The best wine lists in the world for La Muse Blue
The best wine lists for me offer plenty of aged bottles ready or peaking to drink (ideally featured on a highlighted page), less known local gems, good value finds from established producers, visibly marked biodynamic and organic wines and at least ten diverse wines by the glass. In the age of sophisticated preserving technology from pumps pulling out oxygen to the haute gamme of Coravin the customer can savour a broader opportunity to explore, learn and to drink moderately if not sharing a bottle is preferred.
Still, a great wine list is not a win-win and technology cannot answer more personal preferences and questions, so a knowledgeable sommelier is a welcome bonus.
The wine expert must be sensitive to your budget, taste, occasion and experience. A good sommelier listens to his customer and advises a short selection of bottles that make your choice easier. The process should not be intimidating. Good hospitality sheds the weight from your decision making, while not pushing you too high. Wine is about pleasure, sharing, socialising and letting go a hard day. So where can you get the best wine service?
In London, Hide Above and Bellow is hard to beat for its wine menu. One of the best cellars in the wine savvy metropolis – Hedonism Wines supplies the bottles. The pairing flights are fun and flexible. If you do not want a sweet wine the team of sommeliers happily suggests a replacement. I prefer the pace and the more satisfying food at Hide Below as opposed to the lengthy fine dining Above. Classic, Discovery and Hedonistic wine pairings offer very different experiences for your mood. Trust your gut.
Also in London, the Pall Mall 67, a private members club for the wine trade naturally hives in amazing bottles, but you must know someone from the vinous business to be allowed to sample some of their savvy selections. The passionate, multi-sommelier team are open to discussion and pleasant to talk anything wine related.
Most restaurants in Paris offer French-only or Francophile selections.While I prefer to drink as local as possible, I can include only three venues in the French capital in my best, most interesting wine lists selection. La Tour d’Argent, Le Bristol and Les 110 de Taillevent, a wine-centric bar by the gastronomic stalwart Le Taillevent, offer some depth, but only the later has also a good breadth beyond the French borders, now also serving at its branch in London. I find most of the natural wine focused bistros in the French capital rather limiting in their offer.
Probably the rarest wine tasting menu at a public restaurant
Italy does better. The legendary Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence is known for its superb wine list and it delivers well beyond the Italian borders. Here I saw the most exclusive by the glass program ever at a restaurant. The rarest and most prestigious wines sparkled in the Ausone, Cheval Blanc, Lafite, Latour, Petrus, Rayas as well as Henri Jayer’s praised Burgundies company. Conterno, Gaja, Tenuta San Guido et al. in the Italian stable (photo bellow). Still, only for the billionaires – almost €6.000 for six small glasses while a minimum of two drinkers must participate (each has to pay, not splitting). We splurged within our limits on a vintage against a vintage comparative tasting of Burgundy vs. Italy. The best wine lists should look like this.
In Spain, El Celler de Can Roca offered the best wine list to us. The female sommelier was patient and sniffing our interest, she added some of the wine flight glasses to our two bottles of tiny production Spanish reds. The best cavas we tried, incredible white from Penedes (some 800 bottles produced, photo bellow), plus great values, a rare pleasure at a three Michelin restaurant, bravo! The service as well as the list itself were incomparable with Monvínic in Barcelona, where a couple of birthdays back and a post-dinner cuppa another time I was not impressed with what many say is the best wine restaurant in the Catalan metropolis.
In New York, the Chef’s Table at the Brooklyn Fare now relocated to Midtown Manhattan ticks all of my above criteria with a helpful hand of the sommeliers. For a specialised wine list, the Hearth in East Village pleases particularly the Riesling fandom. From Austria, Germany, France, Finger Lakes to Oregon, the age-worthy expressive white varietal is celebrated intercontinentally. Apples, green vegetables, even petroleum and mineral expression of its terroir Riesling rules. Wines from the Middle East show a savvy palate of the wine director at Hearth.
In Macau, Joël Robuchon au Dôme disappointed me with the food, but the double-bible list is exceptional. The gamblers have it easy to spend their fortune on celebratory bottles from the rarest vintages. Verticals (an uninterrupted row of vintages of the same wine) and global choices impress. Where do you see Madeiras and Ports from early 1800s?
If you are a well-travelled wine expert or connoisseur and know some other extraordinary wine lists, please, share them! Let’s enjoy the bounty of the human interaction with nature sipped from the best wine lists, santé!
DISCLAIMER: Apologies for not including some special, small wine treasuries that shall remain secret as I promised to dear friends sharing in person, gracias, grazie, amori!