RESTAURANTS : A Wine List Both Functional and Creative

Creativity is nice in a wine list, but not necessary. It is better that a wine list be functional, with both a range of prices and a range of styles. Of course, adding a few little gems and hidden values for wine connoisseurs is a game some restaurateurs love to play. And a game wine lovers love to win.

The wine list at Camelions is both functional and creative, with some obvious problems that can surely be corrected. It is clear that a great deal of thought went into the list. It has many of the elements of excellence--a wide range of prices, a bit of creativity--and is, in general, more interesting than most of the lists I see.

A well-designed list need not have hundreds of selections. Camelions has 75 wines (plus half a dozen dessert wines on a separate menu), all chosen with a sense of taste, as well as a sense of price. For example, the white wines include bottles priced from $16 (1985 Chateau Piron, a simple but very nice Graves with a suggested retail price of $11), all the way to the $50 to $100 white Burgundies and a top-of-the-line Batard-Montrachet at $110.

The red wine list starts at $15 for a half-bottle of 1984 Acacia Pinot Noir and includes, at the tail end of the list, a $400 price tag for a bottle of 1961 Chateau Haut-Brion, a great wine that, believe it or not, is fairly priced. (If you wanted to buy this wine at retail, you would pay $550.) And there are nice wines in between, such as a 1984 Preston Cabernet at $22.

Despite the bargain Chateau Haut-Brion, one of the list’s drawbacks is that prices are a bit high, through not excessively so: 1985 Saintsbury Chardonnay, $24; 1985 Joseph Phelps Sangiacomo Chardonnay, $25; 1984 Phelps Eisele Cabernet, $60. (Mark-ups are roughly 2.5 to 2.8 times wholesale.)

One problem that I noticed in a glance: the list of chardonnays is composed of almost nothing but one style of wine: big, rich, oaky and full-blown. There are no truly delicate chardonnays from which to choose (except perhaps the ’85 Pine Ridge, $30).

Also, except for the ’79 Freemark Abbey Cabernet (a good buy at $35), there are few California red wines with any age on them. This part of the list was a disappointment, especially because the restaurant’s main wine distributor has a number of older wines at reasonable prices that I would love to have seen--notably Italian reds.

Still, the overall list is well-designed. And if you’re in a splurgy mood, there are a couple of sleepers, including the aforementioned ’61 Haut-Brion. Another is 1962 Chateau Talbot at $100.

Two of the hidden gems are both Bandols--an ’83 red at $24 and an ’85 rose at $22--from Domaine Tempier, the little premium producer that sits on the southern coast of France near Marseilles.

The wine glasses here are good-sized tulips (not elegant but very serviceable); service is professional and unobtrusive. Corkage is $8 a bottle.

Overall, the wine list at Camelions makes enjoyable reading. It shows care in assemblage and needs only a bit of feeding to grow.