A wine pot of gold in Dublin, OH: The Memorial, Muirfield Village Golf Club, June 6-9, 2024
Click on image for location details
I don’t know that any golf course on earth looks lusher and more beautiful on TV than Muirfield Village. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the same feast for the senses when I began looking for good restaurant wine lists and retail stores in Dublin, OH. I scouted dozens of websites and was almost at the point of despair. After all, our mission here is to find wine destinations that excite us as much as an invitation to the venue itself would, to the degree that’s possible.
Just when I was about to give up among the many pedestrian, seemingly carbon copy lists, I found The Refectory. Then on a much smaller scale, I discovered there’s good fun to be had at The Coast Wine House. I’m going to stop while I’m ahead.
Restaurants
The Refectory is the boss of the moss. It’s actually in Columbus but it’s only 20 minutes from Muirfield Village. If Muirfield’s greens are running 13+, I’d have no trouble running for the wine list here. It’s got everything across the board all the way to a very appealing splurge 2011 DRC Richebourg for $2800 (average retail $5000!!) Well-curated selections available at every price point and for virtually every region. There’s even a 100-bottle retail store if I can understand their complicated website. For the love of golf (and wine), go. IMPORTANT 2024 update: For reasons unknown, the establishment has removed everything from the website except its by-the-glass list. We regard this as a violation of the rules of golf and wine and can only hope it doesn’t represent a decline in the overall quality of their program.
Tucci’s Italian Steakhouse has a large for the most part stultifying list of name brand wines that epitomizes the despondency I cite in my intro above. If you plod your way through it you can find some grossly over-priced options like Opus for $950 (!). The Bordeaux section is perhaps the best place for “relative” value. Any restaurant that features a prominent shot of Rombauer chardonnay at the top of the page, well, you get the idea.
The Coast Wine House has a small, eclectic, attractively-priced and fun list that would do just fine if I got shut out at The Refectory during the Memorial. It leans to small artisanal producers and funky grapes, and we are just fine with that. It would no doubt save a bundle that could be applied to our milkshake budget at Muirfield. Like Refrectory they have a bottle shop with about 175 wines available.
Retail
Shop the Refrectory or Coast Wine House for takeout and you can pretty much ignore everything else (at least everything that posts its inventory online.)
