Grasing’s Wins Wine Spectator’s Grand Award, Loses Founding Partner Narsai David

June 25, 2024 – Wine Spectator’s Grand Award has been bestowed on four new establishments, including Grasing’s in Carmel. It’s the world’s highest honor for a restaurant wine program, awarded to dining destinations that offer unique wine lists, unparalleled service and their own points of view on the wine world. The four members of the Class of 2024 join 92 other restaurants so honored around the world. Grasing’s in Carmel-by-the-Sea offers more than 3,000 selections, carefully curated by wine director Eric Ewers, emphasizing California wines, while covering 15 countries. This long sought after award has been decades in the making for Grasing’s: a true work in progress that now seems a miracle. 

“We had kind of given up on getting this award,” says owner Kurt Grasing, who started the restaurant in 1998 with the help of founding partner Narsai David, who passed away last Friday, just shy of his 88^th birthday. 

Says Grasing, “We have been passed over for so many years. It was hard to know why. Maybe we combed our hair the wrong way?! After a long time, our cellar and program is finally recognized. We have a lot of wines on our list, and I see a lot of other Grand Award-winning restaurants that don’t have what we have.”  

Grasing credits Ewers for putting the restaurant on the radar. Ewers joined Grasing’s in March 2020, two days before the pandemic lockdown.

“He was at the Broadmoor in Colorado and he has quite a resume, including a lot of experience with great wine lists and selling great wines. This comes easily for him. He brought a lot of experience with him.”

The lockdown gave Ewers ample time to handle every bottle in cellar and move things around a little bit, says Grasing. “When he started it was a big list and not a lot of people have that kind of experience to work with such a big list. It was well set up, and he got an intimate feel for it.” 

Asked if he knew Grasing’s might finally have achieved this dream, Grasings said that Wine Spectator had come down to write an article and do an interview, so he suspected that they might have won for the last couple of weeks. But you ever know until the news actually breaks.

“It made our day when they called and came to visit, and wanted to interview me and Eric to get our philosophy of wine. They wanted to see the cellar, which was a good sign. They wanted to see if we had what we said we had! Our oldest wines are Bordeauxs going back to the 20s and 40s, and we have some real gems. Whether someone wants something for their birth year or a great vintage – we have fun things – one-offs and unicorns.” 

Other restaurants that received the award for the first time this year include Lazy Bear of San Francisco, Le Bistro de l’Hôtel in Beaune, France and Portugal’s The Yeatman, owned by Taylor Fladgate. 

Detailed profiles of the four new Grand Award winners can be found in the Grand Awards Class of 2024 section of WineSpectator.com. Just 96 restaurants worldwide hold this distinction. In the Monterey Bay area the only other Grand Award restaurant is Sierra Mar at Post Ranch Inn.

Says Grasing, “We have been very fortunate that we have gotten this Best of Award after so many years. It’s always been a dream, but, at a certain point, you just have to go forward and do what you do and know that you are the best at what you do.”

There is some irony that the news came out the day that longtime KCBS Food & Wine Editor Narsai David passed away at his home in the Berkeley Hills. David was also a longtime SF Chronicle contributor, restauranteur, vineyard owner, wine lover and Kurt Grasing’s business partner and mentor, 

A beloved radio personality and columnist, David was exceedingly proud of his Assyrian heritage, and spoke often of growing up in Turlock, where his mother imbued in him a lifelong love of food. He thrilled at the simplest, freshest ingredients, and never tired of giving tips for properly serving Persian cucumbers, choosing and cooking heritage artichokes or making beans. 

He professed his love of parsley, which most consider a garnish, but which he considered a main ingredient. His parsley and celery salad with lemon, was wonderful for its simplicity and refreshing flavors. His first restaurant was Narsai’s Restaurant in Kensington, where Kurt Grasing met him. 

“I’ve known Narsai since 1979, when I worked at his restaurant,” Grasing told us. “I started out as a lead sautée cook and worked up to chef, and was chef there in 1979 and 1980. I left in 1981, but we’ve kept up our relationship for a long time.” 

In fact, the two collaborated with the help of Narsai’s connections, to turn what was then Carmel’s 6^th Avenue Grill into Grasing’s. “Some people knew these people and some people knew those other people, and pretty soon we had investors to buy the place and turn it into Grasing’s,” he says. “Narsai was an advisor and partner and mentor – someone to ask advice – I had a restaurant before so I knew how to run a business, but he was older and wiser, and it was always great to tap into his spin on things.”  

Grasing had just visited Narsai, his wife Vini and son Danny, the day before David passed. 

A very proud owner of vineyard land in Napa where he grew Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, David was a fixture at many Bay Area food and wine events, and was always holding court at Winesong, a celebration of local wine held at the Mendocino Botanical Gardens in Ft. Bragg. This year, the scaled down event will be held at the Little River Inn, and will be very different without him.

I have such fond memories of Narsai from the first Orange County wine competition I judged. He exuberantly took me under his wing and regaled me with stories, showing off his collection of bowties and cognac. Early on when I met Kurt, I ordered a glass of Narsai’s Merlot from the list and was proud to tell Narsai I enjoyed it immensely. 

Grasing shared a fun insight into the genesis of the restaurant’s now officially “Grand” wine list. “When we first started, we had six wines on the list. Our goal was to get to eight, and then to 12 and then to 16,” he recalls. “I literally had to run to Safeway if we sold more than two bottles per night! Most people start with an angel investor to stock their cellar. We built it up one bottle at a time. It’s a lot different than how most people build a list, which makes it really special. I’ve been very fortunate to have tasted almost all of the wines before we bought them. Well, maybe not a ‘28 Margaux, but almost everything. I absolutely taste before I purchase them.”

And yes, Narsai’s wines are still on the list: from his vineyard and from his personal collection. 

“We serve the 2019 Narsai Oakville Cabernet by the glass, so every day we get to taste what’s coming out of his vineyard. We were hoping to put together a Legends dinner with Warren (Winiarski) and Narsai.”

Hopefully, Warren and Narsai are having their own Legends dinner at the Pearly Gates.