New York City College of Technology
HMGT 2402
Professor Dagorn
Luis Merlin
03/24/2020

Wine List Comparison

Wine is the fabrication of fermented grape juice which plays an enormous role in the hospitality industry since beverage cost is higher than that of food cost. Whenever you visit a restaurant, you’re always greeting and seated with the wine list. Since I’m underage, they approach by asking how old I am and quickly take the wine list away. Depending on the restaurant you go to, their wine list could be either short or long. A thing that I have learned about being in the business is that wines aren’t just to drink rather a beverage to accompany your dish. Two restaurants wine list in which I thoroughly observed would be Del Posto which is a fine dining restaurant and Lupa Osteria Romana which is a casual restaurant. Both these restaurants are under the ownership of the Bastianich family, which mainly focuses on true authentic Italian cuisine.
I’ll first talk about Del Posto since I dined here for my dining room project. The minute you are seated they quickly approach you with the wine list menu; you’d be surprised how they show you their list of wines. On a tablet that’d be! Del Posto has a large variety of wines, with more than 235 pages full of wine from all over Italy. In Del Posto’s table of contents, you are introduced with categories such as Wines by the Glass, Sparkling Wines or White Wines. As you observed the entirety of the list you acknowledge you won’t spend all day looking through it unless you’re a wine lover. In the wine list provided, it has regions of Italy and specific selections of the wine of that region. For instance, there are wines from Tuscany, Trentino, and Veneto. As well as that you can assume their wine cellar is huge since the item number next to the name of the wine goes from 10000 to 40000.
I’ll now talk about Lupa Osteria Romana since I work at this restaurant. Lupa is more of a Roman-style Italian based food. You would consider this restaurant to be rustic since their wine list when it’s given to you, is in this leathery booklet with clear plastic sleeves. Unlike Del Posto’s wine list, Lupa’s has a smaller variety of wine options with only 20 pages in their list. Just like Del Posto, they focus on all the regions in Italy. As you read along with the list you observe the item number next to each wine and you can assume that their wine cellar is huge. It is, I’d know since I pass by every time I go downstairs to get my chef coat. Unlike Del Posto, since Lupa is casual, its wines have more wines from a specific region. For instance, Lupa has 80 different wines from Tuscany.
Both these restaurants share Italy as their focus for wine since of course, they’re Italian restaurants. They both include non-alcohol beverages in their wine list and differentiate with the fact that instead of having the wine pairing on the menu like Lupa, Del Posto has it with their Wine list as an option. These restaurants also have wines from Bastianich since he’s the owner of these luxurious eateries.

All in all, for the most part, I’d say Del Posto is the place to go if you’re a wine lover and would want to try something new whereas in Lupa, you’d get the same but just limited varieties.

References

1. Del Posto Wine List: https://hub.binwise.com/print/winelist_pdf.aspxlistid=685&locationid=300
2. Lupa’s Wine List: https://luparestaurant.com/wpcontent/uploads/sites/33/2014/08/Lupa-Wine-List.pdf

Erika Mae Oco

HMGT2402-E553

Prof. Goodlad and Prof. Dagorn

March 24 , 2020

Retail Beverage Store Analysis

↑ Red wine From Italy, Piedmont

Fratelli Antonio and Raimond

Babera 2018

↑white wine from Lebanon, Bekaa  Valley

Chateau Kefraya

Blanc de Blancs La Cuvee d’Ondine

2017

↑ The separated shelves for specific events and food pairings.

          I had decided to go and visit Bottle Rocket wine and spirits located in 5 W 19th St. New York, NY 10011. When doing a little research on where I should be going, I was curious about this store specifically. Their photos online always had something to do with a wine tasting, a spirit tasting, or just multiple events happening. Their store also did not look like a usual wine and spirits store; it was not dark and gloomy, and it did not have posters of the liquors that they were selling; it was just bright and vibrant. To add to my curiosity about the store, they also had an excellent rating all around, so it was a no brainer to go and visit this store. When looking for this store, it was a bit of a struggle since it was blocked because they had construction on their block. But once you walk past the store, you can spot it right away, and it was just vibrant so full of life even though the store was empty due to the pandemic. I then introduced myself to the sales associate that I had called earlier, explaining that I am a hospitality management student and that I am here for an assignment. She gave me the go, but she did inform me that due to the pandemic, if possible, I could minimize the touching of the bottle unless I am going to buy it. They would prefer that they would pull out the bottle take it to the register themselves, which I found excellent either way.

          As I was about to browsing another sales associate was kind enough to give me a tour of the place. He then explains that the way how they have organized their selection of wines is by theme, helping their customers to find wines according to what they want to do with them. They had separate shelves dedicated to a specific wine event or food pairing. This store was unique in a way because every single bottle of theirs has an informative card displayed alongside giving their customers vital facts, tasting notes, and ratings. He then left me to observe the place more. One thing I did notice when I took a look at their spirits aisle, they offer a had a wide variety of whiskey. I had even looked on their website to see what more I can find, and they sell a $4,000 Suntory Yamazaki 18-year-old single malt Whisky. At that point, I just stepped away from that wall since that price made me what to cry. Looking around, I started looking for a country that made wine, but I could not find any. So I then asked for help from the sales associate who sadly, I could not remember his name, but he was still more than happy to help. He showed me a white wine from Lebanon, Bekaa Valley, a Blanc de Blancs La Cuvee d’Ondine from 2017. He then shot out a fun fact about Lebanon; they are one of the oldest countries that made wine dated 6,000 BC.

          After all that, I decided to buy a bottle of wine for my family. I had explained to him that we are not keen on wine drinkers, and we like a nice, smooth, and sweet wine. He then asked me a few questions, such as what is the occasion? Furthermore, What will we be pairing it with? After all that, he suggested a Pinot Noir from Loire Valley, France. With their help, this truly made my purchasing process so much easier since I am one hundred percent clueless when it comes to picking a good wine.

          Overall, the experience that they were trying to create came to life when visiting Bottle Rocket for me. They have made the shopping experience easier for their guest from adding information carts in all their wine. It is one of those stores that will stand out no matter what—even from their customer servers to their knowledge of wines just stuck. After helping me out with my project, they then helped me pick out a wine to take home with to my family. This store is truly well-rounded.

New York City College Of Technology

Aide Jimenez

HMGT2402-E553

Prof. Goodlad

March 24^th , 2020

Wine List Analysis

When it comes to wine it’s a well topic that most customers tent to have over dinner, meetings, or just casual drinking. Wine is an important drink in many dinners, Wine comes from every part of the world and is used different in many cultures, and wine is made different from other places in the world. For example a France wine is very different form a Germany wine. One because of the law rules each country has and two because of the different types of grapes, soil, etc.

For this assignment I will do a Wine List Analysis on, The River Café located in Brooklyn under the Brooklyn bridge and Blue ribbon well know for being nominate in the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur, located in Brooklyn as well as SoHo and other parts of Manhattan. The River Café is a fining dining restaurant know for their Michelin- starred and “the most outstating wine list in the world.” As well as being reorganized for being an active restaurant for more than 40 years. As for Blue ribbon, was found by Bruce and Eric Bromberg, in 1992 combining their “French expertise with their American roots.” Blue ribbon is a relax and “embodied the spirit of individuality” by offering authentic dining experience.

When you compared the two restaurants for Wine listing The River Café has twice as more than Blue Ribbon. The River Café has 19 pages of their amazing wine while the Blue ribbon has 7 pages from their different kinds of wine. Another major difference from these two different wine list is in the link of The River Café, we as the consumer see the wine director as well as the Sommelier and in the link of Blue moon we don’t we just see all the different kinds of wine and other liquors. Besides  being very different they do have some similarities after all. For example one similarity I notice was both of them have wines from France, Italy and Spain. Another similarity is that both of them have wines from different region but they both share wines from the region of France, Alsace, Rhone Valley,  Bordeauox, and of course Burgundy.

When you look both of these restaurant’s you get to see how very different they both are in  terms of  food and wine. But you also get to see the experience and imagine how it will be dinning in and feel the different environment. As well as make you question the type of person you are when it comes to dining and wine choices.

https://rivercafe.com/wine-program/

https://www.blueribbonrestaurants.com

https://rivercafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/rivercafe-wine-list-022720.pdf

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52fd7162e4b0d3e64dc29631/t/5d65621e125fe50001f48f30/1566925342811/PDF+Wine+Bar+menu+8.26.pdf

Gnarly Vines, Wine & Spirits is a retail shop located on Myrtle Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene. Upon researching their shop, I decided to choose here for my report due to their excellent online reviews. The owner, Brian and I had spoken briefly over the phone and he said that it would be okay for me to come visit and ask a few questions the following week. He seemed extremely courteous and professional, and my expectations were high.

My visit was unfortunately at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, right before the restrictions had been applied to businesses. As I walked into Gnarly Vines, it was eerily quiet and the man behind the counter was chatting with a customer. While they were talking, I walked through the store to explore the available selection. While there was a vast amount of wines from all over the world, it felt extremely disorganized. There were poorly drawn labels attempting to divide the wines into their respective regions, grape varieties, etc.

The one piece of new information I had acquired was about orange wines. The handwritten description for orange wines said that it’s a type of white wine that is given its deep, vibrant orange hue by keeping the juice, skins and seeds in contact with each other during the fermentation process. I was glad to acquire new knowledge here, regardless of the chaotic setup I was witnessing. Once the customer had left, I approached the worker who had happened to be the owner, Brian. I had reminded him that I called the week prior about coming in, and began to tell him I am new to the wine world and had a few questions. After I finished speaking, he said that he was very busy stocking the store, he was trying to limit his contact with people due to the COVID-19 situation and asked if I could come back next week. Although we had scheduled over the phone to talk that specific day, I completely understood his reasoning.

While my visit wasn’t what I was hoping for, it gave me an idea of what ways a retail shop could be more organized and informative. With their excellent reviews online I thought that the storefront would be more presentable. However, I am sure that him and his staff are very knowledgeable and would be much more helpful if the current Corona Virus situation ceased to exist.

So what do you think about this? How do you plan your own tasting notes?

Wine Folly Tasting Notes

How to Write Excellent Wine Tasting Notes

Are you comfortable with the tasting grid yet? Here is another interpretation of a tasting note document: Wine Folly Tasting Grid