WINE SNOBS AND DINNER PRICES

A blogger (here) mentioned an extreme episode of wine snobbery that she experienced while eating at L’Etoile.

It breaks my heart when that happens! (Not literally, but you get the point – I so dislike wine snobbery.) It is no secret to those who know me that I do like wine. I especially like it when it is made by a small family-run operation, from grapes grown on small strips of land. Why? Because while others are imagining pears, lemons, minerals, woodsiness, etc on the palate while sipping wine, I am imagining the hard work, the care, the love that went into the making of it. You cannot be a small producer and not love your work because it is so very tough and extremely unpredictable in its result. One grower told me that he was happy that he had little kids, otherwise for sure he would have committed suicide in years when everything in wine-making failed him.

Wines should never break anyone’s budget. There are so many good inexpensive wines out there! Less than $10 per bottle, yes, of course – so many interesting, enjoyable bottles that complement meals and can be had for small prices. The ones that top $30 per bottle are already over the top – to be enjoyed by those who truly do not know where to lay down their cash. I always think that we in this country are such impatient fools, spending huge sums on wines that have been aged because we are used to instant gratification. Elsewhere, if people truly love the complexity of older, more expensive wines, they buy them young (and cheap) and put them away for a requisite number of years, to be enjoyed later.

Restaurant wines drive me insane: the mark up is two to three times the cost of the wine. Again, this is so unique to our way of dining. Elsewhere, the basic table wine is often the price of bottled water. And no waiter should ever, EVER even bat an eye if you ask for an inexpensive ‘house wine.’ Of course, this category of wine does not exist at l’Etoile… Sigh… L’Etoile’s prices all around are steep. If it’s any consolation, the restaurant doesn’t get fat on its dinner service. The cost of ingredients and the labor-intensive work makes each dish prohibitively pricey to prepare. L’Etoile makes up deficits incurred during slow days by selling croissants at the Market Café!