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A Mano, Primitivo di Puglia - 2006
£6.49
From right down in the South of Italy this is a powerful, rich red full of spices, berry fruits and a touch of liquorice
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Alain Chatoux, Beaujolais Vieilles Vignes - 2007
£8.99
This is a true rarity - old vines, great quality generic beaujolais. Alain Chatoux has pulled out all the stops with this complex classic
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Allegrini, Amarone - 2004
£42.99
Spicy, strong and bitter-sweet, this is the epitome of the Amarone style. Balanced tannins, integrated oak and an intense, chocolate finish
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How to order wine in a restaurant
I love sitting down in a restaurant and being handed a lovely leather bound folder full of interesting wines to choose from (my wife gets very bored!), but I know a lot of you find reataurant lists confusing, pricy and even a little scary. Well, it's time I tried to de-mystify the experience!
How to get the best out of a restaurant's list
Wine in restaurants can be very expensive (more of which later on), so unless you have a mega budget it can be tricky to pick a good value wine. There are a few simple rules, however.
1. House wine - try before you buy! House wine in restaurants can be a really good buy, but can also be a complete rip-off. It all depends upon how the establishment decides to price it. So ask to sample a bit before you order - most places will have a bottle open and should be happy to give you a small taste. This goes for any wine being served by the glass, but avoid tasting them all - the waiter will think you're really taking the mick!
2. 'Never buy the second cheapest wine on the list.' Not always the case, but many restaurants take advantage of the fact that people don't want to be seen ordering the house wine, so go for the next one up.
3. Avoid the big names. Wines such as Chablis, Pinot Grigio and Kiwi Sauvignon are sold in huge amounts in restaurants because people feel comfortable ordering them. As a result, there's a huge demand and the quality and value of the wines often doesn't come up to scratch
4. Look for the hidden gems. The best value wines on restaurant lists are almost always lesser-known wines from unfashionable areas of the wine world. For whites, try unusual Italians like Falanghina, Alsatian and German bottles or grapes from the new world you've never heard of This may feel like a lottery if you've never tried the wines before, but is almost always rewarded. It's often worth checking out vintages of generic wines too. I recently had a fantastic bottle of Bourgone Rouge in a restaurant for less than £20. I spotted that the vintage was 2002 and thought it worth a go (it's unusual for restaurants to have old wines at this level) with ample reward!
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 | Choosing wine for a group of friends
One of the problems I often have in a restaurant is choosing wine that will go well with the completely diverse meals that my friends have ordered. It's never easy to find a wine that goes well with a big steak and a delicate piece of fish! There's no easy way around this, but there are a couple of things you could try
1. Don't worry about it - just enjoy the food and the wine and relax!
2. Order different wines for starter/main courses, or for different people to drink
3. Order wines by the glass to match each course (this is a bit fiddly though)
4. Ask the sommelier's advice, speaking of which…..
Taking advantage of the sommelier
If the restaurant you're in has a sommelier, make sure you make use of them. Sommeliers taste wine even more often than we do, so should have an intimate knowledge of his wine list and of what is drinking well at the moment.
A good one won't just try and get more money out of you and will know where all the hidden gems I mentioned before are. They're also a fantastic guide to food matching as they'll have tasted the menu too. If the restaurant doesn't stretch to a sommelier, try asking your waiter/waitress or asking for the manager - they may not have quite such in-depth knowledge but they should at least have tasted the wines and be able to tell you what their favourite is!
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Prices in restaurants - the case for the defence
The price of wine in restaurants is an often controversial topic, with restauranteurs painted as greedy money-grabbers who put outrageous mark-ups on their wines, and it is true that there is a huge gulf between what you pay in a wine shop and a restaurant. The fact is though that restaurants wouldn't need to charge so much for the wine if we were prepared to pay a fair price for our food. As it is, many struggle to make any profit at all on the food we eat when we go out, so need to make their profit in other areas, and wine is the best way for them to do this.
Maybe it's better to think of wine as an ingredient in the restaurant experience, set your own budget and enjoy the wine as part of your evening's entertainment!
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