Favorite Wine List: It’s No Riddle Why Andy Ayers’ Wine List is so Popular

Faced with the assignment of writing about Sauce readers’ favorite wine list, I found myself in a very unusual situation. I have been in the wine business my entire life and know most of the best wine list authors well. My concern was not really who won, but how I would objectively write about someone else’s wine list. All of my apprehensions disappeared when I was told that the winner was one of the people I most admire in the restaurant business, Andy Ayers of Riddle’s Penultimate Café and Wine Bar. I don’t remember the first time I met Ayers, but I am quite sure that we both had a wine glass in our hands. Ayers and his wife, Paula, opened their first restaurant on Natural Bridge Road, very close to the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus, in 1979. Although much of the St. Louis wine world was limited to Chablis, Burgundy and rosé in jugs from California, Ayers felt that higher-quality varietal wines would have customer interest. His first attempt was greeted by responses such as, “How can you charge $5 for a glass of wine?” Ayers was inspired to take the same 6 ounces served in a wine glass and bring it to the table in a small carafe. This “quarter bottle” actually gave the customer two nice 3-ounce servings rather than one 6-ounce glass. This was a huge and immediate hit and still continues to be the method of Riddle’s wine-by-the-glass service. In 1985, the Ayers moved into their current location, previously known as Bobby’s Creole. They soon became one of the true leaders of wine innovation and promotion in the St. Louis region and a major factor in the stunning growth of commerce in the Delmar neighborhood known by most of us simply as The Loop. (The Loop is an expression first heard by this writer when his grandmother took him to the Downtown Famous-Barr to see the Christmas decorations in the windows. The streetcar tracks all met at the “loop” where trains changed direction and passengers changed trains.) It was at the time of this move that the name Riddle’s Penultimate Café and Wine Bar was created. This was the first restaurant in St. Louis to actually use and promote the wine-bar concept, and on June 18 the Ayers celebrated 20 years of success as the premier wine bar in St. Louis. As I talked with Ayers recently, we began to reminisce about some of the good times that we had shared over our 20-plus years of friendship. One of our shared “highs” of wine memories is our passionate support of our Missouri wine industry. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, we would each listen to the wisdom of Clayton Byers, founder of Montelle Winery in Augusta. (It was not until years later that I was aware of Ayers’ shared fondness for Byers, one of the true wine mentors for many of us in the Missouri wine industry.) Montelle wines have always been on Ayers’ list, to be joined later by an extensive selection of distinctive wines celebrating our state as well as our wine heritage. Ayers was the first St. Louis restaurateur truly dedicated to the support of our local wines, a trend which continues to this day. Another Ayers innovation, one in which this writer shared, was promoting the beer dinner. This multicourse dinner matched the creative cuisine of Andy and Paula Ayers (now joined by their very talented daughter, KT) with their extensive selection of diverse and creative beers from around the world. The dinner has become an annual event. We were trying to remember the day (sometimes a hard thing to do after hours of wine research) that we first discussed the beer-dinner concept. It seems that we can point to a late night of beer consumption, following a William Hill Winery dinner at Riddle’s, probably in 1987 or so, when we thought, “Lots of restaurants do wine and food pairing dinners. Why don’t we do a beer and food pairing dinner?” The next year we did the first of over a dozen years of jointly promoting the enjoyment of an amazing range of great beers with his creative courses. Ayers continues to do these dinners every spring. Over 20 wines by the glass. Over 300 wines by the bottle. Over 50 of the world’s top brews. Add them all up and one thing is clear: Andy and Paula Ayers have brought innovation to the St. Louis dining experience for nearly 30 years and truly deserve the honor of our readers’ affection for them once again this year.