In the world of restaurant wine management, we all know that programs driven by classic wines and well established “prestige” brands can make perfect sense, especially if ownership supports the cost of inventorying them and your cuisine is a natural fit.
But if the conventional approach does not work for you for reasons of cost, food, or simply because it is not how you wish to compete in your market, then it makes sense to explore the alternative wines of the world. “Alternative” means exactly that—wines that offer out-of-the-ordinary, differentiating sensory experiences, often made from lesser known grapes, unfamiliar regions, and/or unconventional approaches to viticulture and production. The thinking is simple: Offer wines with potential to appeal to guests’ sense of wonder and adventure—the exact same approach driving our most talented chefs. If you don’t reach for the sky, you'll never fly.
Resistance to the bolder approach, however, can be hairy. Or snippy, gathering from one widely read blog posted a few years ago by one well-known British wine journalist. The title of his diatribe was “The Rise of the Hipster Sommelier,” which vented rage at “young hipster somms of NYWC (New York Wine City),” who he perceived as suffering some kind of “collective delusion.”
As if that was not enough, critic posted a “Part II” in which he cited some of the “Fancy Wines” of NYC sommeliers, deriding them as “Obscure Objects of Somm Desire,” particularly “those made from the ancient Savagnin and yet more obscure grapes like Poulsard.” To him, this was the “vinous equivalent of snake oil,” sold with an attitude akin to “vacuous wine waffle and the sound of windpipes meaninglessly reverberating to portentous statements... We are the Hollow Men and Women of Wine!”
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Yet, he was still not done. There was a “Part III,” purporting to be an exposé taking us into the world of NYC sommeliers mindlessly chasing “so-called ‘natural’ wines, meaning wines that in the cellar where they were made were allowed to behave like badly brought-up teenagers who seldom wash or shave and ignore the everyday rules of polite behavior.”
Should the guilty sommeliers be quaking in their shiny “hipster” boots? Hardly. Journalists like these clearly seem to like the sound of their own rhetoric, a malady not exactly uncommon in the world of any kind of journalism, falling into the trap of conceit and self-righteousness more oppressive than any sommelier's enthusiasm for Savagnin or Poulsard. And here we thought that surprising guests with new and exciting wines, like we do with innovative dishes, was a good thing.
The inference that guests are too stupid to know better is misguided enough. That there is something wrong with wines that do not fit into your own perception of what constitutes quality or interest is the height of self-delusion. Who is to say an unruly Poulsard is less, or more, acceptable than a cleanly coiffed Pinot Noir? It’s guests who get to make this decision, not armchair critics thousands of miles away.
Oh, we hear it all the time—that “natural” wines (particularly biodynamics, which the critic dismissed as “black magic,” despite the long list of universally lauded vignerons who embrace it) are just excuses for flawed or dirty winemaking. Funny, we also hear as much cutting criticism about conventional wines—as poor excuses for being boring in their predictability and ubiquitousness, bereft of soul or identity. Exactly which products are the “Hollow Men and Women of Wine”—the sommeliers hinging on the predictability of safe, familiar brands and varietals, or the sommeliers aspiring to offer more unusual, and stimulating, experiences?
There is no right answer, which is exactly the point. Bottom line, it is always smart to do what’s best for you—your market, your guests, your chef and your cuisine. Yeah, the occasional criticism might sting if you happen to stick your neck out. But if you're doing your job—which is making your restaurant as unique as possible, especially by selecting wines that make your cuisine taste as good as possible—then there is nothing to fear except, well, fear. I've never met a restaurant professional considered to be a leader in the industry, though, who didn't have a lot of courage, and faith in his or her own instincts. Being good at what you do takes as much thickness of skin as brains and originality.
The most important thing to ask yourself is this: Is the way you are conducting your wine program helping or hindering your business? If the results are resounding “success,” there’s your answer. To hell with critics—they’re not the ones walking your floors, buffing your glasses, interacting with your guests, itemizing your costs or tracking your sales—and screw the journalists with little or no inkling of what it takes to compete in the hospitality industry today.