All restaurant connoisseurs native to New York are familiar with The Modern and the Blue Ribbon restaurants. The Modern, located on West 53rd Street is a two-starred Michelin American restaurant. Blue Ribbon restaurants are located mainly in New York City but appear in Miami. Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Blue Ribbon was founded by Bruse and Eric Bromberg in 1992. Over time a series of restaurants dedicated to modernity and casual dining. Both establishments are very different in the areas of food and analyzing both wine lists differed drastically as expected.
When observing The Modern’s wine list I could not help but notice the table of contents. For a list that is one hundred and fifty four pages I would be overwhelmed at a list like the one at The Modern if I did not know much about wine. Something else I noticed is that The Modern provides half bottles of wine. Finally, I noticed that they provided South African wines. This caught my attention because in class we cover major wine countries and South African is a rarity.
When observing Blue Ribbon’s Brasserie Brooklyn’s wine list I paid careful attention to how the list was organized. Once downloading the file, I found that the bottles of wine were not categorized by color or reigon; the subheadings began with the grape variety. This is a bit odd to me because I would imagine being a guest and not knowing exactly what certain grape varieties are known for in terms of taste. Something else I noticed was that the wine list includes beer, cider, and spirits. This makes sense especially since the wine list isn’t crazy extensive. Lastly, I noticed that the wine with the oldest vintage is 2015. This makes me wonder why the wine is so modern.
The wine lists at The Modern and Blue Ribbon Brasserie Brooklyn vary drastically. One difference is that the wines at the Modern are more diverse. The list contains a myriad of wines from around the world. This makes sense especially since the Modern is a fine dining restaurant with an eclectic menu. However, the wine list at Blue Ribbon categorized their wine based off of grape variety. This makes sense because this can make pairing wine with menu items easier. These lists are similar in a few ways, both lists do a great job at distinguishing where each wine comes from. Every single wine listed was connected to a location which is important to know when choosing the best wine for a guest. Lastly, both lists are categorized by grape variety. This was easy to overlook when viewing the wine list for The Modern. However, once you follow the table of contents, the rest of the list contains grape varieties.
After doing research I was able to come to a few conclusions about the wine lists at both The Modern and Blue Ribbon. Both wine lists were created to pair with the menu in each establishment respectively. The Modern’s wine list is extremely long and complex compared to the one at Blue Ribbon. Prior to doing this project I had felt that long wine lists were superfluous but after analysing two lists from restaurants of different scales, I finally began to understand. When people eat at upper scale restaurants they are not very likely to try aberrant wines. This is why it may be necessary for a restaurant to have one hundred and fifty four pages.
