Wine Lists as Armchair Reading
I love wine lists, both reading them and thinking about them. I especially love when a restaurant puts its wine list online so I can read it before a visit. That way I don’t have to face the dilemma of chatting with my guests and not studying the selection or ignoring them to immerse myself in the list. I don’t think restaurants realize how powerful a marketing tool this can be. Either that, or I care a lot more about wine lists than most people.
Really, though, if a restaurant is proud of its wine list, why wouldn’t it post it, just like its menu? Casa Mono, for example, the Batali/Bastianich empire’s foray into Spain, has an excellent wine list. But it can be a bit daunting to sit in the crowded, cramped restaurant, which is rightly conducive to quick action, and take a leisurely stroll through the list. But since the restaurant has posted the list, you can do it in advance. This is especially useful with a Spanish list, which can require a bit of research if you haven’t studied Spain’s new and emerging regions.
Compare this with, say, Bar Boulud, the Boulud empire’s bouchon near Lincoln Center, which does not post its list. Instead, it offers a kind of philosophical description of its wine aims. How hard would it be to post it, especially since almost all wine lists are managed on the computer anyhow? I asked Daniel Johnnes, the wine director for Daniel Boulud’s restaurant group.
“I don’t think it’s a conscious decision not to post it,’’ he told me. “It could be a handy tool. Maybe it’s something we ought to consider. The wine list may be on line very, very soon.’’
One down, several thousand to go?
Not so fast, young man. Some restaurants have consciously removed their wine lists from public domain. I used to fantasize occasionally by scanning the list at Veritas on East 20th Street, one of the country’s top wine-oriented restaurants. But when I sought it out recently, I couldn’t find it.
“We did pull it down,’’ Tim Kopec, the wine director, told me. “We felt that a lot of our competition was stealing information. If another restaurant is going to sell all the first-growth Bordeaux of 1982, it’s easy for them to check out our pricing and sell it for $25 less. It makes us look bad. We want to protect what we’re doing.’’
Kopec said the restaurant had the wine list up for 10 years, and that he knew people enjoyed access to the lists.
“If someone says, ‘We’re coming in tomorrow night, we’re really excited and we’re thinking about Rhones,’ we’ll still email them the Rhone section of the list,’’ he said.
It seems awfully unsporting for a bunch of clever restaurateurs to spoil my fun like that, but so be it. I don’t think most restaurants will find themselves in the same situation as Veritas, so those of you in the restaurant business, if you want my opinion, please post the list!
I’ve been thinking about wine lists in particular recently because my column this week is on some great choices from the low-ends of wine lists. It’s part of a package on budget dining. My colleague Frank Bruni has a companion piece on dining for less.
For my dollar, the bottom of the list is a crucial sign of whether a restaurant is really serious about wine or not. There are any number of restaurants that build their lists at the top while ignoring the bottom, which to me signals both neglect and a lack of passion about wine. On the other side are restaurants that are creative with the bottom of the list, or at least do not ignore those customers who can’t afford the status wines.
This column is really just the beginning. No doubt more than a few restaurants coming to terms with the economic situation are going to emphasize less-expensive bottles. For a start, The Modern> is now pricing all the bottles on its Bar Room list under $50, while its sibling, Union Square Café, recently added 100 bottles to their list that are under $75. I’d love to hear your suggestions of restaurants that pay proper attention to the moderate end of the list.