Press Articles
WINE NOT? RESTAURANTS
SERVE IT UP BY HALF-GLASS
By Candy
Sagon
Article that
appeared in The Washington Post.
Reproduced with kind permission.
WASHINGTON – Is the glass
half-full? Yes, it is – and
that’s a good thing when it
comes to wines by the glass at several young,
energetic restaurants in the Washington
area.
Instead of offering the typical choice of a
glass of wine or a bottle, these wine-serious
places think customers should be able to order
an even smaller serving (for a commensurately
smaller price).
The half-glass, or taste, as some
restaurants call it, is 2 1/2 to three ounces
of wine – just enough to sip
with an appetizer course and then, perhaps,
order another half-glass of a different wine to
enjoy with an entree.
“Everyone loves having
another option. It lets them try things
they’ve never
had,†said Danny Boylen, general
manager of Notti Bianche, which opened in May
near the Kennedy Center and offers 18 wines by
the half-glass.
At 6-month-old Sonoma on Capitol Hill,
servers will even offer customers a splash of
wine to sample if they’re
having trouble deciding among the 15 whites and
25 reds offered by the half-glass.
It’s an even tougher
decision at Tallula in Arlington, Va., where
all 76 wines offered by the glass are also
available by the half-glass, or at Grapeseed in
Bethesda, Md., which boasts 95 half-glass
choices.
Dino, an Italian restaurant and wine bar
that opened in July, takes another tack. Nine
reds and seven whites are offered in two sizes:
a 3-ounce pour called an ombra and an 8-ounce
carafe called a quartin, which can easily be
shared by two people.
“This is the traditional
way they do it at the wine bars in
Italy,†said service director
Justin Guthrie. The response from customers, he
adds, “has been fantastic.
We change our wines by the glass pretty
frequently, so this is an opportunity to try a
lot of things in quantities you
wouldn’t normally
get.â€
People also like being able to taste an
expensive wine without having to spring for an
entire bottle, said Jeff Heineman,
Grapeseed’s chef-owner. They
might balk at spending $70 on a bottle of wine
they’ve never tried, but
they’re willing to spend
$17.50 for a glass or $8.75 for a taste.
“Customers really embrace
the tasting thing,†he says.
“It just works to let them
try more kinds of wine.â€
|
