I bet the top 10 wines even in the “better” restaurants would not be well received on a board like this. People tend to buy names if they are not wine enthusiasts-- e.g. Silver Oak. I am betting Rombauer too, based on a previous thread about popular wines. We on this board make up a tiny tiny fraction of wine drinkers, and lets’ face it-- most people think we are nuts.
What Mo said. It is probably worse (or the worst) in NYC, where an owner who knows nothing will hand their entire list over to one or two salespeople who put all their top quota wines on it. Even with smaller distributors it is not necessarily better. I have seen some real crappy lists that still came from smaller companies.
Further, even interested chef/owners can still depend on salespeople to an extent, so a cool, hip small place might have a decent, but limited list due to relying on only one or two artisan distributors.
The only way to do it is to invest in a full time wine person and furthermore a temp-control room for storage and $$$ for inventory. If a place doesn’t do those things, it will likely not have a list that is up to most of our standards.
I would imagine that Santa Margerita helped Cavit get to where they are…(as with most novice wine drinkers) people just ask for a chardonnay or a cab…or in this case a Pinot Grigio.
The second sentence is one I completely agree with.
What would be a more “interesting” wine list would be (if you could get the data) top ten seller list for:
- Wine bars
- Restaurants with a wine dept. manager/sommelier
- Restaurants with no more than 3-4 locations (i.e., no chain restaurants).
Bruce
P.S. Looking back at the top ten list, it’s another example of why ordering wine in a truly typical or average restaurant in the US is so disappointing. A LOT of mass-produced swill–stuff you really wouldn’t drink anyway–and then marked up to 2-3 times retail. In those circumstances, order a nice beer or a mixed drink…
Vintages?
Vintages? Pleeze. Producer over vintage every time, Bowden. Play along 
BYOB!!!
is anyone surprised there is not a red in the top 10?
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Roberto,
You cannot be serious about putting Chambers with Southern, Youngs, Henry, etc.
Come on.
I think I meant Chalmers? It’s another huge east coast liquor house, I don’t deal with them but their name comes up.