Restaurant wine lists have gotten ridiculously confusing and pretentious — enough already

The wine business is in trouble due to reduced demand and changing tastes. You’d therefore think that restaurants, which need to sell lots of vino to stay in business, would go the extra mile to see that ordering the stuff is easy and without subjecting us to political proselytizing.

You’d be wrong.

These days, restaurant wine service isn’t haughty — the way it once was — but it’s obnoxious in a different way. Wine lists are full of confusing categories and unnecessary concepts and annoying explanations. Sommeliers are too friendly and don’t have a clue about what they’re selling. And, there’s a lack of online visibility in a world that lives online.

Bring back the old-time snoots who at least knew something about the stuff.

Instead, overly chatty somms bend our ears with the philosophical musings and jargon about terroir, microclimates, the moral  superiority of “natural” wines and even the producer’s life and times.

I was informed at a now-defunct BLT Steak that the estate owner was “a wonderful woman” when I only wanted to know if a Burgundy would overpower the flavor of arctic char.

At promising new Bartolo on West Fourth Street, few choices on the mostly Spanish list were familiar to me — when I was able to read the tiny type at all. When I asked the waiter if they had microscopes handy, he laughed and said, “I’m on the same page as you.”

I later asked the somm why an orange wine was included under “whites” on the by-the-glass list without any indication it was a “skin-contact” number. 

Her non-explanation was, “I noticed a lot of restaurants in the area serving orange wine.”

 At new Cove, the 400-bottle wine list says it “will highlight low-intervention wines and explore a history of influence between generations of winemakers.” Thanks, but how about just suggesting a nice Oregon Pinot Noir to go with chef Flynn McGarry’s cheese pumpkin schnitzel? 

I loved the Italian food at Saint Urban on East 20th Street, but ordering wine was a challenge on top of choosing between four-course and tasting menus (no a la carte). We were informed, “Each month, we handpick a selection of pairing wines from our chosen region that showcases a spectrum of flavor, style and craftsmanship …   available in three tiers to accommodate a range of exploration. We also offer a unique Domaine pairing assembled exclusively from a single producer.” Huh? All this in addition to a 137-page list.

Incredibly, in the age of AI, many eateries are too cheap or lazy to post wine lists online. High-profile new establishments, including Lex Yard at the Waldorf-Astoria, Chez Fifi (1,500 bottles!) and Maison Passerelle at Printemps are among the guilty.

At Casasalvo on Spring Street, the printed list states, “Every glass is a journey, each bottle a story.”  Alas, it’s a mystery story until you get there. If there are 300 choices at a new Italian restaurant, I want to peruse them  before I go. (Nor did it help that the printed list omitted vintage years for many of the whites and even for a $200 Etna Rosso.)

Somms have grueling jobs. They’re basically sales personnel, squeezed between managers who care only about volume and cost-conscious customers with varying degrees of wine knowledge. The pressure drives many good sommeliers to leave the floor grind as soon as they can for less stressful jobs in corporate life or wholesaling.

Nobody misses the snooty somms of yore who sneered down their noses when you asked questions beneath their interest level. But I don’t love what they’ve been replaced with.

When I’m told gobbledygook like,  “The coastal flow mediates the tannins,” I’m ready to take the old-school guys, snoots and all.