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- Mikethechef - 11-15-2000

I am one of the Chefs-to-be of a new fine dining restaurant in Sonoma. The culinary focus of the restaurant is European influenced California cuisine with an emphasis on local artisan and organic products. A wine list has been drafted for the restaurant that is comprised entirely of California wines with an emphasis on the ape llaation in which the restaurant is located. My wine knowledge,I'm afraid, is limited but it seems to me that focusing entirely on California wines is a little narrow for a fine-dining house. What do you Think?


- Bucko - 11-15-2000

I think that you are spot on! There are many reasonably priced Cotes du Rhones and Sancerres that are extremely food friendly -- the restaurant wins, the customer wins. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are others here more qualified than I, but that has never prohibited me from speaking up! ;-)

Bucko


- winoweenie - 11-15-2000

Mike--to be maybe a chef, welcome to the board. Let`s start with the start. You`re a chef-to-be and working in Sonoma Ca. The people who will determine you`re bosses sucess live, work, and breath Sonoma county products. Do you imagine a restaurant in Lyons would have Dehlinger, Ch. St Jean or Arrowood etc on their list?NOT! The most successful restaurants in No. Calif have wine lists that are exclusively Calif. ( Mustards, Terra, Brava Terrace etc). What makes a great chef is taking the available ingredients of the that area that are the freshest,seasonal, and most available and pairing them with the wines that make the perfect pairing. My Goodness fellow, you`re in the vortex of one of the greatest wine-producing areas of the world and you`d like to look for better wines elsewhere. You should learn the immense varieties available to work with, see if you`re talented enough to make a dish that compliments them, then work to improve the dish. SHEESH! winoweenie


- hotwine - 11-15-2000

WW, why build an exclusively CA wine list, and pay premium CA prices for wine wannabes, when there are so many wonderful authentic
products available from across the pond? I'm with Buck-man: don't exclude French wines, merely because the restaurant is in Sonoma. Are you afraid of customer comparisons of local juice with the French?

Bush-man


- RAD - 11-15-2000

Oh boy--this has the potential to polarize the board in a similar fashion to the Bush-Gore dichotomy in Florida!

I've got to side with Winoweenie on this one. There's more then enough wines from Sonoma to complement any dish on the menu of the restaurant, it would seem. To me, a Sonoma-only wine offering underscores the very notion of "terroir"--if I'm eating at an upscale Sonoma restaurant specializing in locally grown, organic products, I'd want a local wine with which to to savor the local cuisine. By the same token, when I'm touring the Tuscan hillside and find a little trattoria in which to eat dinner, do I order an Aussie shiraz? Of course not. When I'm in the pays Basque, do I sip a Napa Valley offering? I wouldn't dream of it.

Bear in mind here that Sonoma is COUNTRY, and people are going there to experience just that--the local terroir--not a cosmopolitan ambience that they can find an hour south (by my driving speed, at least [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img] ) in San Francisco.

RAD


- Botafogo - 11-16-2000

Trying to make a food friendly wine list with just Sonoma stuff will be very tough (but not as hard as just NAPA), kind of like trying to write War and Peace with a vocabulary of five hundred words. Try at LEAST to get some cool climate, higher acid, more aromatic Mendocino stuff in. And get tight with Lou Preston, he has some stuff that works great with food. AND, it is hot up there and a great dry rose is a better solution to most food in that weather than ANY Chardonnay.

To quote Sonny Boy Williamson, "Don't start me to talkin', I'll tell everything I know"....

Roberto

(fifteen years as a sommelier / wine list writer before I got wise and went retail)


- Botafogo - 11-16-2000

>>To me, a Sonoma-only wine offering underscores the very notion of "terroir"<<

Which MUST be answered with Randall Grahm's assertion that "Modern New World Winemaking is to notions of terroir what Keanu Reaves is to Sir Lawrence Olivier"!!!!

If you want some real Sonoma Terroir, make sure to have some juice from wineries with Italian names and multigenerational heritage like Coturri and Seghesio.

Roberto


- hotwine - 11-16-2000

I had focused my response on French alternatives, because Bucko had recommended Rhones and Sancerres be available, to which I agree. But a "new fine dining restaurant" with "European influenced California cuisine" should offer a broad range of choices from the Continent, as well as local producers. If they don't offer a selection of wines from France, Italy and Germany, as a minimum European representation, I'd gladly drive an hour south to reach a place that does.


- Innkeeper - 11-16-2000

This is developing into the "Old World" - "New World" argument that Immer describes in her book. She states and Roberto suggests that old world subtilty can be found in new world wines. Since the vineyard is much more important than the vat, established terrior is the key. Old vines alone do not terrior make, but it does give a strong hint. There are plenty of old vinyards throughout California, the products of which are worked by both older and newer wineries.


- winoweenie - 11-16-2000

Bucko,Hotsie, and Roberto, I can`t find any-wheres in my post the term Only Sonoma wines. California wines include Mendocino, Lake, Even the Central Coast plus the sub-apps like Anderson Valley, Alex Valley, Etc. Roberto, I don`t think that as good a palate as you possess you would have any trouble whom-so-ebber finding a panalapy or kalaidiescope of flavors to go with the marvelous fresh products available in Sonoma. As Rad so eloquently pointed out, you`re talking basically country here, as in Minnie Pearl. They have fresh coming out the patootie. John Ash had a marvelous operation in Santa Rosa before the Fetzers corraled him and his wine list dint` have no Cotes du Frenchie. Neither does Mustards, The French Laundry, Terra, Brix, Brava Terrace, and etc.I really doubt that any Michelin 3-banger in France serves Caymus.Besides , the main thing I was trying to get across to Mike is that the restaurant `haint got his name on it and I`m sure the man who put up the bucks knows what he`s doin`. He calls the plays that he thinks will get a TD. There are many varied producers in Sonoma so a list featuring Sonoma and accented with other gems would sure as the blazes be the way I`d call it. Mike, post the name of the Bistro and I`ll stop in on my next trip.Maybe by then , like my kids found out when they turned 20, the" old man sure got a heck of a lot smarter" winoweenie


- Botafogo - 11-16-2000

Vern, I can think of no other line of business where the statement " I`m sure the man who put up the bucks knows what he`s doin`." is likely to be untrue than the restaurant biz. Highest failure rate of any start-up and many folks do ZERO market research, they just "want" to own a restaurant.

Roberto


- Thomas - 11-16-2000

The way I see it: have a list that includes wines from the world over, but make all your feature wines California (you should always feature wine, rotating the features just as you do your dining specials).

Roberto posted two things to which I wish to add my thoughts: right-on when it comes to the restaurant failure--money/knowledge ratio; off the mark on Coturri--they are consistently the most over-rated--often volatile--products into which I have ever stuck my nose!


- winoweenie - 11-16-2000

Roberto, I agree that there are plenty of idiots who started restaurants, wine shops, carpet mills, furniture store ad infintum, but I`ve seen an almost 100% success rate in Napa and Sonoma for as Mike says " A " Fine dining " establishment. There are so many visits to the wine country by so many people that even the mediocre jernts make it, and the good ones are packed 52 per year. Hopefully the one Mike will be working in will be in the latter. As far as success or failure , again the point is Mike, Chef-to-be should be looking, listening , and learning with all the eagerness of a novice. The Man is going to call the shots at first just like you did. Know lots of guys who " Just want to own a winery " and have the bucks to buy one. They also, for the most part are smart `nuff to get Heidi ,Helen, or another talent to guide `em. And don`t come back rantin` bout them gals havin` no talent. Success breeds success breeds envy. WW And Hotwine and IK, you`ve completely lost the picture of where in the blue-blazes this restaurant is opening. `Taint Dallas or New York, It`s in Sonoma County, WINE COUNTRY CALIF. The people from San Fran, L.A., Detroit etc are there to sample the stuff made there for heavens-sake. As many times as I`ve ate in Napa and Sonoma, I`ve never heard ONE SINGLE PERSON ASK FOR A DARNED ITALIAN OR FRENCH WINE . Case closed WW Oh, and one more thing, I made a post about Coturri somewhere Roberto and it wasn`t very old-world complementary



[This message has been edited by winoweenie (edited 11-16-2000).]

[This message has been edited by winoweenie (edited 11-16-2000).]


- Botafogo - 11-16-2000

>> Coturri--they areconsistently the most over-rated--often volatile--products into which I have ever stuck my nose! <<

Yeah, just like Miles Davis! They are REAL and when they are great they are REALLY great and when they are bad they are disgusting, that's called life (and also relates to, among other axhaulted company, Paolo Bea of Montefalco fame, Chateau Rayas, David Bruce, Quintarelli's stunning Amarones.....).

Roberto


- Mikethechef - 11-16-2000

Thank you all for your valuable Opinions. Let me delve into this a little further. Knowing only a little about wine, when I evaluate a wine list , my criterion are that it include reasonably priced options that I could pair with each course of my meal. Often, I find myself ordering Italian wines, which I find to be food friendly and offering an excellent value. Furthermore, I find European wines to be a little more representative of their styles. If someone orders my foie gras with roast pear compote, Sauterenes is a natural choice. Or Alsacian Reisling with my Mussels with apples and smoked bacon, or Pescador with whole roast fish. I do like the idea of representing the local product in a signifigant way, but I don't want it to become a limitation. I am also concerned that the customer whom I am most anxious to please, the one who knows a lot about food and wine, would evaluate the list perhaps on how well rounded it is, and might be annoyed by the complete ommission of old world wines.


- Garbo - 11-16-2000

Hey Chef Mike. Since the food will have a european influence, why not offer two matching wines paired with your specials, one from Sonoma and one from the european country which influences the dish? Maybe if you make it a part of the "specials" menu and therefore part of the meal, you can get around the regular Sonoma-only wine list. Gives them sopisticated boys up there a choice, and educates the newbies like moi.


- Innkeeper - 11-16-2000

Garbo, I love you!


- hotwine - 11-16-2000

Bravo for Garbo! Please go straight to Florida, your skills are badly needed there!


- winoweenie - 11-17-2000

Garbo, IK and Hotwine, Guess you don`t understand. Sonoma is Calif wine country, Napa`s Calif wine country ... It`s NOT LA, New York , Chicago or any other metropolis and the MAJORITY of visitors to Wine Country are there to sample Calif Wines Fer HECK-FIRE-SAKES. They want to have a glass of Bryant, Cinq, Caymus SS, etc. They can get all the Cotes and Nouveau grape juice they want in there hometowns. Don`t know how much time all of you`ve spent in the Vallies, but reiterating what I said in a previous post In my 30 years of dining there I`ve yet to hear ANYONE request a French wine. This isn`t about the perfect wine list, It`s about what the visitors to Napa and Sonoma are looking for. Capiche? winoweenie


- Innkeeper - 11-17-2000

Guess you don't know too much food AND wine. Randy's recent post on Wine Lovers covers this point well. Don't care if I'm eating European food in Timbuctoo (sp); would want Old World wine and a mix of local stuff.