Wine lists can be incredibly daunting, whether they run to 10 pages and 200-bottle options, or are short but unintelligible, packed with niche-sounding grape varieties.
If you don’t consider yourself a wine aficionado, or just want something cold that won’t break the bank, bar jabbing a finger at the list and hoping for the best, the chances are you’ll plump for a glass of the house. But even this can be a fraught decision. After all, with a sommelier looming over you, isn’t it just a bit cheap to order the house? And doesn’t it reveal you to be a complete wine dunce?
"No one likes to look cheap, do they?” says Katie Fecak, wine educator and owner of Cellar Door Social. It’s a scenario that often leads people to order the second wine on the list instead. "But restaurants know people don’t want to look cheap, so the highest mark-up is normally on the second wine.”
So what else do you need to know when it comes to house wine?
Some restaurants and hotels work with vineyards to produce their own, specific, branded house wine that you can often buy to take home. "It is a very good idea,” says Rémi Cousin, head sommelier at Wild in Hertfordshire, who was head sommelier at Michel Roux Jnr’s two-Michelin starred restaurant, Le Gavroche. "However, if restaurants are doing house wine just for the fact of having house wine, and your staff are not trained, they don’t taste the wine, they don’t know what they’re talking about, if they don’t know the location, the grapes, then it doesn’t make sense. If it’s just to have a cheap wine without quality control, it is letting down the establishment.”
At joints that do have their own specific, branded house wines, check they have options across the board. "I believe we have to extend it to champagne, white, red, rosé, and sweet wine,” says Cousin. "I don’t think it is fair to do just white or just red and nothing else.”
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good value, or a good choice. "A house wine will normally offer the best value and affordability, because it usually is the cheapest option,” says Fecak. As a result, restaurants "know people are going to buy a lot of it, so it’s going to be a real crowd-pleaser. It’s normally from a lesser-known region as well, so you’re also getting a bit more value for money.”
"With house wine, usually you have a little bit more quantity available, which gives you a little bit more flexibility, better value for money, without compromising on the quality,” agrees Cousin. "If someone asks for house wine, I will go with the cheapest wine. We don’t have our own house wine at Wild, but our cheapest wine is already a very good quality.”
"House wine can feel like a bit of a gamble, but actually, teams at boutique, independent restaurants would have tried many, many wines to find their favourite,” says Fecak. "That’s their pride, they’re really putting themselves on show with their house wine.”
Often, "it will be a hidden gem. Sommeliers are complete wine nerds, and that’s basically their neck on the line. They’ve chosen the one that’s going to make the restaurant the most money,” she says, explaining that there's a significant markup on wine.
"If all it says is ‘house red’ or ‘house white’, I would run a mile,” says Fecak. "You want it really to include at least the grape variety and the vintage, that’s a sign that the restaurant actually cares about what they’re putting on their menu, and it’s not the bottom-of-the-barrel wine.”
House wine, because it’s such a crowd pleaser, "usually has the highest turnover, more people are ordering it, so you’re going to be getting a fresher glass,” notes Fecak. "If you’re ordering a more expensive glass, that bottle could have been open for a few days already at the back of the fridge. [With house] you’re less likely to be drinking an oxidised glass that was opened last Tuesday.”
For foodies, "the disadvantage is, the house wine won’t be significantly paired to the meal you’ve chosen,” says Fecak, who adds that restaurants, "normally select a house wine for a wide range of palates and a broad spectrum of what’s on the menu”.
"I have no shame in ordering the house,” says Fecak, but Cousin hedges his bets slightly… "It all depends. That’s the problem with a sommelier, we always say it depends! When I started at Le Gavroche, the house champagne was A.R. Lenoble, which I know, and when I saw that, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a very good quality’. So, of course, I tasted straightaway.”
Usually though, he’ll consider the mood of the meal. If it’s sharing plates with friends, he’ll pick the wine based on what will go with the dishes selected; if he’s out for dinner or lunch and he’s picked the place, he’ll order the best-value wine (whatever the price) and be "guided by that”.
"The sommelier is there to help you,” says Fecak. "They will point you in the right direction based on your price point.”
"You’ll obviously get a more interesting wine if you ordered something that isn’t the house wine,” she adds. "[But] if you’re there just to have an easy drinking, easy flowing, nice evening, go for the house.” – dpa
