Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [21]
WHO’S PUTTING WHOM ON THE SPOT?
The next time you are feeling intimidated buying wine in a restaurant, remember who is paying the check. If anyone should feel performance anxiety, it is the server or wine waiter, whose job it is to make you feel comfortable and, ideally, to impress you with a wine recommendation in whatever price range you specify, not the other way around.
The Progressive Wine List
In the past decade or so, there has been a growing movement in many restaurants across the country to revamp the way their wine lists are structured. I think most diners would applaud this, because the traditional way of setting up a wine list, by country and region, leaves a lot of people squirming. What is a thirsty person supposed to do with wine list sections like France, Italy, and the United States? Unless you are very familiar with the wines from these countries, there is no way to figure out the wine styles so you can order something. It’s crazy.
Enter the Progressive Wine List. This is a wine list in which the choices are arranged according to their style. For years, the Napa Valley’s Beringer Winery has been a major proponent of this concept, using their staff of wine experts to help restaurateurs around the country reformat their lists to make it easier for guests and staff to understand them. When I first joined Windows on the World in 1990, the cellarmaster gave me a tip about the wine list on my first day. “The wines in each category are arranged by style, from light- to full-bodied.” We didn’t call it a Progressive Wine List then, nor did we tell customers about it. But it was a powerful tool for all of us on the service staff.
A customer might say, “I’m considering these two Chardonnays. How do they differ?” And I could answer, “Well, ma’am, the Beringer (farther down on the Chardonnay list) is slightly fuller in body.” Whether I had actually tasted that wine or not, I had something genuinely helpful to tell the customer.
Typically, the Progressive Wine List goes further with its categories than just body style, using groupings such as “Mild, Fruity, Sweet” or “Stronger-Tasting Dry White.” The same idea is also happening in wine retail stores, championed by the wine-store chain called Best Cellars, which offers everyday-priced wines arranged according to style categories they devised—fizzy, fresh, soft, luscious, juicy, smooth, big, and sweet. I think this is a good thing, both in retail and in restaurants, but it still requires a well-educated service staff to understand and be comfortable with words like fruity and dry.
Of course, now when you see a Progressive Wine List, as you will more and more, you will be completely comfortable. When I write wine lists, I also arrange my wines from light- to full-bodied, but by grape variety rather than taste characteristics, because I think customers are more comfortable with grape names than with wine descriptions. Either way, it’s more power to you, the customer, and that is what matters.
WINE LIST HELL
What do people do when confronted with an impossible wine list? They don’t even bother asking their waiter. Bad lists are just as confusing to the waiters as to the guests. Instead, people ask for iced tea. So much for the idea of a beverage that will actually enhance the meal. A tiny minority of guests will go ahead and bravely search until they find something that sounds familiar—a big winery name or a comfortable style like Pinot Grigio. But that isn’t very satisfying. You could have had the same wine experience at home for a lot less money. I believe that if restaurants are going to charge more than retail, as they must to cover the extra overhead costs of running a restaurant, they’ve got to try harder. To me, that