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The
wine department at Babbo shares one essential goal with
the kitchen: to offer flavor sensations our guests can’t
find anywhere else. In the kitchen, that means combining
regional food products, Italian and American, in new and
inventive ways. With wine, it’s all about finding the bottles
that not only complement Mario Batali’s food but stand on
their own as examples of Italy’s incredible gastronomic
diversity.
The all-Italian wine list at Babbo is ever-expanding, ever-changing,
just like the menu. Wine is produced in every corner of
the Italian peninsula, and Babbo showcases the specialties
and peculiarities of each of Italy’s 21 regions. There may
be no other country in the world with as many new and exciting
wines arriving on the market, and although this is old news
to some, many diners are just now discovering how great
Italian wines can be. We want Babbo to be a place where
discoveries are made, and discussions ensue. Here’s a quick
look at the Babbo approach to wine:
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| THE
LIST |
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Babbo’s
wine list has ballooned to almost 2,000 selections, and
that number is only going to grow. Our objectives are simple:
(1) To represent all of Italy’s winemaking regions, with as
many diverse styles of wine as possible; (2) To offer selections
of older vintages of great wines; and (3) To not discriminate
based on price or style. Beyond that, we’re out to assemble
the definitive selection of great Italian wines, period.
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| THE
QUARTINO |
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One
of the signature features of the Babbo wine program is the
quartino, a new (and now widely imitated) approach to “by-the-glass”
wine service. Conceived by co-owner Joe Bastianich, the quartino
is designed to evoke the casual, osteria-style wine service
of Italy, while also offering guests an opportunity to experiment—and
to drink better wine while doing so.
A quartino is a small decanter that holds a quarter of a liter
(thus the name). That translates to one-third of a 750 ml
bottle, or about a glass-and-a-half. If you don’t wish to
order a whole bottle of wine, or if some people in your party
want one type of wine and others something else, then the
quartino offers flexibility. Oftentimes guest will split a
quartino or two of white wine with their appetizers, then
move on to a bottle of red with their main courses.
Why not just pour wine by the single glass? For one, the quartino
allows the guest to control how much wine to drink at a particular
time. Part of the fun of drinking wine is swirling it around
in the glass, smelling it, sipping and savoring it slowly.
You can’t do that if the glass is filled up practically to
the rim. The quartino puts the control in your hands.
Then there’s the question of quality. It is not unusual for
us to open older vintages of Barolo or high-end “super-Tuscans”
and serve them by the quartino. This is perhaps the ultimate
benefit of the program: It offers you a chance to try something
you haven’t tried before, or to taste a wine you might not
choose to purchase a full bottle of.
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| TASTING
MENUS |
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There
may be no better way to experience Babbo than to try one of
our two seven-course tasting menus—one focused on pasta and
the other a more “traditional” mix of courses. In each case,
these menus are offered with matching wines for each course,
a great way to experience the full spectrum of flavors Babbo—and
Italy—has to offer.
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| WINE
SERVICE |
Ultimately,
our mission at Babbo is to be authoritative yet accessible,
whether the topic is food or wine. Yet we are very serious about
wine service. We only use the elegant stemware of Spiegelau,
because there are few things more disappointing to a wine lover
than drinking a great wine from a clunky, cheap glass.
Diners often look on curiously when we take a small amount of
wine from a bottle, rinse out a series of glasses with it, then
place the rinsed glasses on the table to be filled with the
wine. This “priming” of the glasses is a little extra touch
that we feel greatly enhances the wine-drinking experience.
The point is to rid the glasses of off odors or other impurities,
so that all you smell and taste when you take a sip is the wine.
Wine temperature, too, is something of an obsession for us.
We store our extensive wine collection in temperature-controlled
cellars, so that when we serve a fine, aged red wine it’s at
cellar temperature—not room temperature. With whites, meanwhile,
we prefer to leave them out on the tables once they’ve come
out of the refrigerator. As the wine warms up slightly, it’s
full spectrum of flavors come out.
Finally, we always have two sommeliers in the dining room at
all times, to answer guests’ questions and offer suggestions.
Our wine list is long, but it shouldn’t be intimidating, and
that’s why there’s always a wine professional nearby to help.
So if you love wine, and especially Italian wine, take a look
at the attached list. Maybe you can shave some time off the
decision-making process by perusing it before you come in. But
by all means let us know what you think, what you like, what
you’d like to see. As long as the list is, and as serious as
we are about the wine program, we ultimately want it to be fun,
unpretentious, enlightening, and, most of all, an integral component
of your meal at Babbo. What’s a good Italian meal without Italian
wine?
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David Lynch , General Manager |
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To
purchase any of these wines, visit
Italian Wine Merchants online or in
New York City, just off Union Square! |
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