Robin Singh

Wine Analysis

New York is world widely known for one of the most tourist visited places in the whole world. One of the reason being is because of its hospitality industry. When it comes to restaurants, New York has a reputation of having one of the best fine dine in restaurants in the world. Not only do these luxurious restaurants serve the best food, but they’re also popular for their alcoholic beverages.

Wine is one of the most popular alcoholic beverages in the world, not just New York. People drink wine for several reasons. One of the reasons is because they enjoy the wine pairing with specific foods. Other reasons are because of the history and traditions of wine, to enhance special moments with wine or they drink it for several health benefits.

Two restaurants that I picked to compare are Gabriel Kreuther and 21 Club. Chef Gabriel has a reputation of one of the top chefs in NYC for running his restaurant. Gabriel Kreuther offers a variety of wines. Although the prices are slightly high, the wine however is affordable. On the other hand, 21 Club is known for serving top notch wines.

Gabriel Kreuther offers a list of red and white wines. The wine list includes the producer, grape variety, country, year and the price. The wine prices listed on the menu were for a glass each. The price of each glass of white wine ranged from $17 to $40. The price of the red wines ranged from $17 to $36. The restaurant also offers a rose wine and an orange wine. The prices for those were about $18-$19 a glass. The menu for the wines is not extremely big but it is displayed nicely.

21 Club offers lots of wines. The wine menu is extremely big. The wines listed in the menu are offered by half bottle and full bottle prices. The wine list also displays the year, grape variety country. There were many types of white wines listed in the menu. The white and red wines were shown differently by the name of the region. Some wines listed in the menu were extremely expensive and some wines were sold for $60 and under for the full bottle prices.

After comparing the wine menu for both restaurants, it is known that both fine dine-in restaurants offer great wines. Although the prices of the wines are bit expensive, the quality and the display of serving the wine covers that up.

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.

Wine List Analysis

Bingzhao Shi

HMGT 2402 E553

Prof. Dragorn

Spring 2020

3/31/20

Wine List Analysis

What is Wine? Wine is an alcoholic drink that is made using fermented grapes. I am a huge wine lover. I picked a liquor store named Super Buy-Rite, across the Hudson river. The reason why I pick this store from all other ones is that it is only couple mins walk from where I live. I am a frequent shopper, I picked up many wines and other varieties. I believe it is the biggest liquor store in Hudson count. The options you can choose is huge, they have everything you can imagine, wines, beer, spirits, liquors, etc.
It located 575 Manila Ave, Jersey City, NJ 07310 right next the road when you come out from the Holland tunnel from NYC. It is hard to notice since its look like a warehouse with a small sign comparing to the shop size. When you enter the store, the classic music is playing at a acceptable volume, bright light is irradiating at the alcohols
I still can remember the first time I went there; it was when I just moved to Jersey City and I wanted to buy some alcohol to celebrate my 21st birthday and host a warm house party. The liquor store was like a maze, the aisles are full of alcohols. Premium wines and spirits in the fridge. Soda are next to the checkout area, the staffs working there are friendly compare to the staffs in some liquor store in NYC. I was excited to take wine class at my school; I learned a lot from the class also get to taste some wine. Sadly, the school must move all classes to online classes due to the virus. You were not able to find the “owner” of the store but they would not care if you take some picture of the alcohols.

Valentina Liang

Professor Dragorn

New York City College of Technology

First of all, I will like to let everyone know that I am allergic to alcohol. I am really excited to write about the retail beverage store analysis. The liquor store that I have picked is called Cathedral Wine & Liquor. The reason why I have picked this liquor store is that is two blocks away from my house. I have been to this liquor store like 3 to 4 times to help my friends to buy some alcohol. The staff from this liquor store always have upside-down emotions. sometimes they are in a good mood and sometimes they have a terrible attitude. I always call a certain place before going to that place. So every time  I call their liquor store no one picks up my phone. Which makes me upset. This liquor store is a family business and is owned by  Hugues Asdrubal.

The first time when I went to this liquor store I was lost. As I remember before taking  W&B class I didn’t know anything about wine.  I remember when I was a little girl I thought that a bottle of wine is made by the day that is shown on the bottle. But actually that is not true. The first thing that I have learned in this class that the date that is shown on the bottle is the date that the grapes were picked. I think wine is really interesting as the entire process from picking up the grapes, Pressing the grapes, fermenting clarification, aging, and bottling. I really enjoy going to a liquor store after W&B class. Most of the time I will go on a Wednesday and buy some alcohol for my friends. I really enjoy cooking and I have friends that they really like drinking wine. So after W&B class I will go to the liquor store and buy the bottle of wine that I like the most after tasting them in class for my friends to pare with the food.

I did not have the chance to talk to the owner and the couple of times that I have been there was a lady who was really rude. I asked them if I can take a picture of the liquor or liquor store but I have been rejected. I couldn’t see any picture on yelp. The price of this liquor store is affordable. They have all kinds of wine, whiskey, Ron, champagne, sparkling wine. Most of the sparkling wine is a place on the fridge. Hopefully the next time I go to this liquor store I have the opportunity to talk to the boss and learn more about wine.

Retail store Analysis 

Dulce Solis

Professor Dragorn

New York City College of Technology 

       Typically 80-90% water, 10-15% alcohol, 0.5-0.75% acid, 2.9-3.9 pH levels and 15-38% sugar at harvest, all major components of wine. Typically many of us know of Rosè, but there are also red wines, white wines, and champagne. With some of the knowledge I acquired in class I decided to visit Benely Wine and Spirits although I wanted to go to Smith and Vine. But taking into consideration the severity of these days I took my safety first and went a block from my house. 

       From outside of the store you see two different sides, the left is hard liquor and the right is all wines. When you come in the atmosphere alone is very calming, no loud music and it’s very clean. The wine is placed on a wall that has lights and I must say it gives it the calming effect, plus the lights reflect off the bottles so it looks beautiful. There weren’t too many people inside and it’s spacious enough, unlike a liquor store there aren’t bullet proof walls where you talk to a person through.

       The three questions I had to ask were a bit hard to come up with considering I don’t really drink wine. But my first question I asked was “How do you come to recommending a wine?” He said that he asks his customer if the wine is just to sip on or for a meal, dry or sweet, if its their first time drinking wine ( they won’t know preferences), and price range. My second question was “Has the business been impacted by Covid-19?” He said yes but in a good way and bad way, the good way is that many more customers have been coming in to buy wine which increased sales. The bad way was because there could only be one person making sales and it gets hard when new wine shipments come in. 

       My last question was “ Do you think wine/liquor stores are essential right now” he said he wasn’t sure how to answer that because it’s not essential for him to be there since he could get sick attending customers but he still needs the job to pay his own bills. So there are pros and cons with how essential wine is at the moment. I think I picked the right wine store considering that I saw Smith and vines weren’t very welcoming. The store in general could be a bit more organized in the back but other than that it’s great and prices are decent. 

My visit at Astor Wines & Spirits located at Lafayette St., New York was wonderful. I had the pleasure to meet with Bambi Ray, one of the Sales Manager at the store. She was very professional and helpful. She seems to know a lot of wines and to enjoy it at the same time. Ms. Ray gave me a tour of the store. At the entrance, the first section is European wines and then sparkling wines. She also showed me a site in the store where they keep some wines under cool temperature and the reason why it is because some of them are old and it needs to be kept there. She was telling me that every time she takes clients to that area, they think those wines are very expensive since they are in another room, but they are not. You can find all kind of wines from $16 to $300 in that area which is not bad at all.

While doing the tour around the store, Ms. Ray was telling me how happy she is working with the company. She has almost 11 years studying wine and she’s been working in the same store for the past 4 years. She still feels very happy there since the owners treat the employees right and make them feel comfortable at the workplace. They are very engaging, they do not micromanage, and they are always willing to listen to employee’s new ideas. Something that Ms. Ray would like to improve at the store that she will talk about with the owners soon is, to add some additional stacks, so it will keep things more organized. She also added that they keep unpaid orders for two weeks when clients call to order, but she feels that’s unfair since there are other clients who come at the store requesting the same item but she can sell it since it is already hold for someone who has not paid. She would like to eliminate that. She prefers that they all pay in advance in order to keep the items for pick up.

At the store, I had the curiosity to know which is the most sold wine and why? In which Ms. Ray took the time to print me a list of all sold wines and the number one wine is Mia Prosecco from Italy. They sell around 1,969 bottles monthly and it only cost $11.96. She said that one of the reasons why is because it is good quality for a good price. 

Overall, I had a great time at Astor & Wines Spirits. I really enjoyed interviewing Ms. Ray and learning more about wines. She was just awesome and very helpful. She wanted to make sure I had all information I needed before leaving the store which I really appreciated.

This is a red wine from Italy. Romagna Denominazione Di Origine Protetta Cagnina Dolce from 2018. This ruby red wine has sweet berry flavors, and a lingering aftertaste of candied violets.

This is a sparkling wine that is not from the European Union. Jansz Tasmania is from Australia. This sparkling wine has a rich floral bouquet of strawberries with a soft and creamy palate.

This is a dry white wine from Greece. Assyrtiko by Gaia is from 2018, produced in Santorini.

This is a shelf talker written by Heather G, one of the employees at Astor Wines & Spirits. She wrote this to Jean Velut-Lumiere et Craie, a bottle of champagne from France.