Fermentations - Navigating Around Wine Lists

Before you head out to that famous restaurant with a fabulous wine cellar, you may want to consider the various ways wines are offered for sale in a restaurant and the markup you can expect to find.  Most restaurants make their biggest profits on the wines they serve.  The typical markup on a bottle of wine is two to four times their wholesale cost.
 
The least expensive wine offered by some restaurants is a house wine sold by the glass or carafe. These wines are normally purchased by the restaurant and represent a good value for their customers. The wine is basically sound and goes with many dishes offered by the chef on the menu. You can expect to pay $4-6 a glass for this wine offering.

Next - going up the scale in price - are premium wines that are sold by the glass or bottle. These wines are slightly better than the house wines and offer the restaurant patrons a chance to try them by the glass before purchasing a whole bottle to go with a meal. These wines may go for $7-15 a glass.
 
Next are the wines that are offered from the “regular” or “standard” wine list. These wines are normally higher in price and quality. A good wine list will contain names you recognize from vineyards with good reputations for producing good wines year after year. Wines from this list may range from $20 to $250 a bottle.
 
Finally, if your wallet can stand the prices, you can order older wines or rare wines from their “reserve wine list.” These wines are for serious oenophiles or patrons participating in very special occasions. Wines on this list can run upwards of $3500 a bottle.
 
Let's assume that you have asked about the house wine and have decided to go for a choice from one of their wine lists. The next thing to do is to assess their wine list. Some wine lists are bound in leather and some are printed on computer paper and slipped into the sleeve of a menu binder. The more permanent and immutable a wine list seems, the less accurate the listings are likely to be. A wine list that is printed from a computer and updated weekly is likely to yield better descriptions of their available wines. Some restaurants have a list of their wines available on-line via the Internet so you can preview them and be prepared to make your selection in advance. The best choice will always be the best value wine – not the cheapest wine on the list.

A wine list should tell you several things about each listed wine:

• Usually there is an item number or bin number for each wine.
• Of course, the list will give the name of each wine. If you have difficulty in remembering the name (or knowing how to pronounce it properly) you can just order by bin or item number.
• The list will have a vintage indication (the year the wine was made) for each wine. Sometimes there is no vintage so you will see the wine listing with NV, which means no vintage. If you see VV, that means the wine is vintage dated but you have to ask the wine steward what year it was made.
• Sometimes there is a brief description of the wine that expounds upon the virtues of its nose or taste characteristics.
• You may also see a suggestion for food pairings with each wine. You may or may not agree with their suggestion, depending upon your experience and individual taste preferences
• And you will always see the price of the wine.

Make it a habit of looking up the wine lists ahead of time for every restaurant you visit and read them carefully, keeping the above tips in mind. Before long you will feel comfortable with any wine list that you may encounter in a restaurant.

Chuck Blethen, Vigneron in Residence, Jewel of the Blue Ridge Vineyard, Marshall NC

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