Dear ELV,
Relying principally on the recommendation of Eating Las Vegas 2012, I made a reservation for 3 at Twist for last Saturday. On previous trips to LV, we had partaken of outstanding meals at RM Upstairs, Aureole, Fleur de Lys, and Carnevino. On this trip we had already eaten at L’Atelier, and Jaleo (and later at Lotus of Siam), and we were excited to continue our adventure.
Our preference, when the chef is a better cook than I am an eater, is to ask that the chef serve good food, and I will get out of the way, without any limitations as to what I “like” or what anyone may be “allergic” to. We had the 6 course tasting menu ($189) plus the wine pairings (an additional $110 ea.). Granted, an enormous bill, but one I’m happy to pay for great food.
The food was okay, but that is not why I’m writing: the wine ruined the meal.
As of today, the tasting menu (food, but not the wine pairings) is still on the restaurant’s webpage, but I will try to summarize what was served.
The first course was Scallops and Langoustine, served with an artichoke gelee and a horseradish cream sauce. The wine was a Sancerre. We thought the wine was a perfectly fine wine to kick things off, even though the acidity of the wine seemed to be a bit much for the low acidity of the food. I believe this wine would probably have been available for about $20 retail, or $40 at restaurant prices, per bottle.
The next course was Surf and Turf, which was three different, but complementary, dishes, which mostly consist of soft, creamy and fatty textures and flavors. It was served with a Tavel Rose, a bone-dry rose wine from the Rhone valley, which was a bit tannic and astringent when tasted alone, but when tasted with the food the wine’s tannic nature was emphasized and made the food less tasty than it could have been. I would guess this wine would retail for $15, or $30 at a restaurant.
The next course was a Halibut dish. The wine served was a Neuchatel from Switzerland. Just from hearing the origin, my eyebrow raised, as these are not known as quality wines, but wine was fine, slightly sweet, and did not compete with the food, but couldn’t be said to complement it either. I guess this wine would retail for $15 a bottle, $30 in a restaurant.
The wine for the next course was brought before our food was served. It was a Syrah and Carignan blend from the Languedoc in Southern France. Just on first glance, this is not a wine I would ordinarily buy for myself in a store nor would I order it in a restaurant. But keeping an open mind, I tasted it. I would describe the wine as rustic and brambly, with low acid, harsh tannins and the mouth feel of heavy cream. The rest of the table hated it instantly, but I said to wait and see how it went with the food. If the food was heavily seared and smoky (like a barbeque or crusty steak) I thought the wine might be fine. The next course was Veal Crepinette, a delicately flavored and seasoned veal dish (cooked sous vide?) wrapped in a delicately flavored pate. The food made the wine undrinkable and the wine made the food inedible. We called the waiter over and asked him to remove the wine. He immediately replaced it with a Napa Bordeaux blend that was fruity with soft tannins that greatly complemented the food. The Languedoc wine probably retailed for $12, or $25 in a restaurant. The Napa wine probably retailed for $35, or $70 in a restaurant.
Prior to our next course, we asked that the sommelier not select our next wine, but that the waiter could do so himself. For the dessert wine, we were served a sweet wine from southern Italy, the grape and region I don’t remember. It was fine, but with a lower acid than you might want with a dessert wine (as would be expected from the warmer climate). This wine would probably retail for $20 per .375L, or $40 in a restaurant.
After the meal, the front of the house manager came up to our table and asked about our dinner, and I essentially told him what I said above. He apologized that we did not enjoy it.
When the bill came, all of the wine was removed from the bill. As I was leaving, the sommelier was waiting for me at the door, and said she was sorry that I did not enjoy the wine pairing and the they would take my suggestions to heart.
All of this is good and fine, but this restaurant is holding itself out as competing with the finest restaurants in the world. Do they not know how to nicely pair wine? Does this restaurant make it a habit of ripping off rubes from North Carolina, who must think Concord and Muscadine are vinifera grapes?
I’m not as sophisticated as the best of New York, San Francisco or Las Vegas, and I do not yet have my Masters of Wine (I’m just short, having reached the WSET Advanced level at Johnson & Wales), but I (and my untrained guests) can tell the difference between delicious and not quite so good. Do the rubes not ordinarily complain? Or are my tastes not yet up to snuff to be able to appreciate a difficult and sophisticated wine pairing?
Further, if you break down my restaurant price guesses into by the glass prices (1/3 of bottle price), you get a total of $165, against a $330 tab.
Sorry about the length of the email, but I wanted to get the thoughts of someone who knows and appreciates (and even shows a bit of love for?) Twist.
Don’t Do Dregs Don
Charlotte, NC
ELV responds:
Dear Don’t,
Hell hath no fury like an oenophile scorned! You obviously know your grapes and are well-versed in good cuisine, so we shan’t bother debating the merits of the various wine pairings with you. We will say that, as big a fan as we are of the food at Twist, the wine program has never been its equal. From the get go, the list has tried for an eclecticism it doesn’t have, and soak-the-high-rollers vibe that it does.
Gagnaire and Executive Chef Pascal Sanchez craft quirky, highly personal and inventive dishes, but the list is hamstrung by its desire to blend big-name labels with a few oddball selections, all of them marked up at least 400% over the hotel’s cost. Julie Lin, the Director of Wine, does her best, but the catal0gue has corporate fingerprints all over it.
As for wine/food pairings in general, over the years we’ve found few sommeliers who can pull off matching a multi-course meal with a dazzling array of interesting wines that compliment the food at a reasonable price. (Robert Smith at Picasso is one of the best in town at the art.) The somms job is to match wines with food at a price that is profitable for the restaurant. Too often, they take this as their main mission and forget that a high markup on a middling wine will offend a serious oenophile. This is where our tourist economy impinges on the pleasures that you were seeking. Most rubes won’t know the difference, and the hotels depend on this for the thousands they move through their food factories every day.
It sounds like the restaurant did the right thing (as we would expect of such a top shelf operation) and removed the wine charges with a sincere apology. Our advice for the future is to do what ELV does in all but a few restaurants in the world: choose the glasses of wines yourself (no one knows your palate better than you do), or pick a bottle of a substantial, hefty white (like a Puligny-Montrachet) or a middling pinot noir (Oregon or Volnay always do the job), and drink it throughout the meal.
Oenophilically yours,
ELV
Twist features dynamic flavor, texture and temperature contrasts second to none in Las Vegas. Probably the most challenging wine pairing situation possible with some courses including four individual plates from frozen to hot with unique aromatics. As our cuisine has graduated from butter, cream and tuffle with products and spices from around the world the “old guard” wine pairing guidelines are quickly becoming obsolete. We need to take into consideration the fact the Twist might be attempting the same goals with their pairing as their food; exploration above and beyond what we are comfortable with and broadening our horizons of experience and enjoyment.. At the same time you shouldn’t have to “try” to enjoy an experience and there is and never will be any substitution for the chef and sommelier tasting together.. I am always amazed at the outcome of trying a dish with multiple wines that theoretically “should” work, surprisingly enough most of them don’t….
I have yet to order wine at Twist. The passion fruit cocktail was so good, any other libation would have been superfluous.
Well said John and Dregs. As a new rule I try to restrict preselect wine pairings to winemakers dinners.
…to my Charlotte comrade…just be glad you did not end up at Jose Andres little hip, hidden place inside Jaleo called “e” and the six wines they serve for $105 none is more than $15 retail which means they pay about $5 each….couple that with the fact that each bottle has most likely 10 servings, their cost works out to about $3 they charge $110 for…the best in town is Robert Smith at Picasso whose wine pairing (when factoring in value) are second to none…he is so talented one would think he had graduated from Vanderbilt….
…funny….but did not see you had mentioned Robert Smith…Curtas you are a friggin master….and actually when I read that far I had to get out the tissue…that poor Julie Lin- fighting off those corporate bad boys…
Thanks for the reply, ELV. Well put. I think my anger directed at Twist comes partly out of the great wine pairings that I have experienced at both L’Atelier and rm upstairs (both brilliant, in fact).
Your suggestion of ordering bottles is correct, unless I know for sure they will do a great job by the glass. I would have been thrilled ordering one $100 bottle of white and another $100 bottle of red, and still saved $130.
It has been my experience eating at these high end strip joints that ordering the “tasting menu” is for the unintitiated and touristas looking to sample the bill of fare on the “cheap”! Couple that with a flight of wine pairings just adds to the schmuck factor given the hugh mark up in the cost charged for these wines by the resturants vis a vis their quality. I always thought that Gaylords was the prime example of ripping off the rubes with wine pricing. Now everyone of these strip joints do it on a regular basis. The best bet is to order ala carte and that includes knowing your wine and ordering what is suitable by the glass or bottle as ELV suggests. I do agree that the last time I have eatten at Picasso the food and wine was excellant and reasonable (relatively speaking) priced. Only two or three of the above mentioned resturants had sommeliers worth a damn who didnt try to up sell you if you were not very careful. As for waitstaff, “forgetabout”! Most have either low end or high end selections on their cheatsheet for the night. Think about the type of food the particular resturant is serving or noted for serving, select a dish and complimentary sides and order a glass or bottle to your liking and knowledge base. If you dont know wines than stick to the classics until you become educated. Otherwise you will be rope a doped and disappointed as well as a few schekels lighter in the pocketbook!
artswanson, I couldn’t DISAGREE more. Most of the high end restaurants tasting menus are far from cheap. Often costing substantially more than ordering a traditional starter, entree and desert.
Now, perhaps you are referring to the newer trend of more mainstream Vegas restaurants offering a “tasting” menu for say $39-49. (Think Mon Ami Gabi, Stratta, Bradley Ogden, etc..). Not that these are bad, but I think they are an entirely different beast than a grand degustation at Joel Robuchon, Guy Savoy, or Twist.
Too bad Hector went with the wine pairing at e. I had the mocktails when I was there a few days ago, and some of them, particularly the first which was green tea, peach puree and jasmine air, were WAY better than the food. Turbot much better at Picasso than e or Le Cirque.
Contrast this with a wine pairing I had at Alex 5 years ago.
The wine pairing was $130 for the $195 tasting menu.
I’ll classify my palette as not especially sharp, but I know how to look up wine prices, which I did out of curiosity after the trip.
The Pierre Peters champagne could be had for around $40 a bottle, maybe less, the dessert wine was around $25-30 a bottle.
But the others…
Turley White Coat was around $50 if you could find it
I found the 1990 des Baumard Quarts de Chaume for $100
The French pinot noir (2002 Les Champeaux) could be had for $95
It was easy to get a price on the Valdicava Brunello di Montalcino because my local wine merchant carried it. He was asking $125 (Parker, who I do not pay any attention to, apparently gave it a 98).
I don’t know what a restaurant would ask for those bottles of wine, but I think getting those 6 glasses of wine for $130 was a positively excellent value.
Just one more reason to miss Alex, and be upset with what the hell is going on at Wynn these days.