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(Editor's note: Zachary Pearson left Houston and the world of retail wine to move to Fredericksburg and help a friend open a winery. He now divides his time between dealing with permitting and regulatory paperwork and editing the cocktail website Kindred Cocktails, where I first encountered his work. I follow Zach on Twitter (@zachkpearson) and found myself often debating restaurant beverage programs and wine lists with him. I asked him to put some of his thoughts together, and this open letter to the industry is the result. Whether you agree or think he's out of his mind, we hope you'll jump in with your own thoughts in the comments section below.--Alison Cook)
One of the offbeat wines that make the pairings by sommelier Justin Vann at Oxheart so interesting. Photo by Alison Cook
I’m really not the person you want to have walk into your restaurant. First of all, I know that as a wine drinker, I subsidize the meal of every person who walks in the door. I’m prepared to accept that.
To make matters worse, I spent ten years in the retail side of the wine business. I know what things cost both at retail and wholesale, which means that it doesn’t take me long to figure out your markup, or that you’ve thrown up your hands and are letting one of your distributors write a good portion of your wine list.
The good thing is that I understand some of your needs. Wine professionals are expensive, difficult to retain and often aren’t useful in other aspects of the restaurant. The wait staff is often times too young to be able to drink wine and paid very little, while trying to cram the world of wine knowledge into their brains during the afternoon meeting is of much lower importance than being able to explain to customers how the fish of the day is prepared. Managers have other problems to worry about, meaning wine gets bumped down the list, though explaining to the wait staff what a corked or an oxidized wine smells like would be a very good use of their time.
Red wine with a crawfish dish? At Oxheart, with Bourgogne Passetoutgrain, it works. Photo by Alison Cook
Even more importantly, I’m the kind of customer you want to have in your place. I love good food and wine. I’m not afraid to spend money on good food and wine, and I’m quite vocal about places that I want to visit with my friends. And since we’ve already determined I help you keep entrée prices moderate, I’d like to exchange that for a few minutes of your time.
A great majority of the time I walk into a restaurant, I’ve done my homework, looked at your wine list and menu on your website, and thought about what I want to eat and drink. If you do not have your wine list on your website, I have no sympathy for you. Please don’t tell me it’s too difficult to update or that your wine list changes so rapidly that it’s not possible to do so. It’s really not.
Yes, they make a bang-up white in Ribera del Duero, and Matt McLaughlin pours it for a bargain $23 at Concepcion. Photo by Alison Cook
Sadly, the feeling I get looking at most wine lists in restaurants is one of fear. Fear that if a wine list doesn’t have big names on it, no one will buy wine. Fear that somewhere out there there’s someone who must have sushi and Staglin Cabernet tonight even though you know they do not go together. Fear that a wine list of 30 selections might be thought less of than one with a 1,000. This fear leads to wine lists where a majority of the entries feel like they’re from a wine bar and there’s a small amount remaining to pair with the menu.
Chefs obviously don’t worry about this. How many restaurants have Pad Thai on the menu next to lasagna Bolognese, King Ranch chicken and pressed duck? None. Restaurants pride themselves on their culinary point of view, and it’s about time that people who write wine lists do the same. The best part of this? Showing people the world of wines that pair with your menu isn’t dictatorial, no more than focusing on Piedmontese cuisine or local seafood is. Having cohesiveness between your food and wine makes customers comfortable, and engenders trust and repeat visits.
Third Coast ceviche with hisbcus leche de tigre at Concepcion seems made for Yunquera Albillo. Photo by Alison Cook
I firmly believe that three things can help reduce this fear and uncertainty that lead to lower wine sales. First, smaller, better selected wine lists lead to less customer uncertainty. The era of a novel-sized wine list is over. By reducing available choices, not only can the remaining wines be better suited to your food, but customers will have an easier time finding a wine to go well with their meal without worrying if it’s alright to have red wine with fish. Not only that, but suddenly, carrying costs are less and inventory takes much less time.
Second, having a lower markup drives bottle sales preferentially over by the glass sales, and having to manage less open bottles of wine that are all oxidizing means that you pour out less wine (or serve less horribly oxidized wine to customers).
Matthew Pridgen's well-edited list at Underbelly offers an unusual Rose of Chinon well suited to chef Chris Shepherd's eclectic flavors. Photo by Alison Cook
A thoughtful wine list like Underbelly's may include suitable beers or even a Texas sparkling cider. Photo by Alison
Third, allow a BYO policy if you are able to do so. If corkage is $15 or $20 to cover the cost of glassware, breakage and other things, that’s fine. If it also stops customers from bringing in magnums of $8 wine, that’s all the better.
Please allow me to give a few examples of people who I think get it right. The Monterey in San Antonio is eclectic. Housed in what looks like a 50s diner, it has a varied menu driven by local ingredients and a real sense of playfulness, with a healthy borrowing of Asian flavors and techniques. It’s divided into six things that you might call appetizers and seven that you might call main courses.
Their alcohol list is one page, and contains all of 43 beers, 43 wines and three sakes. While there are some big name wines on their list, a great majority of it is well chosen, interesting things that work well with their menu. It is easy to buy a bottle of wine there and feel confident that it will go nicely with dinner.
The other is the newly opened Oxheart. I wish that more restaurants displayed the confidence and knowledge they do. They’re unabashedly minimalist and local, with a strong emphasis on vegetables. There are three tasting menus and a grand total of 21 alcohol selections. While I’m sure that everything on the wine list is chosen to pair beautifully with their food, the best thing to do is to buy the wine pairing addition to the tasting and trust them to amaze.
As a former wine professional, I understand the value of making smart decisions about what wines to put in front of customers. I know there’s a world of wine out there that’s getting larger every day. I would like you to show the same level of passion for your wine point of view that your chef does for the food you serve. I would love to see wine lists that were smartly chosen and small enough to be manageable so that I could feel better about buying wine in restaurants again.
.....finally a post where this guys knows what he's talking about, amen and thank you jesus...if there were more folks like this dude who really understand the business then this place would actually be a better place visit. All valid points are mentioned and I find it refreshing to have this shown in a professional manner. 3-4 times markup we see around town in places where the food is average at best is a f'ing joke friends. This is further proof the people who build wine list have no concept of what they are doing! Again, love this post, thank you.
Brilliant post. Let's see what happens.
Great post!
Well I'm glad that everyone seems to believe this is a good post. I agree that he may have some experience knowing how much a wine costs at a wholesale level and how much it is on a wine list for.
I also agree that smaller lists would be better for most restaurants.
I disagree that most wine professionals that are brought in to a restaurant are not useful in other areas because wine is usually one of the very last things that a restaurant professional learns. It is a difficult skill set to acquire and usually comes with experience. Which ever wine professional is chosen should be hired like any other staff member and if they have a good skill set then they can be part of the restaurant, if not then they're not hired. So if that's the case it's a poor hiring decision and not a general wine professional assessment that they're only good with wine.
I also agree that for a consumer lower mark-ups and allowing corkage would be advantageous for me because I would personally save money.
That being said I know a lot of people in the New York area are on this bandwagon but look where the restaurants in this article are located: San Antonio, Texas. If someone wants to make an argument that the cost of rent, permits, staffing, is more in San Antonio than New York then they're grossly uninformed. The funny thing is that the food products/linen costs/wine costs are close to the same usually... so while you can compare the things that you know the cost of between 2 markets you should probably look at their lease agreement and labor costs not to mention how they're paying back their investors or the interest they pay on their loan. These costs are the ones that in a well run restaurant dictate the price of a lot of things.
I agree that if you are a smart business person then you'll get a very good deal and be incredibly fair with your guests but to keep reading these types of articles where everyone thinks they have it figured out is bullshit. At the end of the day if the restaurant goes out of business it's no skin off your back so of course you'd like things to cost less... I'd like to win the lottery too. I've always found that the best way to show my agreement that someone is doing something well is to patronize their establishment and vote with my dollar.
As far as corkage: I like how the author wants to allow corkage for $15 or $20... yet starts the article by saying that simply because they are a wine drinker that they subsidizing every other diners meal. What does the author think happens when you allow corkage and lose revenue? The prices will naturally need to go up on the wine list to cover the corkage that everyone else is bringing in. Another thought: the smaller the amount of guests the more of an impact that corkage has on the bottom line. If it's a big restaurant that does a lot of covers it shouldn't be that big of a deal although at $15-$20 in NYC that would be a huge problem. I would personally never buy even a glass at a restaurant like that.. I'd always bring my own wine.
Before we start making general statements that affect serious wine professionals and blanket all restaurants, even well run restaurants, I think we as a public need to look at the whole picture and do a little more research.
Alexander,
Thank you for your comments - I knew that this article would engender some passionate responses, and I'm happy to discuss them.
I think that it's cheaper and more effective to educate a GM about wine than it is to train a sommelier how to run the front of the house. It's rare that you can get both for a reasonable salary.
As for the cost of things in New York being higher than other places, I'm sure you're right about that, but no one's talking about New York. I mentioned the restaurant in San Antonio because (1) I live fairly close to it and (2) they have a wine and beer program that matches their menu well at a reasonable markup. If there were many places in Houston who did this, I wouldn't have written an article about it. I have high hopes for places like Oxheart, Underbelly and Concepcion - the two latter of which I'll be at next weekend.
Finally, about corkage. I don't think allowing corkage and making money are mutually exclusive. In my mind, if there's not a bottle of wine I want on a wine list, I might have a glass of wine, or none at all. Allowing corkage gets me in the door of places I might not normally visit. I know restaurants see corkage as a zero sum game, but if I'm not going to drink something off your list in the first place, why not engender goodwill among your guests? Trust me - I'd be the first to tell others about great restaurants with a corkage policy.
Thanks,
Zachary
I think you need to re-read the article again.
First of all, he never said wine professionals learn about wine "last." He said 1) wine professionals are often not useful in other areas of the restaurant (because by definition, they serve only as the resident expert on wine), and 2) that wait staff (i.e. servers, waiters, bartenders) often learn about wine as one of the last things at an afternoon meeting. His point was that you can't count on waitstaff to pick up the slack when you don't have a wine professional.
Also, not quite sure why you went on the NYC tangent - not relevant at all to the article. But I would like to note that many of the restaurants featured in the article (Conception, Underbelly, Oxhart) are located in Houston. Hence, this article on the Houston Chronicle's webpage. ;)
Anonymous,
I know he didn't say wine professional learn about wine "last", I did. I was responding to the fact that wine professionals are not "only the resident expert on wine" ... that would be ridiculous. I was saying that they usually learn about wine last because they have been in the business a long time and most have been a waiter, bus person and sometimes cook, dishwasher and manager before. It would make no sense to me as a professional to hire someone to walk around the restaurant and just pontificate about wine to my patrons, they sure as hell better be running food, bussing and resetting tables, seating guests, showing them to the bathroom, taking orders, checking coats/umbrellas and whatever else needs to be done. That is the reality of a restaurant from the owner & GM on down the hierarchy.
The reason that I included the NYC tangent is because I saw some influential wine writers from the NYC market support this blog and I believe that much more should be taken into account and that there are no quick and easy general rules. When guests walk into a well run restaurant and they just went to costco and saw the same wine for $10 bucks and see it for even a reasonable price on the list it makes everyones job much harder, let alone when they read articles like these and take them as the final facts.
Thank you... Well said! Take a look at Rootstock in Chicago. Small, humble, and executed correctly! A prime example. Their price point is amazing. Hmm, maybe I should open one in Portland...
I disagree that educating a GM to know about wine and having someone in charge of that return the same results. In any restaurant I've ever worked in from small family burger joints to 3 Star Michelin have I never ever seen a GM that had enough time to fulfill all of their duties as well as work the floor and visit tables and describe wine. Also depending on the pay structure of a sommelier, by putting them in the tip pool or paying them on a % basis, it's an investment for the restaurant that isn't much more than a captain (waiter).
I agree about your statement that the model you discussed can work in San Antonio or in other markets where the costs aren't nearly as high forcing the final product to be high as well. I just wanted to make sure that the supporters from NYC looked at the whole picture before saying "this is the way it should be".
As far as corkage: In any program I've ever ran in my entire life I've never refused corkage. What kind of hospitality employee would I be if I said "no, you can't drink that bottle from your anniversary, birth year, child's birthday"? That would be bullshit too, however just as there are 2 sides to every coin there are a ton of people that I've seen go to the corner liquor store and buy an $8 dollar bottle of wine and bring it in... nothing special about it in any way except that it was cheap; I've seen that at every level as well. So it has to be a balance and again it really does affect the rest of the wine program because if you allow corkage it's not a zero sum game because it greatly helps your cost %, but it certainly doesn't make revenue which is what needs to happen so you have to raise the cost of the other wines to cover that loss. I think the best policy is a discretionary policy of 1 750ml per table and it can't be on the list with the price of corkage about the same as your least expensive wine on the list by the bottle and all other inquiries be directed to the sommelier/wine director/beverage director.
As far as corkage getting someone in the door that is more marketing than it is general policy. There are a million ways to get someone to try out a new restaurant for the first time: restaurant week menus with low prices, special events, holiday deals, free corkage on tuesdays... etc... but whatever plan is put in to place it needs to be both consistent and sustainable so that they are giving their guests a clear vision of what they stand for and offer.
One thing that I think we should look at more that involves mark ups are wine by the glass prices! They are ridiculous! Too many restaurants price their wine by the glass as follows: 1 glass = price at cost of the bottle. That is just insane. I could have a very low mark up on wine by the bottle if I'm a lunch place in that case... because most people would have by the glass because they are headed back to work and don't have time to drink a bottle and can't drink that much before working. Does that make any sense to you? NO WAY! I think one of the most important judging criteria has to be the wine by the glass program. After all most people drink wine by the glass that frequent an establishment because they are usually in couples and it's less of an investment and allows you to try many different things to compliment the food, rather than one bottle you're stuck with throughout the whole experience. So the pricing as well as the selections of a by the glass program should be held to the highest standard in my book but is so often overlooked and robs people. That's something that maybe I should write an article about.
Alexander,
I think you are going to really enjoy Concepcion, based on what I just read. Their list is miniscule in comparison to most places on their caliber of food, yet they worry about quality of selection, not quantity. I went with friends recently for light bites and cocktails. After a cocktail, I decided I wanted wine instead (please note this isn't a reflection on the cocktail, which was one of the most enjoyable versions of the paloma I've encountered). I was going to order a glass, but instead I decided to order a bottle for the table. For $18. We ended up drinking several because it was clearly a bargain. Very crisp, with bright apple notes and pleasant acidity, which paired nicely with many of the dishes we ordered. I will be going back there soon to subsidize many other patrons' food orders because the patio with that reasonable wine list is very hard to turn down. By the way, kudos on a well written, thoughtful and in my opinion, spot on correct article. I will now be following you on the twitters.
Alexander, just curious where you live and have worked.
cheers
Whew, my head is spinning. Thanks, Gentlemen for taking the time!!!
What every restaurant diner should know is this. A restaurant that carries only a beer & wine permit has a 14% pricing advantage over a mixed beverage permit. When a restaurant with a mix beverage permit sells a $100 bottle of wine, $14 goes straight to the State of Texas. A beer & wine permit holder keeps 100% of the $100 transaction.
Zach thanks for your sharing your point of view with us. We should all keep in mind this is the opinion of one person. Specifically one person who has never operated a restaurant or worked the floor as a sommelier. Zach is very knowledgeable and experienced in the wine business and I respect his opinion. Zach, a good wine professional on the floor is generally looked at as the "expert" not only in wine but in service and many other aspects of the restaurant.
YOYO SUN is correct if you carry a mixed beverage permit 14% of each sale goes directly to the state of Texas. Additionally this is not passed on to the guest in many establishments. Please note this is only true in Texas. This immediately changes your cost %. In Texas if you have a Mixed Beverage permit (one that allows liquor by the drink) it is illegal for you to even offer corkage to your guests.
Any restaurant worth their salt will provide the guest with not only great service, an updated well presented menu, sommeliers on the floor to help but also the best in glassware and other accoutrement. Our standard glasses are well over $3.00 a piece and we provide some glasses that cost over $75 a piece.
In regard to the size of the list and matching the food. I agree, I think the list in a restaurant should complement the the entire concept. This includes size and scope as well as selections. Alexander, I do not think making a blanket statement about 4 markups on BTG selections is a good idea. I think each establishment should choose their own path and the market will sort out what is best for them. I think the most important thing about BTG is the selection being well thought out and matching the cuisine.
I love what all of the great Somms are doing in Houston and across Texas. The small dynamic lists I see around the state now are exciting to me. You guys are bringing in great wines and using them well. I have not been to a couple of the restaurants listed above but will be going soon. Texas has come a long way because of your passion.
Jeff- Alexander is a NY sommelier and is very accomplished. Jeff P I assume is Zachs brother.
Drew,
Thank you for the comment and the compliment. My goal in writing this was to hopefully engage the sommelier community and have a conversation about the disconnect too many restaurants have between their menus and wine lists.
I know that MB permits forbid corkage, and that there's a tax that must be taken into consideration that goes along with it. But there are places that have successfully done both (low markups and MB permits), and it's not like someone applying for a MB doesn't know that the tax comes with it.
While I agree that the problem is getting better and that there are some incredibly talented sommeliers who get it, there are too many places that do not. I don't expect good glassware and a well thought out wine list from a hole in the wall Thai place in a bad part of town, and while I do expect these things from restaurants that employ sommeliers full-time, there's a vast number of places in between those two concepts that should do better but fail to.
I firmly applaud the move to smaller, more focused wine lists, but there are too many places who choose not to move in this direction out of fear, and that's what I cannot figure out.
Thanks,
Zachary
Really good article, sounds like me except, because I am a knowledgeable consumer, I like really extensive wine lists as long as they are diverse and cover all major wine regions.....
Vintage depth is always nice, also.
John,
Thank you for the comment. I'm wondering... where was the last restaurant you visited that had both regional and vintage depth? I can think of the Rotisserie for Beef and Bird, but they haven't been open for years. I'd imagine Pappas Steakhouse does as well.
The larger question I have is this: Do you expect the same things from a restaurant as you do from their wine list? No restaurant claims that their menu spans regions with depth. Would you want to eat a cheeseburger, green shrimp curry, raw oysters and enchiladas con mole from the same place? Why would you want a wine list to do the same thing?
Along those lines, I had great meals at Concepcion and Underbelly on Thursday and Friday nights. I think the Concepcion wine list had 20 wines on it, most under $40 and all nicely paired with their food. While I wish they'd reach out to Alba from Anvil for a little cocktail guidance, many of the dishes were compelling food, especially the pumpkin seed hummus, the scallop tiradito, and the pollo and dumplings.
Underbelly was similarly impressive, and indeed tells the story of a place. The family style dishes were impressive as the should be, but even the "stripstrami", goat and dumplings (which were like dok, the chewy Korean rice logs), and the popcorn shrimp with popcorn sauce were all on point. It was also easy to find wines to pair with the food, with some hidden gems lurking (02 Lopez de Heredia Bianco and 05 Grinon Petit Verdot).
Thanks,
Zachary
(please note - the last two sentences were mangled between my phone and the site. They're now corrected.)
This may be the most unusual set of comments to an entry that I've ever seen on this site. It's refreshing to see such a meaningful, adult and respectful exchange of ideas and opinions between Zachary, Alexander, Drew and that tidbit from Yoyo.