Over the past 18 months of this most stubborn recession, many of my good friends in the restaurant business have tried just about everything to lure customers.
Discount wine nights and nights when the corkage is waived have turned out to be popular incentives, and the restaurants fill up when there’s a whiff of a deal in the air.
Throughout the recession, San Diego restaurateur Ed Moore has thrived without doing anything more than offering great everday prices with excellent food and charming wine shop ambiance. Ed’s model for restaurant wine pricing is the subject of my Creators Syndicate column this week.
No one can say at what precise moment wine bars became cool all across America. They were once the kiss of death, a sure-fire path straight to bankruptcy court.
This was a mystifying fate for what seemed a grand idea: a gathering place focused on good wines by the glass, with a few nibbles for background noise. Or perhaps a wine-centric restaurant that serves decent bistro fare with a killer wine selection.
Well-traveled wine enthusiasts knew Europe abounded with successful working models, from Willi’s Wine Bar in Paris to Bottega del Vino in Verona to Enoteca Ferrara in Rome.
Willi’s annual bottle art wine posters are iconic testimony to the staying power of the genre. Willi’s opened in 1980 and continues strong to this day. The posters are collected by wine lovers the world over. The wine list draws its inspiration from France’s Rhone Valley, though Bordeaux, Burgundy and other regions of France enjoy representation. By the way, the food’s not too shabby.
Opening at about the same time in Verona, Italy, Bottega del Vino unveiled an impressive collection of 80,000 bottles, with 60 to 80 selections poured by the glass every night. During the annual Italy wine show, Bottega del Vino is standing room only without a reservation. Beware the bow-tied waiter elbowing through the crowd with an armload of balloon-shaped crystal stemware! By the way, the food’s not too shabby.
Rome’s Enoteca Ferrara came along in 1999, offering much the same ambiance and conviviality but with a twist — a wine shop on the premises. Situated in the chic Trastevere neighborhood, Ferrara parlayed upscale cuisine, an extensive selection of wine and the hip, young crowd of one of Rome’s most fashionable districts into enduring success. You guessed it, the food’s not too shabby.
Until recently, America just didn’t get it. Perhaps the stress of having to say Chateauneuf-du-Pape out loud was too much. Perhaps it was fear of the geeky wine waiter, scowling at the uninformed behind that phony smile. Maybe, though I doubt it, no one had quite figured out how to do it right.
I choose to believe it’s a simple matter of maturity. Younger Americans of legal drinking age have grown up with wine; their parents and grandparents, not so much. A wine culture has emerged that has both stunned and excited the culinary world. Every other new restaurant that opens is obliged to tack the words "wine bar" at the end of its name. Nothing capitalizes better than capitalism!
While once they weren’t even part of the conversation, today wine bars are poised to set the trends that will guide the wine industry for years to come. Wines such as Gruner Veltliner, Albarino, Grenache, Cotes-du-Rhone Villages Lirac, Torrontes, Malbec, Jumilla, Prosecco, Nero d’Avola, et al, would be nowhere in America without the push they’ve had from wine bars, which go to great lengths to offer selections from the road less traveled.
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