A Modest Proposal:
I say: Three Michelin Stars for the wine list of Bern’s Steak House in Tampa
In the rarified sphere of fine dining, the most exalted review designation a restaurant may earn is the Michelin Guide rating of three stars. In order to achieve this classification, a restaurant spares no expense, nor overlooks any detail in order to create a near perfect dining experience.
The official definition of the Michelin three star award is as follows: “Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey.” The “worth a special journey” reference is rooted in the era (the 1920’s) when the Michelin Guide was a resource to help drivers maintain their cars, find decent lodging and eat well while touring.
Over the years the three star designation has morphed into a peerless set of standards that foster obsessive behavior for chefs, owners and patrons. It has even been blamed for a suicide after a French chef lost his third star.
While there are no shortages of Restaurant publications and reviews, wine lovers interested in ranking restaurant wine lists have little to choose from. Wine Spectator magazine has its three tiers of awards for restaurant wine programs. Their top award (three wine glasses) is called the “Grand Award” and is currently bestowed on 73 restaurants in 14 countries and 16 States.
No offense to Wine Spectator, but the Grand Award seems a bit watered down. For example, 21 Cub with 1,200 selections, Daniel with 1,800 and Del Posto with 2,100 selections share the same Grand Award status as Crabtree’s Kittle House Inn with 6,200 selections, Veritas with 3,600, Cru with 4,100 and Bern’s Steak House with 7,000. In addition, there is little guidance in terms of value priced selections.
Over the last few years, I have experienced much frustration navigating wine lists from restaurants such as Per Se, Del Posto and Daniel in terms of value and affordability. I believe that great restaurant lists should be rich in wines priced at $40.00 to $200.00. And when I say rich, I mean that if a list has over a thousand selections, hundreds should be in this price range.
In my view, there is only one restaurant whose wine list fulfills the Michelin Three Star definition as “worthy of a special journey “and that is Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, Florida.
I am blessed to have three wonderful children in my life, two nieces and a nephew. This is a double blessing in that they live in St. Petersburg, Florida across the bay from Tampa. Every January, I head down to play with them and then, after they are tucked into bed, I play in my favorite playground: Bern’s.
This year’s experience had a special element to it. In one of life’s odd coincidences, there is a Stephen Fox who is a restaurant fine wine specialist for Southern Wine & Spirits in Florida. I held a similar position with Southern Wine & Spirits in New York. We frequently received wrongly addressed e-mails necessitating some phone conversations. When I told him of my love for Bern’s wine list, he floored me with the news that Bern’s was his account! He then made my reservation and gave me the great honor of meeting and being guided by their Sommelier Brad Dixon.
With over 7,000 wines in a cellar of over 700,000 bottles, wine lovers feel as if they died and gone to heaven. And then there are the prices! German Rieslings from 1983 for $40.00 to $90.00. Bordeaux from the stellar 1961 vintage for less than $250.00… and hundreds of well-aged wines for less than $200.00
So here is, with Brad’s generous assistance, my recent dent into their inventory:
1959 Kanzemer Altenberg Feinste Auslese, Riesling (Mosel) @ $140.00
The cellars at Bern’s are so chilled that this 50-year-old white wine had a near perfect fill, and very little degree of golden color. It was a stunningly rich, lively wine. Vague stone and mineral notes with a loss of the sugar necessary for an Auslese designation – we lose hair, Riesling loses sugar. Apple and melon flavors as well. -- An unforgettable bottle.
Followed by:
1983 Chambolle-Musigny Amoureuses, Domaine Comte Georges de Vogue @ $169.00
This premier cru vineyard, which many Burgundy lovers feel should be a Grand Cru site, is very difficult to find in general. But at Bern’s there are numerous selections from various years and producers, many for less than $200.00. (Last year at Bern’s I enjoyed a 2000 from Drouhin for $140.00.) 1983 was a difficult vintage and the wine took a long time to open up. While I of course know De Vogue as one of Burgundy’s greatest producers, Brad informed me that the winemaker for this vintage was Georges Roumier, one of the most revered names in the history of Burgundy. By the time it peaked, it was on to our last wine:
1961 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape, Pierre Ponnelle @ $199.00
If wine lovers are lucky, every once in a great while you get these moments when your “notes” read like: “Oh my God – what a great wine.” And you just can’t get technical enough to elaborate… the emotional impact is too inward to even think in terms of wine geek verbiage. This was such a wine. One of the great vintages for Chateauneuf, but only the cold cellars of Bern’s could preserve this historic quality level. (Robert Parker wrote over 10 years ago that this vintage was over the hill.)
Pierre Ponnelle is a 100 plus year old Burgundy producer / negociant – and because of this, as Brad informed me, the winemaker was not a Rhone producer, he was no other than Christophe Roumier’s grandfather and the above referenced Georges Roumier’s father.
Had there been more of us, we would have ordered a Christophe Roumier Burgundy just to complete the generational theme, but we were a bit under the influence and there were still dessert wines by the glass awaiting us.
To all the passionate wine lovers out there: Take my advice and get thee to Bern’s and create your own special wine memory.
It is truly worth a special journey.
