This series highlights hospitality professionals who are responding to the industry crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic in particularly creative, conscientious ways.
Here’s something I never thought I’d be ordering to go from a restaurant: A wine flight. But recently, Elliot Strathmann—co-owner of Spuntino, an Italian restaurant in Denver, Colorado, where I live—neatly packaged up just that for my at-home enjoyment (along with his wife-partner Cindhura Reddy’s fabulous porchetta sandwich on a housemade pretzel bun). Accompanying the collection of six 50-millilter bottles was a leaflet titled “Fun on the Fringes: Piedmont Edition,” printed with detailed notes about each wine and the producer behind it, including Castello de Neive 2018 Grignolino d’Asti and Cantine Valpane 2016 Canone Inverso Freisa.
I was familiar with such leaflets, having attended my share of Wine Corner Wednesdays, which Strathmann—who also serves as GM and beverage director—hosts frequently at the restaurant (where the flights are paired with small plates from Chef Reddy, who was named a semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest by the James Beard Foundation in February). That he would go to the trouble of revamping the program for the wine lovers who regularly participate in it struck me as unusually considerate as well as industrious. As he told me, “We joked about doing a Zoom Wine Corner, but I thought it wouldn’t work logistically. But bottling up the same flight that we’d put together every few weeks is the next best thing.”
Not that it’s all that much easier to do. “A lot of shipping channels for nonessential goods are pretty slow these days,” he admits. “We got pretty much all of those little bottles from our friends at [local distillery] The Family Jones.” But it’s worth the effort to “keep that connection going with people who care about the same shit we care about.”
That’s also his motivation for bottling the digestivi he’s long been making in house, from limoncello and finocchietto to saffron liqueur and various amari. “I can’t count the number of times people asked us, ‘When are you going to bottle those?’” he says. “It didn’t occur to me that this would be the reason, but we have enough fans in these little projects that it was a no-brainer.”
Of course, Strathmann’s passion for offbeat treasures colors his approach to bottle sales even now. He has become known for his ability to hand-sell unusual wines from some of Italy’s smallest and most uncompromising producers—a rather difficult thing to do online. So while he’s offering his entire bottle list for anywhere between 25% and 40% off, he has also curated a streamlined version of 12 favorites to make things easier for diners who can’t currently benefit from his insights on the floor. “I tried to create a little mini–wine list that is well-rounded and hits the stylistic balance that we try to hit with the list in general: fruit-forward stuff, classic Old World stuff, quirky and funky stuff,” he explains. “But I was also trying to spread out our support of distributors. They’re always behind the scenes in our world; they’re the supply chain. This isn’t just about [restaurants] themselves but the businesses that they’re buying from. We want to continue to support these wineries and the people who sell us these wines as much as we can.”
That goes double for their small but dedicated band of employees. Noting that he and Reddy “have the enormous fortune of having a staff that we’ve known for years,” Strathmann admits that the forced dining-room closure “came at the best time it could have”: Riding a wave of accolades that have culminated with the James Beard nomination, “we offloaded our last bit of debt back in September, and we’ve actually been able to sock away some money recently.” Hence the decision to go all in on takeout and delivery service. “Our goal was to cover our expenses and make sure payroll keeps going for everyone who wants to work, which has been pretty much everyone but a couple of part-timers,” he says. “If it’s a slight loss for a while, we can do that for several months”—but with early signs pointing toward breaking even, “it’s encouraging.” —Ruth Tobias
