The Inside Story from Italian Wine Merchants

Cheap, Good, Delicious

Posted on | April 7, 2010 | Written by Jane Nelson | No Comments

One of my favorite descriptors for my least favorite things is saltine. You may not be familiar with this use of the word. I like to think I invented it as a child, having grown tired of boring descriptors like vanilla, plain, and bland. Yes, the word is the name of the simple square crackers often paired with soup, or given to nauseated children as a snack by their parents. I do not dislike saltine crackers. In fact I like them very much when I am in the mood for them, but their very purpose is to be bland.

I value originality, almost above anything else. That’s not to say that I only go for something different. Sometimes a vanilla ice cream cone is exactly what a hot July afternoon calls for. My favorite writer happens to be Ernest Hemingway, whose prose style is considered simple and, his unadorned, quick sentences show that they were written by a trained journalist. Sometimes all I will eat for dinner is a bowl of arugula with lemon vinaigrette. And most Sundays I will wear jeans and a white t-shirt, nearly the simplest of outfits. But, I find originality to be very refreshing—in people, in food, in literature, and in wine lists.

Eric Asimov’s April 1st The Pour posting “On Generic Wine Lists” came at an appropriate time for me to reflect on an experience I had this past weekend. I went for a glass of wine Friday night with a friend near Columbia University, and I was met with a list of wines by the glass that was marred by being the quintessence of saltine. The list looked a little like this:

Cheap $8

Good $12

Expensive $18

When the waitress came over to take our order, I asked for a little further information. She told me she thought the cheap was Merlot, the good was Malbec, and the expensive was Sangiovese, or something along those lines. I hoped she could clear up the varietals for me, as well as perhaps vintage and even country of origin. I told her I needed a few minutes.

At first, I had been somewhat intrigued by this wine list design. How unusual! How different! I had never seen this anywhere before! But the more I thought about it, the more I had no idea what I wanted. When presented with a wine list with six different Chardonnays by the glass, I often feel completely torn. But this was far worse because they were offering me only three unidentified beverages. I felt I was being forced to make an uninformed choice.

Composing a restaurant’s menu is difficult, so is making a wine list. There are so many choices, so many customers, so many palates, so many restaurants, and so many of them fail. When restaurants make their lists, they have to consider so many questions: Who will the audience be? What price range can we offer wines in? How large do we want the list to be? What is the concept or theme? All things considered, the wine list needs to be at the very least informative, and if it isn’t, the staff should be. Otherwise, the patrons end up feeling like me last Saturday night, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.

In the wake of this last experience on the Upper West Side, I’m wondering about what’s valuable in wine lists. Is it better to go off the beaten path and try to do something wildly creative? Or is it better to play it safe and run the risk of being saltine?

Category: Italian Wine Merchants
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