Chris on Wine
Holly Hill Inn has received the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence every year since opening in 2001 and was recently featured with an 11-page spread in its holiday issue!
We got to hang out with owner Chris Michel and general manager Jackie Anthony as they tasted wines for the annual Cassoulet dinner. So we jumped at the chance to ask Chris how he designs his award-winning wine lists.
I want our list to have a strong base. It should always include something familiar for everyone, from casual drinkers to big oenophiles! There’s representation from all the major well-known wine-producing regions of the world, with at least a couple examples typical of each – for example, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc from California, Oregon and Washington in the US; Champagne, Rhone, Loire, Burgundy and Bordeaux from France; Rioja from Spain; Piedmont, Veneto (Northern Italy) and Tuscany from Italy; as well as Australian Shiraz, Chilean Cabernet, Argentinian Malbec, German Riesling, Austrian Grüner Veltliner.
Then I fill in with more unusual wines from smaller regions, or different grapes to add interest to guests who want to explore the less familiar. Places like New Zealand, New York state, Sicily, Alsace for example.
Each Holly Hill Inn dinner menu features a wine flight. Has there always been one?
We’ve had a wine flight or wine pairing from the very beginning. Our menu has always been a multi-course prix fixe, and this lends itself nicely to offering different glasses of wine that explore how wine and food go together.
We keep it simple – a first course wine that will complement all of the first courses, and then a choice of red and or white to go with the entrees. For dessert, there’s often a choice of dessert wine or sipping bourbon. Our entrée red is usually suggested to accompany the heartier dishes, while the white is chosen for the lighter ones. But I always want both to be good with any of the entrées, so that, for example, a white wine drinker would be ok with drinking the white with a beef dish.
The flight wines are often chosen to represent something a little out of the box, so we feature lots of blends, or wines from unusual grapes or regions. The wine pairing also allows the guest to try unique wines without having to commit to a whole bottle.
Jackie told us that guests often comment on how many good values there are on the list. Chris says there’s a reason for that.
I look at a lot of factors when choosing wines, including price. I want wines that are affordable for everyone, so it's important to have a range of bottle and by-the-glass offerings that don't break the bank.
Most guests understand that a restaurant's overhead cost is higher than that of a liquor store, so the wine pricing will be higher than at retail.
This is why I like to feature wines that aren’t available at local retail outlets. There’s value in offering something special that you won't see at a big box store. And I like to seek out producers and regions that are less known, because that’s also where great values can be found.
And I take advantage of special deals or rebates from our wholesalers so I can pass those savings on to our guests at a lower bottle price. Although of course we always have several rare wines, or wines from big name producers, that are perfect for a splurge!
Holly Hill Inn has hosted a Cassoulet for over 20 years now. There are so many different meats and other ingredients that go into it. How did you and Jackie pick the wines for it?
Cassoulet is a great dish for wine because of its layers of flavors and textures. My approach is to feature wines from the region surrounding the birthplace of Cassoulet – the South of France.
Cassoulet likes a red wine that's not too big and tannic, but has earthy, smoky, and deep fruit notes – wines like Mourvedre, Syrah and Grenache.
We had a guest one year who lamented that we had no wine from the Minervois region, which he considered the perfect wine for Cassoulet. Needless to say, we have featured Minervois every year since!
White wines are a little harder, but all that unctuousness cries out for a higher acid wine with some backbone, like Sauvignon Blanc, white Grenache or Picpoul de Pinet. And of course we always start the meal with oysters and the classic sparkling wine of the region, Crémant de Limoux.
À Votre Santé!
Related Content
A Brief History of Cassoulet
Historically speaking, Holly Hill Inn was already late to the Cassoulet scene when it began serving one in 2001, considering that the dish itself dates back to 1355 and the Hundred Years’ War, specifically the siege of Castelnaudary, France.
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