St. Laurent is famous in the fashion sector and niche esoteric in the
wine world. The designs from Yves St. Laurent shouldn't be dissected
in a wine blog. St. Laurent the red grape grown in Austria, primarily
in the Neusiedlersee region, deserves attention and a bit of
explanation...

A fresh out of drama school server at Pastis restaurant told me that the most intimidating aspect of learning the wine list was not memorizing the grape names, regions and descriptors for each wine.

Why my cell phone displayed “January 1981” for the two weeks I was in St. Barths during May 2006 I’ll never know. Since my life is so wine focused the initial fear that hit me after I checked the time on my phone was that St. Barths would be a quality wine supply time warp...

The most dangerous trend already in place at so many restaurants and wine bars: Wine lists offering too many--yes, too many--wines by the glass. Surprisingly, most of the food and wine media assign huge praise to a restaurant or wine bar with dozens if not more than a hundred wines by the glass. I know I am going to get heat for this one from my sommelier friends with 'ambitious' wine by the glass offerings.

During my junior year at one of the south's most conservative colleges I volunteered with a tiny group of students supporting Amnesty International (AI). A close friend and I anointed ourselves as Visual Display Coordinators for AI. In a nutshell the two of us created displays, enclosed within a large glass-enclosed bulletin board, at the college library's entrance vestibule. We relished our role as window dressers for AI, with our piece de resistance consisting of photo copies of torture victims from less fortunate countries, with each photo framed by Elmer's glued-on tiny plastic babies purchased at the local Rose's Dime Store. We were sure that everyone would get our message that the babies represented rebirth and hope for the unfortunate tortured. I saw many a student pause at our display, eyebrows furrowed with an expression of "What in the world, and whatever?" I don't think my brief tenure as AI Visual Display Coordinator directly helped torture victims, earnest as I was.

Fast forward almost two decades later.

On October 20 I was among ten New York City wine professionals, mostly SOMMS, who banded together for the first time to host our inaugural fundraising event. We raised over $200,000 which we specifically have channeled through Oxfam to Darfur in Sudan where money is desperately needed simply to provide safe drinking water to refugees.

All of the SOMMS in the group are part of WineCAP (Wine Community Against Poverty) formed and lead this year by the tireless, generous David Weitzenhoffer, the Wine Director at Felidia restaurant where the iconic Lidia Bastianich presides as chef.

David said of our fundraising dinner, "This evening is one-of-a-kind because the entire night is donated from within the wine industry. Everybody in the industry, large and small is getting involved. From Krug to winemakers like Luca Currado from Vietti or Jean Louis from Chave donating their wines, to Lidia and Claudia Fleming, donating their skills, distributors buying seats, wine stores promoting the evening, sommeliers organizing and consumers participating…all because it needs to get done." Vintrust was also on board, with guest participation at the event and by getting email word out to its NY metro area members about WineCAPS’s mission.

The dinner event itself, held on the 35th floor of the Mutual of America building's grand hospitality facility overlooking Park Avenue, was magical from beginning to end with performances from the Metropolitan Opera stars, Ruth Ann Swenson
and John Relyea and fervent bidding between courses lead by the hugely entertaining auctioneer Jamie Ritchie, Senior Vice President, Sotheby's North American Wine Department. Since this was our first event we had no idea what to expect. David told me in the middle of the bidding that he anticipated our raising maybe $40,000 for the winning auction bids exciting as they were, but when the bidding numbers increased beyond $100,000 halfway through the dinner, you can imagine how charged with excitement we all were. Not bad for first time fundraising event throwers.

At 3AM that big night as I was taking a taxi home after an impromptu post-event celebration and unwinding with some of the other SOMMS over cold beers at a local restaurant, I recalled my college philanthropy days and how then I tried, with questionable yet well intentioned results, to help others. And then I felt a rush of pride, one that still lingers, for finally finding a specific way to change the lives of those in much need.

For more info about WineCAP, please visit www.winecapnyc.org. And stay tuned for more details about our next, second event. No worries, I won't incorporate plastic babies into the theme.

Last week a Texan guest at Balthazar asked me as I had just opened a bottle of Champagne, "How in the world should I open Champagne without dripping it all over the place and how can I tell if it's corked 'n' all"?

I answered her question in a brief table-side manner since I didn't want to bore her guests, but I told her I'd be happy to email her with more details. Here's my email to her:

The most cutting edge producer making some of the most interesting wines today is Nicolas Joly. Go out now, quickly, and buy any of his Chenin Blancs from the AOC of Savennieres in the Loire. He’s not that new to the scene since taking the reigns from his mother a couple of decades ago, but his wines are super distinctive and balanced. That's a rare positive duo of adjectives, to be way sure...

How would I answer the question, “What’s the most impressive wine you’ve tasted this week?” Here’s the answer with an explanation to follow: Drama, Ktima Pavlidis ’04 from Greece.

I tasted a few dozen wines this week and among that group is one I enjoyed over a year ago, and just revisited. 1982 Cos d’Estournel. I promptly added it to the wine list at Pastis restaurant.

How can an underdog young wine from the Drama region of Greece be more impressive than 1982 Cos d’Estournel, a legendary vintage and a legendary Chateau with noted wine critics chomping at the bit to sing its praises?

Distilling it in clear terms, I hope: I tasted the 1982 Cos d’Estournel over a year ago, in the fall when it was cooler, and was bowled over. That was my impression then. 1982 Cos d’Estournel is a great wine on its own regardless of season. The Cos pairs perfectly with, say, a fall dish of braised red meats and fall root vegetables on the side. Near perfection, to be way sure. But in New York City right now in mid July it’s not even close to being similar to the chilly fall season.

My wine and weather impressions this very moment are this: Oppressive, humid New York City in the middle of July with asphalt heat licking at my heels. [Side note: I still love this great city regardless of season.] When I tasted the 1982 Cos d’Estournel for the second time, five minutes after having walked twenty blocks through Manhattan in the middle of 93 degree Fahrenheit heat, I knew it had to be a part of the Pastis wine list. Yet I had no desire to enjoy it now, this month.

Then I tasted the Greek Drama wine tonight and loved it right away for comforting me with its cooling citrus notes, clean lemon/lime appeal and uplifting, refreshing acidity. It was overwhelmingly impressive. And it’s now listed at $29 a bottle on the Schiller’s wine list. The 1982 Cos d’Estournel is listed at $475 a bottle at Pastis.

I’ll thank you profusely for ordering the 1982 Cos d’Estournel this hot month of July, and then exit the floor. I’ll want to sit down with you this month and crack open a bottle of Drama to cool me off.

Would you rather sit near a blazing fire right now, or jump in my pool?

Any SOMMelier serious about her/his wine program, regardless of the wine list size and price range, develops extensive, helpful and to-the-point wine training manuals along with ongoing training and tasting sessions.

I have the fun and challenging task of overseeing wine programs ranging from Balthazar’s complex all-French wine list with over 500 bottles priced between $18 and $1300, to Pastis’ which is a concise 1-page wine list.

Balthazar has a SOMMelier on the floor most evenings because the wine list requires SOMMelier assistance. Conversely Balthazar’s Captains’ team is trained in all aspects of SOMMelier duties, and they seamlessly fill the role of SOMMelier when need be.

Pastis is a bistro style restaurant so it would be pretentious and superfluous to have sommelier service. Naturally I get weekly questions from waiters with questions about how they can be a better stand-in SOMMelier. Below are my standard responses to severs’ most commonly asked questions:

Gevrey-Chambertin, Lavaux St-Jacques, Armand Rousseau 2001. For Burgundy lovers, just reading the name immediately brings to mind a Pinot Noir of complexity and finesse from a great producer, and from a solid vintage. Most of us with a case of this wine in the cellar assume that each perfectly stored bottle will illicit the same response and provide the same pleasure. Think again.

Hell hath no furry like a sommelier scorned by a wine’s lack of vivacity and acidity when he expects as much. I’m referring to the consistently rich, tropical and often flabby 2003 dry and off-dry white Loire wines. I feel undercurrents of anger toward mother nature when I see 2003 on a bottle of white—not red (that’s a generally delicious success story worthy of another blog)—Loire wine.

The last blog I posted outlined a strategy that this wine director/sommelier uses to taste and evaluate wine samples dropped off to me to taste and consider for wine list placement. Just this week I was at a walk-around trade tasting, hosted by one of this country’s best wine suppliers on the wholesale side of the business, Douglas Polaner Selections. I bumped into a fellow sommelier friend who read my blog on Vintrust.com and wanted to know how I get word out to wholesalers to request their best wine sample options that I’ll later taste.

Beyond fortunate is the sommelier with wine samples crowding her/his desk and wine distributors and importers, bottles in hand, knocking on the door. Most of us buying for high volume restaurants are quick to grumble about the time we must take to weed through a lot of options before we find the right wine to pour by the glass, or to list by the bottle. I recall the days when my strategy was to simply plow through and taste all the random bottles on my desk every few weeks when I could no longer reach my phone behind them. Now I plan my tasting more carefully, and it eventually involves brown paper bags.

Anyone who has ever made a pilgrimage to Burgundy, from informed sommelier to budding wine collector, will agree on at least two points:

1. It's a minefield of a region of great and not so great wines.
2. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the two primary grapes grown in Burgundy, yield dramatically different results from vintage to vintage, even in the hands of the same producer.

This spring 2004 I made a trip to Burgundy's famed Cote d'Or to better understand which recent vintages yield the best wine for short-term cellaring (1-5 years after the vintage date) and for legacy collecting (6 years and potentially decades longer). My notes were compiled after tasting with over a dozen winemakers in their cellars, ranging from the legendary Domaine de la Romanée-Conti to the renegade powerhouse boutique négociant, Dominique Laurent. I also tasted—well, drank—bottles at local restaurants and in winery dining rooms in the Côte d'Or's two sub regions, the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune. How many wine collectors open a bottle, take one sip, swish it around, spit and move on to the next? Not any I know.

Here's to knowing the right time to open your own Burgundy, and to enjoying it with a meal and your favorite people.