Chesterfield’s Balaban’s wine cellar & tapas bar® nailed a best of award of excellence again this year from Wine Spectator magazine.
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The awards, announced on the magazine’s web site this week, recognize restaurants whose wine lists offer interesting selections, appropriate to their cuisine and appealing to a wide range of wine lovers.
After opening late in 2009, Balaban’s® earned an award of excellence in 2011 and moved up to the best of award of excellence last year.
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With the 2013 award, Balaban’s® once again gains note for its inexpensive wine pricing. Only 34 of the 850 worldwide best of award of excellence winners made the 2013 inexpensive pricing category.
Selling wine at retail prices to take home and for in house consumption with a mere $8 corkage, Balaban’s® stars as a retail wine store and restaurant. Most restaurants markup wine prices two to four times over their wholesale price, Steve McIntyre, co-owner with Brian Underwood, said.
Wine Spectator honors restaurants in the best of award of excellence category with wine lists of 400 or more quality selections, significant vintage depth or superior breadth in one or more major wine regions.
Balaban’s® exceeds the number requirement with a list of more than 700 selections and exhibits wine strength in those wines deriving from California and France, according to the magazine whose award winners this year span the 50 states and 76 countries and territories.
Library wines, unique to Balaban’s® in that they hail from the original award-winning Café Balaban® cellar, form the core of the current cellar, according to McIntyre.
McIntyre contends that Balaban’s® library wines, meticulously selected and superbly handled and aged for 10 to 25 years, now drink well and helped make the new iteration of Balaban’s® a cellar of consequence as demonstrated by the best of award of excellence.
Owned and operated for more than 20 years in the Central West End, Balaban’s® moved, after closing in 2006 and a three year hiatus, to Chesterfield where partners Underwood and McIntyre added the retail wine shop to a kitchen, currently recognized by St.Louis Magazine as one of St. Louis’ best restaurants.
In a free standing building in the Dierbergs Market Place at Clarkson and Baxter, the new Balaban’s® quickly established a reputation for sourcing the finest seasonal foods to pair with their wine list.