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To Be Successful, Wine Lists Must Be User-Friendly
• by Glenn Bardgett - Photo by Catherine Neville
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For most of my 30-plus years on the retail side of the wine business, I gave little thought to what it took to develop, organize, produce and maintain a restaurant’s wine list. Sure, I admired stunning selections of rare or older wines. It was always fun reading to see huge vertical selections (multiple vintage of the same wine) of the great names of the wine world, even considering the enormous expenditure necessary to offer such wines.
When I really began to look at it, I realized that buying and merchandising a wine shop is not hugely different than writing a restaurant wine list. You select wines that you feel your customers will enjoy. You need red, white, dry, sweet, sparkling, dessert, etc. Pretty simple. Well, almost.
The first major difference between setting up a wine shop selection and a restaurant wine list is that retail customers often buy rare collectibles that may sit in their cellars for many years. Restaurant patrons are looking for a wine that is ready to drink NOW, not really caring if it will be better in a couple of years. They know that their entrée is coming in a few minutes and the wine needs to be drinkable immediately.
When perusing a well-regarded wine list, treat the missives of wine writers with skepticism and trust the restaurant’s wine buyer to have chosen vintages that complement the restaurant’s food. Recently, the 2000 California vintage received a good deal of negative press from the “experts.” Some encouraged consumers to avoid the vintage entirely and wait for the much more highly regarded 2001s. This is flawed thinking. All vintages make some good wines. Great wineries make good wine every year. The 2000s were criticized for being a “forward” vintage, meaning that they were early maturing and not a wine for long-term aging. This is nearly a perfect description for restaurant use. So many wonderful wines are missed by giving too much credit to wine writers and not trusting the suggestions of your server, sommelier or local retailer.
When choosing wine at a restaurant, think to yourself, “How well does the wine list complement the food menu?” There are certainly the obvious issues. A steakhouse needs great red wines. Seafood specialists need lots of whites. Italian restaurants will mostly feature the “wines made with food in mind” that Italy produces from the Alps to Sicily. Menus today are complicated blends of local produce, with national meat and seafood products and numerous levels of flavor from herbs, spices and cooking methods. This can make it difficult to assemble a complementary wine list and even more difficult to decide, as the diner, which wine will go best
with your meal.
So, now that we have established that a good wine list will feature wines that are enjoyable to drink now and that they need to work well with the chef’s dishes, what’s next? I was recently at an Asian fusion style place that had a number of big Cabernet Sauvignons on its list. I thought, “Why?” There was absolutely nothing on the menu that would work with mouth-filling tannic Cabs or over-oaked Chardonnays. If space and finances permit, a small, well-planned list can easily grow into a larger one, but some of the most impressive lists are those that offer relatively few choices but are well organized and carefully considered. Not so long ago I visited the Southpark Seafood Grill & Wine Bar in Portland, Ore. It recently won the Grand Prize from Restaurant Hospitality Magazine in the short-list category, and I specifically went there to examine that list. Well under 100 selections but organized by style and very fun to read.
To complete a wine list, a user-friendly selection of wines by the glass is imperative in making the wine program well-rounded and successful. Most places that offer better wines by the glass achieve great success in that program. The wines by the glass should reflect the same care and attention to style that the entire wine list presents. Everything by the glass needs to be food complementary and in a range of prices to allow the single diner, or anyone who wishes to change wines with each course, a wide selection of interesting wines for their dining pleasure.
Although every wine list will have occasional out-of-stock problems, those can easily be kept to a minimum with today’s computer technology and the ability to reprint lists on a regular basis. Wines by the glass should never be out of stock. If this happens, a wine of higher price should always be offered to the diner at the same price. On the subject of pricing, the majority of a well-balanced wine list should be in the same price range as your average entrée. We all love to see great selections of rare and expensive wines, but most people are looking for wines in a price range similar to that of their meal.
Last, when designing a wine list, one must be flexible. Things run out. New wines come in. There are some seasonal changes that require a bit of attention. More whites and rosés by the glass in warm months. This is especially true if the restaurant has outdoor seating in St. Louis. I have yet to find a Cabernet that tastes good outside on a 100-degree day.
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