Salt House, San Francisco
Bar Boulud, New York City
s o mms l o ok back
T H E PAT H TO WH ERE T HEY ARE T ODAY WAS N OT ALWAY S STRAIG HT By jim clarke
T
ake some courses, taste some wine, pass some exams: et voilà, you’re a sommelier. That’s the way it may appear from the outside, but many of today’s most respected sommeliers enjoyed remarkably different career starts and trajectories. Even with formal training and certification commonplace, there’s still a lot more to becoming a sommelier than passing tests.
Haley Guild Moore Stock and Bones Restaurant Group San Francisco
❂ Service first: “My family took me to Paris when I was 15. We dined at Napoleon’s former hunting lodge and I remember thinking, ‘There are so many eyes watching us.’ It totally changed the way I saw restaurants.” ❂ Wine later: As a child, “My father had me pick the wine: ‘We’re having duck; what pairs with duck?’” But it was only
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p10.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage
somm / profiles
Town Hall, San Francisco
Bar Boulud, New York City
Opposite page, top left: Haley Guild Moore oversees diverse Bay Area restaurants for Stock and Bones; Salt House offers a series of Sunday night dinners with optional wine pairings. At Town Hall, pictured above, she started a program called “Aging Gracefully” to showcase vintages back to 1961 “at prices oblivious to inflation.” Michael Madrigale has made pouring by-the-glass from large format bottles a signature of the wine service at Bar Boulud in NYC.
CIA Napa Valley
Christie Dufault found her calling in wine as a teacher; she is an Associate Professor of Wine and Beverage Studies at the Culinary Institute of America’s campus in Napa Valley.
after working at A Côte in Oakland that Moore decided wine and spirits was where her passion lay.
school in New York, at the same time working as a cellar rat at places like Balthazar and Best Cellars.
❂ Do: Learn the dollars and sense of how a beverage program makes money for the restaurant. “If you add value through knowledge as well as adding to the bottom line, you in turn become more valuable, and will likely always have a job!”
❂ Do it again? “I’d kind of do the opposite of what I did; it’s a bigger field, with a lot more competition. I did a lot of my training on the floor and on my own. Now it’s important to have concrete paperwork to back up your knowledge. But don’t think certifications are a substitute for experience; you still have to do the ‘dirty work’ on the cellar and on the floor.”
Julian Mayor Bourbon Steak at The Four Seasons Washington, DC
❂ From foreign policy to cellar rat: Mayor was working in foreign policy and then international banking after college. “I began organizing dinner meetings, often with wine, and choosing which wine to go with which food. Eventually I realized I liked that better.”
Michael Madrigale Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud New York City
❂ Gotta start somewhere: Madrigale worked in Burgundy for two years after some time in retail at Burgundy Wine Company in Manhattan. “I learned the most difficult wine to learn as my first real education in wine.” ❂ Self-taught: While coursework and classes work for some people, everyone has their own way. “I’ve never taken a formal wine class. I figured it out on my own and it served me very well. I’m the kind of person who learns through experience, so for me it was the only way.” ❂ Do it with passion: “Jump in head first. I specialized in Burgundy and expanded from there. Finding a region you’re passionate about and learning that, drinking that region…I think that’s a way to start,” rather than trying to be a generalist from the beginning.
Christie Dufault Associate Professor, Culinary Institute of America, Napa Valley
❂ Early exposure: “I had seen sommeliers in France on trips with my dad. I remember asking, ‘Who is this guy, Dad?’ I thought, ‘Wow, sommelier; that’s a cool job,’ but I didn’t consider it as a career until I had a
❂ Making a change: “I quit [banking] cold turkey.” Mayor went to culinary
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p11.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage
somm / profiles
Italic, Austin
Lincoln Ristorante, New York City
❂ Think ahead: From her first sommelier gig in Philadelphia—in the early ‘90s— “People thought I was the busboy; I wore a polyester tuxedo!”—Dufault eventually made her way to San Francisco, where she worked at RN74, Quince and Gary Danko. And then? “No one tells you what you’re going to do when you’re 45 or 50. Finding a role as a wine instructor has been really meaningful to me.” Few sommeliers have the energy to stay on the floor forever, so thinking about the next step is important. ❂ Do: “I hope to instill a sense of the meaningfulness of service. There’s almost too much focus on knowledge and how many pins you have on your lapel. When you get past all that you can have real, meaningful conversations with guests. Then you can become a charismatic, respected, dynamic sommelier.” Craig Collins Elm Restaurant Group Austin, TX
ABOVE: Lincoln Ristorante is known for Jonathan Benno’s modern Italian cuisine and its dynamic setting at Lincoln Center. The constantly evolving 350-selection wine list emphasizes small producers. RIGHT: Christie Dufault conducting a seminar at the CIA Napa Valley.
❂ Be motivated: “I was looking for a job, and found one at a winery [in Texas]. He asked me, ‘Have you ever tried wine?’ I said, ‘No, but it seems like a great place to meet women.’ He loved the honesty and I started in the tasting room.” ❂ Follow the money: “I really wanted to understand what happened to wine when it left the winery. I worked for 10+ years in distribution.” Running restaurant beverage programs today, Collins says, “I believe I’m a better buyer because of that knowledge. I’m a better partner to my purveyor; to be successful in the industry and have longevity, you have to understand their role.” ❂ Don’t follow the money: “Make sure [running a beverage program] is something you have a passion for because you don’t get rich in this industry.”
were far from the liquids he’d work with later at Verbena and then Lincoln, he says trying to make wine is great preparation for understanding winemakers when they talk about their work. ❂ “They keep pulling me back in…” After a year in college, a restaurant owner noticed Von Rock’s enthusiasm and put him in charge of the wine program. When he went back to school, he thought, “I’ll never have to count another bottle,” but more restaurant work while studying for an MBA taught him “these are the people I want to be with.” ❂ Do: “Take advantage of New York” or the wine community wherever you are; motivated, interested peers keep you from getting stale or blasé. n
Aaron Von Rock Lincoln Ristorante New York City
❂ Started early: Von Rock stomped grapes for his mom’s homemade wine at the age of three. “There were old vines on a steep hill that you couldn’t do anything else with. She was making Concord grape wine in Maryland.” While the results
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p12.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage
Italic Photograph courtesy of Vanessa Escobedo Barba; lincoln ristorante photograph courtesy of evan sung
wine class years later. That’s when I had the flashbulb moment.”
ABOVE LEFT: Concepts by the Elm Restaurant Group, based in Austin, TX, include upscale comfort food (24 Diner); bake shop and beer garden (Easy Tiger); casual French (Arro); and rustic Italian (Italic, pictured here).
Are High-End WinES Back? Yes & No Recovery from the Recession has been slow, steady and spotty By Roger Morris
W
hat wine retailer could forget 2007? “It was my best year ever,” says Jim Knight, the owner of the Wine House in Los Angeles. “Customers weren’t afraid of spending $100 on a bottle of wine.” Then the Recession hit in 2008 and, as it did with most retailers in America, the bottom dropped out in 2009. In a little over a year, Knight went from his best year ever to his worst year ever. It wasn’t that people stopped drinking wine. “Everyone started looking for those great bottles of wine under $20 a bottle,” Knight says, “and some wanted under $10.” Indeed, “under” became a new magnet word—wines under $20, under $15 and under $10 were in demand. Wine writers couldn’t praise them enough.
“The drop in sales at the beginning of the recession was very sudden,” recalls Giuseppe Capuano, head of marketing and operations for Vias Imports. “Some wines that had been on allocation before suddenly had to be discounted on close-out. Our clients in Italy couldn’t understand what happened.” Meanwhile, wineries worldwide whose stock in trade was bottles between $30 and $100 struggled. California wineries were forced into some soulsearching: If they drastically cut prices, what would it do to their image? Some swallowed their pride and sold off both un-bottled and bottled wines at slashed prices. Some shifted gears and brought out new labels, at lower price points.
But now, six years later, 2014 was Knight’s best year since 2007—a steady improvement over 2013, which was an improvement over 2012. And that’s even with increased competition. Has the high-end market for wine finally come back? Yes and no. We asked several people in the retail channel, as well as those whose business affects that channel, to evaluate where the high-end wine business is today. Here are some of their thoughts:
ABOVE: Only a fraction of the Bordeaux region’s wines are considered truly collectible. Demand for top growths was not hurt so much by the 2008 recession, but has softened somewhat for wines with less brand recognition. Pictured here: Pichon-Lalande 1985 Pauillac, priced at $350, and Lafleur 1997 Pomerol $250; seen here at Park Avenue Liquor in NYC.
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p22.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage
Salt House, San Francisco
Bar Boulud, New York City
s o mms l o ok back
T H E PAT H TO WH ERE T HEY ARE T ODAY WAS N OT ALWAY S STRAIG HT By jim clarke
T
ake some courses, taste some wine, pass some exams: et voilà, you’re a sommelier. That’s the way it may appear from the outside, but many of today’s most respected sommeliers enjoyed remarkably different career starts and trajectories. Even with formal training and certification commonplace, there’s still a lot more to becoming a sommelier than passing tests.
Haley Guild Moore Stock and Bones Restaurant Group San Francisco
❂ Service first: “My family took me to Paris when I was 15. We dined at Napoleon’s former hunting lodge and I remember thinking, ‘There are so many eyes watching us.’ It totally changed the way I saw restaurants.” ❂ Wine later: As a child, “My father had me pick the wine: ‘We’re having duck; what pairs with duck?’” But it was only
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p10.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage
somm / profiles
Town Hall, San Francisco
Bar Boulud, New York City
Opposite page, top left: Haley Guild Moore oversees diverse Bay Area restaurants for Stock and Bones; Salt House offers a series of Sunday night dinners with optional wine pairings. At Town Hall, pictured above, she started a program called “Aging Gracefully” to showcase vintages back to 1961 “at prices oblivious to inflation.” Michael Madrigale has made pouring by-the-glass from large format bottles a signature of the wine service at Bar Boulud in NYC.
CIA Napa Valley
Christie Dufault found her calling in wine as a teacher; she is an Associate Professor of Wine and Beverage Studies at the Culinary Institute of America’s campus in Napa Valley.
after working at A Côte in Oakland that Moore decided wine and spirits was where her passion lay.
school in New York, at the same time working as a cellar rat at places like Balthazar and Best Cellars.
❂ Do: Learn the dollars and sense of how a beverage program makes money for the restaurant. “If you add value through knowledge as well as adding to the bottom line, you in turn become more valuable, and will likely always have a job!”
❂ Do it again? “I’d kind of do the opposite of what I did; it’s a bigger field, with a lot more competition. I did a lot of my training on the floor and on my own. Now it’s important to have concrete paperwork to back up your knowledge. But don’t think certifications are a substitute for experience; you still have to do the ‘dirty work’ on the cellar and on the floor.”
Julian Mayor Bourbon Steak at The Four Seasons Washington, DC
❂ From foreign policy to cellar rat: Mayor was working in foreign policy and then international banking after college. “I began organizing dinner meetings, often with wine, and choosing which wine to go with which food. Eventually I realized I liked that better.”
Michael Madrigale Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud New York City
❂ Gotta start somewhere: Madrigale worked in Burgundy for two years after some time in retail at Burgundy Wine Company in Manhattan. “I learned the most difficult wine to learn as my first real education in wine.” ❂ Self-taught: While coursework and classes work for some people, everyone has their own way. “I’ve never taken a formal wine class. I figured it out on my own and it served me very well. I’m the kind of person who learns through experience, so for me it was the only way.” ❂ Do it with passion: “Jump in head first. I specialized in Burgundy and expanded from there. Finding a region you’re passionate about and learning that, drinking that region…I think that’s a way to start,” rather than trying to be a generalist from the beginning.
Christie Dufault Associate Professor, Culinary Institute of America, Napa Valley
❂ Early exposure: “I had seen sommeliers in France on trips with my dad. I remember asking, ‘Who is this guy, Dad?’ I thought, ‘Wow, sommelier; that’s a cool job,’ but I didn’t consider it as a career until I had a
❂ Making a change: “I quit [banking] cold turkey.” Mayor went to culinary
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p11.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage
somm / profiles
Italic, Austin
Lincoln Ristorante, New York City
❂ Think ahead: From her first sommelier gig in Philadelphia—in the early ‘90s— “People thought I was the busboy; I wore a polyester tuxedo!”—Dufault eventually made her way to San Francisco, where she worked at RN74, Quince and Gary Danko. And then? “No one tells you what you’re going to do when you’re 45 or 50. Finding a role as a wine instructor has been really meaningful to me.” Few sommeliers have the energy to stay on the floor forever, so thinking about the next step is important. ❂ Do: “I hope to instill a sense of the meaningfulness of service. There’s almost too much focus on knowledge and how many pins you have on your lapel. When you get past all that you can have real, meaningful conversations with guests. Then you can become a charismatic, respected, dynamic sommelier.” Craig Collins Elm Restaurant Group Austin, TX
ABOVE: Lincoln Ristorante is known for Jonathan Benno’s modern Italian cuisine and its dynamic setting at Lincoln Center. The constantly evolving 350-selection wine list emphasizes small producers. RIGHT: Christie Dufault conducting a seminar at the CIA Napa Valley.
❂ Be motivated: “I was looking for a job, and found one at a winery [in Texas]. He asked me, ‘Have you ever tried wine?’ I said, ‘No, but it seems like a great place to meet women.’ He loved the honesty and I started in the tasting room.” ❂ Follow the money: “I really wanted to understand what happened to wine when it left the winery. I worked for 10+ years in distribution.” Running restaurant beverage programs today, Collins says, “I believe I’m a better buyer because of that knowledge. I’m a better partner to my purveyor; to be successful in the industry and have longevity, you have to understand their role.” ❂ Don’t follow the money: “Make sure [running a beverage program] is something you have a passion for because you don’t get rich in this industry.”
were far from the liquids he’d work with later at Verbena and then Lincoln, he says trying to make wine is great preparation for understanding winemakers when they talk about their work. ❂ “They keep pulling me back in…” After a year in college, a restaurant owner noticed Von Rock’s enthusiasm and put him in charge of the wine program. When he went back to school, he thought, “I’ll never have to count another bottle,” but more restaurant work while studying for an MBA taught him “these are the people I want to be with.” ❂ Do: “Take advantage of New York” or the wine community wherever you are; motivated, interested peers keep you from getting stale or blasé. n
Aaron Von Rock Lincoln Ristorante New York City
❂ Started early: Von Rock stomped grapes for his mom’s homemade wine at the age of three. “There were old vines on a steep hill that you couldn’t do anything else with. She was making Concord grape wine in Maryland.” While the results
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p12.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage
Italic Photograph courtesy of Vanessa Escobedo Barba; lincoln ristorante photograph courtesy of evan sung
wine class years later. That’s when I had the flashbulb moment.”
ABOVE LEFT: Concepts by the Elm Restaurant Group, based in Austin, TX, include upscale comfort food (24 Diner); bake shop and beer garden (Easy Tiger); casual French (Arro); and rustic Italian (Italic, pictured here).
Are High-End WinES Back? Yes & No Recovery from the Recession has been slow, steady and spotty By Roger Morris
W
hat wine retailer could forget 2007? “It was my best year ever,” says Jim Knight, the owner of the Wine House in Los Angeles. “Customers weren’t afraid of spending $100 on a bottle of wine.” Then the Recession hit in 2008 and, as it did with most retailers in America, the bottom dropped out in 2009. In a little over a year, Knight went from his best year ever to his worst year ever. It wasn’t that people stopped drinking wine. “Everyone started looking for those great bottles of wine under $20 a bottle,” Knight says, “and some wanted under $10.” Indeed, “under” became a new magnet word—wines under $20, under $15 and under $10 were in demand. Wine writers couldn’t praise them enough.
“The drop in sales at the beginning of the recession was very sudden,” recalls Giuseppe Capuano, head of marketing and operations for Vias Imports. “Some wines that had been on allocation before suddenly had to be discounted on close-out. Our clients in Italy couldn’t understand what happened.” Meanwhile, wineries worldwide whose stock in trade was bottles between $30 and $100 struggled. California wineries were forced into some soulsearching: If they drastically cut prices, what would it do to their image? Some swallowed their pride and sold off both un-bottled and bottled wines at slashed prices. Some shifted gears and brought out new labels, at lower price points.
But now, six years later, 2014 was Knight’s best year since 2007—a steady improvement over 2013, which was an improvement over 2012. And that’s even with increased competition. Has the high-end market for wine finally come back? Yes and no. We asked several people in the retail channel, as well as those whose business affects that channel, to evaluate where the high-end wine business is today. Here are some of their thoughts:
ABOVE: Only a fraction of the Bordeaux region’s wines are considered truly collectible. Demand for top growths was not hurt so much by the 2008 recession, but has softened somewhat for wines with less brand recognition. Pictured here: Pichon-Lalande 1985 Pauillac, priced at $350, and Lafleur 1997 Pomerol $250; seen here at Park Avenue Liquor in NYC.
Soft Proof Job Name: 541568_BevMedia_0715 Time: 16:03:39 Date: 15-07-07
PDF Page: 001_024_National_0715.p22.pdf Process Plan: LPA_SoftProof_MultiPage