ROUSES.COM
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wIne
Y
ou’re at Rouses and can’t think of
a wine to buy for the soiree at your
place tomorrow night. Time is short and
you’re at a loss. Remember that awesome
red wine you and your boyfriend had at
Lilette
restaurant last Saturday night? That
would be perfect, except, no — you don’t
remember. Yet, you’ve been putting a lot
of effort into planning the food and such,
and you even started to clean up the living
room and dining room! Well done so far, so
don’t let the wine choice too easily become
a last-minute decision undeserving of your
other efforts. Good food calls for good
wine. Mediocre wine detracts from good
food. Also, the enjoyment of delicious wine
in any setting can become an emblematic
marker of that memory for years to come.
So I encourage you to start building a
working knowledge of good wines, and to
start cataloguing the ones you’ve liked in
various settings. Let’s call this ‘casual wine
collecting.’ If you manage to cultivate this
simple, easy hobby you’ll never be at a loss
again when it comes to choosing wine.
I’m not proposing you build a 5,000-bottle
wine cellar (who has a cellar on the Gulf
Coast anyway?). I’m suggesting you make
use of that appendage called a Smartphone,
in conjunction with the glorious Internet.
When you drink a wine you like, snap a
photo of the label so you can look it up on
the Internet later. Just find out what the
general critical reception of the wine is, and
its origin and grape varietal composition.
For example, you dine out and decide
against the old standby Chardonnay.
Instead, you have a 2012 Sancerre, which
is 100% Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire
Valley in France. The crisp acidity, well-
integrated minerality, and restrained
citrus notes all went harmoniously with
the seafood you ate. (You found those
descriptors later, when you looked up the
wine on the internet. Lots of professional
critics and amateur bloggers with lots of
opinions.)
Next, go to Rouses, and buy a bottle of that
wine. Store the wine for later enjoyment and
remembrance. That is casual wine collecting.
Rouses carries a wide selection of wines
ranging from the affordable and large-
production ones to the expensive, prestigious
collectibles. I personally prefer to shop at the
Rouses on Tchoupitoulas street Uptown.
I’ll get my favorite red Spanish Rioja (100%
Tempranillo grape) for under $14,
and it’s excellent. Start building
up a stock of wines you like so
you can call upon them when
the occasion arises. To that end, I
need you to make one significant
investment. A dedicated wine
refrigerator. Choose according
to your budget and ambition.
White wine can stay in your
standard fridge, but red wine
cannot withstand being stored in
hot temperatures. Best to have a
wine cooler set at the appropriate
temperature.The reds will mature
intact, and be ready for you when
called upon. Speaking of which,
as a casual collector you will
delight in buying a few bottles
of the same vintage wine, and
opening one at different points in
by
Louis Wolf, General Manager, Lilette, New Orleans, LA
The Joy of
Casual Wine Collecting
time. Note how a wine changes in positive
development over a mere six months to a year.
This ‘cellaring’ of a wine is remarkable even
if you only have 6-12 bottles of a given wine.
As a final note, I encourage you to consult the
wine professional at any good restaurant you
patronize. The sommelier, or dining room
manager, should be ready to guide you to
new discoveries and intriguing options based
on your expressed tastes. My restaurant,
Lilette
, is owned by a chef, John Harris,
who is passionate about pairing excellent
wine with his food. To that end, we have
both a Wine Director (Cary Palmer) and
Sommelier (Nicholas Suhor). Our restaurant
features a large, temperature-controlled
wine room adjacent to the kitchen, a white-
wine vinotemp cooler, and a custom-built,
above-ground wine “cellar” on the property,
with a capacity for storing well over 5,000
bottles. These two spend many hours per
week sifting through countless wines to find
selections appropriate for the restaurant.
You merely have to take a chance on a bottle
that might, perhaps, find its way into your
collection at home.
Good food calls for good wine.
“We don’t just have one wine buyer at Rouses, we
have an entire wine committee made up of sommeliers
and wine experts from all over the Gulf Coast.”
—Donny Rouse
Behind the bar at Lilette — photo by
Frank Aymami
