NVM Review

Wine Not?

By Warren Rojas

A great steak rarely needs embellishments to make it better. Not that it hurts to have roughly 100 vintage flavor enhancers always at the ready.

Early this year, Fleming’s—part of OSI Restaurant Partners, Inc., the owners of such corporate dining ventures as Outback Steakhouse and Bonefish Grill—unveiled a new “progressive” wine concept designed to showcase smaller winemakers and more global variety. The idea was to select 100 wines (corporate picks the core 60, and individual restaurants fill in the remaining blanks with regional/personal favorites) that would complement steak without offending the wallet.

The oenological experiment seems to be working.

The Tysons list is broken up into about a dozen categories (sauvignon blanc, merlot/merlot blends), which feature light to fuller bodied wines in descending order. Virtually all the wines are available by the glass, with most categories offering at least one value pour (under $10 a glass). Adventurous whites are plucked from boutiques in California, Italy and South Africa, while independents from Australia (d’Arenberg Shiraz boasts terrific tannins), France (the M. Chapoutier Cote du Rhone Belleruche 2005 is deliciously fruit-forward) and Chile beg investigation in the reds. Pre-packaged wine flights provide a trio of new flavors, but staff are quick to point out that two-ounce pours of any wine are readily available for one-third the per-glass price.

The food, of course, is all too happy to have such willing playmates.

According to a Fleming’s spokeswoman, the company serves only USDA prime beef from Midwestern providers. Steaks are typically wet-aged from between two weeks to a month, are minimally seasoned with kosher salt and coarse black pepper and are seared to completion at 1600 degrees.

A monster bone-in rib-eye emerges with a satisfying straight-off-the-grill char that all but demands a potent pinot noir to balance each smoky bite. NY strip gets a boost from a baptism in butter and some sprinkled herbs; the blackened crust hides a beefy center that explodes with flavor when paired with huskier merlots. For an auto-sauced selection, try the Madeira-spiked beef Flemington, a pastry-wrapped filet surrounded by the thick, semi-sweet wine-mushroom reduction.

All that attention on wine, however, demands a little more follow through. Particularly when it comes to the glassware. One visit revealed a chipped mini-carafe and serrated water glass, while a wine glass chipped in three places along the base raised eyebrows another night.

Sample Roster

Petite filet mignon (8 ounces)

Filet mignon (12 ounces)

Prime rib-eye (16 ounces)

Prime bone-in rib-eye (22 ounces)

Prime NY strip (16 ounces)

Prime bone-in NY strip (20 ounces)

Beef Flemington (pastry-wrapped filet in Madeira sauce)