Long, great wine list or short, good wine list?

A recent local radio show about wine got me thinking about this topic. Recently I've noticed that at some restaurants the wine list is an encyclopedia that's actually uncomfortable to open and read at the table, let alone try to find a wine I'd like. Fantastic wines live in there, no doubt, but what a pain in the neck. I'd much rather have a shorter list of good wines that cover a range of price points with a great QPR. Usually, I know what type of wine I'd like, so having a thousand selections is of no concern to me. How about you?

Short, good wine list for most occasions.

What bothers me is the number of local restaurants that will have 5 or 6 Chardonnays by the glass, and only one unknown Riesling, no Gruner Veltliner, no Albarino, no Muscadet, maybe a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc by the bottle but not by the glass or half bottle. They seem to do somewhat better with red wines. Very likely they can sell more Chardonnay by the glass due to familiarity with the variety of grape, but if they would pour a small taste from an open bottle, they could probably sell the the more unusual varieties with appropriate menu items and start a trend. I appreciate a restaurant that will let me have a small taste of two different wines if I'm not sure which I would prefer or which would pair better with the dish I am ordering.

I agree with J.C. on the quality short list. Regarding by the glass, she lives in an area where despite the selection you can get a fresh glass of wine. It is very hard in these parts. I usually tell the waitperson to bring me a glass the red (or white) that was last opened. Even then, you have to be on your toes. I could go on, by don't want to highjack the original question.

Well, having "a thousand selections" -- or ten thousand -- can be nice. And such a list doesn't waste anybody's time. Let's say you start your meal with raw oysters and so you want a young Muscadet. You turn to the Muscadet section, which even at La Tour d'Argent is probably not more than a page long but lists the Loire's dozen or so best Muscadets. Later, with your pressed-duck main course, since this is your golden wedding anniversary and your wife says she always wanted a 1982 Petrus, you flip to the Pomerol section and in ten seconds you've found the Petrus.

There are some restaurants I know that have both.

Martini House in Napa, Charlie Trotter's in Chicago, to name a couple. They had voluminous lists, but within the larger massive list they had several shorter lists where things were divvied up into sub-sets (so, yes, some things appeared on more than one sub-set).

You could peruse the whole damned thing, or you could just look at the subheadings and choose from there.

Good Wines Under $30---sounds good if I'm only going to spend so much money, right?

Crisp, Bright, High Acid Whites. Hmm, that's the kind of wine I like.

Oyster Wines. Since I'm going to have oysters tonight....

Or call a steward---he's supposed to cut through the forest so you can select a tree that suits you.

There are some restaurants I know that have both.

Martini House in Napa, Charlie Trotter's in Chicago, to name a couple. They had voluminous lists, but within the larger massive list they had several shorter lists where things were divvied up into sub-sets (so, yes, some things appeared on more than one sub-set).

You could peruse the whole damned thing, or you could just look at the subheadings and choose from there.

Good Wines Under $30---sounds good if I'm only going to spend so much money, right?

Crisp, Bright, High Acid Whites. Hmm, that's the kind of wine I like.

Oyster Wines. Since I'm going to have oysters tonight....

Or call a steward---he's supposed to cut through the forest so you can select a tree that suits you.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but The Martini House has gone out of business. A sign of the times.

Yeah, I heard they were gone....but they still had a good list. Wasn't the wine that caused them to shut their doors.

(They did tend to have too many Napa wines on there, for some reason.)

(They did tend to have too many Napa wines on there, for some reason.)

The Napa wines were a reliable profit center for the restaurant but the Sonoma & Oregon slow moving inventory was just too much of a financial burden to bear.

Almost every place I've ever been to with a truly great/huge list has a shorter suggested list of a couple of pages with good versions of the basics covered. Virtually never an either/or

Almost every place I've ever been to with a truly great/huge list has a shorter suggested list of a couple of pages with good versions of the basics covered.

That, Dale, is the best of both worlds. I admit to enjoying reading long lists just to see what I recognize and I have no trouble speaking to the sommelier about a recommendation, but most of the time – give me the short list.

I agree with J.C. on the quality short list. Regarding by the glass, she lives in an area where despite the selection you can get a fresh glass of wine. It is very hard in these parts. I usually tell the waitperson to bring me a glass the red (or white) that was last opened. Even then, you have to be on your toes. I could go on, by don't want to highjack the original question.

Even in San Francisco, it's only the careful restuarants that check that the by-the-glass condition is pristine. Your everyday residents that don't get discussed on the Internet often don't bother. I would rather have a small by the glass list in top shape than the largest list of gems by the bottle. Assuming, of course, that half the selections aren't chardonnay. I know that some can drink a bottle of wine at dinner, but not I.

A great short list is much harder to create and maintain than a great big one. My hat is off to people with excellent creative short lists.

I agree with J.C. on the quality short list. Regarding by the glass, she lives in an area where despite the selection you can get a fresh glass of wine. It is very hard in these parts. I usually tell the waitperson to bring me a glass the red (or white) that was last opened. Even then, you have to be on your toes. I could go on, by don't want to highjack the original question.

So true. I've seen 50 different wines by the glass; even if you're gassing them at the end of the night there will be a lot of stale wine.

I generally agree with the consensus so far, and I know firsthand of the challenges of maintaining a smaller wine list. The restaurant where I am currently wine director has a list of about 55 bottles, which we would eventually like to see top out at about 100. We obviously can't have everything to please everybody, but we have the basics covered, with some unique stuff as well. We are challenged, being in a market of over-oaked Napa cab drinkers, and so we strive to keep our list very food friendly, which a lot of people around here don't understand.

Our glass list, which is never static, is eclectic and generally received well:

Prosecco
Cava Rose
-
Gruner Veltliner
Vouvray
OR Pinot Blanc
CA Chardonnay (very balanced & great acidity)
-
Dolcetto
Beaujolais (Moulin-a-Vent)
Malbec
Zinfandel (very balanced)
WA Cabernet Sauvignon

That sounds like a great list. Without knowing which specific brands you've got, I can guess it's a very tasteful bunch. I like having the option of ordering by the glass from a short list so that I can mix it up during the meal. I may actually want a Cava, a Cru Beaujolais and a dessert wine, but I certainly won't be ordering a bottle of each, unless I'm with a group of people.

What about half-bottles? Those seem to be a nice option, but again, you don't need thousands of choices.

Joy, I approve of your sampling of wines by the glass but would suggest adding a Muscadet, a Sauvignon Blanc (preferably from New Zealand or Sancerre) and a dry or off-dry Riesling from Alsace or Germany (the Austrian ones might be too expensive to offer by the glass.) Oh, and where are the Pinot Noirs? They can be very food friendly.
Is it a steak house or a restaurant that serves chicken, pork, seafood also?

Joy, I approve of your sampling of wines by the glass but would suggest adding a Muscadet, a Sauvignon Blanc (preferably from New Zealand or Sancerre) and a dry or off-dry Riesling from Alsace or Germany (the Austrian ones might be too expensive to offer by the glass.) Oh, and where are the Pinot Noirs? They can be very food friendly.
Is it a steak house or a restaurant that serves chicken, pork, seafood also?

It is a farm-to-table restaurant, very locally and seasonally driven. We will probably add a Sauvignon Blanc to our glass list in spring or summer, when the dishes are lighter and more complementary to that style of wine. We had a dry Riesling on the glass list, and just changed to Vouvray; same with the Pinot Noir - we had one on for awhile and moved to Beaujolais. We like to keep very food friendly wines on the list, but don't always think it is necessary to have the predictable ones by the glass.