this is probably for a wine thread and not the restaurant’s, so excuse my derail, but above is a sampling of some good, exciting producers with cuvees in the value sweet spot for me and not as hard to get as the allocated cult labels (Aurelien Lurquin, Gaspard Brochet, Tom Gauditiabois, Oudiette, etc.) or as costly as well-established growers (Bouchard, Prevost, Laval, Ledru, i’m including Savart in here, too). i’d also add in Olivier Horiot, Parmantier, Rosseaux-Butteau, Paul Gosset, but their distribution is maybe a bit too small and they can sometimes hover a little over $100.
Just my $0.02 personally recommended cuvees
Prelat - Chantemerle
Bichery - La Source
Legrand-Latour - Ypresien (maybe this is over $100 now..)
Bourgeois-Diaz - BD3C
Caze-Thibaut - Leriens
Antoine Bouvet - 2014, or Rose Saignee de Bisseuil
Georges Remy - Les Quatre Terroirs
Clandestin - Les Revers
R.Pouillon - the rose is a go to of mine. also like Les Chataigners
Dhondt-Grellet - Dans un Premier Temps has been a go to for years, especially when it was $42-47. Les Terres Fines is also a good value when it was $60. the higher end BDB are hard to get
S&A Cordeuil - love the Altitude 350M bdb for 2018 especially. otherwise their Altitude 320M bdn is excellent.
respectfully, that’s a lot of corkage and logistically a bit difficult. to coordinate enough champagne for a buyout like that we’re probably doing a bunch of magnums to cut down on the total glasses. i don’t have a lot of magnums, plus it becomes something of an event itself. at some point we’d want to just buy bottles off their list as more support. i’m not in the F&B industry and coordinating an event menu like that is not something i would really want to try let alone ask of a restaurant that’s already rightfully busy with many other projects and daily customers.
edit: my earlier suggestion was kind of just backpacking on the idea of offering the option of some casual wine tasting to break up the pace at an OmakaSei event. i have a preference for champagne so i was rattling off the kind of producers i thought would be nice to see represented given they have some good values and i see good champagne lists in italy. i don’t know about restaurant economics and what makes sense for cellar management / wine options, so i used an arbitrary $100. these are the kinds that ideally if i were coming across a pizza restaurant in italy, i would be excited to see as ones that fit the bill (sure, Ulysse-Collin l’Jardin is nice but economics probably don’t work out in most cases, plus allocations are difficult).
but if i make it to the next OmakaSei or happen to meet other FTCers there, i’d be happy to share whatever i’m drinking, just as others have been even more generous in pours for me.
I would be interested in a grower champagne event. Imho, no need to do a buy out. Just need a place that will charge reasonable corkage. I know Koast has free corkage on Mondays. There are probably other places with incentives.
this is probably for a wine thread and not the restaurant’s, so excuse my derail, but above is a sampling of some good, exciting producers with cuvees in the value sweet spot for me and not as hard to get as the allocated cult labels (Aurelien Lurquin, Gaspard Brochet, Tom Gauditiabois, Oudiette, etc.) or as costly as well-established growers (Bouchard, Prevost, Laval, Ledru, i’m including Savart in here, too). i’d also add in Olivier Horiot, Parmantier, Rosseaux-Butteau, Paul Gosset, but their distribution is maybe a bit too small and they can sometimes hover a little over $100.