Do you want to drink better wine?

With this post I wonder:
 - As a restauranteur. Do you choose the wines on your wine list. Or do the guests?

Let me explain.
I understand the primary reason for any choice being made in business. Money.
After that you look at strategy - long term versus short term.
Intertwined in all of these aspects lays identity. Interest, focus, perhaps uniqueness and even passion.
What I am trying to get my head around at the moment is the psychology behind choosing importers to source the DNA of your wine list from. If you are serious and have the investment and time, you go for several. Big and small importers. You pick and choose the way any artist would, to create a harmony. With balance, structure, power and that X Factor. On the other hand if you are small, you may want a list that is short, concise and let me say - basic and predictable.
Of course you could go that way, whether your offer is large or small.
My impression is there can be only two reasons for choosing this plan of attack.
1. You do not know much about wine, lack good advisor and so go for the easy obvious choices.
2.  You know more about the options that are out there, but believe that the customer/guest does not want to be challenged.

If you are restaurateur of the latter view you make me so sad!

In my opinion people DO want to be educated, challenged, taught, shown, guided. Whatever you want to call it. Even the the guests who think they do not want to.
Obviously the product needs to be of good quality, but the whole point of a restaurants cuisine and it's wine list is that you willingly get guided in to a new world of experiences. You will learn something new about what you enjoy.

At home you may do what you like. But in a restaurant I believe you should allow your self to be educated.

Back to my point. I rejoice when people like David Cross and Tim Lawrence at Estbek House in north-easternmost Yorkshire, thrive on a total antipodean list.
http://www.estbekhouse.co.uk/

It saddens me when other restaurateurs don't think more of the their guests.

x Charlotte