Worst Wine Lists 2003

[Basildog]

Our current list was posted here in June...link

so , ravens, do your worst

[melkor]

Our current list was posted here in June...link

so , ravens, do your worst

Where's the beringer white zin?

[GordonCooks]

2. It's a list of high volume brand names that the proprieter hopes will catch your eye because you walk past big displays of them at the supermarket every week.

I'm not sure if that is something bad - I would not choose to order as such by I'm sure there are a large number of people that be comfortable making such a selection. Let's not forget that a successful wine program is a profitable one.

[Florida Jim]

Bern's Steak House, Tampa, FL

A world renown list that weighs as much as a Buick. Except they don't have half the stuff and there is no effort whatever to edit the list.

[KatieLoeb]

For those restaurateurs who care little about wine, local distributors here will let the salesman handle everything on the winelist. Of course, all the selections come from one house.  Easy one stop shopping.

The winelist I manage has 600 selections. I use almost 20 different distributors. The range goes from $20 bottles of Muscadet to $2200 bottles of 1955 Chateau Latour. I am obsessed with accuracy on the list. I reprint pages 5 days a week. This includes additions, deletions and vintage or price changes. It takes 5 minutes to print updated pages and 15 minutes to put them in the 15 winelists I keep around. I never have to apologize about being out of stock. I find it worth the time and effort.

Mark:

Would that I currently had the resources to have a 600 item list! Is that oeno-envy?? It sounds like you have the reprinting issue under control as well. We tend to reprint about 3x weekly here, due to deletions, new product, price/vintage changes, etc. It's a bit more of a production here though, because on a weekend evening we might have 35 copies of the list in service and at the bar at any given time. My partner-in-crime, Melissa, the on-the-floor sommeliere, is in charge of that duty, but I provide her with pricing, bin numbers and most importantly with tasting notes for any new products to post for the staff and announce/explain during pre-meal line up. I always try to make certain that my purveyors (probably about 10 to a dozen on a regular basis) provide us with an extra bottle of any new product so we can leave it at the bar the first day it's on the list so the staff can taste it.

I'm working on actually cutting back our list (by directive, not by choice) to about 100 selections or so (inventory has been reduced by 25K since beginning of July!), but I want to have depth where the breadth is taken away. Nothing is more irritating than having only a couple of bottles of soemthing in the house and not being able to offer a particular wine to a table larger than 4 or 5 persons

[Craig Camp]

Bern's Steak House, Tampa, FL

A world renown list that weighs as much as a Buick. Except they don't have half the stuff and there is no effort whatever to edit the list.

THIS is a great observation. Perhaps we should have an award for the most over-rated list. Once you get a Wine Spectator Award I guess you are always in the club.

By the way I have seen the list many times, but are the steaks actually any good?

[Florida Jim]

Bern's Steak House, Tampa, FL

A world renown list that weighs as much as a Buick. Except they don't have half the stuff and there is no effort whatever to edit the list.

THIS is a great observation. Perhaps we should have an award for the most over-rated list. Once you get a Wine Spectator Award I guess you are always in the club.

By the way I have seen the list many times, but are the steaks actually any good?

The steaks are good; the lobster is out of this world.

The room, OTOH, is the sleaziest thing you'll ever see; looks like a brothel.

Best, Jim

[bleachboy]

looks like a brothel

Here's a word for the day that I'm sure many eGulleters will enjoy working into daily conversation.