You know who's pretentious about wine?

My wife and I had an exceptionally rare treat for us this past Saturday.  For the first time in SEVEN months, we had a night out, just the two of us, for dinner and a show.  Just like millions of other adults, but so foreign to babysitter-starved parents.  Needless to say, our dinner needed to be at a minimum "very" good to a more acceptable "I will kill you if you attempt to take away this plate" good.  After much consideration of the Philly highbrow restaurant scene, I settled on Amis.  With babysitter/savior Tara in charge of Alejandro (son), Kermit (the dog) and Opus (the cat - who is rarely seen by "outsiders") off we went.

I love Philadelphia.  The one thing that every Philadelphia area resident will tell you they HATE about Philadelphia is I-76, the Schuylkill Expressway.  The Schuylkill is a perpetually clogged 4 lane highway that connects Center City Philadelphia with its leafy suburbs to its west - where we reside.  With no traffic delays, we can leave our house and arrive in the center of Philadelphia in 25 minutes.  Of course a Saturday afternoon means you need to double that time.   We eventually arrive at our planned parking lot at Broad and Lombard - convenient to the restaurant and to the Kimmel Center. So far, so good - on time for our reservation.

Now, we sit down and peruse the menu.  This is decidedly "foodie" fair, with a pretty interesting and diverse menu.  But, this is a blog about vino, so my last comment about the food will be this:  "I will kill you if you try and take away this plate" good.

This restaurant, like most "fine dining" establishments, had a wine list that hovered around $10 per glass and $40 - $70 per bottle.  That frustrates and annoys me.  I understand the costs involved in glassware, storage and service of wine.  BUT, the markup creates a pricepoint that alienates so many people.  Why is restaurant wine double or triple the price of beer or a basic mixed drink? 

But wait a minute.....Amis offers house wine by the 500ml carafe for $20!!!!!!  Completely brought me back to travels in Europe where we ALWAYS order the house wine, it is always good, and it is always reasonably priced.   We ordered said "House Red Carafe", and as expected, it was wonderful.  Given the Italian theme of the restaurant, I'm thinking this was a basic and hearty Sangiovese or other non-"super" Tuscan.

American restauranteurs are responsible for the pretentiousness of the American wine scene.  Visionaries (well, true descendants of European restaurants) like the folks running Amis are working to recalibrate the public's expectation for restaurant wine.  By setting the price-based reality that wine is an item for the privileged, "regular" folks steer clear of experimenting with wine and their food.  Think about it, if you are out at a restaurant and order a $15 salmon entree, are you going to spend $10 to experiment on an unknown Sauvignon Blanc or *gasp* a Pinot Noir?  I can tell you that so many Americans will not, and will stick with a $3 beer instead.

There are plenty of available options for restaurants to offer solid, if non-spectacular, red and white wines for around $5 per glass.  I believe that if they started doing so, that some of the elitism and pretentiousness surrounding wine in the United States would begin to melt away.