Okay, I want you to be well prepared when presented a restaurant wine list.

Here are a few more things you make want to look at a little carefully.

Is everyting spelled correctly?  (Believe me, I have seen PLENTY that have careless mispellings)

Is the presentation neat and clean?

Are the descriptions understandable and concise?

Do they have specials and features?

If you see obvious mistakes...think twice  about ordering!

Wine lists come in all forms, so how do you navigate? Ideally, menus and lists are paired and are easy to read.

A wine list can be written several ways....and I have listed a few to look out for.

1) The first is hopefully based on the food menu. 

2) Another is by deals in the market.  What is on sale...this affects the by the glass prices the most.

3) By a trusted wholesaler in the market.

4) Seasonally

5) Availability in the market.

Hopefully you do not see it based on price point/margin for the restaurant.   You want to make sure the restuarant wants to make your dining experience enjoyable and not all about their profits.

I would love to get an idea of what your favorite restaurant's wine list looks like....Jot a few notes down and shoot me an email....  [email protected].

I like a little mystery in my life.

That is why I have been asking myself the question, "Are all of us killing the mystery of wine?"  Are the massive amounts of information available confusing?  Now don't misunderstand, I believe that wine education and experience are important.  This show, with many of our guests, truly care about getting the word out to you and showing you how to have a great time with wine.  I just want to still have the excitement of trying a wine for the first time....it is the one element that you can't prepare for and still makes this experience tremendous for me.  What do you think?  Email me at [email protected].

This week, Wine Crush did a little experiment to find out how much ratings really affected your purchase. 

We used two friends of the Wine Crush- Gary Oikemus, who has been a previous guest host on the show and Laura Smailes, one of our producers here on the show.   Gary has a strong wine background and Laura has very little.  Neither of them knew what the show had in store for them.  We did a segment on white wines and one segment on red wines.  When they came into the studio, the had a glass already poured for them.  The only thing I told them was that it had been Parker rated.  I wanted to get their unbiased opinion on each of the wines.  The results are interesting, and they prove the point that I have tried to instill into all the listeners...."Drink what you like, NOT what you are told."  Ratings can be a good thing, but you have to watch the extent that it affects what you are trying and buying.  Let me know what you think of ratings and how you do (or don't) use them to help guide you in your purchases....   [email protected]