Wine Wisdom: Navigating ITALIAN Restaurant WINE LISTS Like a Pro

John Jackson, DipWSET a/k/a Attorney Somm reviews the Carbone wine list and identifies the wines that he would order there and at similar Italian Restaurants: (1) off the by-the-glass list for sparkling wines, white wines and red wines; (2) by the bottle; and (3) if you have an unlimited budget. Throughout the video, Attorney Somm offers secrets and expert wine tips that have helped him ensure smooth and rewarding dinners at Italian restaurants!

MORE ATTORNEY SOMM WINE LIST VIDEOS:
Navigating a Steak House Wine List: https://youtu.be/a_mA7lyHLDw
French Laundry Wine List Ordering Strategy: https://youtu.be/bEFAssx7rAc
Per Se Wine List Ordering Strategy: https://youtu.be/eJlKuulG26E

ITALIAN WINE VIDEOS:
Barolo wine region overview and top producers: https://youtu.be/YHc11Zxc9HQ
Super Tuscan wines: https://youtu.be/M50a0tNuRBc
Brunello overview and top producers: https://youtu.be/2hsBf1Wg-p0
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo overview: https://youtu.be/hE3mCTrlPNM
Intriguing Italian white wines: https://youtu.be/TXWWBUncqHw
Chianti Classico overview and 3 top producers: https://youtu.be/-r7982rPVdw
2019 Brunello: https://youtu.be/JX_JjfRa2zY

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a wine list review so in this video I’m going to be reviewing a wine list from a top Italian restaurant and going through and discussing some of the selections that I would make if I was dining there I’m going to start out by going through

White wines and sparkling wines both by the glass and by the bottle I’ll then do the same for red wines and then we’re going to have some fun at the end and I’m going to discuss some of the bottles that I would consider ordering if money

Were no object and we could spend an unlimited amount on wine this is an area in which I have a lot of experience as an attorney I’ve gone to countless business dinners over the years and I’m almost always the person who’s in charge of ordering wine

For those meals and unless there’s a big celebration due to a trial Victory or the like it’s necessary for me to make sure that my choices are reasonable so that the dinner expense will be approved of course this video will be useful for those interested in Italian

Wines regardless of whether or not you eat at this particular restaurant or not certainly all the wines that I’ll be discussing are wines that I enjoy from producers that I respect in addition whether you’re eating at this particular restaurant or another restaurant I’m going to go through some of my thought

Methodology and my approach to Italian wine lists and these are suggestions and tips that will hopefully be useful for you at every Italian restaurant for purposes of this exercise I’ll be using the wine list from Carbone Carbone is a famous Italian re restur that has locations in New York Miami Las Vegas

Hong Kong and my hometown of Dallas we’re going to start off with sparkling wine by the glass and unfortunately there’s only one selection of Italian sparkling wine by the glass on the Carbone list you’ll see that it’s the bisol prco which sells for $14 while I’m not normally a fan of prco

Bis is definitely one of my favorite prco producers and voba den is definitely one of the best regions for prco this is an area that’s a UNESCO world heritage site that’s located between the dolomites and Venice Bol is currently run by John Luca Bol who’s the 21st generation they do an excellent job

And this is an enjoyable prco in my opinion the only problem is the mara this one sells for $14 a glass and you can get the bottle in many instances for less than that even in the United States for that reason rather than just settling for this by the glass option

I’m going to look ahead a little bit and see what they have in terms of Italian sparkling wine by the bottle depending on what they have by the bottle and how many people are in your group you can oftentimes buy a bottle and then divide that up amongst your group and the price

Per glass ends up being much less or at least more cost effective than if you just purchase by the glass options and sure enough here we see the non-vintage kadalas franchia corta selling for $75 per bottle this will give you five glasses for about 15 bucks a glass and

This is an excellent option in my view francho Corda is a pretty big step up from prco even from excellent expressions of prco this Kad Basco for example sells for around $38 per bottle in the United States so this is only about a double and one of the lower

Markups that you’ll find anywhere on this list franchia Corda is made in the traditional method which is the meth me that they use to make champagne of course the fruit is not from Champagne but nevertheless there are some excellent expressions of franchia corta that I enjoy in Kad alasco is certainly

One of the top producers of franchia corta and for those of you who believe action speak louder than words you’ll be pleased to know that the two to three times that I’ve dined at Carbone I’ve started off with this very bottle of calbas franch CA Carbone has two different Italian

White wines by the glass they have a pinio for $16 or a Graco DFO for $18 between these two choices I’m a huge fan of the F to San Gregorio Greco to tufo tuo is an area in compa that has soils that are particularly well suited to the production of high quality Graco

This is a grape that has very high acidity and the resulting wines are extremely food friendly they also tend to have a minerality or a wet stone descriptor that I appreciate and F to San Gregorio is definitely one of the highquality producers of Greco DFO and

An excellent choice and in fact I enjoy this wine so much that when I DED there last it was not even a buy the glass option but I ordered it by the bottle the other good thing about this wine is that it’s the 2018 vintage and fortunately Greco DFO is also a white

Wine that can improve with some bottle age so that’s yet another reason that I would buy it I’m not typically a huge fan of Pino graio but this is certainly a reasonable expression of it and there’s nothing wrong with this one as well particularly if those in your group

Really want to have a Peno graio and while I’m thinking of it I have one quick Pro tip for you when you’re trying to decide between two different wines by the glass say for example you know that you won’t hate the Peno gregio but it may not be that exciting and you might

Want to try something like the Graco DFO but you’re a little bit scared that you won’t like it and that you’ll be disappointed what you can do is just tell the server that you’re torn between those two choices and you’d like to request just a small sample of each of

Them so you can compare them and make an informed decision about which one you’d like to order that’s a technique that I’ve used numerous times over the years including as recently as a couple weeks ago and it’s always worked extremely well and no one has ever refused to do that for

Me next up is Italian white wines by the bottle this is an area about which I get extremely excited in Italy there’s so many different indigenous grapes particularly indigenous white grapes that you can really get a lot of excellent under the radar wines that offer compelling value at their price

Point I’ll be discussing a few of those Wines in this video but I’ve also done an Italian white wine video where I discuss 10 top Italian white wines and if you’d like to take a look at this once you’re done with this video just check the links in the description below

One place that I always check for Italian white wines by the bottle is the southern Italy section compa is one of my favorites we’ve already discussed Greco tofo but they also have wines called fenina and Fano that are also worth considering typically these grapes will have naturally high acidity so even

Though it’s a little bit warmer in the South they still have some refreshing acid which makes some excellent pairings for food and here for example you can see another option from top producer FY desan Gregorio is the fenina which sells for only $72 per bottle on a markup

That’s still a little bit High in my opinion but if you’re going to divide that bottle five ways by the glass you’re looking at 14 15 bucks a glass so certainly that would be even a little bit less expensive than if you would buy the Graco TFO by the glass another

Region I like to check for Italian white wines by the bottle is pedmont while pedmont has some very expensive red wines by the bottle fortunately they have some white wines that represent compelling value at their price point one of my favorites is from legendary producer Bruno xiaosa and that is the

Arnes arnes is a grape that was almost extinct a few decades ago but producers like giosa and Vietti saved it from Extinction and now it does fairly well and is a very popular choice arnes is terrific with starters Seafoods and pasta so it works extremely well for

Some of the earlier courses at an Italian restaurant if you haven’t tried our a yet it is a little bit lower in a acidity but it’s nevertheless a very enjoyable companion with food it has descriptors that include lemon apricot Peach has some minerality to it and there’s typically some floral notes as

Well this particular option is a little bit overpriced at Carbone like most of the wines on their list here it sells for about $88 per bottle so it would run you about $18 a glass most places it would be quite a bit less than that but nevertheless compared to some of your

Other Alternatives it’s definitely one worth considering even at Carbone one of the top white producers in pedmont is lulka and here they have an option from Las skula that again is a little bit rich in terms of price but is probably again about a three times markup so it’s

Consistent with a lot of their markups on some of their other choices as well the vet region is another excellent choice for white wines and here they have a couple different Suave classicos from enama enama is a producer that I’ve recommended and some of my other videos

And they certainly do an excellent job this is a particularly good choice if you have seafood now we’re ready to discuss the red wine by the glass options and here there are three of them there’s a 2021 Vaya Kean Classico and this one sells for about 18 bucks a

Glass they also have a 2017 renieri Bernell deont Chino which is 36 bucks a glass and lastly there’s a bolo that I enjoy very much that sells for around $26 a glass and that one is from the excellent 2019 vintage I’ll start by saying that I think that Carbone did a

Pretty good job with their red wines by the glass at least in terms of the Italian choices these are all plausible options and you can’t go too far wrong with any of them although the prices are a bit rich as mentioned using process of elimination I would probably drop the

Brunello to start with 2017 was not a particularly strong vintage for Brunello even though this producer did a fairly good job that vintage also $36 is quite a bit to spend by the glass so for that reason they probably don’t sell as much of this one and that means that they may

Open a new bottle to pour your glass this is one that will probably take a little bit of time to open and so unless you plan to nurse this over an extended period of time you may not be able to appreciate this wine at its best moving on to the bar

Some bolo can have extremely grippy tannins and not be particularly enjoyable in its youth fortunately however this particular bolo is a softer expression and one that shows reasonably well even when it’s young 2019 was also an outstanding vintage and this is definitely a decent choice if you’re

Interested in trying a bolo and having nebiolo with your meal but I’m also a big fan of Vaya and their outstanding kianti Classico which is made made from sanio this is also an excellent choice my only comment here is that if you decide to go this route definitely get

It by the bottle and you can get it by the bottle for around $64 which would amount to about $13 per glass rather than $18 by the glass from The Bu The Glass menu even if you’re by yourself or in a small group if you don’t finish the bottle you can always

Cork it and take it home and enjoy the rest of it the next day if you’re interested in wine recommendations collecting strategies and learning more about wine please do subscribe to my channel I’ve been collecting wine for more than 15 years and also have a level

Four diploma from the W so I have both formal certification as well as substantial practical Knowledge from the School of Hard Knock when you’re talking about Italian red wines you have to start with the so-called Killer Bees bolo barbaresco and Brunello and you might even add super tuskin to that list

Unfortunately at Carbone and most other Italian restaurants these tend to be extremely overpriced much like Napa Cabernet at steakhouses in the United States and indeed I scoured the list in quite some detail and was not able to find too many Bargains that jumped out at me I definitely recommend looking at

The wine list ahead of time especially if they have prices online so that you can try to narrow your choices before you arrive at the restaurant to avoid annoying your guests but if you don’t have an opportunity to do that or if as most places they do not even have the

Prices posted on the website then you’re going to have to make a quicker decision on the fly but what can help shortcircuit this is if you have a representative wine in mind and then you can do a comparison between the retail price of that wine and what it’s selling

For on the wine list for example I know that the prator Del barbaresco should sell for about 50 bucks a bottle in the United States retail here however I see that it sells for about $140 per bottle so I know that it’s almost a three times markup probably a three times markup of

The wholesale price on this list unfortunately that’s pretty much always the way this quick analysis goes for bolo barbaresco Brunello and super Tuscan wines except perhaps when I’m in Italy but even sometimes there so for that reason we’re going to move on to plan B for nebiolo fans one of my

Favorite tricks is to go to the alto pante section here unfortun for they only have a couple choices but previously when I’ve DED out Carbone they had a couple excellent options including some with some age on them that were only about $150 per bottle I’ve also had good luck using this

Technique in places like Napa Valley and other places that have excellent selections of Italian wines and may have a few good options of Alto pamon wines that go under the radar because most people simply don’t know about them many restaurants however do not have Alto pamon wines or they may not have an

Excellent selection of them and if that’s the case I’ll typically move back to pedmont but then I’ll look for things like Barbara rather than Baro and barbaresco in fact even when I’m in Italy in a place may have a large selection of younger nebiolo based wines such as barolo and barbaresco for

Somewhat reasonable prices in many instances I’ll still get a Barbara this is true for a couple reasons first like nebiolo Barbara has high acidity but the good thing about Barbara is that unlike nebiolo the tants are not grippy and so it’s much more approachable and this is

So even in its youth so you can get a very enjoyable fruit forward wine that has high acidity and that does not require an extended decant or substantial additional bottle age before it’s enjoyable unfortunately however there’s a lot of pedestrian and uninspiring Barbara being produced so it

Is important to be selective and to pick a top producer when you’re choosing a Barbara two of my favorites Roberto Wario and Jo moo are not on this list unfortunately but they do have some good options McKelly Karlo does a good job with Barbara as does Aldo cantero while

Trentino and Alto ad are known as sources for sparkling and white wines here there’s actually an intriguing red wine on the list namely L grain for those of you who like s you might be tempted to take a flyer on the grain at some point I find it to be quite similar

To sarra and I’m a big fan of it so particularly if you’re going to be ordering some red meat at an Italian restaurant you might take a flyer on one of the lra options if they have it kianti Classico is another one of my favorite red wines at Italian

Restaurants but I’ve already discussed Vaya at some length and I’ve done a complete comprehensive video on kianti Classico as well so I’ll link that in the description below if you’d like more information about County Classico AB Bruto is another compelling source of value on many Italian restaurant wine

Lists but unfortunately here the prices are a little bit obscene tario for example is a wine that you can typically get for around 20 bucks per bottle but here they’re selling it for almost $100 a bottle on the list we are almost ready to move to the part of the video where I

Discuss the wines I would consider with an unlimited budget but there’s two other regions that I often consider when I’m purchasing red wine by the bottle at an Italian restaurant Sicily is one of them but unfortunately I again didn’t see anything that really jumped out at me here in terms of offering attractive

Quality for the price but compa which we discussed a little bit in connection with the white wines is definitely another source of red wine values as well and when you’re talking compa you have to be talking about trasi terasi is a region that’s particularly well suited

For the Alano grape Alano is capable of making extremely high quality wine to the top producers are represented here and those are namely Mastro bardino and FY danan Gregorio Alano is definitely a full-bodied wine and it’s a wine that has high acidity but also some grippy tannins and so it’s definitely better

With some additional bottle age for that reason the 2014 FY to San Gregorio is an appealing choice the Mastro berardino is also an excellent wine it’s a bit on the young side but they’re making it in a style that’s slightly more approachable than they did historically so that’s a good

Choice as well between the two the master berardino is definitely the better wine and my favorite however if you’re someone who appreciates a little bit more complexity and tertiary development then you may want to choose the 2014 FY to San Gregorio the other good thing about both of these choices

Is that the markups are definitely a little bit bit more gentle than those for the wines generally these are about a two and a half times markup rather than a three times markup in just a moment I’m going to discuss the wines that I would consider from this list if

Money were No Object but first one quick practical tip the problem with ordering red wines at Italian restaurants is that many of them are extremely tanic and require substantial decanting or ation before they show their best this is certainly true for bolo barbaresco Brunello sagrantino terasi and many

Other Italian red wines the problem is if you wait to order those wines until before your entree course they’re simply not going to have adequate time to open up and show their best before they’re finished or before your dinner is over so if you’re going to be ordering one of

Those Italian red wines that needs a substantial decant my recommendation is that you order that wine at the same time you order your white wine and ask the Somer to pour that wine at the same time what I found is that especially in Italy somes don’t like it when you put

The wine in the decanter as they prefer that you see how the wine evolves over the course of the dinner but they’re more than happy to pour everyone a glass from that red bottle at the outset of the meal and that way everyone can taste it right when it’s poured and also see

How it evolves over the course of the evening and this way by the time the entree arrives and you’re ready to really dig into that wine it should be a lot closer to being ready than if you just order it shortly before you ordered your entree now we’re to the part of the

Video where I discuss the wines that I would order if they were an unlimited budget and the first thing I’m going to do is head straight to the Bola section and look for jockimo canno I mentioned jockimo cantero in connection with the Barbara discussion earlier in this video

Joo cantero is one of the most traditional producers of bolo and monfortino is definitely his top wine that’s a wine that’s not only widely regarded as one of the best Italian wines but also one of the best wines in the entire world Carbone actually has several options here including several

Of which are in Magnum the problem however is that monfortino is an extremely age-worthy wine and it develops very very slowly and so while 2001 for example was an outstanding vintage from a magnum this one might even be a little bit too youthful so I would probably choose the 1990 which

They have in 750 for a little bit less than $3,000 staying in pedmont but moving over to barbaresco I would probably consider the 1971 guia barbaresco 1971 was a very strong vintage in pedmont while we don’t care about budget it’s also worth noting that this particular 1971 guy barbaresco

Somewhat surprisingly sells for a couple hundred dollars less than a 2020 Gia Sor San Lorenzo barbar Resco so this is actually probably one of the better values on the list even though it is a wine that will set you back more than $1,000 a bottle next we’ll head to Monto Chino

For a comparison tasting from two of my favorite producers Beyond Santi and soldera they have a number of strong options at Carbone for both producers so for Beyond Santi they have a number of the reservas but why not go for the 1946 it’s a rare treat to be bble to

Taste the 1946 beond Santi Reserva so we’ll see how that compares with maybe the 1988 soldera of course it would be better if they also had a 1946 soldera but we’ll get the oldest soldera that we can and we’ll move on each of these bottles will set us back about

$2,750 oraly MTO has gotten extremely expensive and that’s especially true for Magnums with substantial bottle age so we’re going to take advantage of this bottomless budget and we’re going to pick a magnum of 1990 MTO for $7,995 if you’ve enjoyed this video and you’d like to know how it approach a

Steakhouse wine list please be sure to check the video that is linked above