What "house" is supposed to mean
Somewhere along the way, house wine became a euphemism. The cheapest thing available. What you get if you do not care, or do not want to be seen studying the list.
That is a shame, because the house pour is the most-ordered wine in almost every restaurant, which makes it the one worth thinking hardest about.
Ours
House red, house white, house rosé. A house white sangria for warm afternoons, which is not trying to be a serious wine and is better for it.
Then a short by-the-glass list beyond that: a Joseph Stewart Pinot Noir, a Joseph Stewart Chardonnay, Art of Earth, a Riesling from Rheinhessen.
Reds, whites, rosé, and cold things for a warm night. That is the whole brief.
The test we actually apply
A house wine has one job: to be the right answer when somebody says "just a glass of red."
That is a harder job than it sounds. It has to work with a charcuterie board and with a Roman-style pizza and with somebody who has eaten nothing at all. It has to be drinkable at four in the afternoon and still make sense at ten. It has to not embarrass itself next to the bottles that cost twice as much.
It does not need to be the most interesting wine in the room. It needs to be the one nobody regrets.
And at happy hour
Monday to Friday, four to six, house wine is $10. It is the same pour as every other hour of the week.
That is worth saying plainly, because the other version of a happy hour wine deal exists, and everybody has had it: a different bottle, opened for the occasion, quietly worse. If we would not pour it at eight we do not pour it at five.
