Why Restaurant Wine Lists Stink

First off, not all of them stink, but way too many do. There are some restaurants with great wine lists and some of these I can even afford to dine at occasionally. The vast majority of the family / casual / chain restaurants have wine list that are a steaming pile of suck. Many of the higher-end restaurants don't do much better except that their markup is much higher.

I'm not even getting into the wine prices and the huge markups. This is about the quality of the selections on the wine list.

The problem is that most restaurants just don't have the time to investigate the wide world of wine to see what goes best with their cooking at a price their customers want to pay. Most don't have an on-staff wine person. Of course, when there is a sommelier getting a salary you are paying for that with your wine purchases. Most restaurants just let their local wine distributor put the list together. What you wind up with in most of the U.S. are Gallo labels (they have over 50). Do you think the distributor is in tune with what's going to work with the food? Not likely. Oh sure, if it's mostly a seafood place you'll find lots of chardonnay including one that's not from Gallo, but from Sonoma-Cutrer.

I can go through many restaurant wine lists and see at least one wine where I think, "What the #$%& is that doing there?"

Some fancy restaurants screw up by thinking more is better so they have a 20 page book to totally confuse you. What would be nice is to punch into a computer screen, "Here's what I'm having, what are your suggestions for wines?" Then it gets more complicated because other people are having something else, but it's a place to start.

The best lists are those that cover a decent range of prices and have selections made to go with every entree. Seems simple, but it's actually not, apparently.