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Let’s Get Real About Restaurant Wine Lists
by Susan Kostrzewa
Each year, Wine Enthusiast Magazine awards three tiers of awards (Award of Ultimate Distinction, Award of Unique Distinction, and Award of Distinction) to submitting restaurants with notable wine lists. In reviewing this year’s applicants, I started to think about how wine consumers approach wine selections when they walk into a restaurant, and what most restaurants are honestly doing right (or screwing up) in their presentation of wines.
First, based on the applicant wine lists and my own dining in Manhattan, where I live, I’d say presentation and organization tends to be schizophrenic. Some restaurants organize by wine variety, some by region, and some by style. Others get cute and clever and organize choices by criteria that are more personal and subjective (i.e. “Wines for Romantics;” “Wines for Celebrating;” or “Rebel Wines”). Some include elements of all of the above. I’m not sure anyone is really sure of what diners want, or how they actually read wine lists.
We talked about the different approaches among the judging panel, and just as restaurants varied widely in approach, we all varied widely in what we preferred. Several of us liked the “wine styles” approach—this is great for wine drinkers who know what they like as far as style or flavor profiles go (i.e. “Dry, Crisp Whites” or “Big, Fruity Reds”) but may be lacking in the more advanced wine knowledge (which probably describes 90% of the American wine drinking public). It seems to go one step further in making wine and food pairings choices easier, too. This was in keeping with our own approach to organizing wines in the Wine Enthusiast Wine & Food Pairings Cookbook; we received a lot of positive feedback from readers who connected with this way of presenting wines.
Others in the group found this approach annoying and liked the traditional approach of cataloging wines by region or variety—it seemed to be associated with more “serious” lists and higher-tiered eateries, which, it could be assumed, attract a more serious and knowledgeable wine drinker. I felt this kind of list was less user-friendly and that if you happened to be a food lover who maybe was still learning about wine (again, probably like most Americans), then you might get lost in the endless columns of wines that may not be familiar to you. One hopes these types of restaurants would employ a friendly sommelier who could help diners navigate the list, but in some cases it wasn’t true, and often, people hesitate to ask for help for fear of “looking dumb.” How many of these diners stare numbly at the list, then panic and choose something based on price alone?
Finally, the more eclectic approach of grouping wines under “clever” headings (usually handpicked and chosen by the sommelier or wine director)was deemed among our group to be charming and add a human, personal touch (like having your wine expert best friend handpick wines for you), but only in addition to a list that offered more help, like one of the approaches above.
List organization style was just one of many things we considered in judging our own awards–depth of list, creativity, food-pairing elements–all figured heavily as well, as did staff education, storage and events. There was no one “right” approach to wine lists organization necessarily, but it was an interesting topic of discussion.
What type of restaurant wine list do you prefer? Old school, practical, zany? Are restaurants doing a good job in exposing you to new wines and organizing lists in ways that are helpful, logical and stress-free?
Filed under: Connoisseurship, Food Pairing, Opinions and Commentary, Restaurants and Food, Sommeliers, Wine Recommendations, Wine Tasting
11 Comments
11 Responses to “Let’s Get Real About Restaurant Wine Lists”
Please Wait
October 15th, 2009 at 1:42:06 PM
This is a question I struggle with daily as a consumer and someone from with in the industry. The short answer is most restaurants don’t do a great job with wine list or variety. There are exceptions and some restaurants have great “list”, I think these are exceptions. But the problem isn’t always the list as it is the servers. From my industry seat, it’s very difficult to get to the staffs and share the wines with them, so they can talk about the wines with their customers. The “high end” restaurants are easier, but for the most part, they make list of wines by variety and years and sell based on scores. Not recommendations from servers. From my consumer seat, I often ask what wine then recommend with what I am eating and I hear things like “a red” “a white”.
I’m sure we won’t fix this issue soon, but it’s great to talk about!
October 15th, 2009 at 1:50:35 PM
I worked at a restaurant that used a progressive wine list, meaning that from the top to the bottom the wines got darker and less sweet. So the very top wine would be your sweetest, lightest white wine, and the very bottom wine would be your darkest, most full-bodied red wine. Explaining this to people helped them to select between various wines of the same varietal – ie: a lower placed Chardonnay was clearly a dryer, more robust Chard than the one above it – and find the wines that fit their taste a bit better.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:33:06 PM
I love it when waiters are well versed in wine selections and pairing them appropriately with meals. In lieu of that, I like when restaurants put wine suggestions next to the entree on the menu. It shows that they have thought out their wine selection in relation to their menu and it makes those of us who are less than knowledgeable about all the wines of the world feel more at ease about making a selection.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:38:40 PM
Laine and George, these are both good approaches. Either one would, in my mind, be an improvement over much of what I see and would put diners more at ease.
October 15th, 2009 at 8:07:18 PM
Always an interesting topic but lets be realistic wine lists will always be just as schizophrenic as food menus. While everyone wants to make ordering wine easier lets be frank you can only hold hands so much. If you are interested and want to enjoy wine you have to ask questions. If you are looking at the food menu and you see a dish with bacalao do you just give up? “Or do you ask the waiter pardon me what is bacalao?” Just as you are not going to fill your menu is asterisk and subtexts explaining everything open the menu your wine list will at times have information that is over your consumers head. In this case that is what you have skilled and trained service staff for, if you do not have skilled or trained service staff than good luck because your list format is only the beginning of your problems. All that ranting aside I do enjoy list separated be style light to full and dry to sweet as I can find wines that I may not have looked at when they are broken up geographically. Plus I say keep it small 3-4 pages max. I like looking at massive wine lists but I hate ordering from the. I go to dinner to enjoy friends and family not to spend two hours with the wine list drooling over a vertical of gigondas.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:41:33 AM
I have to say, there is never an easy way to set up a wine list. As someone that has been a wine director and a distributor sales manager, I have always favored the wine lists by region. I just find that if you fall in love with lets say, white wine from piedmonte, then you should explore that taste and try all you can from that region. Looking at lists by region make it easier to navigate even the largest of lists, if you walk into a french bistro and say “I want white burgundy today”, then all you do is flip to burgundy, france and voila! Also progressive wine lists can be done by any number of people in a restaurant and you must put all your trust in that person that they actually really know where each wine should be on that list. I have always found that in lists like that people shy away from the wines on the middle of the progressive list, which quite honestly are a good amount of the time some of the best wines on the list. I just feel like wine has always been about terrior, thats the most important aspect of a wine, where it is grown. The french don’t even have a word for winemaker, because there is no such thing, there is a farmer and a tender of the vines, without a great growing area, you do not have great wine. So shouldn’t we base our lists on this fundamental of wine itself? You can’t go by varietal because riesling from central california and riesling from the mosel can be so different they shouldn’t even be considered the same grape, for example. So we are left with terrior and place. I not only run my lists by regions, but also by sub regions within those main regions, and have in the past even broken it down further like by what slope of the mountain or what crest of the hill. If your staff is well trained and your sommeliers are around a lot, then they should be guiding peoples tastes and pushing them towards regions that they will be happy with. The best part about this is that when the diner leaves, they also feel like theyve learned something, so next time they go into a restaurant they are comfortable ordering a chassagne-montrachet or a blend from bolgheri and not just skipping over these wonderful regions that they are not familiar with. I do agree that in most restaurants 3-4 pages will suffice and if you are not 5 star or 3 michelin star, you dont’ need a list of 10,000 bottles to prove a point. Wine lists should also be based on the restaurant they are in, while its nice when a wine bar has a huge inventory of wine all over the world, if you are running a french bistro, then concentrate on french country wine, let that always be the backbone of your list and they give yourself about 15% to play with. Sorry I’m rambling but I actually feel strongly about all this, i base a restaurant on its wine list, and if they actually get the whole ideo of gastronomy then they will always get how wine ties in. Moral of the story, train the staff right, make sure your list is complimentary to your food, don’t go overboard, dont’ be afraid to educate your customers each and everytime, and never be condescending about wine. No matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done in the wine world, the condescending demeanor will be your downfall.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:37:55 AM
I agree with Phil. Keep the list brief. I love a quirky, short, focused, thoughtful list that is clearly tied to the food offerings. Long descriptions and weird categories – cute or geeky – do not help me. I trust my own palate waaay more than that of some anonymous person who wrote up the list. In the best places, with the best somms, I would be willing to defer, but they are few and far between. Just sayin’…
October 16th, 2009 at 12:31:43 PM
The progressive wine list is used by about 1/3 of chain accounts according the WSJ. Mostly family style and hotels. The progressive wine list was invented by Tim Hanni MW in the early 90’s and is based on sensory science not the opinions of a sommelier so it is more aligned with what a consumer will actually enjoy drinking. Because only about 20% of wine is consumed in restaurants but about half the retail dollars for wine are spent there the wine list is an important tool for both the restaurant and the wine industry. When the Ritz Carlton began using the progressive wine list their sales went up by over a third. One source of conflict occurs because the progressive wine list requires you to serve sweeter wines and usually that means a White Zin many sommelier are opposed to serving White Zin. Unfortunately if you don’t serve a sweet wine usually a White Zin you have just decided to sell about 1/3 less wine than you could.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:22:05 PM
Thanks for the insight into the progressive list. I am glad to see that numbers seem to justify that consumers are more comfortable with the progressive format. However I think the statement about white Zin could be considered a reach plenty of fine off dry wines are available that do not fall under the field of “White Zin” many German and domestic Riesling could fit the category well. However do you really have to serve sweeter wines to offer a progressive list? Could you not structure the list light bodied to full bodied with something like a Muscadet on the top to a big California Chardonnay on the bottom? Like you said white Zin sells and is a strong option for certain wine programs but it hardly seems required to have a successful progressive list.
October 16th, 2009 at 8:47:32 PM
I don’t know of a progressive wine list that doesn’t offer sweet wines. Rosenbloom Chard is one of those 1% residual sugar wines. Whether or not there are plenty of wines available on a wine list that mimic the flavor profile of White Zin is irrelevant to what consumers are familiar with and are most likely to purchase. In terms of brand familiarity White Zin has far greater brand awareness among wine consumers whether they drink it or not (I don’t) than the other sweeter varietals. The point is if you want to sell wine you offer wines that people like to drink and are familiar with as part of the wine list. If you want to sell the most wine and make it as easy as possible for your wait staff to do so you will tend to serve white Zin. As you know there are many a restaurant that serves white Zin but leave it off of the wine list and only serves it to customers who ask for it. One of the ways in which the progressive wine list works is to include “marker” wines that people are familiar with as a point of reference. You aren’t required to have any specific wine but the objective is cover all styles and sweeter wines are a very popular style. white zin on a list will make it easier for the waitstaff to upsell a white zin drinker to a more interesting but still quite sweet wine. You understand the absurdity of not serving the wine 1/4 of wine consumers want and are familiar with especially when White Zin drinkers are the most loyal to their “Varietal” and have the most sensitive pallets in terms of number of taste buds. It’s only money. So it depends on what your objective is.
October 18th, 2009 at 6:37:28 PM
The best wine friendly restaurants are BYOB. All others are overpriced and, unless you’re in a metropolitan area, most are distributor written lists with no creativity or choice other than the bland supplier driven name brands.