I just don’t understand it. How can a restaurant with such a great chef offer wines that are dull, dull, dull? Admittedly, I am quite fussy when it comes to good vino and I have been known to choose a restaurant for its wine list, more so than the food, but there simply is no excuse for good food and crappy wine – not in this day and age and especially not in New York City, where great wine can be had from a sea of good suppliers.

The restaurant in question is Mia Dona, the latest gastro hub from restaurateur Donatella Arpaia and brilliant chef Michael Psilakis. I was told that the concept behind the list was approachability and affordability and many of the wines are based on Donatella’s favorite everyday drinking wines but, please, turn it over to a wine pro with taste. I’m all for affordable wines and I understand the need to have labels that people recognize, not every good list has to be esoteric with an appeal to wine geeks only but out of all the proseccos available in the US, they went for Mionetto? Then to add insult to injury there’s a Santi Pinot Grigio by the glass. Sure I know Santi, everyone does, it is the innocuous PG that is deep discounted at liquor stores. Then the great opportunity presents itself for a Sicilian wine, an instant when a restaurant can offer a wine from a region that offers old heirloom grapes, rustic wines that would have been great with Chef Psilakis’ deep fried rabbit. And what do we get? We get Planeta – the J Crew of Sicilian vino.

I experienced the reverse a few weeks ago when I dined at Le Cercle Rouge. The folks that also own Jules, bring to New York the cookie-cutter mold of brasserie and bistro fare. Nothing exceptional, no dishes to write home about but the wines, oh the wines.

When 360 in Red Hook closed down I went through a brief period of mourning. It was the first restaurant in New York to offer an all organic, biodynamic, natural wine list from small producers. It was the place to go to for a glass of Pineau d’Aunis or Romorantin and pay a fare price for it. The food was good too. In any case, one of the guys that worked at 360, Jorge Riera, is now heading up the wine list at the most unlikely of restaurants – Le Cercle Rouge. Despite the uninspired chow, the Tribeca brasserie has the chance to be the next major wine-nerd hangout.

Now if I could only hook Michael Psilakis up with Jorge………..