The Ritual

So you’ve ordered a bottle of wine in a restaurant.  What happens next?  What should you do?  What should the server do?  Not sure?  Read this.

The Presentation

The first step when the server comes back with the bottle is the presentation.  The bottle should be held so that you can verify that the wine is the one you ordered.  This can sometimes be a challenge in a darkened restaurant, particularly if the label is artistically hard to read.  But take a moment to be sure.  Most of the time this isn’t a problem as the wine is indeed what you ordered, but mistakes can happen, particularly if there are several different wines from the same producer,  You might happen to end up with a Cabernet Franc instead of a Grenache as heppened to me recently.  If it’s not what you asked for, say so, politely, but firmly. “No, I wanted the Grenache.”  It should not be a big deal to get the correct wine.  If it is the right wine, tell the server so.  “Yes, that’s it.”

The Opening

The next step is for the server to open the bottle.  Note, that in some establishments the wine will already have been opened by the bartender.  This really is a no-no unless there is a wide screen TV above the bar showing a sporting event.  There are several good reasons for this.  The main one is not because an empty bottle of Chateau Efete Rothsbarger ’45 has been fill with Le Swill 2008.  I trust most restaurantuers to be reasonably honest.  The real reasons are to avoid mistakes as described above where the bottle is the wrong wine, and so you can judge the condition of the cork.

The server shoud with a firm and practiced hand produce a cork screw had open the bottle with a minimum of fuss.  Unfortunately, this is too often not the case except in the very best of restaurants.  It takes a good corkscrew and some practice, but it isn’t that hard to open a bottle of wine.  Too often, however, the corkscrew is poorly designed and this is only the second bottle the server has ever opened.  Servers! Find a cork screw that works for you and guard it with your life.  Owners! Train you staff.  If this means recorking a bunch of empties for them to practice on, it will be well worth it.

I try not to intervene if the server struggles a bit.  Even if the temptation to do it myself is strong I try to resist the impulse.  They will only learn by repetition.  Also, I avoid the embarassment of fumbling the job myself.

The cork should come out whole and in good condition.  If it is crumbly, the bottle may be bad and should be sent back.  If by some chance the cork gets pushed into the bottle, it should also be replaced with another.  These are points on which to be firm.

To Smell or Not to Smell?

Traditionally the cork should be presented to the person who ordered the wine.  I’ve read learned discussions on whether you should bring the damp end of the cork to your nose or smell or leave it lie on the table.  Experts disagree.  I personally think smelling the wine is more effective.  I usually pick the cork up, examine the end and lay it back on the table.  This seems to satisfy everybody.  Of course, with the move to plastic corks and screw tops this may be an issue of the past.

The Tasting

The server should then pour a small amount of wine in a glass and present it to the person who ordered the wine.  Note, this is not automatically the eldest male at the table.  It is the person who actually said, “We’ll have a bottle of the Chateau Thames Enbankment.”  This is not a matter of Feminism, it is a matter of proper form.  In the case of a couple where both were involved in the wine decision, if would not be inappropriate if a taste would be poured in both glasses.  However, failure to do so is not a reason to complain.

There should be enough wine to swirl around a bit to release the aroma.  Too many servers pour just the smallest drop.  It should be almost an ounce.  After swirling, stick your nose in the glass and inhale.  I know it sounds gross, but it’s expected.  If nothing seems amiss, take a mouthful and swish it around.  If the wine seems sound with no off flavors, announce your approval to the server, “It’s fine.”

But What If It’s Not?

The sad fact is that wine occaisionally goes bad.  Most restaurant wine does not go bad with age because it hasn’t sat around that long.  The most common defect is a wine being “corked.”  This is an off smell that may be due to a bad cork, but it may alsom be a chemical contamination from a compound called TCA.  “Corked” wines have kind of a wet cardboard smell to them.  It is harmless but unpleasant.  The wine should be sent back.  In cases where the smell is barely discernable, I have accepted the wine to avoid a scene, but I would not do so if the wine was expensive.  It should be your decision, not the server’s, though you may allow them to sniff the wine to confirm your diagnosis.  The wine should be replaced free of charge.

Sometimes you will detect a smell like bleach.  This is not due to the wine, but to glassware that has been rinsed properly after washing.  Ask for another glass.

A wine should not be sent back just because you don’t like it.  You made the selection, you should live with it.  Just don’t order it again.  After all, you wouldn’t send back a steak that you had ordered if you decided it didn’t taste like chicken.

The Pour

Once the wine has been approved, the server should proceed to fill the glasses around the table.  By tradition, the glass of the person who ordered the wine is filled last.  Each glass should be filled roughly a third full.  This allows the wine to breathe and promotes the “nose”, the aroma of the wine.  Of course, this works best when the wine glass is the proper size.  Fortunately, most fine dining restaurants have upgraded their glassware to something appropriate, but occaisionally you do run into places that serve their wine in little 4 oz. glasses left over from the 50′s.  In certain bistros, mom and pop Italian restaurants, and Greek Tavernas wine is served in tumblers.  It’s part of the rustic charm.  In that case fill the glass to the rim.

Enjoy

Now comes the good part.  Sip the wine and savor.  But don’t forget to thank your server.  Being polite is just good manners.  Salute!

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 Three Stand Out Madison Wine Lists

In the previous two installments, I’ve discussed wine lists in general terms. In this issue, I’ll get down to specifics about wine lists at three very different restaurants and why I like them.

The first restaurant is Rossario’s in Monona. This is a neighborhood restaurant which servers a variety of pasta dishes along with a few steaks and prime rib on Thursday and Saturday. It’s very much a no frills, blue collar sort of place that regulars have been frequenting for years. The pasta entrees are  around $10, with the steaks and prime rib running around $12-$17. The wine list is short with eight or nine reds and a slightly smaller number of whites. The prices for a bottle of wine run from about $14-$20, though Ross Parisi, the owner has recently added at least one wine over $25.

There are two things I like about this list. The first is that it is inexpensive. You can have two pasta entrees and a nice bottle of Italian Sangiovese for $35. This makes it affordable for a weekday night. The second thing that I like is that considerable thought and effort has gone into picking the wines. About half the list of reds are Italian with a mix of Chianti, Sangiovese (the grape used in Chianti) and Montepulcianos. The other half consists of an Australian Shiraz, a Zinfandel, a Merlot, and a Cabernet. Though the wines are all inexpensive, they are all a cut above what you will find on the lower shelves of your supermarket liquor department. As an aside, Ross is as thoughtful with his selection of beers, and offers a nice range of microbrews and imports.

The second restaurant is Louisianne’s Etc. in Middleton. This establishment pioneered Creole cuisine back when that was considered truly exotic in Madison. Louisianne’s Etc. serves up a number of reasonably priced traditionally dishes including Jambalya and catfish, as well as uniquely prepared beef, chicken and pork dishes, all with a New Orleans slant.

It has a fairly lengthy list with about 50 reds and 30 whites. The prices range from $25-$200.

What I like about this list is the fact it is diverse without losing it’s focus, which is to complement the food. A number of different varietals are featured, such as Petit Syrah, Syrah, Zinfandel, as well as some interest blends such as Grenache-Syrah, and Zinfandel-Cabernet. Most of the major wine growing regions are represented with both prominent and less well known producers. The common factor is that they all work well with the restaurant’s Creole cuisine. Whenever I dine at Louisianne’s I always have a hard time choosing a wine because there are so many tempting candidates. I have never been disappointed and have been introduced to a number of wines that have become personal favorites. It is obvious that someone with a great deal of experience and knowledge has put together this list. I should also note that the wines are all fairly priced.

The last restaurant I will mention is an old Madison institution, though technically it is in the town of Westport on the North side. Mariner’s Inn serves steaks and seafood, with an emphasis on simplicity and high quality. They manage to blend a casual atmosphere with a certain degree of formality that makes for a very relaxing dining experience. The entrees run from around $15-40. There are roughly 20 whites and 30 reds with an additional reserve list of 20 or so higher priced reds. Wine prices run from $25-$200 per bottle with the vast majority of the reds in the $35-$60 range.

This may be one of the most focused wine lists of this size that I have come across. The red side of the list is dominated by Napa and Sonoma Cabernet, Merlot, and Cabernet/Merlot blends. There is a smaller selection of West Coast Pinot Noir, as well as several Syrah and Zinfandels, but it is obvious that the latter are included as an after thought for customers who really, really want a Syrah or Zin. While decent wines, they are nothing special. The Cabernet and Merlot offerings, on the other hand are very good from producers such as Stag’s Leap and Duckhorn. Several of the regular wines are usually found on the reserve pages of other restaurants. Many of the reserve wines could be considered “trophy wines” with offerings such as Quintessa, Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages, Dominus, Freemark Abbey, and Penfold’s Grange to name a few. For a menu that consists of a variety of steaks with fairly simple preparation, this selection works quite well.

The most amazing thing about this list is the price. The von Rutenbergs appear to have chosen on an unusual pricing strategy – add a fixed amount of $10-15 to the retail price of the wine. The end result is that while the least expensive wines are priced at about what you will find at other restaurants, the more expensive wines become progressively better bargains as you move up the list. As an example, Duckhorn Merlot, which can be found at $75-$130 at other restaurants is priced at $55. I find myself seduced into spending more for wine at Mariner’s while still feeling that I’ve gotten a bargain.

Though these wine lists are as different as the restaurants are, there are some common attributes. The first is that selections were given a lot of thought. They are lists designed to go with the food served. They are also, within the context of the restaurants, quite affordable. Wine can only enhance the dining experience if the patrons order it. These three restaurants have priced most of their wines at a point where they are not extravagances but a complement to the meal. There are other restaurants in Madison that could take a hint.

Several caveats. I have mostly concentrated on the reds because that is what I usually order in a restaurant. However, I think that these three establishments have given as much thought to the white side of their list as the red. The second, is that I have dined regularly at these restaurants for a number of years and have come to know several of the owners on a personal level. I have tried not to let that cloud my judgement. Perhaps that fact that I have been a repeat customer for so long is the best recommendation for their food and their wine.

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What Makes a Good Wine List?

Length does not automatically make a great wine list.

Depending on the restaurant, a wine list may be a simple sheet of paper or a bound, multi-page volume slightly smaller than War and Peace. There is nothing wrong with a short wine list. A list with a few wisely chosen wines is better than an encyclopedia of random selections of dubious quality. A short list may mean that the person responsible has tried to find wines that are both values and admirably suited to the food. Or they picked the first half dozen bottles their distributor tried to push on them. A lot will depend on the owner/manager/chef, but if they care enough to make good food, there’s a good chance they will have made at least some effort to put together a good wine list.

The wine selection should be appropriate for the food.

You shouldn’t expect the wine selections of a steakhouse and and Italian restaurant to be the same. The wine should compliment the food. Good restaurants will make an effort to select wines that work well with their dishes. It’s perfectly reasonable for an Italian restaurant to be weak on Australian Shiraz and concentrate on mostly Italian wine. This may mean that you have to skip the Pinot and have a Chianti when having a pizza, but if the restaurant is doing their job it’s probably for the best.

A wine list should be focused.

A wine list should be more than a random selection of whatever the distributor was pushing. Each wine on the list should be there for a reason. This may mean that there are many similar wines. This is actually a good sign because it means someone is paying attention. This doesn’t mean that diversity on the wine list is bad. One of my favorite lists includes Petit Syrah, Grenache-Syrah blends, Zinfadels, Cabernets, Cabernet-Zin blends, but they were all chosen because they worked well with the food. Of course another restaurant the specializes in steaks has another of my favorite lists that concentrates almost totally on Napa Cabernet and Merlot. One of my least favorite lists at a local steakhouse (which has since been changed) had a scatter shot selection of wines from all over the world, many of which seemed to have been picked more for their trendiness than for how well the went with the food.

The wine selection should be affordable.

Affordable is of course relative, but the price of the wines offered should be in line with the price of the food. If I were rich I might well choose to have a $100 bottle of Cabernet with and $8 hamburger. It might even be a good culinary match. But I’m not rich, and I’m guessing neither are you. I think a good rule of thumb should be that the average price of a bottle of wine should be about the price of two entrees. This doesn’t mean that every bottle of wine should be that price, but that should be the middle ground. I also think that it is unreasonable to expect the cheapest bottle to be much less than half that amount and offering a wine at much more than twice the price of dinner for two is just bragging on the part of the restaurant.

The wine prices should be reasonable.

The concensus is that pricing wines in a restaurant at about twice the retail price is fair. This allows the restaurant (who buy the wine at wholesale) to make a reasonable profit and cover the cost of storage, loss, breakage, carrying charges, glassware, etc. There are a lot of restaurants that keep pretty close to this or even beat it. Unfortunately, there are some restaurants that charge as much as 3 times or more the retail price. What can you do? Eat somewhere else. Or, if you really want to eat at one of these places, order the cheapest wine you consider drinkable, and save your wine bucks for establishments that have better prices.

How can you tell if the price is reasonable?

Very few of us can remember the prices of hundreds of different wines or carry one of those electronic wine guides along with them. What I’ve found is that remembering a few key wines that show up on a lot of lists around town usually is sufficient. If the price of these wines are acceptable, probably most of the wines on the list will be priced fairly. Wines that I’ve found useful for this purpose are Rosemont Shiraz and Ravenswood Zinfandel which are somewhere around $10 in a liquor store and Duckhorn Merlot which is about $40-45. The first two are mass produced wines and show up a lot at the low end of many wine lists because they are readily available and decent wines for the price. In a restaurant, a price of $20-25 would be fair. The Duckhorn can be found on the lists of many of the steak houses in the Madison area. The amazing thing is that I’ve found it priced anywhere from $55 to $130. A price of between $75 and $90 is probably reasonable. These wines work well for the restaurants I visit, but depending on where you eat you may need to pick different wines. Just find a few that are available at the restaurants you go to and that you can price at your local retail outlet. Note that these wineries also produce single vinyard wines that may be priced significantly more.

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So you’re in a restaurant and you decide that you’d like to have a bottle of wine. You ask the server for a WINE LIST.

Rule number One: Don’t show fear.

A wine list is nothing more than a list of wines the restaurant is offering to sell you, just like the menu. No matter how simple or pretentious, it is just paper and ink. The real trick is to realize it’s limitations and use it as a tool

Hopefully a wine lists with more than a few offerings will have some sort of organization to it. Typical ones are to either arrange the wines by the variety of grape or the country of origin. Sometimes there is a ranking on a larger scale with the lighter wines listed first followed by wines in ascending order of boldness or fullness. That can be helpful in selecting a wine to match the food choice.

Wines can also be listed by price from the most inexpensive to the most expensive. At least one restaurant I know of has divided their list into three sections of cheap, medium, and expensive wines (they use more colorful terms, but that’s the idea). This is also useful. You can go through the list until you reach the point where you say “Whoa!” and then take a U-turn.

So what does the wine list tell you about the wine, and what is important? At a minimum, it should give the name of the producer, the variety of grape, the vintage, and the country or region of origin. There may also be a brief description full of words like “jammy currants” or “earthy aromas”. These are extremely subjective and mostly useless. There may also be a recommendation for the type of food it will go with. These may or may not be useful, and in any case will tend to be on the safe side. You can ignore that unless you haven’t a clue.

Of the other information, the producer, if you recognize the name can be helpful. If you’ve liked another of their wines, chances are good that you will like the wine on the list even if it is another variety. If you hated the wine, look elsewhere. This is particularly true of the smaller producers, each of which has a distintive style. This is less true of the industrial wineries, though they at least try to go for consistency.

The grape variety can be very useful, though wines using the same grapes can be made with a wide range of style. Unfortunately, many French, Italian, and Spanish wines don’t list the variety, but instead specify the district or region, which leaves you to guess about the variety. Fortunately, the rules for most districts limit the varieties that can be used in wines with that designation. If you liked a wine from Burgundy, you may well find another wine from Burgundy will appeal to you.

The country or region may also tell you something about the style of the wine. An Australian syrah (shiraz in Aussie speak) will taste differently than one from the Rhone valley in France, or one from Santa Barbara. Again, if you liked one Shiraz from down under, another Aussie may be just the thing. It’s also true to some extent that wines tend to go well with the food from that region. So if you’re having pasta you can pick something Italian. Of course, this has to be taken with a pinch of salt. A country like Italy has a wide variety of cuisines and a range of wines to match. If you’re trying to find a match for a country without a wine industry like say Sweden, you’re out of luck on this route.

The vintage is probably useless. First, unless it is a high end restaurant with an extensive cellar, you probably won’t have much choice. All that will be on the list is the most recent release. It’s true that some wines will improve with age, but restaurants can rarely afford to hold wine that long. Also, unless you really enjoy pouring over the vintage charts in The Wine Speculator most people don’t have a clue as to whether the 2003 or the 2004 was the better year. In the rare case where the restaurant may actually have several different years on the list, the relative prices will at least give you an idea of what other people thought.

So your ready to choose a wine. What do you do? Well you could ask. Depending on the restaurant and the server this may or may not be useful. I’ve gotten replies that range from “I never drink wine myself so I don’t have a clue” to an informed and enthusiatic recommendation that was right on the mark. In the same restaurant. I guess the choice of asking or not depends on whether you’re the type of person that asks directions.

If you choose to fend for yourself, there are some guidelines you can use.

Rule number Two: The cheapest wine is usually not the best value.

The cheapest wine is probably ok, but it is also probably boring. It was considered a safe choice by the person assembling the list, but not much effort was put into the selection. Wines a few rungs up are often much better values. Of course if the whole wine list is grossly overpriced, the cheapest wine may be a way to limit the damage.

Rule number Three: The most expensive wine is not the best wine.

On many wine lists the most expensive wines are “trophy” wines. They give the list class, but they don’t actually expect to sell any. And as a “trophy” wine the price has probably been jacked up quite a bit. It’s the wines in the middle of the list that were probably chosen because they were values, or tasted great, or are a good match for the food.

Rule number Four: Look beyond the typical.

The best wine values are often varieties beyond the basic Cabernet or Pinot Noir. Wine price is based on demand. By looking at lesser known varieties or regions you can often find really nice wines or real bargains or both. Try a Mourvedre or a Grenache or a Petit Syrah. Try something from Spain or Sicily.

Rule number Five: Don’t worry, just pick something.

The fact is it is unlikely that any wine on a decent wine list is really bad. Just pick one. Base your choice on the price, or a funny name, or anything. The worst that can happen is you get a bottle that doesn’t really have any appeal, but unless the particular bottle has gone bad it should at least be drinkable. If that happen, just don’t pick that wine again. On the other hand, you may find a wine that you fall in love with. Either way, it’s a learning experience. Enjoy.

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