Every year Wine Spectator Magazine bestows its Grand Award on restaurants with “extraordinary wine programs”. In 2017, there were 87 Grand Award Winners throughout the world.
I just returned from Nassau, Bahamas where I had a chance to dine at Graycliff, a restaurant that has received the Wine Spectator’s Grand Award since 1988. Graycliff is a 5 star restaurant in “Old Nassau” that is housed in a former colonial mansion. The mansion was built in 1740 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
From the moment you enter Graycliff you have a feeling the evening is going to be special. Cocktails before dinner are served in the open air parlour which becomes a piano bar later in the evening. Dinner is served in several unique rooms throughout the mansion. The dinner menu is fine Bahamian cuisine and is complimented by a wine list that reads like a novel!
The strength of the Graycliff wine list is primarily Bordeaux, Burgundy, Italy, California and Port. The cellar houses 250,000 bottles which represent 3,000 individual selections. It is the third largest private wine collection in the Western Hemisphere. Over dinner we had a chance to enjoy a Cabernet Sauvignon from both Rudius Wines and Dunn Vineyards.
After dinner we toured the wine cellar which is a labyrinth of small rooms. The oldest bottle in the cellar is a German White Wine from the 1723 priced at more than $200,000. As we exited the wine cellar a Torcedor was hand rolling cigars in the lobby.
Fine Bahamian cuisine, specialty cocktails, hand rolled cigars and more wine choices than you can imagine, made for a special evening in “Old Nassau”.