Half Bottles

Although half (375 ml.) bottles are challenging to source, our newly launched Massachusetts wine list offers twelve white dinner wines, ten reds, two Champagnes and seven dessert wines in the half bottle format; they range in price from $16, for the sweet but versatile Moscato d’Asti “Nivole” from Michele Chiarlo, to $95 for the venerable 2007 Opus One. We’re particularly excited about the opportunity to offer Piper-Heidsieck Brut Champagne at a price very close to retail ($25). Our strongest selling half bottle selection is the Sonoma-Cutrer “Russian River Ranches” Chardonnay followed by Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, Cakebread Chardonnay and J. Lohr “Riverstone” Chardonnay, in that order. Popular? On an average week, diners order almost 900 half bottles at our restaurants!

While severely limited in production and always significantly costlier for us to buy than half the price of a full bottle, the reason we remain dedicated to maintaining a broad collection of half bottles is because we believe this constitutes a huge hospitality enhancement. For solo business travelers, for those concerned about moderating alcohol consumption, for grazers more interested in bar bites than in a full meal, and for anyone who enjoys having fun experimenting with a sequence of different wine flavors during dinner, ordering half bottles makes absolute sense. Also surveys have shown that a percentage of guests avoid wines by the glass but embrace the half bottle as a format ensuring freshness.

As enthusiastic as we are about them, the supply side of the business generally looks upon half bottles as nothing but a headache. Production costs, as mentioned, are disproportionately higher than half the cost of a full bottle. Sales velocity is hard to predict so half bottle vintages are sometimes out of sync with those of the same wine in full bottles.  For all of these reasons, most wineries don’t produce half bottles.  Fortunately, for us and our guests, a number of the wineries we’ve worked closely with over the years, such as Louis Latour, Louis Jadot, Trimbach, Hess, as well as the wineries mentioned above, have always provided us with an ample supply of half bottles.  In some instances we’ve also been able to rely on relationships we’ve developed with winery partners, such as St. Francis in Sonoma, to request special half bottle production as an amenity to offer to our guests. This is especially appealing to us with regards to young red wine,  because half bottles age and develop more quickly than full bottles; full bodied reds like Cabernet, even when young, taste a bit more accessible. 

In developing the wine program for the second floor dining room at Legal Harborside, we decided to innovate with the half bottle format in a way guests have told us they really appreciate. All of the wines in what we refer to as “The Collection” are exclusively available to us, at least in the state of Massachusetts. For those under $75 per bottle on the list, we offer them in a new “half bottle” format, with the wait staff or our Sommelier decanting the wine from a full bottle into a carafe at the table. In this way we encourage experimentation and enable guests to try a wide variety of different wines with their multi-course dinners.

Speaking of Legal Harborside, we have two exciting wine personalities visiting next month to present wine dinners. On February 2nd, Donald Patz will showcase some of his exciting Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays from Patz & Hall Winery, including a cellar selection of the magnificent and rare “Pisoni Ranch” 2000 Pinot out of magnums! (See menu) This initial dinner of our Legal Harborside series is a “must attend.” It will also feature the rare “Zio Tony Ranch” Chardonnay, which has been a mainstay of our Collection since the restaurant’s launch last spring. Also visiting to present a dinner on February 21st will be Jon-David Headrick, importer of some of the greatest estates in the Loire Valley (See menu). We feature a number of his terroir-based selections on our list including the spectacular Domaine Vacheron “Les Romains” Sancerre and the Domaine du Viking “Tendre” Vouvray, which will be featured at the dinner; we are serving a 2002 library vintage of the Viking “Cuvee Aurelie” dessert wine to round a superb lineup. This is another not-to-be-missed event. We hope to see you at either, or both, of these intimate dining opportunities where you can interact with two of our favorite wine personalities.

Thanks,
Sandy Block MW