"21" WINE SALUTE

How to revive a venerable restaurant's flagging wine list

JOEL L. FLEISHMAN

Wine

The venerable "21" Club, which reopens this month after a brief period of restoration, has been around for more than half a century. In recent years a decline in the quality of the food and "troubles" in front of the house caused it to lose many of its highvisibility businessmen and media moguls to the Four Seasons (their wives fled to Le Cirque), but "21" is still old high society, old Wall Street, old corporate boardroom—a place where devotees are made to feel at home. The habitues have continued to be habitues because they are recognized, received warmly, and given both their regular table and their regular waiter.

It was the restaurant's status as an institution that attracted the attention of Marshall Cogan, an inveterate acquirer of undervalued properties. Two years ago he bought "21" from the heirs of the longtime owners, and probably, as they say, paid more for it than it was worth. But like all those who succeed at the buying and selling of companies— his General Felt is now the twenty-ninth-largest privately held corporation in the U.S.—Cogan has a talent for identifying things that are worth more than they seem. What the restaurant is worth depends entirely on who owns it and how it is run, and Cogan has placed his bets with the new management team of Ken Aretsky and chef Anne Rosenzweig, who made such a success of Arcadia, with its nouvelle American food.

What interests me about "21" is its wine cellar—70,000 bottles. So when Cogan asked me to help shape his new wine list, I was fascinated. Since I do not intend to write about the restaurant in the future, there seems to be no conflict of interest, and perhaps, in fact, readers of this column would like to know what I recommended.

The wine selection at "21" starts with some older Bordeaux, as well as several older Burgundies of slightly lesser quality, that would be the envy of any restaurateur in the world. They're not moving very fast, because, like similar wines in other restaurants, they are priced perversely. The great restaurants of France and England price such wines at some multiple of their original cost, while virtually all U.S. restaurants fix the rate at some multiple of current market value. A bottle of 1975 Chateau Pichon Lalande, for instance, purchased by "21" approximately ten years ago at a cost of $13 per bottle, had a price on the wine list of $85 a bottle, approximately a third more than one would have to pay for the same wine in a retail store today, but six and a half times the original cost. While $85 for a bottle of wine may still be manageable to some, when one reaches the stratosphere of die first growths, wines are available only to those with unlimited and unexamined expense accounts. Chateau Lafite from 1970 that was bought for $16.67 a bottle is priced at $350. This is why the older Bordeaux and Burgundies don't move, and why "21" has an inventory of more than a million dollars' worth of older wines.

My advice to Cogan was to slash prices to a reasonable multiple of original cost—say, three times. Some of the older wines, such as many Burgundies from the 1970s, are beginning to lose their vigor and should be priced at an even lower multiple, or else sold at auction or, as many great restaurants do, in a private sale to restaurant patrons.

Aside from the older French reds, the "21" list, for a restaurant with its pretensions, is terribly weak. A few of its California wines are of the highest quality, but most are not. They are Woolworth wines in Tiffany display cabinets. Surely "21" can afford to boast a range of California varietals to match those of Windows on the World, Jams, the Four Seasons, Lavin's, Le Cirque, and the Quilted Giraffe. Most American wine lists are predominantly French, Californian, Italian, or German, or a combination thereof. Yet Australia today offers some of the best wines available anywhere, and at quite low prices. So do Spain and Chile. Even the outlying wine-producing areas of the United States—e.g., New York, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Texas—are now making wines that deserve the opportunity to be tasted by both the savants and the curious. A wine list cannot be called truly great unless it offers emerging wines too.

As a general rule, wine lists do not include any information about what the wines ordered are like. All one sees are the name, the maker and/or shipper, and the vintage. In those few restaurants which do offer a description, what they say is invariably the work of wineries or wholesalers touting their own wines. The most radical suggestion I made to "21" was that its list include a section recommending wines regarded as ready to drink now, and our comments on them. This would be of immense help to most people.

Finally, I urged "21" to install Cruvinets, or similar devices for keeping open bottles of wine fresh. Those who care, or wish to learn, about wine should not have to choose between a glass of house wine and a full bottle of something better. Besides, even stuffy New York moguls need to recognize that not everything trendy is a bad thing.

No one is obliged to take all my advice, but I can't help but think we® would be better off if someone did. | (Some of my suggestions have already £ been implemented.