64 South Bay Accent
FROM TOP: ALANNA HALE; COURTESY OF CHAMPAGNE DELAMOTTE; OPPOSITE: VINCE TARRY
Jim Rollston, Manresa
certification testing, like WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust).
Nothing substitutes for personal experience, and travel is no
exception. Pablo Antinao of Rootstock Wine Bar, Los Gatos and
Cupertino and author of “TASTE—a Modern Wine Guide” asserts
that “reading a book about a particular region doesn’t do it
justice, but…the confrontation of the reality of a place is what
lets you understand the wine culture and business better. Once, I
was traveling in Mendoza, Argentina and I
heard that the restaurant of Norton Winery
was worth a try, but I didn’t make any reservations,
so when I went there I couldn’t
get in because it was full. So I asked some
locals (the benefit of speaking Spanish)
about a picada (a place where the locals
go) and ended up at a simple house with
dust floors a couple blocks away. The chef
was an incredible character—a real gaucho
making very traditional meals from that
part of Argentina. The experience with the
gaucho itself was great but I also met other
people that, for the most part, were locals. I
had a blast. Had I not made these personal
connections and had these experiences, I
wouldn’t have understood the wine and culinary traditions of
that area.”
“Most importantly—although it may sound cliché—is a genuine
love for wine and its culture,” attests Christopher Miller of
Marina in Monterey and Seabold Cellars. “Because you’re going
to be spending long hours of long days ‘getting there.’” Sometimes
that genuine passion and excitement will be the only things to get
you through, he adds, especially if you come up in the profession
through restaurants and their notoriously arduous schedules.
“I’ve been a sommelier or wine director for the past 31 years,”
observes Paul Mekis, Wine Director at Madera at Rosewood
Sandhill Resort. “I regularly taste 20 or more wines on most
days, with various vendors. And with this experience I feel I can
recognize key characteristics about a wine—identify what grape
varietal it is, where it was grown in the world, the soil type, what
wood was used for the barrels, the vintage of the wine, and possibly
even to recognize the winemaker’s style. I believe that this
extensive experience tasting wines from every part has made me
an expert in the field.”
South Bay Sophisticates
Today the trendy South Bay provides the perfect staging area for
sommeliers. With median household incomes at $251,000 and
average home values at $1,405,000, San Francisco’s southern
neighbors are a well-compensated, word-trekking, gourmet group.
“After working in San Francisco as a sommelier from 1986, I
decided to move to Santa Cruz to start a family, and work in the
South Bay as the Cellar Master for the Plumed Horse in 1999,”
Mekis recalls. “Many of my friends questioned my move, asking
me, ‘What’s down there, Paul?’ It was if I fell off the Earth, and
out of the attention of the press. I feel like I’ve been like a pioneer
in the movement that has taken the South Bay by storm. The
tech industry exploded all around us, which brought money and
sophistication. I think the customers are more wine savvy and
knowledgeable than my customers were when I worked in San
Francisco. They all have extensive wine cellars in their homes,
and are well-traveled.”
Ask the Expert
Accompanying this explosion of inquisitive, global-citizen consumers
is a surge in food and wine pairing experiments. The
curiosity of many diners provides somms with a chance to move
beyond a role as mere wine opener to wine educator, debunking
common myths and misconceptions for diners along the way.
“For me the only
thing required to
become an expert in
wine is dedication and
commitment to devoting
yourself to it.”
—JIM R OLLSTON, Manresa
POURS AND P AIRINGS
“On the casual side, CHAMPAGNE and lightly
buttered and salted POPCORN is a favorite.”
—ANDREW GREEN, The Village Pub