I’d love to see restaurants carry more QPR Bordeaux. In stronger vintages, there are so many good wines from there in the $15-30 price at retail, which are easy to obtain, can drink reasonably well young, have crossover appeal to new word palates and other people who don’t regularly drink Bordeaux, go pretty well with food, have much more character than supermarket industrial wines, etc.
With normal restaurant markups, those kinds of wines could be $35-75 on a wine list, within the range of many diners. It would be a great option at Justin’s place.
Yet you very rarely see them on restaurant lists. Most Bordeaux on restaurant lists are one or more of (a) expensive wines with huge markups, (b) if not recent vintages, then hugely marked up for being older, (c) random lower quality producers, and (d) off vintages. I can only figure that they don’t want you to be able to get a nice bottle of Bordeaux for $60 with your dinner, and would rather force you to pay more.
I’m into craft beer, though not nearly as much as I am into wine. Given enough “inspiration” from the beer I can totally see plunking down for a nice bottle. It scratches a couple of itches - the inner wine geek, the somewhat subversive nature of drinking great wine in a beer joint.
PS… and I’d use the wine to wash down a dry-aged cheese steak. And I don’t even like cheese steaks.
If you ever had an artisanal dry aged cheesesteak, you’d know there’s nothing so decadent existing in such a culinary experience. BDX and Rhône are my go to’s when happening upon such an opportunity.
I have a brewery/wine bar/restaurant in Saint Paul Minnesota. We produce Bavarian styled beers on premise and also import some small Bavarian breweries. We offer 10-12 wines by the glass - all $8.00 or less, and offer 100 wines by the bottle, all under $40 a bottle. This is the perfect price range for non-beer drinkers (who you will service just as much as the everyday wine drinkers).
Justin, that’s a really interesting - and fairly priced - list. Wish you were out here. I’m a big fan of Austrian Riesling, which might be a nice addition. I hope you’ll be able to hold some of those Burgundy and Rhone bottles back to allow them to age a bit.
The joy of ordering so much high end is having the opportunity to sample so many value wines within great portfolios. I discovered Servin Chablis 1ers which is amazing wine in the sub $30 range as well as Jean Marc Brocard Chablis at sub $20.
