Wine Currents
March 2005

A Contemporary Wine List for
The Post Oak Grill, Houston, Texas

By Peter Langlois

I strongly believe a wine list is a living document that reflects a restaurant’s style of food and also keys into contemporary trends. In working with The Post Oak Grill over the last 60 days, significant updating and pairings have been used to match Chef Polo Becerra’s unique American-Latin fusion spice profiles, offered in a white tablecloth setting. With a strong culinary emphasis on center-cut prime steaks, wild boar, and seafood, all prepared in a contemporary highly spiced fashion, the definite overall direction of this wine list is “Red.”

While historically Post Oak Grill guests have responded especially well to California Cabernets and Cab Blends, we have taken a slightly more international profile in the selection of wines from the emerging wine producers of the New World, and coupled that with a number of “Big Reds” from both France and Italy. As an advocate for what I believe is one of the great food wines, Riesling, a Kabinett, Spatlese, and Auslese have been added to enhance the spicy profiles of several dishes, including desserts.

Within the confines of limiting selection to about 200 wines, I feel this list offers balance and interesting alternatives. The Food Menu also includes Wine Pairing Suggestions for every entrée. To make it easy for guests to identify new selections on our list, these have been set in bold type. To encourage customers to engage in the further development of what will become their wine list, guests are invited to suggest wines for future consideration.

We offer this as an example of a base line menu customized for the guests of a specific restaurant, The Post Oak Grill, located in the Galleria-Uptown area of Houston. Of course, change is both inevitable and welcome in the world of wines. This list debuts on March 28th with a one-day 50 percent off promotion. Cheers!

Click here for The Post Oak Grill Wine List (Microsoft Word document)