The state of esoterica

From the chapter: Can we sell anything?

Gramercy Tavern, a restaurant that turned esoterica into an expectation, to the point of easy familiarity.

The value of esoteric vs. “comfort” labels—or unknown vs. well known wines—on our wine lists has been a subject of debate for as long as I remember.

In the late 1970s and start of the ‘80s, for instance, Chardonnay was actually a hard-sell. I had a heckuva time turning guests on to spanking “new” styles of Chardonnay by Chateau Montelena and Chateau St. Jean; and Merlot and White Zinfandel, believe it or not, were actually considered cutting-edge. That changed quickly, of course.

But those were the days when it was all about medium-sweet Chenin Blanc (often sold as “Dry,” even when they weren’t) and Riesling (domestically, still sold as “Johannisberg Riesling”)—once our bread and butter in the on-premise trade—which eventually faded into obscurity. Now, of course, Riesling is considered the “cool kid” sommelier’s wine, and Chenin Blanc is making its own little comeback.

Which is not to say that I’m an old, washed-up dude—an ex-sommelier who actually used to walk around in a tux and a tastevin chained around my neck (for the record, I hated that). It’s only to make this simple point: What seems esoteric or cutting-edge today may very well be boring and commonplace tomorrow; or ironically, vice versa.

Esoterica, in other words, is as much a state of mind as it ever was. What is consistent in our business is this: You can sell anything as long as it’s good and worthy, and you and your staff are positive, or authoritative, enough to sway your guests. The pursuit of esoterica, for instance, has been the stock and trade at New York’s Gramercy Tavern for most of its existence. I love sampling their glass lists, where you were as likely to find an Austrian Neuberger and Zweigelt Rosé as you would an Italian Refosco or sparkling Lambrusco, a Tokaji Sec from Hungary, a Jurançon Sec from France, not-so-scary Pinot Noirs from Oregon or Germany or a locavistic Long Island Merlot.

Crazy, you say? Not so crazy, it seems, that it kept Gramercy Tavern from being consistently ranking among Zagat’s top restaurants in New York. Leading to the more salient question: Are local New Yorkers, or the hordes of Zagat-toting out-of-towners that descend upon Gramercy Tavern every night, that much different from people who dine at Zuni Café in San Francisco, Bern’s in Tampa, Alinea in Chicago, Rioja in Denver, The Ivy in Los Angeles, or Peter Merriman's in Lahaina?

I don’t think so. Wine consumers are wine consumers; especially those willing to spring for a few hundred for lunch or dinner, just for just two. They want to be entertained, and new-ish wines can be entertaining. Sure, it helps to be "Gramercy Tavern" to do bold things. But Gramercy Tavern would never be "Gramercy Tavern" if they weren't bold in the first place.

No, I think it’s more of, as Marshall McLuhan once famously put it, the medium being the massage: You can manipulate how a wine is perceived precisely through how it’s presented. In the political world, it’s called spin. I had long admired one master masseuse, or hipster/spinster: Paul Grieco, formerly of Gramercy Tavern, the Terroir wine bars as well as Hearth in Manhattan.

During one visit to Hearth during its heyday I was struck by three ways in which Grieco was able to make wines like a 13-year-old Loire River Muscadet (by Jean Aubron) and a Lebanese red (Château Musar’s second line Musar Jeune) look like perfectly reasonable, everyday-drinking wines by the glass. It worked because...

• My server gushingly told me so ("selling" a wine may seem obvious, but it always starts at this obvious point).

• There were lengthy descriptions on the wine list (I read, for instance, that the Muscadet had “steely minerality” and that Musar’s Serge Hochar is a “heavenly” spawn of “Jesus and Satan”).

• The wines were recommended with perfectly comforting, far-from-scary dishes such as house-made charcuterie and lamb pappardelle.

Okay, so we also enjoyed some not-so-common dishes such as salmon belly and sweetbread alla piccata with these and other wines, including Marcel Deiss’s unusually pungent, fleshy, stone soaked Berg (a Riesling/Gewürztraminer field blend) and a fairly classic Barbera d’Alba by Vietti. The point being: You can sell any wine as long as you are able to intelligently present it, especially in sensible food contexts.

So how far is far when it comes to esoteric wine these days? Only as far as you make it in your own mind, and in your guests’ minds. But remember, what goes around tends to come back around:  Decades ago, wines such as Lambrusco, Riesling, Muscadet, Vouvray, and Barbera were so ubiquitous that they became “everyday,” hence passé, for many of us in the on-premise industry. It’s good to see professionals such as Grieco pick them back up, and present them with missionary fervor. The best wines of the world, after all, tend to be made from classic grapes grown in long established appellations. They are among the "best" you can offer all the time, no matter how they're perceived by each generation, at any given time.

It’s often said that today’s younger generations, here in the early 2000s, are a little smarter than previous ones. They certainly have easier access to more information than ever before. But I can’t agree that they’re any smarter than consumers who came before. Wine lovers, from rank beginners to self-described connoisseurs, have always had an enormous capacity for new experiences. It’s always been “so easy even a caveman can do it.”

Esoterica is only an obstacle if you underestimate that capacity and don’t give them the opportunity to experience new and exciting wines. The dumbest thing you can do is dumb things down for guests.

Above all, if esoteric wines are useful from a culinary perspective, then they fits in exactly with what our business is all about—serving wines that enhance the food for which our guests come into restaurants in the first place.