quality of the vintage.
The reason I brought it up was one post upthread implied that buyers choose for btg options off-vintages b/c they are priced better prices.
While in some cases no doubt prices no doubt are more attractive for off-vintages, I simply wanted to point out that sometimes buyers at “regular” restaurants don’t have the option to buyer better vintages - aside from narrow windows when it is available - so they are left to buy amongst what is available.