Cuozzo/Asimov - strong contrasts

The Copenhagen subthread reminded me of Andy Peay's comments on these topics a few years back.

Yes, but be delicious

I observed something similar during a visit in 2016 -- tasting menus commonly were entirely made up of natural wines, many of which were not very good -- but also recall bottle lists that usually included a number of things I'd very much like to drink.
 
originally posted by slaton:
The Copenhagen subthread reminded me of Andy Peay's comments on these topics a few years back.

Yes, but be delicious

I observed something similar during a visit in 2016 -- tasting menus commonly were entirely made up of natural wines, many of which were not very good -- but also recall bottle lists that usually included a number of things I'd very much like to drink.
Click to expand...

I remember reading that article and not always agreeing. It still manages to be supremely annoying - in parts. To include Sonoma Coast in a sentence about the classic wines of the world is just ignorant hubris of the first order.

This is bullshit, too: "When I uncovered a handful of classic bottles at a bottle shop, they stuck out for their incongruity against a backdrop of Trousseau, Jura whites, Bio-dynamic wines, and other wine styles/regions currently in vogue." Most of us know that those categories cited are a mixed bag, but mostly not "natural" wines. The one I know the most about - BD - includes everything from sterile tasting super oaky (as Osvaldo mentioned) Italian wines to mind-boggling funky.

And many of the classics he cites are incredibly over-oaked, so they have their faults, too. Now don't get me wrong, I have a low tolerance for VA (in fact, SFJoe loved to test my tolerance with them), which can be a problem when ordering natural stuff - and let's just say that defective wines are simply that - but please let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
 
One obvious but sometimes overlooked problem with natural wine lists is that not all restaurants store the bottles carefully enough.
 
originally posted by mark e:
Now don't get me wrong, I have a low tolerance for VA (in fact, SFJoe loved to test my tolerance with them)...
Click to expand...

Would he serve you Vin Jaune, too, just to watch your reaction? He'd do that to my wife and me (both chemists) and then say "You can smell the acetaldehyde, can't you?" with such a gleeful expression that it did appear to be more than a tad sadistic.

Mark Lipton
 
The cookie cutter restaurant wine list also existed two decades ago. At that time it was composed of Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay (literally it was on every list), Matanzas Creek Merlot, Stag's Leap "Artemis", and the Cult Cabs. If someone was pushing the envelope they might have L'Ecole N 41 on the list. The idea that lists were super diverse until the Natural Wine wave took hold is incorrect. I think that grouping up is probably a workable business strategy at the restaurant level. By which I mean if someone really studied the phenomenon, they would probably discover that cookie cutter lists result in sales with less effort at the table and room for higher margin possibilities. I believe that it is in both the business interest of the restaurants and the distributors to encourage this behaviour. No one at the restaurant level is being paid to taste new wines. The more time they spend doing that, the longer they work for the same paycheck. If the customer reward for a more adventurous list is not positive, but instead results in more hand selling and staff time at the table, that is not a smarter business model.

I think the cookie cutter list full of popularly acknowledged brands probably has always existed and probably will always exist. Many wine experts are really brand salesmen, and that has been true for as long as I have been in the wine business.

This is not to say anything about the merits of the wines, then or now. This is just to acknowledge the success of the business model. When you have a recession and the public buying patterns change on a big level, that's when you see real movement on selection choice. That's when new wine lineups fit the bill.

It's really that simple.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
If the customer reward for a more adventurous list is not positive, but instead results in more hand selling and staff time at the table, that is not a smarter business model.
Click to expand...

Very practical. Bravo, Levi.
 
...instead we're just going to have waiters waste time at the table with the spiel about "Have you ever dined here before? Let me explain how our menu works. It's focused on small plates and we encourage sharing..."
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
...instead we're just going to have waiters waste time at the table with the spiel about "Have you ever dined here before? Let me explain how our menu works. It's focused on small plates and we encourage sharing..."
Click to expand...

That is the case because chefs have ownership stakes in restaurants as partners and it is important to chefs that this sort of communication happen. Sommeliers rarely have an ownership stake in a restaurant, and their power to set the agenda is thus more limited.

It really comes down to the fundamentals of the business. It isn't a mystery. But then at the same time I understand that I am speaking here to many people who have limited experience working in restaurants, Mark excepted.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
By which I mean if someone really studied the phenomenon, they would probably discover that cookie cutter lists result in sales with less effort at the table and room for higher margin possibilities. I believe that it is in both the business interest of the restaurants and the distributors to encourage this behaviour. No one at the restaurant level is being paid to taste new wines. The more time they spend doing that, the longer they work for the same paycheck. If the customer reward for a more adventurous list is not positive, but instead results in more hand selling and staff time at the table, that is not a smarter business model.

I think the cookie cutter list full of popularly acknowledged brands probably has always existed and probably will always exist. Many wine experts are really brand salesmen, and that has been true for as long as I have been in the wine business...
Click to expand...

Agreed. My experience in selling wines to and in restaurants dates back to the Pleistocene, but that just underlines Levi's point. Setting aside chains, there's the cookie cutter (aka "safe") list, the distributor-owned list and the independent list (which comes in many sub-species). So it has been, back to the 1980s.

Do cookie cutter lists really offer restaurateurs higher margins? It seems to me that more patrons would be aware of the retail prices of widely distributed wines (unless they are limited to on-premise, and who does that anymore?) Conversely, most people don't know what an Arbois Chardonnay, Mencia, or proprietary "natural" blend costs at retail, hence a higher margin won't offend. In addition, an independent list offers more flexibility to scoop up one-off discounts or close-outs.

On the other hand, as Richard Thaler might point out, context and expectations may be the biggest driver of markups in restaurants, regardless of the type of wine.

These days, I think the bigger issue may be whether people order wine at all, or just continue drinking whatever they were drinking at the bar or before ordering the meal.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by mark e:
Now don't get me wrong, I have a low tolerance for VA (in fact, SFJoe loved to test my tolerance with them)...
Click to expand...

Would he serve you Vin Jaune, too, just to watch your reaction? He'd do that to my wife and me (both chemists) and then say "You can smell the acetaldehyde, can't you?" with such a gleeful expression that it did appear to be more than a tad sadistic.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

Yes. But with the matsutake risotto he made the combo was insanely good. That is one funky mushroom.
 
Here's an example of what I mean by possibility for more margin: you have a bottle of Overnoy to sell. At the restaurant level, you can add margin to the asking price of that bottle and no one will complain. A customer will be happy just to have the bottle. If it is $10 more, they really won't care. If it is $20 more, they really won't care. Etc. That is margin. That was also true in the past. You have the 1997 vintage of a certain Cabernet. You charge a bit more for it. Or maybe a lot more. You would still sell it. The customer would still be happy to have it. If you charge too little for it in fact it will disappear too quickly, and no one will realize that you even had it.

It is about a recognized desire for that wine opening up an opportunity for higher margin. That's how it works.

When you are dealing in wines that you have to explain, that you have to say "I know you don't know what this is, but you should try it," then you do not have the opportunity to add margin. The customer does not recognize the wine. That means they recognize only the price (or maybe the region). That's what they are going off. When you recognize only the price, that acts as a cap on how far it will go up.

What I am saying is, if you have the wine that everybody knows and wants, good for you, that's margin right there. If you are breaking new wines into the market and nobody knows what they are, that is not the same business model.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top