FOOD & DRINK

Messages in a bottle: The mystique of the restaurant wine list

Good advice from Zoot, Olivia, Wink, Jeffrey's, the Texas Culinary Academy and an Austin wine marketer

By Mike Sutter
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT WRITER
Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Ordering wine in a restaurant can make you feel like Steve Martin in "The Jerk": "Bring us some fresh wine. No more of this old stuff."

When a wine list is as thick as a national security briefing, with just as many countries in play, you might look for friendly territory. Something you can pronounce, something you've tasted before, anything that will help you save face. But the same people who write wine lists can help you navigate through them.

First of all: "Completely disassociate price from quality," said Stewart Scruggs, who co-owns the Austin restaurants Zoot and Wink with Mark Paul. "One of the benefits of globalization has been that we're awash in an ocean of wine. There's a lot of good juice out there that is not expensive."

This summer, The Wall Street Journal reported that sales of wine priced at $25 a bottle and beyond had fallen sharply from a year ago. Bad news for winemakers. Good news for people who order wine at restaurants.

"We've had some great opportunities to put on some wonderful wines that are a little more expensive at a price that's in our bubble," said Dirk Miller, wine director for Wink. "Less people are buying super expensive wines, and that has driven the industry into a discount-oriented position."

Jeremy Parzen, an Austin-based marketing consultant for wine importers, said, "Often the most inexpensive wine on the list is the best value because the restaurateur was able to get a good price on it."

At Olivia, a progressive bistro on South Lamar Boulevard, general manager and wine buyer Jerry Reid is a fan of the wine-list underdog. "Our lowest-selling wines are our lowest-priced wines," he said. "But honestly, my favorite wines are our lowest-priced wines." One of Reid's favorites on Olivia's list is Chateau d'Oupia Minervois from the Languedoc region of France for $28 a bottle.

He's an advocate of customers talking about wine with waiters, wine directors and bartenders, of taking the pretentiousness out of the process. "A wine list that is geeky and untouchable and highfalutin' and over everyone's head - that's a museum piece. I have no need for that," he said.

Customers who feel lost in a list like that might turn to Jane Nickles, the wine educator at the Texas Culinary Academy, a certified wine specialist and author of the book "Winespeak101." Just last week, Nickles met with a restaurateur who wanted her help building a list worthy of a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. She has some suggestions for finding approachable, inexpensive, consistent choices on almost any wine list:

• California fumé blanc: "It is always sauvignon blanc with a little bit of oak aging to it, a little bit of oak complexity. But it takes away the screaming acidity and it's always dry and light."

• New Zealand sauvignon blanc. "I describe these wines as like standing naked in a lime thunderstorm being attacked with lightning from one side, and kind of a tongue-piercing zing of lime acidity, which to me sounds very thrilling. "

• California zinfandel: "A big, bold, `bite-me' red wine." Nickles suggests Sonoma zinfandels for lighter body and Lodi zinfandels for "really rich, deep, dark" wine. "Things like Ravenswood, Earthquake, Seven Deadly Zins or Earth, Zin and Fire or Jessie's Grove."

At Jeffrey's, known for decades as much for its wine list as its food, wine consultant Greg Steiner approaches his lower-priced wines with similar enthusiasm, among them a Berger grüner veltliner an Austrian white wine that comes in a 1-liter bottle with a bottle cap instead of a cork for $32. "I don't know how much less pretentious you can be. And it rocks."

Steiner's voice takes on an animated tempo as he talks about Monséran garnacha red wine from Spain, which sells for $6 a glass and $24 a bottle. "I love it. It's a big, fat California-style grenache , but it also tastes like it comes from that area of Spain, and it overdelivers on the promise of its price tag."

Beyond dollars

Price isn't the only point to consider on a restaurant wine list. In fact, price might be one of the most misunderstood components. For example, the wine that sells for $8 a glass at a wine bar when that same wine costs $10.99 a bottle at a retail shop might make some people feel cheated.

"Don't go into a restaurant with the presumption that people are going to try and take advantage of you," said Parzen, who's written restaurant wine lists and articles for Decanter and Wine & Spirits magazines, among others. "When you pay for a glass of wine in a restaurant, you're not just paying for the wine. You're paying for the restaurant's cellaring of the wine. You're paying for the service of the wine, and you're also paying for the expertise. "

At Jeffrey's, Steiner's background in retail gives him a different perspective, one that suggests consumers have become accustomed to retail wine being undervalued, which contributes to the perception that restaurant wines are overpriced. "I really feel bad for the people in retail," said Steiner, who co-founded Grapevine Market. He cites a local merchant who makes maybe a 10 percent gross profit per bottle and has to pay expenses from that margin. "Restaurants actually have it a lot more right," he said.

Parzen said restaurant customers have more control over their wine-buying experience than they might think. "I'm never embarrassed to tell the sommelier, `Look, I'd like to spend under $35 for a wine today that will go well with what I'd like to eat,'" he said.

What goes with wine?

That simple philosophy of properly pairing wine with food is the driving force behind some of the best wine lists in Austin.

At Zoot, Scruggs takes it a step further: "We see wine as a food, not a beverage." Zoot's ever-changing, two-page list is compiled by wine buyer Carlos Benevides. "Our list is a little eclectic," said Scruggs. "You're not going to find most of our wines on the shelf at H-E-B."

Olivia's wine list doesn't carry a lot of wines you'll recognize, either. "But people seem full of wonder and interest as opposed to suspicion and doubt," Reid said.

His two-page list is rich with Italian wines, but "I'm open to anything." He pours all his rosés by the glass. "I'm a big believer in pink wine being the perfect wine for Texas, no matter what time of year." Olivia also carries five or six sparkling wines by the glass, plus seven whites and seven reds. "It's kind of a scratch-and-sniff opportunity, the more wines you have by the glass," he said.

At Wink, the list offers about 70 wines by the glass "to be able to pair with any dish that comes out of the kitchen," Miller said. One of his favorite bottles on the list is a Domaine de Mourchon Côtes du Rhône Villages for around $100. "It's just a knockout bottle of wine. It's the band I'm listening to right now."

Other "bands" the wine experts in this story are listening to include the wine bar Vino Vino, the Grove on Bee Cave Road and sommelier Mark Sayre of Trio at the Four Seasons. Nickles singled out Vespaio for its Italian wine list, Finn and Porter at the Hilton Austin, Chez Zee and Mirabelle. She also takes professorial pride in the wine list at the Texas Culinary Academy's student-run restaurant, Ventana. Steiner and several other sources expressed respect for Josh Loving, who handles wine for Asti and Fino Restaurant and Patio Bar.

Many of these places share a liberal by-the-glass philosophy, something Scruggs values for its exploratory possibilities.

"People will experiment with food more than they'll experiment with wine," he said. "Wine has this cloak of mystique around it, with all the tea-ceremony stuff at the table. It's considered an upper-class, snobbish sort of deal, as opposed to just eating. And this is all not true. People all over the world - farmers on up - drink wine every day. And oh, by the way, it's really good for you."

msutter@statesman.com; 912-5902