Ugh. Here he comes-the wine steward, a walking tuxedo with a silver ashtray around his neck.
He's going to ask 'Have we chosen a wine?' and you haven't looked past Page One. And you don't want to. It's just a long list of names and places as strange as a teenager's music.
It's going to be another night out—another any-old Chardonnay or Merlot night out.
But it doesn't need to be.
Even if a restaurant wine list is long, it's bound to be organized in some way or other. Even the simplest of wine lists separates the red wines from the white (and sometimes further, into sweet wines and sparkling).
But lists also are categorized either by region, grape variety or (you see this more and more) by the 'weight' of the wine. Any of these can be helpful when looking for the best match for your meal.
Region
This list is purely geographic and arranges wines by country—from Argentina to Zealand, New. If the list is lengthy, countries are broken down further by winemaking districts within them (for instance, U.S.A. into California, California into Napa, Sonoma and so on).
Choosing a wine from such a list is easy if you know the kinds of wine produced in, say, France's northern Rhone Valley, as distinct from France's Loire Valley. Or, to give another example, if you prefer Chardonnay from Macon, Burgundy, to Chardonnay from South Australia.
But such a list doesn't help distinguish among individual wines. For example, not all Cabernet Sauvignons from Chile are the same.
Grape variety
This list separates wines by the main grape that makes them. For example, under 'Sauvignon Blanc' such a list might include a Sancerre, a dry Graves, a Washington State Fume Blanc and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
The benefit of this kind of list is that it gathers wine from many different regions and puts them under one rubric—taste.
What a list like this can't tell you, however, are the sometimes not-so-subtle differences among, for example, Syrahs made in different parts of the world.
Weight
More and more wine lists categorize their wines according to the 'weight' or style of the wine. This idea underpins most everyday wine and food pairings, that is, the principle that delicate flavors and textures go best with delicate wines, just as weighty, forceful foods accompany stronger wines.
To illustrate an example, this kind of wine list would have a category such as 'Light-bodied, dry white wines' that lists a French Chablis, a German Riesling and a Spanish Albarino. Or under 'Medium-bodied, dry white wines,' a Sonoma Chardonnay, a Tuscan Vernaccia and an Alsatian Pinot Blanc. And so on.
The benefit of this kind of list is obvious: it helps you match, readily and easily, your food preparation with a wine.
Restaurant wine prices
Restaurants use several formulae to price their wines. Some restaurants even price good-value wines one way and more costly wines another.
But a general rule is that a restaurant marks up its wines two to two and one-half times its cost. For example, if a restaurant pays $10 wholesale for a bottle of Pinot Grigio, it lists it somewhere between $20-$25 a bottle. (Wines-by-the-glass are priced at roughly four times cost, figuring 5-6 glasses a bottle. A glass of that Pinot Grigio, then, would cost $6-$8.)
When many people compare the price of a wine at a restaurant and the same wine at a retail store, they often get miffed. (For example, that Pinot Grigio would cost about $12 at Sam's or Binny's.) 'It's not as if the restaurant is doing anything to the bottle,' people feel, 'like they do to the food in the kitchen. They just store it, open it and pour it.'
But restaurants buy wines differently than wine stores do (often only one case at a time) and restaurants have different reasons for their prices than wine stores do.
Restaurant wine prices, taken as a whole, support a varied (and sometimes deep) inventory and help pay for glass usage and breakage. And, like the way it marks up everything from chicken breasts to whipping cream, the restaurant marks up its wines in order to meet its overall costs.
Keep in mind: It's very often true that you can find wines available at restaurants that are no longer for sale in stores.
Would you like to smell the cork?
The traditional restaurant wine-opening ritual needn't put you out. Especially the part about the cork.
If, after opening the bottle that you ordered, the wine steward lays the cork to the side of your table setting, just leave it there. Inspecting the cork was important a century ago, when wine bottles had been cellared for 20-30 years. But it isn't important now.
What's key is to get the wine poured for your inspection or around the table. Simply ask to have either of those done.
If you're not into the ceremony of swirling, sniffing and sipping a sample of your wine, ask the steward to pour the wine around the table. If the wine is bad or 'off,' you'll find out anyway and the restaurant will replace the bottle.
Temperature and 'breathing'
Normal room temperature is generally too warm for red wines. At 70 to 72 degrees, a red wine tastes flat and dull. The ideal serving temperature for most reds is 65 degrees.
Some restaurants—though not all—store red wines at cellar temperature. If your red wine arrives too warm, don't be shy to request that it be plunged into ice and water for 2-3 minutes in order to bring it down to around 65 degrees. You'll be enjoying (and, more important, paying for) the wine. You really ought to have it at its best.
Aerating or 'breathing' red wine often softens or mellows it. If you 'breathe' your red wine, by all means don't merely leave the opened bottle on butt end. Leaving a red wine to aerate with the little aperture of the bottle's neck is like refreshing a summerhouse after a long winter by opening just the attic window.
Really get air to it by pouring the red wine into a decanter or around the table into the bowls of the glassware.
