Wine & Spirits List - Riviera Wine 2020-2021

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RIVIERA WINE T HE IDEAL WINE LIST
WINE MENU
The main objective of a wine menu is to
be inviting, clear and informative! There
are many ways of organising a list but I
would recommend dividing the list into
five headings in the following order:
sparkling, white wines, Rosé wines,
red wines and sweet wines. If you have
a slightly longer list you could group
your wines under subheadings for each
country they are from e.g. French wines,
Italian wines. In terms of the details of
the wine, it is very important to state the
wine name, the vintage, the producer
and the area it is from. If you simply state
Brunello di Montalcino with no producer
name, then this tells your guest you have
taken no care in the selection of wines.
Additional information that can help
are listing the grape varieties and even
writing short tasting notes.
STORAGE AND STOCK
When it comes to yachts, we understand
that storage is an issue and it is
sometimes not possible to store a lot of
wine. Given the short amount of space,
your selection of wines is crucial and you
should ensure you do not stock too much
of the same wine and that all the wine you
stock is ready for drinking now. Left over
bottles from past owners and charter
guests, can create a vast selection of
wines and take up your valuable storage
space. Having only one or two bottles of
wine can make it difficult to work with
and use. If you come across this problem
then you could organise a wine tasting
dinner. You could work with the chef to
design a menu of smaller dishes along
with a matching wine for each course.
Food and wine matching guidelines can
be found in this booklet. Another idea to
get rid of only a few bottles of wine is to
have a pre-dinner wine tasting.
FOOD AND PAIRING
Food and wine pairing is something to
be considered when creating a wine list.
If the list is for a charter boat then it can
be difficult to foresee food preferences
and the wine list should be quite classic
with many different options. However,
if you know that the guests or owners
enjoys Asian inspired food, then it would
be a good idea to have wine options that
complement this. Spicy and aromatic
food matches well with off-dry fruity
wines such as Gewürztraminer and Pinot
Gris from Alsace.
Often dessert wine is a category that
gets omitted from a yacht wine list
which is a shame as it can offer a lot of
pleasure. With many dinners, greater
attention is paid to the starter and main
course and the wine for dessert tends to
be whatever is left over from the main
course. If you think about it, a lemon
cake and full-bodied red is far from an
enjoyable combination. Popular dessert
wines include Sauternes from Bordeaux
and Tokaji from Hungary which are both
intensely sweet yet fresh and elegant.
Moscati d’Asti is a great sparkling dessert
wine which can be a fabulous match with
fruit desserts.