Uncorking bargains on NY wine lists

Nation's Restaurant News, March 8, 1993 by Mort Hochstein

New York City is the last place in the world where you'd expect to find great bargains on wine lists, wines at close to retail prices and, occasionally, better than retail.

Sure, there's a catch, but it won't deter the faithful. For grapenuts, the best buy in New York is the Century Cafe, a moderately priced restaurant in the Broadway-Times Square area. It's noisy and will not make anyone's 10 best list, playing to a young crowd after work and then the theatergoers. And after that there's nobody until the shows start emptying out around 10 o'clock.

During one empty hour after the pretheater crowd had gone its way, owner Frank Scotti surveyed a sea of white tablecloths and decided he had nothing to lose and might even fill some seats if he trimmed wine prices during the off-hours.

Rather than trim them, he applied a close shave, putting the list on sale for dinner patrons after 8 p.m. at what he describes as a dollar over cost. That creates some real buys, such as Kistler '91 Russian River Chardonnay at $17, Chappelett '86 Cabernet Sauvigon Reserve at $14, Pio Cesare '85 Barolo Riserva at $26 and '86 Smith Haut Lafitte Graves at $12.

The experiment has been going on for a short time, and Scotti says he's getting groups of six who order for two or three or more bottles of wine with their dinner.

"In the old days," Scotti says, "we used to give away the food and make our living on liquor. But the business has changed, so we give away the wine to sell the food. Doing this really doesn't cost us anything and can only do us good."

A few blocks up the street on the other side of Broadway, another innovation is satisfying both winelovers and foodies. It's happening at Becco's, run by Joseph Bastianich, son of Lidia and Felix Bastianich, proprietors of Felidia, one of New York's best upscale Italian restaurants. Felidia has a great Italian wine list, and Joseph studied well while working for his parents.

He's created a one-price wine list, 45 wines, primarily Italian, all at $15 each. On our pretheater visit, the place was jammed, with wine at almost every table. And why not with such usually high-priced wines as Lungarotti Rubesco, Val di Suga Rosso di Montalcino, Lungarotti Torre Di Giano and Anselmi Soavi Clasico, all at a decent price?

It's not difficult to make the buying decision here, and the concept applies also to the meal, which gives patrons a large, hot antipasto and unlimited servings of three types of pasta for $19. Becco's offers other dining options, some less expensive, most more costly, but the $19 package has caught on quickly with Becco's pretheater crowd.

Ithaca, home of Cornell University and its famed Hotel School, is a long way from Broadway, but revisionist George Vignaux is cutting wine prices there in an equally remarkable way. Vignaux took over a shuttered restaurant and decided that something drastic was needed to bring back the following it attracted when it was called Abby's. Vignaux renamed it Capers and drew up a wine list with bargains unlimited. "All wines that I personally drink and enjoy," Vignaux declares.

Like their counterparts in New York, Vignaux and his son Jeff know how to search the wholesale lists for good buys and share the wealth with their customers.

The Capers list, which comes with useful descriptors and numerical ratings from either Vignaux's son Jeff, wine authority Robert Parker or the Wine Spectator, offers '86 Taurino Salice Salentino Riserva at $11.75, a pair of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignons, '91 Domaine Rabat at $9.25 and '89 Santa Rita Riserva at $11.75, '88 Chateau Gloria at $19.75, which is about $7 over cost, and '89 Cambria Pinot Noir Julia's Vineyard at $17.50, one of the great Pinot Noirs from the Santa Barbara region.

Restaurant wine sales would climb if more operators shared Vignaux's philosophy: "I tell guests they're in a wine restaurant and advise them to pick the wine first and then food to go with it. I don't want to gouge people, and I want the wine to attract them, not turn them away."