Obviously the Loire is one that will remain that way, and Beaujolais as well. Prosecco would be one, because people have a different idea in mind when you talk about it-there’s so much bulk production that goes on there. What do you think are the most undervalued wines right now? It’s definitely the old-school pet-nat style of Prosecco. It’s probably the wine I drank the most of in the past year. Minerality and salinity are the biggest descriptors. It’s a frizzante naturalmente, it’s bottle with lees at 11 percent alcohol and I found it to be incredibly quaffable. One wine that I’ve really liked for the past year is a Prosecco from Casa Costa Piane. It’s not like there’s a particular trend-we’re just selling more of everything.Ĭan you think of a wine that particularly excited you in the past few months? People are buying more expensive wines and more quantity. Everything’s improved-the café, the wine store. We’re not seeing any lag in any one division of our company. And across the board, it’s never been busier. Did the increase have to do with more bottles on tables, or the occasional “trophy bottle?” You note that wine sales were up significantly this year, yet most of your top-selling wines clocked in at under $50/bottle. And then after the show, that’s usually when the somm gets killed-all of a sudden everybody is ordering bottles of wine. Sometimes at Absinthe, in the first turn, there’s not much to do-it’s just getting wine into a glass. We often see people in the wine industry on their way to the ballet and symphony. We sell a lot of premier cru Burgundy in half bottles whatever we can get our hands on. We have people who want to have a great wine experience in a shorter amount of time. Many pre-show people don’t want to have a long conversation with their servers. We’ll have tables ordering seven glasses of the same wine rather than buying a bottle and we’re fine with that. So we’ve learned to look for wines that have broad appeal and that we can stand behind. We’re so busy with performance crowds that by-the-glass wines dominate what we do. How does being right near the ballet and opera and symphony affect your wine program?

Absinthe sf