I'm excited to mention two chums of mine have opened a restaurant. Good time to do that apparently, booming. Anayway, I'm sure they'll do well, the menu and wine lists are excellent.
So this week I’m gonna skim through my thoughts on and processes behind putting together a restaurant wine list.
My friends have called their restaurant the townhouse (no capitals because it cool...)
The best thing I like about the townhouse's wine list is that the wines match the (my) commonly viewed best examples from regions around the world. Grapes you'll probably either know or have heard of from the region that it’s well known for. A quick bit of word association. Malbec - Argentina. Merlot - Chile. Shiraz - Australia. Sauvignon Blanc - New Zealand. Chardonnay - Australia. Chenin Blanc - South Africa. Well, that’s how the wine list reads. Not forgetting the obvious classic regions such as Sancerre, Chablis, Valpolicella, Rioja etc either. Excellent.
I've seen a lot of restaurants make the wine list too 'out there', packed with expensive wines you've never tried or even heard of (I would have obviously, but you get the point...), or odd grape/region combinations because it looks cool. I've got an Australian Shiraz/Viognier in the cupboard but I wouldn’t buy one in a restaurant. Viognier, is a floral white grape and the wine is 5% viognier blended with 95% shiraz, giving the spicy warmth of shiraz an interesting floral note, confusing but wonderful. This technique is the only lawful production method in a specific region of France, wines from the Côte-Rôtie AOC region. Legally they can blend up to 20% viognier with shiraz, but most choose not to. These wines usually retail at £40 up to £400 in wine shops and can be much more on a wine list, but this Australian version is £10 retail. But without knowing all that I’d definitely be reluctant to take the chance in a restaurant.
Good news for me (and you guys) is to look out for the special wines at the townhouse because I'm gonna be recommending them and posting a review here and telling you to go there to try it. (They call that 'Cross Promotion' kids.) Not sure when the wine recommendations are going to kick off, but until then I've tried the Pitchfork Shiraz, from the Margaret River region in Australia. Which is actually similar to the Juniper Crossing, Margaret River Cabernet/Shiraz from last week. Big and bold with a deeper, spicier intense flavour, from being only a shiraz. I've also tried the Merlot, Julio Bouchon, Maule Valley, Chile. An excellent example of Chilean Merlot. A little bit of oak aging and a little lighter and more drinkable than the Shiraz. I'd have a glass of the Merlot if I was nipping in for a drink and I'd have the Shiraz with the Oxtail or the Grilled Lamb (It’s too much for the Venison, have a bottle of the New Zealand Pinot Noir instead £25 though...).
I think its sensible and good buisness sense for a restaurant to have a standard wine list and a changing specials board, just like any restaurant does with its food menu. This ideal, was mirrored by a lady I met last week called Christine. She works for a company called Enotria and they specialise in wholesale distribution of excellent wines from all over the world. At one of the restaurants I work at (The Alex, Felixstowe) we use Enotria for our special wines (like the townhouse is going to do with Adnams and me) and we ask (and trust) her recommendations on interesting wines that we think will match some of the dishes on the menu. We generally try to change our special wines every 3-4 months and try and tie it in with menu changes.
She popped in to say hello to me on Tuesday. Pretty quiet and at 11.30 am we popped about 8 bottles of wine by Chilean producer MontGras. We tried a Chilean Viognier. Chile not being well known for this grape, it's produced in smaller batches, and really given some attention, it's wonderfully subtle viognier with a snappier finish than I expected. Christine and Ginzalo (Donoso, from MontGras) just looked at my reaction and smiled. They did the same with the 2006 Carmenere riserva. High up in the Chilean mountains there's an incredibly small vineyard with a wickedly small yield of only the best grapes. So much depth and so many layers. Both the Carmenere and the viognier would be lost and possibly neglected on a standard wine list, but with the simple addition of 2 special interesting wines, paired up with a specific dish on the menu (and bought and sold for a reasonable price) these two wines would be an absolute winner and an easy sell for the most moronic waiters (see last week).
I'm not saying this is the wine list ideal for everyone. Country pubs and smaller outlets need a sensible wine list that they tailor pretty much to the wants of their customers. Expensive, posh restaurants will have a sommelier or knowledgeable waiters and immaculate wine lists, with specific vintages and chateaux's and regions and not a screw cap in sight. That sort of wine list definitely has it's place. If you're paying £20 for your main you're going to pay £40 for bottle of wine, and thats fine. You might have a different wine for each course, And that's fine too. There is however a massive gap in the middle, and plenty of those restaurants have got it wrong and they could help themselves by having a read of this blog and a look at the townhouse's effort.
That’s it for now, you can check out my website http://whin.es and follow me on twitter @whinesblog. You can come and see me in-store at the Adnams Cellar & Kitchen Store in Woodbridge, Suffolk. Should you wish.
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