Click the image for a PDF of my wine list at Sotto in Los Angeles. Wine lists are among the most technical paradigms of vinography. Wine blogs are among the most idiosyncratic.
Not without a chord of disdain, the wine blogger at The Gray Report singled out my list at Sotto this week as the apotheosis of wine esotericism. In the world of wine blogging, I’m always up for taking one on the chin (although I suspect that The Gray Report has a different bone to pick with me).
The Gray Report’s post comes in the wake of a week full of Jeremiads wherein wine and restaurant pundits bemoan lists they deem deceitfully cryptic.
On Tuesday, Eric the Red offered a catalogue of their lamentations in a New York Times piece entitled “Should a Wine List Educate or Merely Flatter You? (How Adventurous Should a Wine List Be?)”.
His conclusion: “The enemy isn’t obscure wines or challenging lists. It’s fear of wine.”
When the owners of Sotto asked me to create an exclusively Southern Italian wine list for them in 2011, their proposition couldn’t have come at a better time: I was just about to leave for Apulia where I had been asked to be a judge in a competition devoted exclusively to native southern Italian grape varieties. And, of course, I already had a lot of experience in southern Italian wines: the last three years I lived in New York (2005-2007), I worked for Nicola Marzovilla, who was the first U.S. restaurateur to launch a southern Italian wine list in the late 1990s when he opened I Trulli (I was also a fan and patron of his restaurant and list for many year prior).
The list I’ve created at Sotto spans a spectrum of approachability and connoisseurship. It includes icons and classics of southern Italian wine as well as light-hearted, easy-going international-style wines.
I’ll let the list speak for itself.
I can report that Italians who visit us (especially southern Italian winemakers) have had high praise for our list’s equilibrium and its breadth (however contained).
And while many Americans may find the list challenging, I’m confident that our by-the-glass program and our liberal tasting policy make it relatively easy to find a wine that suits the meal and the guest — regardless of their knowledge of the wines.
I curate the list remotely (from Austin), visitng the restaurant every month, training and tasting with the staff and working the floor (I’ll be there on Tuesday and Wednesday nights next week, btw). And even when I’m not there, wine captain Rory Harrington (my colleague and good friend) is nearly always on the floor. He’s one of LA’s leading wine professionals and he and I are in daily contact (literally). When and if there is a question about the wine that he can’t answer (and there rarely is), he just shoots me a text and get him the info he needs (like the difference between Lettere and Gragnano? the answer: same grapes in both, Piedirosso and Aglianico, but higher elevation, volcanic soil, and more minerality in the former; lower elevation, sandier soils, and more generous fruit in the latter). He and I have co-curated the list since the beginning.
To The Gray Report, I say: before calumniating my list from afar, dine at the restaurant. (Or are you really pissed about something else?)
Your trepidation belongs to our parents’ generation, to those who lived in the pre-Child and -Beard era (hello, Steve Cuozzo!), when restaurateurs and sommeliers were viewed as dukes and dauphins.
Whether I’m there the night that you visit or not, I know this can all be settled over some tarallucci e vino…
Ka-Ching! You are stupendous Jeremy!
The back-handed bitch slap that knocked Blake Gray’s red glasses to the ground! Awesome Response Jeremy!
[...] Fear @SottoLA’s wine list? [...]
Gee Jeremy, I can’t wait to dine in a restaurant that invites me so nicely!
My point, which you have completely avoided, is that you don’t put even a single word of description about these wines on your list. I have no problem with the list itself, and said in my post that I would order from it. I didn’t call it “the aptheosis of wine esotericism.” I was merely responding to your complaining in Palate Press about people bringing outside wines to your restaurant — another point you don’t address at all here.
I never questioned your qualifications. In fact, I wasn’t personally insulting at all. I merely wrote about a topic, and gave my opinion.
I hope you’re nicer to customers than you are to me.
Dear W Blake…I have seen Jeremy in action on the floor at Sotto and he looks like a veteran. He approaches everybody, offers them tastes, is inquisitive and informative. He seems like he cares because he does. The list is written in a minimalist way but all you have to do is ask.a.question. If not to Jeremy, then Rory, if not either, then the servers can answer. If it’s an esoteric query, then the servers will grab either Jeremy (if he’s in town) or Rory. It’s not that hard.
Let me ask another way: what type of descriptors should Jeremy put on the list, if he were inclined to do so? How much is too much or too little? Do you want to read a wine tome when selecting a glass of something or a bottle, or something pithy that doesn’t explain what you’re ordering? Do you need tasting notes?
Adrian: Although descriptors are fine, what I’d really like is a little context. Is there are a story behind these wines? Are they biodynamic? Tenth-generation grapegrowers? Traditional grape variety of the Puglia region? A blend of Syrah and Grenache? It doesn’t even take an entire sentence to tell us something about these wines.
I might be really interested in a couple of these wines if I had these facts, and the question I might ask the sommelier would be much more informed. What question would I ask now: “Um, what is this 4th wine on the right?”
What I’d really like to see is two sentences: One saying something about the producer; the other something about the wine. But I’d settle for a phrase. Anything is better than the nothing you get now.
May I add that my favorite way to order wine in a restaurant is to decide on what food I’m having, ask for the sommelier, and if he/she actually is working that day, ask for a couple recommendations and descriptions. After a personal attack like Jeremy’s, I want to make clear that my point is not a rant about “I want to drink this kind of wine.” As a diner, I am a sommelier’s dream customer, willing to take a chance on wines the somm is passionate about. But I do not expect the world of wine and restaurants to be arranged for my pleasure. I don’t think others should either — and that includes somms who believe that the only information about wine given in their restaurant should be done in person, orally.
Come on now, Blake.
You make some important points in your piece. But you also declared that, after months of work putting together the Sotto list, Jeremy has created “a price list,” not even a real wine list. And you want to be handled with kid gloves? You threw a punch. I suspect you’re feigning surprise that you might be hammered back.
I bow my head
Dear Jeremy,
You remain one of my heroes. Way back in 2000 when I wrote an all Italian list for a local Italian restaurant the only real opposition I met was with the various wine vendors whose commissions came easier selling wines they were familiar with, i.e., Napa Cabs and Sonoma chardonnays. The staff ate it up like candy and their enthusiasm carried over to the guests. Now this list was in no way extraordinary; rather a wide offering of Italian wines from what are now pretty familiar wineries. This opposing sentiment strikes me as equating (wine) knowledge with sophistication and having one’s comfort disturbed by the simple fact that there’s a shit-ton of amazing wine out there and there’s simply no way any one person can know them all. Why would any self-proclaimed wino not be excited to try something foreign and new? As to needing a description for each and every bottle on the list may I suggest a little interaction with the folks who, on this one subject, may know more than you: your server? It’s okay to admit to not knowing everything.
In fact it’s very liberating.
Love your work, Jeremy.
A great list! It’s concise, fits the theme of the restaurant, offers many different possibilities to match up with multiple items on the menu, has excellent, reasonably priced by-the-glass options, and as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of southern Italian wines (though apparently not some bloggers who blog about wine) will recognize they’re chosen from the right growers (Cantele, de Bartoli, Elena Fucci, COS, etc.). I am a buyer for a retail wine shop south of Boston with a store focus on Italy and sell lots of these wines and their like to customers who have no more knowledge of fine Italian wine than the prospective patrons at Sotto do. All it takes is a willingness for the customer to engage the staff with trust and for the staff to be well-versed with the list and communicate that with politeness and enthusiasm (which from Mr. Parzen’s writing is evidently the case).
“Asimov concluded that restaurants should feel free to offer unconventional lists, as long as they can explain in simple terms what they are — and diners should feel free to ask. ”
Read more: http://www.thedailymeal.com/are-wine-lists-too-pretentious#ixzz23AcxpguF
In reply to W Blake in reply to me: I hear you somewhat. When I was Beverage Director of Fiola in Washington, D.C., my marching orders when making the list was to make it easy for customers to select wine if a Somm wasn’t present or the customer doesn’t feel like engaging the server. So I put a one sentence summary below each wine listed. I much prefer no descriptors in the style of Sotto LA, but a lot of it depends on the leeway the Bev Director/Somm has with the owners/chef.
I love the wine list at Sotto: relevant, concise and focused. But wine lists are static, and do not tell the whole story about a restaurant’s wine philosophy. In my opinion, you have to interact with a restaurant’s professionals to truly understand how the list itself reflects the restaurant. Sotto is a perfect example of this.
Sotto is such a small, intimate restaurant (go, and check it out in person!), it allows for COMMUNICATION between the restaurant’s wine professionals and patrons. Jeremy and Rory instill this message in every staff meeting- the key to their success is that they EXPECT their staff to TALK to people about the food and wine.
Sotto is the wine-centric customer’s dream! Sit down, let the server or wine pro know what you’re looking for, what you usually enjoy drinking, what is exciting to you, and watch the magic happen. It’s that simple really. There is a culture of communication and teaching at Sotto- you just have to walk in and sit down to find out.
Thanks, Dr. P, for, as you say, “keeping the world safe for Italian wine”.
Brava Joanie! Sono d’accordo.
Thanks Mark. I honestly believe wine is a conversation- it’s not a list of facts and figures. I think those who get it right, like Sotto, A16, Terroni etc, embrace this idea too.
I’ve written about wine for about a decade and been involved in wine programs since 1988 or so. As much as W Blake, Steve Cuozzo and Eric the Red (nice name) have ruffled a few feathers: I’d love to have one of my articles get this much rebounding.
One thing that resonated with me was the Blake comment about the amount of corkage supposedly happening and his theory as to why. 2008/2009 were difficult years for restaurants that I consult for or have consulted for due to the increase in wines being brought in. There were many restaurants offering corkage free nights to bring in guests and it became a bit of a flood at some. A wine program is a piece of the whole, how it lines up with the theme, cuisine and atmosphere, how it helps or hinders the economics of the restaurant, how it effects the guests experience.
Point is, if the list at Sotto LA works for the staff, ownership et al then it must work for the consumer as well…otherwise…
Is there are a story behind these wines? Are they biodynamic? Tenth-generation grapegrowers? Traditional grape variety of the Puglia region? A blend of Syrah and Grenache? ???
R u serious, what on earth does info like that bring to the table? I haven’t been to this place but it seems like a restaurant where you go because the people who work there know what they are doing, you either trust them or you don’t go. That is the way it should be. If the offerings are not to your likings you don’t return. The majority of wine on offering in the world is soulless crap partly or even mostly made to please wine critics. If you believe that if biodynamic says something about the quality of the wine think again. All those wordings have been hijacked by the industry, it means zip, zilch nada. You want to know about wine? Start spending, start drinking, do your own research, be curious and above all be pleased with and thank people like Jeremy who have the courage to go against the grain.
Right on
Thanks, everyone, for all the words of support and solidarity here. We’re really proud of our wine program at Sotto and it’s been a rewarding experience to turn a lot of folks on to southern Italian wines for the first time (the 1997 Cirò by Ippolito is one of the top sellers btw).
Nothing thrills me more than to walk into a restaurant, open a wine list, and discover wines I’ve never tasted before. That’s what we have tried to do at Sotto.
And even though it breaks our hearts, we allow corkage for those who just aren’t ready to take the leap with us (and we open guests’ bottles respectfully and without editorial). It’s really not such a great leap (just ask any Italian who has visited us). But we know that some people just aren’t ready to visit a world beyond the one they live in.
Thanks, again. It means the world to me to see you all here.
Buona domenica… :)
[...] came (not in any particular order) W. Blake Gray and Jon Bonne of SF Gate and Jeremy Parzen of Do Bianchi along with I am sure plenty of others I have missed. By the way, Jeremy has a wonderful new name [...]
I am of two minds when I read this list. First, as a wine professional, it is adventurous and having a large selection of wines by the glass makes it an easy way to try some really interesting wines. As a recovering restauranteur, I cringe. Restaurants are all about hospitality and developing a nurturing atmosphere that allows guest to use your offerings to enhance their lives. But you must sell product. BTG programs allow profits to be made from glass sales, but they do not encourage bottle sales, which turn more product over. I feel that you should have some offerings that will match the food but provide a comfort zone for your guests. I like what Il Fornaio does with their regional Italian festival, they feature a half dozen Italian bottlings that are from the region. Again, the market will decide if your approach is successful.
By the way, about a year and half ago, Blake Grey crapped on me in one of his blogs. I took him and debated wine snobbery, he then called me a snob in one of his blogs. He is really one strange dude.