Tuesday 06/03/08 - Strawberry Wine-
Restaurant Wine List Review - Wine Taste, Why Keep It a Secret?
We?re your customers. That?s right, we pay your bills ? so listen up. Why can?t we understand your wine list? We know what we like, but your wine list doesn?t give us a clue. Ok, so we?re not wine knowledgeable, don?t hate us because we?d still like some wine that we?ll enjoy. We really like wine, especially with a good meal. But we don?t want to study the stuff so we can understand your wine list and know how a wine will taste.
Count these up: 1) County of Origin, 2) Producer, 3) Vintage date, 4) Appellation, 5) Variety of Grape, 6) Vineyard, and 7) season the grapes were picked (Ice Wine, Late Harvest, etc.). That?s right, seven items of information must be catalogued and understood to give us a chance at knowing what a wine tastes like when reading your traditional wine list. Keep six of these, change the seventh, and all bets are off on how the wine will taste. We get as confused as a blind dog in a meat house.
If you hear a lot of us saying, ?Just give me a glass of your house white,? you have a wine list problem. Hey, we?re not too cheap to buy a bottle of wine; we just don?t want to make a sizeable investment in a bottle we may not like. So why keep us in the dark, trying to decipher your wine list code? Why not tell us how the wine tastes, and we?ll pop for a bottle or two.
Expensive restaurants once solved this problem with a sommelier whose job it was to discern our taste preference, analyze the menu we?ve ordered, and recommend a wine we would enjoy with our meal. There are precious few qualified sommeliers around these days, especially in affordable restaurants. When your wait staff recommends, it?s usually wines they like.
The only thing worse than a traditional wine list is one with ?winese? puffery descriptions.
Example: ?This wine has hints of dark tree fruit, root vegetable, autumn leaves, pears, berries and vanilla, with a strong finish of cigar box.? Amazing! Do you have something that tastes like wine?
In January of 1980, Grey Moss Inn in Grey Forrest, Texas, implemented the ?Customer Friendly Wine List.? Customers could order wines by the way they taste for the first time ever. The wine list was divided into categories:
1) Slightly Sweet, 2) Light, Soft, 3) Light, Crisp, Fruity, 3) Fuller, Rounded, Dry,
4) Elegance, Finesse, 5) Robust, Complex, Full Flavored 6) After Dinner Sweet
Red, white and rose wines all appeared in most categories. Some wines like Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon appeared under as many as three categories. As customers, we knew that by staying within a category we could be experimental ordering wine and still enjoy our selection.
Jill Goolden published the book, The Taste of Wine, around 1990 , and about a decade later Fiona Beckett published Wines by Style. The thesis of these books is to classify wine by how it tastes, rather than the seven criteria above. These books led to a rash of wine lists offering up their contents by taste profile ? but these glimmering lights seem to be flickering out.
If you lack the confidence to develop a wine list for your restaurant that lets us order wines by the way they taste, hire a qualified wine consultant, or work closely with your vendors to achieve your goal. Then watch your wines sales grow from glasses to bottles, as we feel comfortable ordering from your list.
Bill Stephens writes the syndicated column http://www.heyrestaurantguy.com . His 35 year career in food service includes restaurateur, caterer, food and wine columnist for Harte-Hanks, Murdoch and Hearst Newspapers, food and wine magazine journalist, and he consults for restaurants with Bill Stephens Associates http://www.billstephensassociates.com |
A Short Strawberry Wine Summary
Restaurant Wine List Review - Wine Taste, Why Keep It a Secret?
We?re your customers. That?s right, we pay your bills ? so listen up. Why can?t we understand your wine list? We know what we like, but your wine list...
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Strawberry Wine Products we recommend
Montaudon Brut Champagne
Almost all Champagne is made sparkling in the cellars of Reims, France. Deep below the cities the chalk subsoil has been cut out into vast caves and cellars. Most of these cellars are laid out in broad alleyways, named after the principal cities of the world where Champagne is sold. The only wine with any right to the name Champagne is that made from certain legally specified grapes grown in limited and well-defined sections of the province of France called Champagne. Here the vines are tended and vinified according to a body of strict rules. All this and much more make Champagne what it is. Since 1891, the Montaudon family has been faithful to the ancestral traditions. Every year, during winter, after the still wines are produced from the noble Champagne grape varieties (Chardonnay-Pinot Noir- Pinot Meunier), the blending process begins in the deep cellars...In the shadow of the famous cathedral at the heart of Reims, our Champagnes are created through the heavenly marriage of magnificent "crus" and outstanding years. Enjoy! SW60045 SW60045
Price: 65.95 USD
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In the wine cellar of restaurateur Danny Meyer's perennially popular Union Square Café, there are a few large mason jars of neon-yellow liquid. The contents are not radioactive: The jars contain housemade limoncello , created from a family recipe provided by the restaurant's youthful, experiment-loving wine director, Stephen Mancini. The lemon-based Italian liqueur, mixed with grappa and citrus ...
Wine Enthusiast
Tags: Wine Magazines
Labels: Wine Kits, Wine Label
