Just deserts? The American Express, PGA West, January 18-21, 2024
As noted elsewhere in these pages, resort towns are often tough to parse because they are saturated with hotels and fine dining concepts that for whatever reason don’t like to post their wine lists online. At some point I’m going to figure out why. In the meantime, I wouldn’t say the Palm Springs area has a dominant category killer I can find, so I’d recommend clicking through the links to see what most appeals to you.
Spencer’s Restaurant boasts a genuinely strong list. But there are no prices on the list, and you are encouraged “to contact the restaurant directly for current pricing.” Also, I doubt what’s visible online has been updated recently since there’s virtually no wine on offer since the 2019 vintage.
The La Quinta CliffHouse list, if not especially large, has at least a few semi-inspired options. But you’ll quickly understand what you’re in for when you see they lump all international reds in one small, unstructured section. Not a single bottle of red Burgundy. Lots of familiar choices and while it isn’t really going to quicken the pulse, compared to alternatives at least it has one.
Cuistot’s list is chock full of interesting wines at very attractive prices. It leans heavily French and includes little paragraphs explaining the basics of selected French reasons. The concept kind of breaks down in the middle where Italian reds (no explanation) are sandwiched between Northern Rhone and Bordeaux. It may not stock a lot of trophy wines (that’s ok with me) but there really are some terrific bargains if you know where to look.
Given our golf and wine context here on swigcoach.com, I’m glad to be able say that Arnold Palmer’s mostly American list is ok, even if it leans a little too heavily on popular names at the expense of excitement, most unlike an Arnie charge. Advertises $30 corkage.
Johannes has a nice and reasonably priced list that leans heavily American but boasts a little bit of everything. There are surprises perhaps due to the owner’s heritage (?) like a strong selection of both whites and reds from Germany and Austria that’s a welcome relief.
For additional local color I refer you to this 2019 article from Palm Springs Magazine that identified the best wine lists in town. https://www.palmspringslife.com/wine-list-palm-springs-restaurants/. They must know more than I do, or at least they had the time to get under the covers. They recommend Wally’s Desert Turtle (?), which somehow evokes a particularly macabre scene from Breaking Bad, Mastro’s Palm Desert (a large steak chain with apparent local flexibility when it comes to wine), Morgan’s in the Desert (at La Quinta itself), and the Edge Steakhouse (Ritz Rancho Mirage). Only Wally’s has an online list, which is honestly ok but not great. The article appears to suggest that there may be more than meets the eye to all of these places if you have the energy to look deeper.
Back to retail for a moment. There’s a great little natural/organic wine store in downtown Palm Springs called hyphen- . We know the owner, John Libonati, who is ex- of Chambers Street Wine in NYC and studied at the Culinary Institute of America (the other CIA). He’s a terrific guy who knows his stuff and has a real commitment to service as you can see in my google review here. If you like the genre, this place “gets you”. Another outstanding small shop at the other end of the Valley near La Quinta is Desert Wine Shop, presided over by Katie Finn, a certified sommelier and wine educator. The aperture is a little broader than hyphen-’s fierce commitment to organics, but the level of curation is also very high. Write me if you want the details, but Katie bailed me out of an unbelievable jam involving my daughter’s wedding, so I’m a huge fan. Among the more traditional wine store formats, Bouschet looks like the tallest cactus in a desert bonsai garden.