Sunday, May 04, 2008
Food, "Behind the Bar"
A testament to tasting
Restaurateur George Tice dishes on Atlanta’s lack of wine knowledge and how he’s trying to change that—one sip at a time
CREDIT:Spark St. Jude
George Tice, owner of Toulouse and Portofino Bistro
By Hope S. Philbrick
George Tice has attended at least one wine tasting a week since 1959, so it’s no surprise that wine is a key component of the dining experience at his Toulouse and Portofino Bistro restaurants. The Sunday Paper recently talked with Tice to learn more about his approach to wine.
Q How is wine service handled at your restaurants?
A I’m convinced the only way to learn about wine is by tasting. I’m amazed by all these classes that ask you to memorize the 150 varietals grown in Italy, or when the sun hits the grapes on a specific slope, or some other dumb thing. The key to learning about wine is: What do you like? It’s a personal thing.
If a customer is looking for wine, and most are, what we do is ask, “Do you know what varietal you’d like to drink?” We then bring them three tastes, and they pick the one they like. If they don’t find one they like, we’ll bring three more. We’re looking for them to say, “Oh, I really like this one!” We can’t guess in advance. Most Atlanta customers don’t know much about wine, and the average server in Atlanta knows virtually nothing about wine. A customer may say, “I want a dry chardonnay,” but when we bring them three tastes, they almost always pick the one that’s least dry. They don’t know what these words mean, but they do know what they like and our goal is to help them find what they like.
People don’t really discover wines, they discover prices or, if they’re wandering through hundreds of wines available, they’ll pick based on a pretty label. The person who really wants to explore wines is going to tastings. How else can you explore wine?
We have wine tastings once or twice a month with an instructor. We’ll feature 15 wines in five flights. This has been going on since we opened 15 years ago, and for the past eight years, Michael Gallant has been leading them—he’s an extremely savvy wine guy. He’s not there to teach; he’s there to help people identify what they’re experiencing—everyone will have a different question or approach to tasting wine. We have wine dinners, but only when I can have the person here whose name is on the bottle—people like to meet the person behind the winemaking process and aren’t there to meet the local sales rep.
What’s your food and wine pairing philosophy?
I don’t really think there is a food and wine pairing philosophy. I rarely match wine with an entrée. Wine doesn’t go with salmon or steak; it goes with the most intensive taste on the plate. That’s what you have to match, and, in most cases, it’s not the salmon but the balsamic reduction sauce on the salmon. The dominant taste is rarely the entrée.
How do you choose the wines for your wine lists?
It’s customer-driven. We want to be the best wine list in town.
At Toulouse, what I do is taste 200 bottles a month and bring about 40 or so of those to the wine committee—which is made up of people who are extremely knowledgeable about wine, as well as people who just drink wine and want to learn more. Wines are tasted blind by flight. We’re not trying to rank them; I’m looking for consensus. If I can get 13 to 14 people at a table liking a wine, then I’ve got a wine that has a broad base of appeal, and that’s what I’m looking for. I want what people can sit down at a restaurant and enjoy.
What we do at Portofino is my partner and I taste wines and add them to the list. If people like it and keep asking for it, it stays on the list. If not, it falls off. SP
To learn more about Toulouse( 2293 Peachtree Road NE, Suite B), call 404-351-9533 or visit www.toulouserestaurant.com. To learn more about Portofino Bistro (3199 Paces Ferry Road), call 404-231-1136 or visit www.portofinobistro.com.