Canoe Brook Country Club: The Complete Review
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Some no-brainers if I found myself with a post-round dinner invitation to Canoe Brook
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The Swig Coach proprietary grid lays out the Canoe Brook list by country and grape
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See detailed comparisons to retail prices that show Canoe Brook’s impressive commitment to member value
Swig Coach Verified Review: Canoe Brook CC, Summit, NJ
A blustery March morning doesn’t necessarily provide the best perspective for a visit to Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, NJ. But it isn’t hard to visualize what matters to the fortunate members of this august institution, which features 36 holes of championship golf. At the front door the visitor steps across a stone marker noting the Club’s founding in 1901. After clearing the vestibule, the Pro Shop can be found immediately to the left. Turn a quick corner to the right and you see before you the beautifully burnished 1901 Tavern bar, with a handsome dark wooden wine cabinet against the wall showcasing hundreds of bottles. No more than 30 seconds or so to immerse yourself in golf and wine. Welcome to Swig Coach heaven.
We’ve completed the Swig Coach rating of the Canoe Brook Country Club wine program and it’s excellent in nearly every regard. Breadth and depth are outstanding for a private club, and we particularly appreciate the way the experienced staff encourages members to open their minds and palates beyond the expected.
The proprietary SwigCoach Rating System is a comprehensive and robust approach to determining the intrinsic quality of a golf club wine program from the perspective of a wine-loving member. It attributes roughly ¾ of the weight to the makeup of wine list itself and allocates the remainder to more qualitative factors such as storage, glassware, and member service. The rigorous definitions of the criteria for excellence ensure that clubs can be objectively measured across the different dimensions. Our results for Canoe Brook are reported in detail below.
Of course, we understand that a wine list, like a great bottle of wine, is a living thing, one that is constantly changing and evolving with new vintages and new discoveries. Thus, the evaluation that follows can only be a snapshot of a moment in time, in this case early 2023.
The Big Picture
Canoe Brook has a large and diverse wine list offering more than 375 different wines, which would make it an automatic “Best of Excellence” award winner if evaluated by The Wine Spectator magazine. But it’s even more impressive in a private club serving 1000 members and their families rather than the public at large. And we don’t use the term family lightly in this context because it’s a theme we hear echoed over and over at Canoe Brook. Long-tenured employees in key positions have developed an innate feel for what the membership wants and how to provide it on a silver platter. And why not? They feel like a part of the family themselves.
Maximum scores were awarded for these important and heavily weighted SwigCoach wine program criteria: breadth, depth, price, value, storage, and classic wines. Special mention is merited for the Club’s commitment to nudging the edge of the member experience into new and exciting regions, both within the US and globally. Importantly, the key staff responsible for the wine program maintain a steadfast goal of continuous improvement in the quality and value on offer.
The key measure of a Club wine program is the membership’s satisfaction, not the opinions expressed in a third-party evaluation. We heard that Canoe Brook members are thrilled about the breadth and value of what’s available to them and provide that feedback frequently to the staff.
Alf Vargas, Canoe Brook Sommelier, next to some of the private member wine lockers.
Canoe Brook CC Performance On Key Swig Coach Criteria
Following is a discussion of each component of the SwigCoach rating for CBGC. Note that each category begins with a generic definition of how we rate it, and then comments specific to CBGC appear in Italics.
Breadth means the list displays regional and grape diversity. Major wine regions and important grapes are represented, with extra points for thoughtful additions outside the expected.
The Canoe Brook list offers nearly 50 distinct grape varieties and/or blends from at least 14 different countries. Most well-known regions in the world of wine are represented, but careful attention has also been paid to embrace the unexpected, like baga from Portugal, the Italian white pecorino and even an attractive selection of dessert wines by the glass or bottle.
While “red meat reds” will always tend to dominate at a golf club, we especially love the personal touch of the Club’s long-tenured sommelier, Alf Vargas, and food and beverage manager Luis Moreira, who are on a relentless quest to broaden members’ comfort zones with new experiences, always with quality and value in mind. See below for a pre-formatted grid showing grape-by-country distribution of the entire list.
Depth recognizes the depth of quality in specific regions that merit attention (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa, Tuscany etc.) with multiple selections in each, as well as a range of vintages that allow for drinking mature wines. The presence of alternate formats is also a plus.
Canoe Brook easily satisfies this criterion, especially with American cabernet, Bordeaux blends, Burgundy white and red and New World pinot. There are more than 65 California cabs to choose from in all price ranges and 80 red wines from around the world with at least 10 years of bottle age.
Price range indicates availability of a broad range of prices that suit both casual drinking and special occasions, consistent with member expectations and the local market.
With roughly 1000 thirsty members plus families and guests to satisfy, Canoe Brook’s staff inevitably faces a bell curve of wine knowledge and budget preferences. Careful attention has been paid to make good wines available in every price range. For example, there are approximately 100 wines on the list for under $75 and about 50 that are $50 or less. Casual wine drinkers thus have many attractive options. The list really hits its stride with an outstanding range of wines in what I’d term the sweet spot between $100-200, where values abound as we’ll see shortly. But by the same token, if you are ready to splurge, the list indulges members with many premium or super-premium options in classic regions like Bordeaux and Napa cab.
Value quantitatively measures the degree to which the club's mark-up makes wine prices competitive externally and is determined through direct comparison to the only widely available source of such data, wine-searcher.com. US retail prices available at wine-searcher.com are indexed against a list to provide an imperfect but relative barometer that can be used across clubs. We favor programs that provide some level of subsidization of standard mark-ups for two reasons: (1) it’s a meaningful perk of an often-expensive membership and it (2) encourages members to favor club dining and entertainment vs. available alternatives. Note that value can be found across the price spectrum, not only in less expensive wines.
Canoe Brook’s wine-savvy membership has access to many sources of fine wine both locally and in the greater NY metro area. This is of course true both for restaurants and retailers, so for better or worse the Club is in a position where its wine prices can easily be comped against alternatives. Value thus becomes an important factor in the overall pricing strategy.
Lo and behold, our value analysis for Canoe Brook revealed that every one of the 20 wines we researched was priced less than 2x retail across a range from $32-500+ per bottle. Since in most cases restaurants charge 2-3 x above retail prices and recognizing that only the best restaurants would even have access to Canoe Brook’s fine wine inventory, the list consistently offers solid value when compared to external benchmarks.
Members who know their way around a wine list can unpack value worth bragging about. The biggest values appear to be found on the more expensive, rare, aged, and allocated bottles, especially once you cross the $200 threshold. We saw this vividly in our sample of four "Cult" wines detailed in the Price and Value Analysis below. Pay less than retail? Where do I sign?
As if this wasn’t enough, additional value is delivered through regular tastings and wine dinners (see Member Education below).
Classic wines are generally recognized to be great exemplars of their region, based on historical reputation, critical acclaim, higher prices, and active auction markets. Availability of mature wines is necessary for a full score.
Canoe Brook’s collection in Napa and Bordeaux is strong and noteworthy, focused on quality and value vs. a hunt for "trophies.” The presence of revered wines like Penfolds Grange, Guigal La Mouline, Vega-Sicilia Unico and Armand Rousseau 1er Cru Burgundy illustrates this judicious approach since prices are uniformly great. We noted a four-vintage vertical of Dominus Estate as a hidden gem on the list.
Hand Me The Wine List…
There are bargains on the Canoe Brook wine list so good they were giving me the yips as I tapped my way through the iPad. If I got an invitation to play golf and have dinner at Canoe Brook, here are a few examples where my fingers might involuntarily start to twitch. After all, why pay retail?
Bonneau de Martray Corton Charlemagne 2011
Gaja Barbaresco 2013
Chateau Leoville Las Cases 2009
Dominus Estate 2013
Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2012
Plus a bunch more I don’t even want to mention. In case I do get invited, I don’t want them all to be gone!
Storage requires that the wine inventory is appropriately temperature and humidity controlled, with careful consideration of provenance.
Canoe Brook is a sprawling and very busy enterprise, especially when warm weather arrives. Even on my visit in early March there were 300 ladies in a paddle tennis tournament and accompanying lunch in progress. The upshot is an effective storage strategy is a necessity to handle the volume the Club generates. But there’s more to it than just logistics. The Club’s commitment to the wine program is immediately evident as you enter the main dining facility, the 1901 Tavern, and see the prominent, handsome temperature-controlled display units on the wall. There is enough room in them to keep bottles of most red and white wines on hand for quick retrieval during service. This is backed up with a deep temperature and humidity-controlled cellar towards the rear of the nearby kitchen.
Multiple bars are spread around the campus, and each is stocked with temperature-controlled units for red and whites by-the-glass. Freshness is guaranteed using inert gas sealing of every open bottle, a practice we heartily applaud.
Canoe Brook makes private wine lockers available for 80 lucky members. They pay an annual fee to store up to 12 bottles at a time in temperature-controlled display cases and have access to a separate iPad that houses their personal inventory, which they can "order from" when they visit. Needless to say, there is a waiting list for this special perk.
Presentation of the wine list assumes the wine list itself is clearly presented, up-to-date, free of errors and through coherent organization encourages members to explore their options.
Canoe Brook uses iPads to house the list. This avoids the necessity for constant reprinting, which would be cumbersome and expensive given the size of the list and frequent changes that occur. Kudos are warranted for taking an environmentally friendly approach, in its own way akin to switching from fossil fuels to an EV. The list as displayed on the iPad is readable and nicely indexed to allow browsing in a manner that has been tested to be member-friendly. A bonus is descriptive text and tasting notes for each wine available at a click, although members are more likely to consult the trusted experts on staff when seeking a recommendation.
Glassware should be appropriate for the quality of wines on the list with at minimum different shapes for pinot noir and Bordeaux varietals. Good quality carafes should be available as needed during service.
Canoe Brook standardizes on a single, high quality Riedel universal glass. The glass delivers an excellent drinking experience across the board and provides much needed efficiencies given how busy the Club gets from both member service and a robust event business.
Staff knowledge and service means that there should be someone on the floor after 5PM who can intelligently answer questions; staff can find bottles with unfamiliar names. Service denotes that the staff goes the extra mile to anticipate member needs.
Canoe’s Brook’s sommelier has obtained certification through all stages of WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) training. More than a personal accomplishment, this provides an impeccable foundation for evaluation of any decisions made about what to add to the list on an on-going basis. Combined with his 22 years of experience at Canoe Brook and his knowledge of member preferences, it’s a real asset for the Club. His curiosity and quality-orientation are evident in the many unusual and surprising wines that pop up on the list. Where else are you going to find a golf club with German Spätburgunder on the list?
The sommelier and/or other experienced managers are on the floor most nights to answer questions and make recommendations. They enjoy nothing more than handselling wines to members who are open to trying something new.
There are multiple approaches to bolstering employee knowledge, including requiring servers to take an online course, distributing tasting notes, and holding guided tastings with a bottle from the by-the-glass list at staff dinners on Friday evenings.
Member education tries through tastings and other activities to educate members about wine and enhance their enjoyment of the experience.
Free wine tastings and heavily subsidized wine dinners are offered regularly at Canoe Brook. Perhaps the most popular event is called “Members’ Favorite,” in which all the Club’s distributors set up tables and offer a walk-around blind tasting. Members drop golf tees in bags to vote for their favorite wines of the evening and the winners find their way onto the by-the-glass list. Other distributor-based tastings are held monthly. Wines in these tastings are available for purchase at discounted prices, again reinforcing the overall value proposition of the wine program.
Dinners are naturally a more formal experience and typically involve an expert speaker from either the distributor or the wineries themselves. We saw a poster for a four-course paired Bordeaux dinner featuring some truly outstanding wines including Chateaux Pichon Baron and Lynch Bages for just $160, a sensational value that could never be duplicated in a restaurant setting. Three such dinners will be offered in a typical year and wines again are available for purchase at special prices.
Events as described above are advertised in advance on the Club’s website and in the lobby. Our guess is they sell out quickly.
By-the-glass program should include multiple wines available by-the-glass at less than restaurant mark-ups with an intent to “push the envelope” and expose members to new and possibly off-the-beaten-path options.
Canoe Brook’s BTG program seeks to make a broad array of wines available to meet member needs and potentially expand their tasting horizons. There are approximately 25 different wines on the BTG list, and all are available for purchase as a full bottle, including selections that make the cut in the "Member’s Favorite" blind tastings. As mentioned, each of the many bars across the Club is equipped with a pressurized stopper system to ensure the generous 6/7-ounce pours remain fresh.
Naturally, the BTG list caters to members’ preferences and there are always three chardonnays and cabernet-based wines available. But great effort goes into complementing the core with appealing selections from around the world. Each February the list is recast and new BTG options are rotated in regularly throughout the season.
Opportunity Areas
As we have described, the Canoe Brook Country Club wine program goes from strength to strength. We humbly offer the following suggestions to nudge it towards perfection.
Continue the quest for quality and value. Canoe Brook would like to offer a list with access to the best wines from everywhere around the globe. A few varietals and/or regions have yet to make it on to the list, but we'd love to check back with the sommelier in six months to see what he's come up with, since he's constantly on the lookout for new wines that meet his quality and value criteria. It's like a giant, global wine jigsaw puzzle nearing completion.
A few larger glasses would be nice. We certainly understand the Club’s decision to standardize on a single high-quality, universal glass given the size and pace of service when the Club is busy. It's a practical constraint but we can't help wishing there were some larger glasses reserved for the top tier wines on the list like some of the outstanding "Cult" offerings mentioned above.
Summary
Canoe Brook’s wine program is a splendid example of what’s possible when a passionate and empowered management team seeks to deliver a great member experience. It eclipses all but a handful of restaurants in New Jersey in terms of the number and the quality of wines on offer and easily beats all of them on value.
Distribution by Country and Grape Variety
This point-in-time analysis shows the diversity in the current Canoe Brook list, offering more than 375 individual labels spanning 14 countries and 50 different grape varieties or blends. (Note: lots of data here, use your browser’s zoom function for a closer look)
Price and Value Analysis
Price Discussion
Given the presence of 100 bottles priced at $75 or less on the list there appears to be a clear mandate to make wine at Canoe Brook both affordable and an everyday component of the member experience.
But the Club’s expansive list also embraces the notion that great wines should be available at multiple price points as befits different member budgets, tastes, and the celebration of special occasions. In truth, the balanced approach to quality whatever the price renders moot the notion of a sweet spot on the list: at Canoe Brook everyone is a winner.
Value Discussion
Price is clearly important, but it only tells part of the story, and it’s irrelevant without some notion of the value embedded in the list. While prices are discrete and objective, value is a more elusive concept because it always raises the question, “compared to what?” What is the appropriate frame of reference for a private club? Is it retail? Restaurants? Other clubs? How do you benchmark a list of 350+ wines, especially when a great many of the more expensive wines are no longer readily available in specific vintages? Where can you get reliable data?
Perhaps the most important consideration is what are the expectations of the membership itself regarding wine? Is it viewed as a key amenity or even a subsidized perk of membership? In other words, if the membership is satisfied with the value provided, then that establishes the relevant benchmark more than any other formula we might use.
To derive an admittedly arbitrary but consistent approach to computing value, we compare club prices to wine-searcher.com. The table below takes a representative sample of Canoe Brook wines and compares the price a member would pay while at the Club with average retail prices taken from a recent snapshot at wine-searcher.com. The index is a simple calculation that divides the Canoe Brook price by the retail price. Think about it this way. A typical retailer is going to mark up a wine 40-60% over their cost. A restaurant marks it up 3 or 4 times over their cost. Any result in our index under 100 means the wine costs less at Canoe Brook than it does at retail. Similarly, less than 2x retail beats almost any restaurant on the planet, especially for more expensive bottles.
Let’s take a specific wine on the Canoe Brook list as an illustration. Gaja Barbaresco 2013 is a terrific bottle from a highly regarded producer whose name alone commands a premium. At ten years of age, it is just entering its prime drinking window. It costs $227 on the Canoe Brook list, and the average US retail price per wine-searcher is $242. The resulting index is 227/242=.94, or 94 when we multiply it out. You thus don’t need to be a math major to see the price at Canoe Brook is 6% less than you’d pay at a nearby retail store or on the internet. But by the same token, odds are overwhelming that it would be a lot more at a restaurant if you could even find it, possibly $250-350 or more if from the same outstanding vintage.
As we eyeball the 20 comparisons we made, we can conclude that a de facto strategy is in place to keep prices within hailing distance of retail and well below what a member might find at a comparable restaurant, assuming they could find one with a list this good! In every bracket we examined, the Canoe Brook price was less than 2x retail and in most of them it was within 50%. This is an excellent proxy for establishing the significant value the list delivers. The value gets consistently greater the more expensive the wine, a point a wine-savvy member would do well to keep in mind.
Canoe Brook Country Club vs. wine-searcher.com
