33 Connecticut restaurants honored in Wine Spectator’s 2021 Restaurant Awards

Wine Spectator magazine published its annual Restaurant Awards this month, honoring dining establishments worldwide with the best wine lists. Of the 2,917 honorees, 33 are in Connecticut.

Restaurant Awards director Cassia Schifter said Fife ‘N Drum in Kent is the longest-running Connecticut restaurant, making the list annually since 1991 and ranked Best of Award of Excellence since 1992.

Two restaurants are first-timers on the list: Café Aura, the Manchester eatery owned by UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma; and Moon in Greenwich.

No Connecticut place received the Grand Award, the highest honor given since the list began in 1981.

Fourteen places received Best of Award of Excellence, the second-highest honor. They are Artisan in West Hartford and Southport; Barcelona in West Hartford, Norwalk, Fairfield, New Haven and Stamford; Caputo Trattoria and David Burke Prime at Foxwoods Resort Casino; Fife ‘N Drum in Kent; L’Escale in Greenwich; La Foresta in Killingworth; Nouveau Monde in Sandy Hook; and Winvian Farm in Morris.

The remaining 19 Connecticut restaurants received the Award of Excellence, the third-highest honor.

Those are 2 Hopewell in Glastonbury; Arethusa al tavolo in Litchfield; Café Aura in Manchester; Castello in Danbury; Cava in Southington; Kensington’s in Norwich; Millwright’s in Simsbury; Moon, Rebecca’s and Tony’s at the J House in Greenwich; Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Newington; Shell & Bones in New Haven; Capital Grille in Hartford and Stamford; The Essex and the Griswold Inn in Essex; The Restaurant at Rowayton Seafood in Norwalk; Viron Rondo Osteria in Cheshire; and Washington Prime in Norwalk.

Elissa Traymon Potts, owner of Fife ‘N Drum, said that restaurant began establishing an in-depth wine list in the early ‘80s to distinguish itself among restaurants. She said they specialize in boutique wines from small wineries, as well as Italian wines including her favorites, Brunello di Montalcino and Barolo.

Potts said amassing an eclectic cellar “is not an inexpensive game to play. It’s not for the faint of heart.” She added that her decades-long wine collecting took a break during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I bought sparingly. It was more important to make sure people were getting paid and people were coming into the building,” she said. “I knew we had a wine list good enough to survive me really not buying a lot of wine for the year.”

Schifter said to get on the list, a restaurant must apply and send a copy of its wine list and menu. Ideally, restaurants will have at least 80 to 90 wines on the list, but variety, pricing and transparency are also considered.

“It’s also important that the wine list has all the pertinent information: appellation, vintage, price and name. You cannot get an award if you leave vintages off the menu. That’s misleading to the customer,” she said. “If you price for a 1872 Bordeaux and you bring out a lesser vintage, it’s a bait-and-switch.”

Judging is done remotely, except for Grand Awards. These require visits to restaurants, where meals and wines are bought by anonymous judges, staff knowledge is studied and wine cellars are examined.

Schifter said rankings are about quality of the wine list, not the food, although the menu is noted.

“We do look at the food for sure, to see if the wines do go together. If you are sushi restaurant and you have a lot of California cabernet, that’s very limited and not a good pairing,” Schifter said. “But if you’re the type of restaurant that puts a lot of investment into a good wine list, you probably have good food.”

A map of winning restaurants is at winespectator.com and on Wine Spectator’s Restaurant Awards app.

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.