Wine List Gaps

We went out to dinner last night -- not to a fancy place, but to a neighborhood gem. It's a smallish restaurant and quite friendly with excellent food, a good bar for the size, and everybody knows your name (where on earth did that come from?). 

We decided what we were having for dinner and went to choose a wine to go with it. These dinners really needed a white wine, but one with some body. In a perfect world, I was hoping for a Chenin Blanc and this restaurant used to have one, but no more. So, I looked to Chardonnay.

Their list of Chardonnay is expansive given the size of the list in total. But, looking at it, I find it curious. Going from memory, I think that all, as in 100%, as in every last Chardonnay out of probably 10 or so is from California. When you have 10, they don't all have to be from California. Although, to the credit of the proprietor, several are outstanding and I suspect that their customer base does look a fair amount for California Chardonnay.

But, then there is a different diversity. I would hazard a guess that 5 of these wines are available by the glass or bottle and 5 by the bottle only. The typical pricing algorithm is that bottle prices are roughly 4 times the glass prices. That's very normal in my experience.

But, then there is the issue. Chardonnay proces by the bottle are on the order of $30, $35 (several times), $40 (several times), $50, $100, $110, $125. 

Before going on, let me say that at the price points they have chosen, these are pretty good choices. One of the $100 price range wines is one that I would be happy to own, albeit not at $100, but we addressed these differences the other day. This is a wine that you would see on the wine list of many high-end restaurants with award-winning wine lists. So, kudos to the proprieotrs here.

All this said, there is lots of very good Chardonnay that could be found at an intermediate (to this wine list) price point. I'm not saying that the list has to be uniformly distributed among all possible price points, but 50 to 100 is a pretty large gap. Perhaps one wine could fill that gap somewhat. In my opinion, it would make for a much better list.

All that said, the wine we chose was just fine and in fact, it paired quite well with our dinner. We enjoyed it and would drink it again with the same food. Perhaps not having that gap filled saved us a reasonable amount of money; I'm okay with that.. But, I still think it's a flaw in the list.

Now, just in case any of the proprietors are reading this and it's not at all outside the realm of possibility that they might be, they probably know who they are in this post. So, know that we love your restaurant. And, while we are being a bit picky, perhaps even nitpicky here, we will continue to return to your establishment and recommend to others that they do the same as we have for many years.

I still think you should fill in the gaps. Just sayin' as they these days.

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