Archive for the 'Sommeliers' Category

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?

What should a restaurant do when its wine list is wrong? It takes work to keep a wine list completely up to date. The more wines on the list, the more work it is. But when a restaurant runs out of a listed wine, or when a new vintage arrives to replace the listed one, the restaurant needs to handle it promptly. It’s not that difficult, really.

Even a list bound in leather can be updated in a few minutes with a quick edit in Word and a swift printout from the HP whatever in the manager’s office. Knowing how easy it is to keep a list up to date makes it all the more frustrating for a customer when a restaurant blows something this simple.

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Has the tide finally turned on sending bottles back? Is it just me, or have sommeliers and waiters gotten better with this?

I dislike having to do it, but when I smell the musty, newspapers-in-the-damp-basement aroma of trichloroanisole in a wine, I still have to do it. I tell the waiter I think the wine is corky, she smells it and then there’s a moment when I don’t know if she’s going to believe me.

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