Update

Hello Everyone,

I know that during the past week few weeks there has not been as much content posted on A Wine Odyssey. I would like to apologize for this, while at the same time reassure you that the momentary lull will be well worth it. There will be a few new features coming up that I feel will be of interest to you all.

The first feature will begin next week and run for the duration of time between now and Thanksgiving. I have enlisted the help of a some local and national food and wine all-stars to offer up their favorite holiday recipes and perfect wine pairings for each dish. I will feature a new recipe/wine pairing nearly every day. I strongly encourage you to try some of them out.

The second feature will be more of a running journal of my development as the sommelier at Left Bank Restaurant at the Stonehedge Inn & Spa. This has been an exciting development and one that I am going to approach with the respect that it deserves.

Finally, if you have any questions as to which wines to pair during the holiday season, please feel free to leave a question in the comment field on any of the recipes and I would be happy to address them.

I truly appreciate your continued support and look forward to providing you with interesting and practical content and features.

Cheers!
Erol Senel

Update

The Wine Mecca of New England

This week I had the distinct honor of being in the presence of American wine royalty. Back in 1996, Silks at the Stonehedge Inn (Tyngsborough, MA) made a bold announcement when it was named as one of the prestigious Wine Spectator Grand Award winning restaurants. The award goes to the restaurants that meet a number of different criteria, from excellent service to breadth of selection to rare verticals and so on. At the time, there were only 93 restaurants in the world that could make such a claim. This past year, Left Bank Restaurant (which replaced Silks as Stonehedge Inn's on-site fine dinning restaurant) was awarded their 13th consecutive Grand Award (1 of only 72 in the world).

As someone whose passion is wine, I had to visit this bastion of fine wine, especially since it is in my own back yard. I made an appointment to meet the owner, Levent Bozkurt, to interview him for another article that I planned on writing in the future. Mr. Bozkurt approached with an air of confidence and openness that I was not expecting from someone of his stature (in the wine world). His resume is nothing if not impressive with the highlight being his establishment's ownership of New England's largest wine cellar, which houses over 112,000 bottles.

We sat down in a room that felt as if it was a grand library in a hunting lodge located somewhere in the Alps. From there, my interview was completely derailed by Levent's willingness to completely open up. He told me about how he got into wine as a result of his father giving him a shopping list of wines to pick up while traveling abroad during his professional soccer days with the Turkish professional team Galatasaray. He also shared an interesting story about how he acquired a bulk of the Inn's early collection. I could go on with the stories, but those will be for another day.

To amass a collection of the breadth and depth that the Stonehedge Inn offers takes time, patience and obviously deep pockets. One can simply go out and purchase a mass quantity of wine; however Mr. Bozkurt is very structured in his approach. After he initially invested a portion of his own collection (~2,000 bottles) and obtained the collection of a noteworthy collector from Dallas, Mr. Bozkurt set off to expand from this solid foundation the old fashioned way. He goes to the different regions (favoring France, "New Italy", Spain, Australia and California), tastes the wines, he interviews the winemakers and if everything is up to his standards, he will add their wines to his cellar to age (this method also allows for prices that are amazingly fair).

Levent mentioned a couple times during the tour that there is nothing more important that terrior and the grape. What I took away from this is that he is looking for a winemaker to realize what the earth has given them and work with it as unique, rather than trying to make it into something it is not. He does not want a Pinot Noir to be crafted to have characteristics similar to a Zinfandel, if he did "than he would just buy a Zinfandel." The most poignant example of this was when he was speaking of Veronique Drouhin-Boss, the winemaker at Domaine Drouhin in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. He said, "she realizes that this is not Beaune, this is the Willamette Valley." It is his appreciation for the small things like this that make him stick out as a viable authority on wine.

It is with this fine eye that he has amassed his collection and carefully selects which of his aging inventory of 82,000 remaining bottles are ready to be added to the list at Left Bank. His process of cellaring wines for years rather than days is another example of his attention to the process and sets his establishment apart from others in New England. Like the other 71 restaurants from around the world that join in the elite, Left Bank may be misunderstood by those who do not appreciate what a list of this caliber represents (refer to this link for my explanation). However, to those who do appreciate the effort, passion and life's dream of a devoted proprietor to offer an immaculate experience, they will recognize that they have found a true wine Mecca.

The Wine Mecca of New England

Wine list can speak volumes about an eatery

As published in the 10/21 edition of the Nashua Telegraph (click link to view Telegraph version).

A restaurant’s wine list says a lot about who the people running it are, what their aspirations are and what they think about you. This is very evident in locations that you will visit across the country. From Applebee’s, to The Cheesecake Factory, to Mario Batali’s Del Posto, you will find very different, yet appropriate, wine experiences that fit the atmosphere, cuisine and crowd that typically dine at these establishments.

I bring up Batali’s Del Posto because a good friend of mine recently dined there while taking a long weekend in New York City. Once he returned, he had a few questions for me regarding his wine experience at Del Posto.

On a recent trip to New York, I went out for a truly fine dining experience. After being seated, I was greeted with a massive wine list. When I mean massive, I mean more than 2,500 selections. How does a restaurant build and maintain such a large list, and is it necessary?

This is certainly a legitimate way to look at the situation. A wine list of this magnitude can be overwhelming, to say the least. The answer to the first part of the question will be a bit wordy, so let me address the second part first.

Using my friend’s example, Del Posto is in the food and wine mecca of the U.S. Day in and day out, it goes up against culinary giants such as Daniel, Jean Georges, Le Cirque, Tribeca Grill and countless others. Competition is fierce, and there is a significant amount of prestige that is placed on an award-winning wine list and the service that is provided by their resident sommelier(s). Having truly classic wines available is an appropriate necessity when you are dining on a truly classic meal!

Del Posto, as mentioned before, is one of many restaurants owned by Batali. Besides being an extremely successful restaurateur, he is also a partner in Italian Wine Merchants, which is a high-end wine shop that has a selection of Italian gems unlike any other I have come across. It is this passion for bringing together the complete dining experience that sets restaurants and restaurateurs, like Batali, apart. It is also what allows the restaurant to charge a premium for the experience that it provides, while maintaining a waiting list as long as Madison Avenue! How does a restaurant build and maintain such a large list?

To build a wine list with the breadth and vision of Del Posto, locally based Left Bank at the Stonehedge Inn & Spa (owner Levent Bozkurt and son Taylan pictured right) in Tyngsborough, Mass., or any restaurant with a tremendous wine offering, takes a very structured approach. Once the structure is in place, knowledgeable people are needed to implement the list, along with an owner with exceptionally deep pockets.

Initially, the most important steps are to realistically assess your clientele, menu, storage space and budget. Not everyone can afford a bottle of a Bordeaux First-Growth, Chateau Petrus, Gaja Sori Tilden or Romano Dal Forno, especially when marked up to restaurant standards. This means that there must be a number of wines to bridge the gap between reasonably priced wines and the classics.

The job of creating any wine list typically falls either to the owner, a wine director, a consultant or, unfortunately in some cases, a distributor. Now, a list that is of notable quality will probably not be developed by distributors, so we will avoid speaking about them any further.

Depending on the size of a wine list, the owner, if truly knowledgeable, or a consultant can put into place something special that will convey to the patrons that their experience is of the utmost importance. This takes a massive amount of time and effort, so unless you plan on doing all of the leg work, hire someone to do it for you. A couple good examples of this are Unums and Michael Timothy’s in Nashua. They have modest wine lists compared to Del Posto, but lists that are well thought out and looked over by the owners.

A different example is Junipers at the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vt. The owners and management did not have the knowledge to put together a thoughtful and quality wine list. They decided to hire a consultant do so. (In full disclosure, I put together this list.) It was rewarding to see them embrace what a thoughtful wine list could do, not only for their patrons, but for their restaurant.

Creating and maintaining a list such as the one at Left Bank at Stonehedge, which offers 2,000 selections (112,000 bottles in inventory), or Del Posto, which offers 2,300 selections (39,000 bottles in inventory), takes a team effort. The organization is typically led by a wine director and generally includes personnel working beneath them (i.e., assistant director and sommeliers). The task is a daily exercise in taking inventory – thank goodness for computers – reordering, blind and regular tastings, negotiating, rotation, research, promotion, etc. It is a daunting task, but a task that is energetically undertaken, because wine professionals are exceptionally passionate about what they do.

Ultimately, a restaurateur’s goal is to create an experience that is positively unique and memorable. A strong wine list is essential in conveying the message of a restaurant to its patrons. If this is done effectively, the guests will leave happy and be more likely to return.

Wine list can speak volumes about an eatery

When a wine list is more than a wine list!

A restaurant’s wine list say a lot about who they are, what their aspirations are, and what they think about you. This is very evident in locations that you will visit across the country. From Applebee’s, to The Cheesecake Factory, to Mario Batali’s Del Posto, you will find very different, yet appropriate, wine experiences that fit the atmosphere, cuisine, and crowd that typically dine at these establishments.

I bring up Batali’s Del Posto, because a good friend of mine recently dined there while taking a long weekend in NYC. Once he returned, he had a few questions for me regarding his wine experience at Del Posto.

"On a recent trip to NYC, I went out for a truly fine dining experience. After being seated I was greeted with a massive wine list. When I mean massive, I mean over 2,500 selections. How does a restaurant build and maintain such a large list, and is it necessary?"

This is a certainly a legitimate way to look at the situation. A wine list of this magnitude can be overwhelming to say the least. The answer to the first part of the question will be a bit wordy, so let me address the second part first.

Using my friend’s example, Del Posto is in the food and wine Mecca of the US. Day in and day out they go up against culinary giants such as Daniel, Jean Georges, Le Cirque, Tribeca Grill and countless others. Competition is fierce and there is a significant amount of prestige that is placed on an award winning wine list and the service that is provided by their resident sommelier(s). Having truly classic wines available is an appropriate necessity when you are dining on a truly classic meal! This is true not only for NYC, but anywhere a high level of importance is placed on quality.

Del Posto, as mentioned before, is one of many restaurants owned by Chef Mario Batali. Besides being an extremely successful restaurateur, he is also a partner in Italian Wine Merchants, which is a high-end wine shop that has a selection of Italian gems unlike any other I have come across. It is this passion for bringing together the complete dining experience that sets restaurants and restaurateurs, like Batali, apart. It is also what allows them to charge a premium for the experience that they provide, while maintaining a waiting list as long as Madison Avenue!

"How does a restaurant build and maintain such a large list?"

To build a wine list with the breadth and vision of Del Posto, locally based Left Bank at the Stonehedge Inn & Spa (Tyngsboro, MA) and Bedford Village Inn in (Bedford, NH) or any restaurant with a tremendous wine offering takes a very structured approach. Once the structure is in place, knowledgeable people are needed to implement the list, along with an owner(s) with exceptionally deep pockets.

Initially, the most important steps are to realistically assess your clientele, menu, storage space and budget. Not everyone can afford a bottle of a Bordeaux First-Growth, Chateau Petrus, Gaja Sori Tilden, or E. Guigal Ermitage Ex Voto, especially when marked-up to restaurant standards. This means that there must be a number of wines to bridge the gap between reasonably-priced wines and the classics.

The job of creating any wine list typically falls either to the owner, a wine director/sommelier, a consultant, or unfortunately in some cases, a distributor. Now a list that is of notable quality will probably not be developed solely by a distributor, so we will avoid speaking about them any further.

Depending on the size of a wine list, the owner, if truly knowledgeable, or a consultant can put into place something very special that will convey to the patrons that their experience is of the utmost importance. This takes a massive amount of time and effort, so unless you plan on doing all of the leg work, hire someone to do it for you. A good example of this is Unums in Nashua, NH. They have a modest wine list compared to Del Posto, but it is well thought out and looked over by the owners. A different example is Junipers at the Wildflower Inn located in Lyndonville, VT. The owners and management did not have the knowledge to put together a thoughtful and quality wine list. They decided to hire a consultant do so. It was rewarding to see them embrace what a thoughtful wine list could do, not only for their patrons, but for their restaurant.

Creating and maintaining a list such as the one at Left Bank at Stonehedge, which offers 2,000 selections (101,000 bottles in inventory), or Del Posto, which offers 2,300 selections (39,000 bottles in inventory) takes a team effort. The organization is typically led by a wine director and generally includes personnel working beneath them (i.e. assistant director and sommelier). The task is a daily exercise in taking inventory (thank goodness for computers), reordering, blind and regular tastings, negotiating, rotation, research, promotion, etc. It is a daunting task, but a task that is energetically undertaken, because wine professionals are exceptionally passionate about what they do.

Ultimately, a restaurateur’s goal is to create an experience that is positively unique and memorable. A strong wine list is essential in conveying the message of a restaurant to its patrons. If this is done effectively, the guests will leave happy and be more likely to return.

When a wine list is more than a wine list!