Enjoy the playground,
JA
By LETTIE TEAGUE
FIRST IMPRESSIONS matter the most. According to college recruiters, corporate executives and humorist Will Rogers (among others), "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." But what may be true about life is not necessarily true about wine. In fact, I'd argue it's the second bottle that counts most of all (unless it's a second bottle of the same wine—but more on that later).
The first wine prepares the palate—its responsibility is pure refreshment. It's more vinous entertainment than vinous enlightenment. Or as Michael Madrigale, sommelier of Boulud Sud and Bar Boulud, says: "The first bottle is the overture, the second is the crescendo." (That's the way sommeliers talk when their restaurants are located across from Lincoln Center.)
I almost always start with a white wine that doesn't have too much weight, in terms of fruit and oak, but has plenty of acidity. That's why a Chablis is so often my default choice. I might also opt for a minerally Chenin Blanc, or maybe a dry Riesling or Grüner Veltliner. Other common options include that Spanish mainstay, Albariño, as well as Soave, Verdicchio and Vermentino (Italy is particularly fertile ground for first-bottle whites).
If the first bottle is sparkling, it almost always has to be Champagne—most often a simple nonvintage, though occasionally a tête du cuvée (the prestige bottling of a Champagne house). I'll rarely start with a cheap sparkling wine, as it seems like too great a leap to the second, inevitably much better, bottle. It would be like risking the vinous equivalent of the bends, the decompression sickness of deep-sea divers who ascend too quickly from the bottom of the ocean.
When it comes to rosé, I'm of two minds. Many people I know dislike rosé—they think, as one friend of mine does, that rosé signals "cheap." (Never mind how fashionable rosé has become.) But I also find that if I order rosé first, I often want to keep drinking it—there's something so seductive about a good rosé that I've even committed the sin of ordering a second bottle of the same wine.
And it is considered a sin of sorts to order a second of the same. People who drink the same wine twice over the course of a meal are not only displaying a lack of imagination and missing a chance to try something new, they're also probably doing a disservice to the meal. After all, how likely is it that the wine will go as well with the second course as it did with the first?
I feel like there should be a warning posted on wine lists: "Ordering the first bottle twice may be injurious to your wine education." Alas, there are plenty of people guilty of this particular sin. At Tony's in Houston, which happens to have a really good wine list, the restaurant's general manager, Scott Sulma, told me that his customers ordered the same bottle "about 50%" of the time.
Has he noticed any particular patterns? "Cabernet drinkers tend to stay with the same Cabernet more often than anyone," Mr. Sulma said. The people who tended to be the most adventurous were adventurous with both their first and second wines, he noted.
And what about that second wine? What sort of qualities should it possess? According to Aldo Sohm, chef sommelier of Le Bernardin in New York, the second wine should build on or maintain the qualities of the first. Mr. Sohm believes that first and second bottles are equally important, though he noted that the second wine should "evolve" from the first in terms of both complexity and price. My friend Mark, a collector, believes much the same thing—although the last time I ate dinner at his house, he served two wines that I consider second-bottle types, 1998 Soldera Brunello normale and 1998 Soldera Brunello riserva. Both are rare, and both are great wines.
Not that a great second bottle always has to be a great wine. As Mr. Sohm noted, it can also be the proper evolution from the previous bottle. That was the case at a recent dinner with friends at I Trulli restaurant in New York. I asked one of my dining companions, a rosé-avoider, to choose the first bottle. "I like to start with a nice, crisp dry white. I think it should be something that people are comfortable with," my friend opined. "Maybe a Vermentino or a Soave."
Just then, I Trulli's owner and wine director, Nicola Marzovilla, appeared. He suggested starting with a light red. "Why does everyone start with white?" he asked. He had a section of his wine list, entitled Chillable Reds, for this very purpose. Alas, we were all fixed on a white. "Then try something different," said Mr. Marzovilla. "Order a Nosiola instead."
The Nosiola, a Vermentino-like white wine from Trentino, was delicious—light, bright and charming—and a perfect start to the meal. (It also came with a perfect first-bottle price tag of $39. That's another of my first-bottle rules: It should be inexpensive enough that the second bottle can cost a bit more.) We complimented Mr. Marzovilla on his choice.
Did many people order the same wine twice at his restaurant? I asked. Mr. Marzovilla looked horrified by the idea and practically threw up his hands. "Why do people do this?" he asked, addressing the world at large as much as our table. "You wouldn't have salad salad salad for your meal!"
Off Duty's Half Full
The Nosiola was so delicious and so drinkable, it soon disappeared—too soon, in fact, as our appetizers had just arrived but the bottle was empty. We had two courses to go—would a second bottle see us through, or would we need to plan for a third?
A third bottle presents an altogether different dilemma—and it puts the second bottle into a different category as well. The second bottle, instead of being the crescendo, becomes more of an intermezzo. My friends and I discussed our dilemma. What should the price and character of the second bottle be? Should it be another white or should it be a red? We thought it should be pricier than the first wine but not that much more expensive since we now had to budget for a possible third.
We pored over the wine list, weighing our options. There were attractive Barberas, Dolcettos and other light reds that would pair well with our pastas and provide a good transition to our next possible wine. Mr. Marzovilla reappeared and suggested a Tuscan wine made with grapes grown on his own estate, the 2010 Massoferrato Sangiovese. You'll love it, he said—and at $39, the price was certainly right for a wine that might not be the last of the night. We quickly agreed, and Mr. Marzovilla returned with the wine.
He poured us a taste and we all concurred it was delicious—marked by bright red fruit and a lively acidity. My friend the rosé-hater loved it so much that he declared it was a "Sangiovese by way of Morey-St. Denis," a reference to a famous wine village in Burgundy. As Mr. Marzovilla began filling our glasses, I noticed he wasn't pouring from a regular wine bottle but a liter—a third larger than a standard-size bottle. Our problem was solved. Sometimes a perfect second bottle isn't a matter of evolution, complexity, color or price—sometimes it's simply a matter of size.
See wine videos and more from Off Duty at youtube.com/wsj. Email Lettie at wine@wsj.com.
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