| Subject: Update to assignment list |
| From: "Karen Lancaster" <lancaster.karen@gmail.com> |
| Date: 2/26/08, 21:30 |
| To: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Next Vintage, the retail wine boutique adjoining Charlie Palmer, is so small, it's like a vertical glass-and-steel aerie. There, wine director Drew Hendricks and his team oversee 300 bottles rotating from the Charlie Palmer wine list, which has about 700 selections.
That means the wines are tightly focused. Each is chosen to build a portfolio representing styles and regions from around the world that also match Mr. Palmer's progressive American cooking.
Despite Next Vintage's diminutive size and close ties to the restaurant, "we want it to be a retail wine shop for everybody who lives in Dallas," says Mr. Hendricks, who recently became Texas' third master sommelier.
But when he decided to include the large number of half-bottles, he says, "I had in mind the hotel guests."
The Joule, a boutique hotel next door, opens later in the spring, and Next Vintage offers guests a convenient way to grab a bottle of wine or a half bottle to enjoy in the privacy of their hotel room.
One other very cool fact: Charlie Palmer's restaurant-wine prices are the standard retail price at Next Vintage, plus $25 to $35, says Mr. Hendricks.
That makes the wines some of the best bargains in the city, where a mark-up of 3 ½ to 4 times wholesale is not unusual.
"We're selling a lot of wine because the pricing is so generous," Mr. Hendricks says.