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Choosing Wine - February 2003
by Chef/Owner Philip Mihalski
It's early afternoon, hours before service. I'm sitting at a table in the restaurant with Jeanine Burke who guides our wine program. Before us are a collection of new wines we are considering for our cellar. The sun filters in…Yes, this scene would be from a movie, not real restaurant life. In restaurants nobody sits down. But we do put lots of thought into our wine list.
What are we looking for? Wines which will pair nicely with our cuisine is major of course, but choosing wine is more than this—it's also a matter of balancing locality, style, price and love.
Nell's wine list reflects both where we live and our own wine enthusiasms. I love French wine. For me, it can be supremely simple and amazingly complex. So French wines represent a large part of our list. But I love the Northwest, too. Many of my ingredients come from the farms, rivers, and waters of the Pacific region. So I want to show a good cross-section of the fine wines of our Washington/Oregon area. And no chef would ignore the brilliance of California, the largest and most prominent wine-producing region in the U.S.
That covers love and locality now let's talk about geography and style. I call Nell's cuisine contemporary American but our food roots are broadly European so our cellar includes excellent wines from Germany, Italy, and Spain as well as rising Australian varieties. Jeanine and I seek out the kind of producers who make wines that clearly show their character and place of origin. Some may be familiar names with good press, others only a small audience may know about. For us, a Chianti that displays the balance and "terroir" traditional of the region holds more interest than a new styled wine that tries to be a big California red.
Finally, price. If anything guides our wine list it is our goal of offering a broad range of great wines at varying price points. Providing you with good wine at $25 a bottle is just as important as offering a Chave Hermitage or Harlan Cabernet. As we continue to grow our wine program we will always make sure we have wines by the glass, a sizable collection of half bottles, and affordable wines from many different regions.
A Bottle on Every Table
Wine notes from Jeanine
My personal enthusiasms are German wines and wines from Alsace—Iêm still trying to get Philip involved in Austrian wines. I plan bringing more Austrian wines onto the list in the next six months or so. My goal for the list is to have an international influence—not necessarily every single region of the world but have it really well rounded out. One of the things I enjoy about being on the floor every night is turning people on to new varietals, new wines, new regions, things that maybe they have never heard of. But they donêt have to spend $85 to get a California Chardonnay when we have something from Burgundy or a de-classified Burgundyãvillage wineãthatês phenomenal. I guess my goal for now is to have a bottle of wine on every table. Because it's very important—the pairings with drinking wine; I mean it's ancient history and I think everyone enjoys their dinner so much more with wine.