SELBY'S

A Winning Wine Algorithm In Silicon Valley

- AARON ROMANO

" I Think this is one of the best restaurant wine lists in the country that nobody knows about,” says Selby’s wine director, Jaime Pinedo.

The secret may be out for this restaurant in Atherton, California, operated by Bacchus Management Group. Bacchus is no stranger to distinguished wine lists as the operator of Wine Spectator Grand Award winners the Village Pub and Spruce.

Those two other world-class wine lists notwithstanding, Bacchus partner and president of fine dining Andrew Green says Selby’s, which opened in 2019, is the deepest yet. “We started accumulating wine two and a half years before we opened, with a commitment to have a large wine program,” he says.

Selby’s 20,000-bottle inventory is well-rounded, spanning the world’s key winegrowing regions but offering remarkable breadth in Burgundy, Bordeaux, Napa and Italy, including hard-to-find bottlings. Deep-pocketed wine lovers can easily drop four figures for library vintages of Domaine Leflaive, Château Cheval Blanc, Harlan Estate and countless others.

Green and Pinedo say provenance has played a huge role in their focus. Working with key distributors like Kermit Lynch and Chambers & Chambers for two decades as well as companies like Duclot Wine Merchants has allowed them to build a first-rate list of impeccably kept bottles. As a result, the 130-page list offers impressive depth, including verticals and horizontals across many noteworthy producers.