THE WINE LIST : It’s a Corker for the Well-Heeled

If you spend the next 200 nights dining at Patina, having a different bottle of dry table wine each night until you have gone through all the wines on this list, you will spend $23,000 for wine alone. The wine bill will work out to $115 per meal. This is more than five times the average price of entrees (which are, by the way, reasonably priced).

Arguing that the wines are high-priced may not be totally fair since a number of the wines on this list are there for effect: 1970 Chateau Petrus ($595), 1976 Le Montrachet from Domaine de la Romanee-Conti ($395), and so on.

But unless you have a bottomless wallet or you know a great deal about wine, this list will shock you. Sure, I’d love to drink the 1976 Louis Latour Corton-Charlemagne with my poisson. But at $170?

Many people would call the wine list at Patina “great,” because it is (a) large and (b) contains a lot of old wine. From great vintages. You know, stuff like 1961, 1970, ‘49, etc. Ho hum.

Fact is, it’s no trick to buy 1961 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild; it’s currently available through a number of wholesale suppliers. Suggested retail is about $700 a bottle, making Patina’s price a “steal” at $450.

However, a truly great list isn’t one that has a lot of $450 bottles of wine. A great list offers breadth and depth. And the main problem with this list is that the wines selected show little creativity. The assemblers of this list chose only high-priced wine. They stuck with top-name producers (Moreau, Leflaive, Chalone, Dominus, etc.). And they excluded many wines and wine regions that offer good values, intriguing wines, and excitement.

There is nary an Italian wine on the list--and this at a time when Italian wines are competing with First Growths for headlines. Nor is there anything from Alsace, Spain, Australia, or from any state other than California. The only Loire Valley wines are exotic dessert wines (and how many people know what Moulin Touchais is anyway?).

On the domestic front, there is no Zinfandel, no Gewurztraminer, no Chenin Blanc, no Merlot, no Gamay Beaujolais. And there is no lighter-styled red wine of any sort, not even a Beaujolais from France.

The Sauvignon Blanc list is limited to two wines; the Cabernet list is heavily oriented toward older wines that are priced by some mystical formula I can’t figure out. (This makes a bottle of 1977 Chateau Montelena Cabernet worth $125 and a bottle of 1975 Clos du Val Cabernet worth $62. You go figure.)

This isn’t to say there are no good values on this list. In fact, if you know a bit about wine, you can actually find some excellent wines at reasonable prices.

Among the white wine values I found, in Chardonnay I would choose 1987 Cuvaison ($22) or 1987 Sonoma Cutrer Russian River Ranches ($22), both priced well below 3.0 times their wholesale prices. (The Cuvaison is my first choice.) The two California Sauvignon Blancs are both excellent: 1987 Ferrari-Carano ($17) and 1987 Chateau St. Jean La Petite Etoile ($18).

Among the reds, a sleeper is the 1984 Tulocay Pinot Noir ($22), a wine that competes with the better-known producers at a fraction of the price. Another red to look at: 1986 Caymus Napa Cuvee ($22).

But after that, there’s nothing I’d pay the freight to get, even though it would be served in a classic Reidl crystal wine glass--one of the most attractive stemware designs I have seen. Moreover, service is impeccable. Wine is treated deftly.

Patina has a few fine wines by the glass, including the ’87 Sonoma Cutrer Chardonnay and the Tulocay Pinot Noir (both $5.50 a glass), a dry German Riesling ($4) and a port (Taylor 1983, $6.50).

But if you want to bring in a prized bottle long held in a secret vault, be prepared for another shock: a corkage charge of $17 per bottle. That’s about as high as I’ve seen anywhere. (Corkage charges that high often turn off wine collectors, and that’s always a danger. Do you know any poor wine collectors who like fast food?)

The sad thing is that Joachim Splichal’s menu is laden with items that encourage you to share them with a sublime wine, and yet there appears to be a concept here that discourages wine consumption for all but the wealthy.