I am always amazed by the bad information some restaurants can give you on wine. I was at the Los Angeles restaurant of Osteria La Buca earlier this week and I noticed that they had a reserve selection of reds. I asked what they had and I found a bottle of 2004 Arnaldo-Caprai Sagrantino di Montefalco 25 Anni – an anniversary bottling to commemorate 25 harvests for the prestigious Umbrian producer. It was $125 a bottle on the list.
The waiter arrived and told me that the restaurant’s wine buyer said it was “the only excellent bottle of wine made in 2004 in Italy.” I couldn’t help myself. I said that his wine buyer was mistaken and that 2004 was a beautiful vintage just about everywhere in Italy. The waiter didn’t say anything in response. I think he was happy that he sold the bottle.
Anyway, I really hate experiences like that. It makes me wonder how much bad information restaurants give out on wine. The volume of bad information must be at least as much as the good.
Granted, one could argue that restaurants like La Buca are not wine-oriented restaurants and that they have no obligation to give good wine intelligence to patrons. But maybe people should just keep quiet instead of passing on falsehoods.
On the other hand, I had lunch at RN 74 in Seattle with Cellar Tracker’s Eric Levine a few days before La Buca, and the wine information and experience was second to none. But then again, that’s a restaurant run and frequented by wine lovers.
However, a lot of wine 'selling' relies on inexact hyperbole (a polite way of saying bull***t).