Straight Outta Little Compton

Spent the past several days with BrooklynLady and the kids in Rhode Island visiting family. I'm talking coastal Rhode Island, near Newport. This is classic New England. There are farms - cattle, horse, and vegetable. There are astonishingly beautiful rocky coastlines, sandy bluffs covered in long salty grasses, and creaky fishing boats. The houses are stately and tend to have worn cedar shingles that beg to be touched, as if they will reveal the scents of clam chowder and wood burning in the fire place. There are young men who, not being ironic, wear dress shirts tucked into bright pink pants and docksiders. There was a woman who used the expression "I'm as deaf as a haddock."

Our older daughter played with a pail and shovel on the beach, and threw rocks into the water. We drank a lot of good coffee and a lot of good wine. It was incredibly quiet at night. We had a wonderful time.

One evening BrooklynLady and I went with another couple to dinner at a restaurant called Pietra, in a town called Little Compton. I couldn't stop snickering at the fact that a town in this part of the world shares its name with Compton in Los Angeles, an entirely different kind of place to be sure. Anyway, there was one thing about the restaurant that I thought was fantastic - every single wine on their list was offered by the glass. The list wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either. Maybe 5-7 sparkling wines, 15-20 whites, and 15-20 reds. Some interesting selections too. I considered the 2004 Nicolas Joly Coulée de Serrant at about $25 per glass, but in the end had a glass of the 2007 Domaine Marc Kreydenweiss Gewurztraminer with lobster bisque (wine and bisque were both delicious), and a glass of the 2006 Billard Pere et Fils Auxey-Duresses Les Joncheres with braised lamb (wine was good, lamb merely okay).

I love the idea of pouring everything by the glass. It allows everyone to drink exactly what they want, encourages experimentation, even with expensive wines, and allows for the enjoyment of several kinds of wine with the various courses of dinner. And the restaurant wins too - selling wine by the glass is more profitable for the restaurant than selling wine by the bottle. Or is it? Why don't restaurants offer all wines by the glass, instead of a select (and usually insipid) few?

The obvious problem is simply that the restaurant cannot guarantee that the entire contents of the bottle will sell before the product loses its value. An inexpensive wine might sell quickly, but a more expensive wine, such as that Nicolas Joly Savennières - opening a bottle for my glass would probably result in a loss of money. Even though the wine improves for a week after opening.

So how does Pietra do it - offering every wine by the glass? Perhaps they accept losses in selling certain wines by the glass, and make it up elsewhere, through expensive cocktails and inexpensive wines. Perhaps they aren't doing careful accounting. Who knows? I have never seen this before, a restaurant that offers every wine by the glass, although I have fantasized about running such a place myself. I want to know their secret. What are they doing with the stale Coulée de Serrant?

Can this really be done, offering every wine by the glass, including the fancy stuff?