Restaurants and house wine

I probably spend too much time eating out and one of my criterions to evaluate the restaurant I am going to is to look at the wine list and exactly at the house wine. The house wine tells me a lot about the restaurant. A good house wine, to me, means not only that I will find good quality wines, but also that the food will be as good. For me the house wine shows the character of the restaurant. If the restaurant has chosen a good quality wine as a house wine, I am confident that the same effort and attention is given when buying the ingredients used in the kitchen and delivering the food. Unfortunately, the vast majority of restaurants, do not have a decent house wine.


The house wine is often considered the cheap wine, the poor wine, the wine that customers who don't want to spend, choose, and the way it is chosen by restaurants is its price, the lower the better, who cares about the quality of the wine. And I found poor quality house wine even in good restaurants where the food was fantastic but was spoiled by the wines. In the last few months, due to the current climate, I have found many restaurants changing their house wine and wine list in general, replacing their selection with cheaper options.


House wine is the cheapest wine on the list, however, it is often worth spending an extra couple of pounds and pick a wine in the middle of the list. If you are not too sure about the house wine, simply don't buy it, choose something else, choose a wine that you know or if you don't know any, remember the rule above, cheap does not have anything to do with quality.