The easiest wine list to write is the one nobody ever has to order from. Fill it with Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhône, a few special Australian Chardonnays and Pinots. Ignore allocations. Ignore margins. Ignore the minor inconvenience of other people’s tastes, or their bank balances. It will be magnificent.
But what happens when someone actually has to drink from it? Or when the list belongs to a venue with expectations already doing laps around the block? That was the challenge facing Ishan Kaplish, group sommelier at The Goodies Hospitality, the group behind Bar Copains, Bessie’s, Alma’s, and Vin-Cenzo’s.
“There was definitely pressure, but mostly the good kind,” laughs Kaplish, and much of it was self-imposed. “We didn't want La Buvette to feel like Bar Copains in a French outfit. It needed its own personality from Day One.”
So, if not with berets and Gauloises, where do you begin? Not, as it turns out, with the wine.
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Design the room, then the pour
It’s easy to imagine sommeliers assembling wine lists according to taste: a sophisticated fantasy football team of rare producers, obscure grapes, and tantalising bottles dusted off from prized cellars. In reality, for all the romance attached to the job, the first decisions are considerably more practical.
“For me, it starts with the concept before it starts with the wine,” says Kaplish. “Is it a restaurant or a bar? What do the owners want the place to really feel like? What does the food look like?”
Then come the practicalities: how many wines by the glass, where prices sit, how deep the cellar goes, and which regions or varieties get extra room.
At La Buvette, the food does a lot of the work. Oysters with Champagne granita, Comté custard gougères, escargots swimming in garlic butter, mussels, steak au poivre, trout vin jaune – the sort of deliciously rich and savoury French food that makes you want another glass before you’ve finished the first.
Naturally, the wine needs freshness to cut through that richness, but enough texture and depth to hold its own. But deciding what belongs on the list is only half the job. Then comes the small matter of actually getting hold of it.
Fantasy bottles, functioning list
Many sought-after producers arrive in allocations of only a few bottles, sometimes as few as three.
“I like the idea that you could come to La Buvette twice in the same month and still find something you haven’t seen before, but you can’t build the whole list around them,” he says.
“They’re the exciting bits that come and go, but you still need a really strong core underneath that people can actually order every night.” A Somm can fall in love with a wine, but three bottles don’t make a section.
Only then does Kaplish start “filling in the personality”, and that doesn’t just mean filling the list with French wine. It’s about finding wines that make sense not just with the food, but also with each other.
That’s why an Australian Aligoté can sit beside one from Burgundy, local Chardonnay beside Chablis, and Australian Gamay and Cabernet Franc alongside their French counterparts. “The conversation between those wines is actually part of the fun,” he says.
Scary grapes, safe choices
The trick to building any great wine list is not making it too intimidating in the first place. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, enduring fan favourites in Australia, get their own sections; prime real estate at the top of the list, cushioning wines that sound considerably more exotic: Romorantin, Jacquère, Savagnin, Petit Manseng, Melon de Bourgogne.
Seeing them all rubbing shoulders, you start to think, why not? Play it safe with the Chablis you already know and love, side-eyeing the Mondeuse next door. Suddenly, Mondeuse doesn’t seem quite so scary.
And once you've got people through the door, plant a few Easter eggs for those who know where to look. Kaplish points to Domaine du Collier, a Chenin from Saumur in the Loire. Fellow wine nerds will clock it immediately; for Kaplish, it’s the clearest expression of what he wants La Buvette to be: “serious, but not showy.”
The $80 bottle test
The real test is lower down the list: how do you make sure someone dropping $80 or $100 on a bottle still gets something just as good?
Aldo Sohm, infamous wine director at Le Bernardin, reckons you should be able to find an interesting, affordable bottle within five minutes. And for Kaplish, that’s the fun part: hunting down wines that “drink like $200” but can sit on the list at $85 or $95.
The trophy bottles have their place, but they can’t be the whole story. The person ordering near the bottom should feel as well looked after as the one browsing the grandest Burgundies.
But what if your customers are a little like me and want to have it all? One of La Buvette’s smartest moves is also one of its simplest: several of the pricier wines are available in both 75ml and 150ml pours. Meaning you’re left with little excuse to keep your sticky mitts off a 1er Cru.
“I love the 75ml pour because it removes a bit of the fear,” he says, and people have been genuinely receptive. It also means you can DIY a tasting flight: Champagne, white Burgundy and Northern Rhône Syrah, without signing up for three full glasses, and still leave room for one of the bar’s French digestifs (trust me, you’ll need it after all that butter).
The one to order
Regardless of size, one pairing Kaplish would prefer you didn’t miss: duck neck and pork sausage with Pierre Gonon Saint-Joseph 2022.
The sausage arrives with the duck’s head on the plate; the Gonon brings pepper, smoke and an almost bloody Syrah character. Rich, savoury and “pretty full-on in the best way,” according to Kaplish.
Which brings us back to the fantasy wine list. The imaginary version can be perfect; the real one has to be generous, useful, occasionally surprising and, most importantly, drunk.
Maybe that's what makes the latter harder to write. A great wine list isn't just a collection of bottles you want to drink; it’s a collection of bottles you want other people to drink too, preferably with something buttery and, if you're lucky, a duck's head on the side.