CORRECTION, I meant “Bistro”

QOTD: There are no wine lists when you are camping. Unfortunately.

Zappos is an amazing company. We have bought 6 or 8 pairs of shoes from them in the last 2 years and they never fair to exceed expectations. Another great example of a great internet retailer.

QOD Cafe Lucci in Glenview IL.

I really enjoy these restaurant shows. Vegas is especially good as that where I tend to buy the splurge bottles (doubt I’m alone on that).

Good information, was surprized at the level of the wines, would have thought it would be better. Technically, not so good, sound faded, hard to follow. You still rock though.

QOTD – been a while but am going out for BD next week and will see what they have.

I’m liking the restaurant reviews a little more, although the camera flipping back & forth is nauseating. I’m surprised a place like that doesn’t have anything German, Austrian, Spanish & French selections. And thank you for calling out the grower champagne shortage!
I haven’t been dining out much the past couple weeks, but liked the small select list at iCi in Brooklyn, and am in love with teh selections at Elie’s Wine Shop in Royal Oak MI (a must visit store in Michigan if you love French & Spanish wine).

The wine list at the Hilton San Diego Resort is awesome! A few standards but the staff will gladly push their off-the-beaten-path wines too. Probably one of the best medium sized wine lists I have seen at a California hotel…

The idea of the restaurant wine list review is excellent.
The camera is bad – really bad. The wine list was never in focus and the movement of the camera makes you very dizzy.

QOTD: None in the last month.

Sad days.. I’ll be staying at the Wynn in November… You would think that they would have a better selection than just the standards.. I’m always bummed to see a bunch of California wines everywhere I go, being that I live in CA!

QOTD: Sooke Harbor House, Sooke, Vancouver Is. BC. 110 pages, a couple of thousand bottles, almost every country. Great selection of local BC/Okanogan wines. Unbelievable.

QOTD: I liked the wine list at L’Echaude in Quebec City. Also in Quebec, Portofino had an excellent Italian wine list (amongst others) and was a Wine Spectator Award winner. In Vegas, I recommend the wine list at Aureole in Mandalay Bay.

QOTD: Tasca Wine Bar in Los Angeles has appointed their two head servers as the new wine directors, so they will be overhauling their list thoroughly. I know how enthusiastic and interesting these guys are, so I’d check out what they’re doing over there within the next few months!

Best wine list in Northern VA/DC area: The Evening Star in Del Ray.

They’re connected to the wineshop next door – Planet Wine – so their wine list is the entire selection from the shop. They go next door, pull it off the shelf, mark it up a bit, and serve it.

Fantastic food as well.
http://www.eveningstar.net

NoazDad

QOTD: I don’t think I have ever seen a really good wine list.

Drives me nuts when they mark up the $12 bottle to $38..

Is it true that most patrons in a restaurant order the 2nd cheapest wine in the category they’re interested in? Anyway, those prices seem like a real ripoff. Viva la BYO restaurant. Totally.
QOTD: None.

QOTD: My cellar! (and it’s much cheaper than those pricey restaurants bottles)

GV- You kept showing the wine list but I couldnt read any of the wines. QOTD: XO in Providence, RI

Another fun review. Overpriced as always but hey, if youre ballin go for it. QOTD: Canlis restaurant in Seattle. Their wine list is something like 80 or 90 pages. Its one of the biggest in the country and one of the few restraunts in the world to wine some “grand wine list” award. Overpriced? You bet. Still a fantastic selection though.

QOTD: I wouldn’t say this was the best, but the most unusual was just last night. My fiancee and I went to Tono Sushi, in Washington DC, and on their list, they had a few Japanese wines. Nothing to recommend really, but interesting to try!

I’ve seen a few decent wine lists, but I don’t venture out to many high-end restaurants. I’d say the priciest places I’ve been are Larson’s in Encino, CA with an interesting wine list and Mi Piace, also a decent list. Oh yeah, Ruth’s Chris once. I’ve never been able to drink hundred Napa Cabs and Opus One etc etc so most of these wine lists have stuff I’ve never drank or heard of. Sooo, we rarely order bottles at restaurants and if we do, it usually does end up being close to the second cheapest, unfortunately.

Qotd: the one at Antrim 1844 located north of Baltimore. It’s one of the largest on the east coast with some of the lowest mark-ups compared to most other restaurants. It has a wine for everyone too-from traditional fare to all the quirky stuff.

Grower Champagnes is a big problem on wine lists, as is carrying a lot of name wines and being to fearful of branching out which is where you find your real deals. However that’s not always the fault of the wine director. Sometimes it’s the owner who has his hand in that and is trying to go with what he thinks is a safe bet. This causes all those wonderful lesser known wines to fall by the wayside and is also undermining your guests in my opinion.
With that being said I still see a ton of diners out there who will never stray from traditional French or Napa and turn their nose up at anything else. they usually love to name drop the wines they’ve had and try to impress the other guests at their table. It’s obvious that sort of diner would never branch out even when polite suggestions are made. However I’d bet in a blind tasting it would be quite easy to introduce them to something they’d never order in a million years that they’d love over their “safe bet” name recognition French and Napa wines.