The New Wine List, Friendlier and More Succinct

The wine list at Smithereens, a new seafood restaurant in the East Village, is shocking to say the least.

Of its 62 selections, more than half, 32, are rieslings. Twenty-nine more are various other whites. There’s only one red wine, a pinot noir from Shelter Winery in the Baden region of Germany.

Some may criticize a list like that as self-indulgent, but I love it. I rarely see a wine list with such attitude or character. The wine director, Nikita Malhotra, has nothing against red wines. Sometime this spring, in fact, she’s planning to reverse the dynamic by composing a list showcasing grenache wines from sandy soils. That list, she said, will be all red wines, with one white.

“With a short list you can do things like that,” she said. “I have the freedom to change it up.”

Since restaurant dining rooms began reopening after the pandemic shutdowns, I’ve noticed more and more relatively short wine lists, some as low as 30 bottles, others with as many as 300 (though presented in an easily digestible format).

Not all are as provocative as the Smithereens list, but they are incisive, chosen to convey a point of view and, as good lists ought to do, shape the character of the restaurant.

Ms. Malhotra said that short lists gave her an opportunity to entice people to try new things.

“People are always interested in narrative, and these are producers I’ve talked to, they’ve fed me in their homes,” she said. “When you have a big list you’re going to gravitate to something you know.”

I thought early on that these concise lists were a direct result of the pandemic. Many restaurants that were forced to shut down in 2020 sold off part or all their wine inventories to survive.

When they reopened, I imagined, restaurants were keeping their lists lean because of shaky restaurant economics, even though sales of alcoholic beverages contribute significantly to their bottom lines. Many were reluctant to invest in dedicated wine professionals or in deep stores of wine because they had other problems. The labor market was tight, and who knew if the public would flock back to restaurants?

But as the pandemic receded, I’ve noticed more short, smart lists. Other reasons have emerged. Most important, the public is spending less on wine as inflation has raised prices, and many in the industry believe fewer young people are drinking wine.

In response, restaurants are trying to make wine lists less intimidating and more welcoming, keeping them concise so that people don’t feel overwhelmed by the options.

Grant Reynolds, the proprietor of Parcelle wine bar in Chinatown and Parcelle restaurant in the West Village, also oversees the wine lists at several other restaurants, including Tolo in Chinatown and Mitsuru in the Village. The wine lists differ depending on the food and clientele, but each follows a similar pattern: Guests receive a list of 30 or so bottles with a note at the bottom that a much wider selection is available if they are interested.

“We find it to be a nice way to be welcoming,” he said. “People can get our point of view without taking time filtering through a significant wine list.”

It’s also a helpful way for the restaurants to survive without dedicated sommeliers. “It’s impossible for our servers to know every wine on a massive list,” he said, “but whatever’s on the 30-bottle list, everybody’s got to be knowledgeable about it.”

Dunsmoor, a Southern-inspired restaurant in Los Angeles where everything is cooked over a wood fire, has a deep cellar of wine, but restricts its list to 60 or 70 bottles at a time.

“We wanted the wine list to be accessible,” said Rachael Davis, wine manager for Whole Cluster Hospitality, Dunsmoor’s restaurant group. “We didn’t want to have a big, intimidating book, just short and concise, and we change it every day.”

In an effort to democratize the wine selection process, the list is on the back of the menu so that everybody receives a copy, and each drinking person at a table receives a glass for the ritual of tasting and approving a bottle.

Price is also a factor in how Ms. Davis composes a list.

“We wanted to have a lot of bottles under $100,” Ms. Davis said. “It’s so rare to see two-digit numbers these days. We integrate some more expensive bottles as well.”

At Borgo, which opened in the fall on East 27th Street, the wine director Lee Campbell put together an ever-changing, easy-to-navigate list that generally offers 150 to 200 bottles. It’s primarily Italian but with a significant French section, including plenty of Burgundy, and a small North American section, including a wine from Niagara in Ontario, Canada, and a few bottles from Virginia.

“Borgo is Italian leaning, but we want to be a New York restaurant,” Ms. Campbell said. “We’re drawing inspiration from Italy, but this is New York, one of the most dynamic wine import markets in the world.”

The list also reflects some of her personal preferences — “I love Burgundy, and I’m part-owner of a Virginia winery,” she said.

But Ms. Campbell, who has been working in wine and restaurants since the 1990s, recognizes that her Manhattan clientele is perhaps less adventurous than the Brooklyn customers for whom she put together lists of often esoteric natural wines, perhaps most infamously at Reynard, a now-closed restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

“We’re bringing a lot of demographics together at Borgo,” she said. “I’ve never been one to want to make everybody happy, but here you can find things that are familiar and others that are iconoclastic and quirky. Everything doesn’t have to be an adventure.”

A small list gives her the opportunity to tweak it and change on the fly.

“We’re still deciding who we are and what we want to be,” she said of the restaurant. “A small cellar is much more nimble.”

Leon’s, a new Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village, also offers around 300 bottles, although the list, densely packed on four easily digestible pages, showcasing wines from Italy and the French Mediterranean, seems shorter. Natalie Johnson, the proprietor with her husband, the chef Nick Anderer, said she wants the list to be friendly and exciting.

“I’m trying to get people engaged with wine in a more natural way,” she said. “It’s harder and harder to sell wine. Cocktail programs have exploded, martinis in particular. It’s great, but we’re always trying to get people to try wine.”

One method for enticing drinkers is to offer 18 wines by quartino, flasks containing about a third of a bottle at reasonable prices, like a Praesidium Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, an excellent dark rosé, for $22.

“Quartinos are meant to get them excited about wine,” she said. “Someone who might be intimidated by the wine list can be tempted to crack open the quartino list.”

Nonetheless, Ms. Johnson does not intend to keep the list short. She calls the opening list the skeleton of its eventual look, and envisions fleshing it out over time to around 1,000 bottles.

“I’m excited to see it grow,” she said.

Not every restaurant has gone the shorter route. Informal temples of wine like Chambers in TriBeCa and the Four Horseman in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, have not trimmed their selections, while acclaimed, Michelin-starred restaurants like the Modern and Le Bernardin continue to offer thick books of expensive wines.

I love those sorts of wine bibles, even if the pleasures are often vicarious. But I am a big fan of pithy, succinct lists, especially if they display a coherent vision. Every list does not need to offer something in every style or bottles from all parts of the globe. Nor must they offer 27 different Champagnes or Barolos. A few well-chosen bottles work wonders.

A few years back, after Cafe Mutton, opened in Hudson, N.Y., serving primarily brunch, it offered a wine list with all of three bottles. I thought that list was perfect, both because they were so well chosen and because that was the kind of singular, idiosyncratic place Cafe Mutton is.

It all made sense. Mutton was small with barely any storage, and the menu changed daily. So did the wine list, which is now up to eight or nine bottles.