Eric Railsback has been around wine for a long time. Well, a relatively long time, considering he’s only 25 and about to become assistant wine director for the Michael Mina Group. As early as age 15, it was a family thing of sorts — his older brother was really into wine and got Eric started working at wineries and handling bread and water service at restaurants where he grew up in Oregon, a state with its own vintage pedigree. Then he headed to college in Santa Barbara, the heart of one of California’s bustling grape-growing regions.
The chefs he’s worked under are household names — Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel in West Hollywood, Mario Batali at Los Angeles’ Osteria Mozza. And then there’s the Mina Group, where he’s served as sommelier at San Francisco’s RN74, recently set up the wine list at the new American Fish restaurant in Las Vegas and is currently transitioning into his role as assistant wine director.

He definitely has his hands full working for Mina. The group has 17 restaurants across the country — Miami, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Detroit, Arizona, five in Las Vegas alone — plus RN74 in San Francisco (and another opening in Seattle in the spring) and two new Bay Area offerings on the horizon — the original Michael Mina will be reconcepted into his fifth Bourbon Steak nationwide and a new restaurant in the spot where Mina was head chef 15 years ago will become the new Michael Mina.
We caught up with Railsback between trips to the wine cellar for a candid conversation about how to find the best wine for the best value.

So what goes into building a wine list for a new restaurant? What types of wines are you looking for?

Definitely they are all different, and everything depends on the type of food the chef is creating, but also the type of clientele you’re trying to drive in that area. For example, Las Vegas is a much different market than San Francisco. In Vegas, you have to focus much more on domestic wines and a little bit more of the Wine Spectator wines, as opposed to a market like San Francisco, where you can put on a few more geeky, random wines that people don’t necessarily know but they get into them much easier.

And I certainly always try to put wines that I love onto all the lists — I’m very big into Burgundy, France and Austria, but depending on the market, you have to fill it out with wines that the people are going to recognize as well.

You mentioned Las Vegas, which is a good market to discuss for our golf-and-gambling issue. Give us some advice for the person or group on a mid-priced trip that decides to have a big night out at a Michael Mina restaurant. What should they be looking for on the wine list, and what questions should they ask the sommelier?

I would say the first thing is to simply ask the sommelier.
I find that many people in Vegas like to just pick up a list to find something in their price range without letting someone know what they are looking for, and then they are unhappy when it’s a different style of wine than they wanted. Most sommeliers, and certainly in our group, know the list very well and can usually find a bottle for way under your price point if you take the time to ask them and let them know your thoughts.

And then there are always wines of great value in lesser-known appellations that the average diner doesn’t typically look for.
So I would say get to know your sommelier. I love to hook people up with great wines, and even downsell to get them better wines and better value. That’s one way you get people to come back, especially in Vegas at the moment.

How about some underrated wines?

There’s great value in Austrian white wines, which most people don’t know about but is one of my favorite countries. They do dry Riesling, Grüner Veltliner. And for the quality, you can get a great bottle for $25 on a list.

And even with their high-end cru wines or high-end Smaragd wines, at the most you’re going to pay $150 and the quality is much higher than white Burgundy. With Chevalier-Montrachet, you can pay upwards of $500 and the quality is quite similar. It’s just one of those places that people don’t really know about in America. That’s one thing I love to turn people on to, and for the price, you can get outrageous deals.

Also, when people want to drink Burgundy, everyone knows Vosne-Romanée and Gevrey-Chambertin, but there are other off-the-path places where the same winemakers are making this wine, but instead of saying Gevrey-Chambertin, it’s under a different appellation and for $100 less you’re getting very similar product.

There’s talk these days about fledgling wine regions on the East Coast in areas like Virginia. Are there new up-and-comers, like the Central Coast was at one time?

Out here in California we taste a few examples, but probably not as much as the sommeliers in the East are tasting. But I think there’s some great terroir over there, but there’s a wide range of winemakers, too, some of whom have no experience, others who have lots of experience. At this stage, there are some really good finds, but you have to be willing to taste your way through some things.

But, then again, places like Santa Barbara have people who have been doing this since the ’80s and they just kind of rest on their name — there’s certainly some terrible wines coming from there that would cost much more than a lesser-known, better wine from the East Coast.

Many times, when I’m drinking West Coast wines, I prefer Washington state wines for the price because nobody really knows them but they’re great quality. And you can get a nice Syrah for a third of the price for a California Syrah and usually they’re a little more elegant and better made.

Even places like Colorado — I’d be interested to see wines come out of there because they have very similar climate and soils to Old World countries.

You grew up in Oregon, so talk about how that wine region has exploded, albeit not necessarily in the same, glamorous way as California’s Central Coast.

I love the Oregon wines, especially the Pinots, and enjoy them more than many of the California Pinots because they are more Burgundian in style. And they definitely haven’t benefitted from all the press that California has, like the movie Sideways, but I feel like they’ve drifted more toward making wines like California just to kind of move in on some of that market. In the ’70s and ’80s, the wines in Oregon were very classic, very Burgundian. I’ve been trying to drink more old Oregon Pinot from that era, and if you don’t know what they are, they taste like Burgundy.

Nowadays I feel like the winemaking has gone a little more modern, a little more California-style, and hopefully now we’re starting to see a trend to go back. The climate there is great — it’s much cooler than California so you get more elegance, and there are definitely some up-and-coming producers where you can find great value, especially in lesser-known appellations than the Willamette Valley. And I love the vines up there. They have some very old vines planted in the ’80s that are still producing great fruit. So you can find some very old vineyards, which makes things interesting as well.

Working for the Mina Group, you have the opportunity to taste some great food. One final question: What’s your perfect meal?

I’d definitely be having some foie gras for sure. It’s one of my favorite dishes that I don’t eat too often because it’s so rich. I’m into very classic French food right now. And then maybe something a little more rustic for the entree, like duck or game hen, maybe pigeon. And some really good Burgundy to go with it. That would be ideal.