Absolutely nothing doing on the poker front. Had two meh photos but will leave them out.

This was the scene that greeted me last week as I attended the Guild of Sommeliers’ Bordeaux tasting in San Francisco. Was I right to be intimidated? Eight unlabeled red wines in front of me, two Master Sommeliers beyond them, and almost zero time to study over the past two and a half months (more on that later). I didn’t know it was going to be a blind tasting, but I was game.

The Master Somms talked a little bit about Bordeaux’s place today. It is certainly not the trendy choice among Sommeliers like it was ten or fifteen years ago, and the general consensus is that the price of the top wines are prohibitive (especially in todays economic climate). All the same, the wines coming out of Bordeaux are very good and there is a lot of value to be had for your guests. Not only that, but Bordeaux will age really well and develop into something interesting and worthwhile ten to fifteen years after bottling. This holds true even for the less expensive wines. The wines in front of us were from different communes of Bordeaux, and to be clear, no one was (or is) expecting us to be able to tell the difference between different communes in a blind tasting. Perhaps right bank from left bank, but everything after that was at the level of detail where you are dealing with wine making decisions instead of terroir. Sigh of relief from everyone in the room, and we were off.

I was pretty much lost during the blind tasting portion. The biggest indicator, the MS hosts hinted at the beginning, was the color of the wines which could tell if the wine was Cabernet dominated or Merlot dominated or somewhere in between. I don’t know if I had stage fright or what, but my nose pretty much froze up or my confidence froze up. My notes as I went through the wines devolved from detailed to generalized, and it was somewhat unpleasant to be in front of eight wines that seemingly tasted so much alike. I think this is a reflection of how much effort I have been putting into tasting and working through the CMS tasting grid (very little).

Things were much clearer going through the wines as a group under the direction of the MS hosts. They talked a little about tasting markers they had to differentiate between communes, and I will dutifully post them here:

St. Emilion: Broader texture of flavor. Plum, cocoa, and leafy fern.

Pomerol: More concentrated and weighty but similar to St. Emilion in flavor. This is the commune most likely to get confused with a New World wine because they are generally the most rich and fat. Can be a half point higher in abv than left bank communes.

St Estephe: Firm and focused but not on the same level as Pauillac in that regard. Dark fruit, soy sauce, and coarser, rustic tannins.

Pauillac: Silky and powerful. Lead pencil is a key marker.

St. Julien: The most elegant and full of finesse. Soft and pretty. Roasted chestnuts.

Margaux: Elegant but powerful like Pauillac. The most floral. Rose.

Pessac: The most gravelly and gritty on the palate.

In general, all of the Bordeaux varietals (come on, shout them out: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot!) are marked by the presence of methoxypyrazines, which give off the vegetal, grassy, jalapeno or bell pepper like aromas. This is one flavor compound that humans can detect in the most miniscule amounts, and is fairly stable throughout the winemaking process. As the grapes get riper, they lose this flavor compound. But it usually remains present in Bordeaux wines because of the climate. California wines of the same varietals generally shed a lot of these characteristics because the grapes ripen so well there. You can also think of the wines in terms of them being “brooding,” “soft,” “mascline,” or “feminine.”

I have to say, three days ago I found myself next to a giant fern and found it to be odorless. I did not taste it. All the same, I think I understand that trait. I grew up in a house with a fern just off the front porch, and I know that smell really well. I associate a cool, damp, fecundity with ferns and can almost feel the swirling mists of New Zealand as I imagine the smell. It is more blunt than a pine forrest with a duller rustling of leaves in the wind. There is a softer but altogether primal feel to it. It is The Lady Chatterly’s Lover read by the characters in Lord of the Flies. I am thinking of it as the last wisps of pyrazines leftover as the grapes ripen more on the right bank, giving a fruitier, higher alcohol wine than what is made across the river.

As far as some of the other markers, I am happy to try and learn from them, but I think the work involved in blind tasting is much more personal. One of the MS commented that chestnuts (roasted?) was a big tell for him in identifying St. Julien. I couldn’t smell anything like that. I am not sure how many times I have smelled roasted chestnuts in my life, to be honest, and maybe it is more of an East Coast thing. There was an article on the Guild site about flavour chemistry, and the last part of it talked about how subjective taste is. The author mentioned in a somewhat offhand way that the flavor compound responsible for the pepperiness in Syrah is called rotundone, and about a fifth of all people cannot smell this. I am sure this set off a lot of anxiety throughout the online somm community. I will just quote myself from the comment section of the article:

“This is a great article and I am looking forward to what comes of future experiments in this field. The last part about everyone having different sensory thresholds for different aromatic chemicals is at the same time troubling and freeing in regards to blind tasting. Everyone, or almost everyone, on this site is concerned about their ability to blind taste, and it is only natural to worry about your own thresholds in this respect. However, I think it is important to remember that there are plenty of other pieces to the blind evaluation equation, and your mind, your ability to deduce, is just as important as your palette. Also I think the latter part of this article puts the focus, rightfully, on the individual interaction with wine and creating a sensory context over time. I think it is very interesting and often helpful to read through lists of varietal markers, but it is probably far to easy to fall into a trap where studying these lists becomes more important than actual time spent with wine. My own, limited, experience with blind tasting has been frequently uncomfortable and produced very uneven results. Even more frustrating is the conversation afterwards where I seemingly “missed” important markers that other people in the group picked up on. I think these conversations can be important, and certainly everyone feels lost at different points in blind tastings—we shouldn’t be fixed on results alone. What is liberating is the knowledge that I need to be working to an extent on “what Syrah tastes like to me,” rather than what Syrah tastes like.”

Oddly enough, the Bordeaux tasting coincides with a Bordeaux project of my own. We don’t have a sommelier position at my restaurant, but I have been doing...

Still no poker news to speak of. This is cross posted from my tumblr blog. Doing my best to keep the Leggo blogoverse alive.

The last two weeks have been fairly exciting. Before going to New Orleans, I had come across a thread on the guild of sommeliers website regarding wine preservation systems. Dumping wine from our by the glass program that has been open for longer than two days is a big cost for us. After two days of being open, the wine in the bottle just isn’t as good, so we dump it in order to give our guests the highest quality wine by the glass. It seemed like argon gas was the best. It sounds scary until you realize that argon is the third most common gas in the Earth’s atmosphere (.93%) and is inert—it doesn’t react with other elements, doesn’t respond to heat or cold, nothing. Also, many wineries use it as a guard against oxidation. Argon gas is also used in welding, and so I did my shopping at a welding supply store. I went to a couple of different stores, and the most helpful was also the least expensive. $250 later, the restaurant had a very simple system to deliver argon gas into the partially full (or partially empty, depending on your disposition) wine bottle.

The argon gas creates a protective layer between the wine and the oxygen in the air with its harmful effects. So far, we have a test wine that has been open for six days with little to no difference from the day it was open. Of course, there are all sorts of influential factors—if the wine has been temperature controlled the whole time or opened and poured and left out for the shift definitely has a bearing on the quality of the wine. However, I feel reasonably confident that we can keep a wine for seven days now instead of just two with little to no difference in quality. It is exciting because we save money on waste (and in fact convert those waste dollars into sales) and the guest gets a higher quality of wine by the glass. Everyone wins.

The other exciting event happened Saturday night, but started two months ago. Two months ago a large party of guests who enjoyed fine wines came in for dinner in celebration of a birthday. These guys had come in before, often times bringing wines from their private collection, but just as often ordering off our list, and they were accompanied once in a while by H., who has particularly refined taste. My GM usually acts as Sommelier for this group when they are out on the floor, but he was out of town at the time, so I went out and helped them. At the end of dinner H. asks me if we have Chateau d’Yquem. (For those of you who don’t know, Chateau d”Yquem is widely regarded as the finest dessert wine in the world, and is made in such a painstaking manner in a way that yields such small quantities of wine of a character that no other site in the world can produce that it is very very expensive.) I don’t think anyone at our restaurant really thought we could sell such an expensive bottle, especially one that is a dessert wine This guest, H., said he drinks it after dinner when he dines at Mastro’s in Beverly Hills. He settled on Louis XIII that evening and I poured a total of seven 1 oz. pours for the table. At the end of the meal, I told him if he wanted Chateau d’Yquem, I would try and get it for him to enjoy on his next visit. I took his phone number and called him three weeks later with the good news that it would be available for him on his next visit.

It didn’t take so long to find the distributor. It did take some time to convince my manager that we should buy it. The last thing we want to do is be stuck with (another) expensive bottle of wine that we couldn’t sell. This one would come in for a selling price on our list at close to $700 for a half bottle, 375ml., for the 2005 vintage.

The weeks passed. Every Monday, I would call it out during inventory and my manager would chuckle a bit. After six or seven weeks, it was a borderline joke. Still, I remained confident that H. would come in and order it.

Saturday night was very busy. I was in the middle of ringing in a dinner order when my Server Assistant came up to me and said, “The guy on 306 wants to know if we have any Chateau d’Yquem.” My first thought was that if I sold it tonight, H. was sure to come in the following night asking for it. Then I looked up at table 306 and saw that it was empty and the group was heading into the main dining room for dinner. H. was with them. I went out and shook his hand. He said that he felt bad because he had asked us to get the Yquem for him but he never came back to drink it. I said, “Oh no, not at all. You are certainly under no obligation to buy it. I had only called to let you know that we had it in stock and it would be available for you to enjoy on your next special occasion at our restaurant.” At this, he smiled broadly, and said that they would be enjoying it at the end of their meal that night.

Of course I was pretty nervous. I kept checking the progress of their dinner, and had all of the glassware for the table polished and at the ready. We had been storing it at 59°, and I asked the server to let me know when he was clearing entrees. I put it in an ice water bath for five minutes to get the temperature to around 53°. Any colder, and I don’t think the aromatics and full character of the wine would be there. We don’t have a gueridon, so I set up a tray and jack stand with a table cloth over it to make a bit more of a show. H. said it was “beautiful,” and thanked me. On his way out he said he would be coming back in a month or so with a larger group of people. On Monday I ordered two bottles with no resistance from my manager.

The week has really made me think about what it takes to advance towards the goal in my mind, to be the best Sommelier that I can be. Ensuring the quality of the wine you serve may seem obvious, but I am willing to bet it is often overlooked. Controlling costs: ditto. If there is one thing my stint in my current job has taught me it is the importance of hitting your numbers and how to think about your wine program in those terms.

There is one other very important attribute for a sommelier that keeps cropping up again and again for me: a sommelier knows people. When I first was considering this path months ago, I talked to some of my regulars and some of my contacts in the wine industry. Over and over I was offered an introduction to one MS in particular. Everyone said they know him, or he is a friend, or they would talk to him about me if I liked. I started to wonder, “My God, who does this man not know?” And now I think that is kind of the point. The nuts and bolts of the job are as much about the contacts you make as they are about the wine. How else will you attract the best talent to work for you? How else will you be able to procure difficult to find or highly allocated wines? How else will you discover new top quality wines? And finally, how will you “move” all of these expensive wines? It seems like having contacts in all aspects of the business (from growers to distributors to employees to guests) is of a great advantage. I am sure this is why when I looked at this year’s Top Somm exam there were not only questions about grape varietals and AOC laws, etc., but also a few questions about individual producers, estates,...

It is such a pain to reinsert all of the photos in the text, I will just post the link to my tumblr blog here:

http://bordeauxblend.tumblr.com/

There are casinos sprinkled throughout the city. I was soooooo tempted to play some NLHE but most of the time I was under the influence of alcohol, exhausted, or both. Also, I didn't bring any cash. Next time. I had heard that it was a party city, and that definitely seems to be true in the French Quarter. I really didn't get out of that area much at all, so I have no photos of Katrina's still unresolved aftermath.

In other news we were in contract to buy a house, but we cancelled at the last minute for a variety of reasons. We are on the hunt again with a new real estate agent and loan agent, gonna put in an offer in a few hours on another property.

That is all.

Play well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

PFJ

Cross posted from my tumblr blog. (Nothing happening in my poker world)

I thought I had gotten as much as I could out of Das Rheingold when I got an email from the local Library informing me that the recording I had reserved with Sir Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic was now available. I had been listening to James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera, but really hadn’t gotten very far into it. I wasn’t expecting much of a difference, I mean, it was the same piece of music, right? Wrong. I don’t know how to describe it, and maybe I won’t do it justice, but if you just take for example the prelude, or vorspiel, that opens the opera and sets the scene in the Rhine, there is a profound difference. The Met version is very melodic, slow-building, almost dream-like. With Solti the waters of the Rhine are more crystalline and sharp, but retain a wildness in tone and tempo that are somewhat threatening, savage even. The waves splash a lot more against the blue slate on the river’s edge, but in precise angles and inflections that create much more tension. I never thought I would be writing anything on opera, and like I said before, I don’t count myself among the musically inclined, but the difference between the two recordings seems obvious if you are paying attention.

I have been getting in varied amounts of studying in the past few weeks, and mostly I have been reading Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route because I just couldn’t put it down. We are in escrow on a house right now, and it is fairly stressful even if it is something we have been working towards for quite some time. Hopefully, we will be closing on the 27th. It has made me less willing to start studying new territory, and more inclined to read something lighter. Lynch’s book is actually a very new perspective for me as far as wine goes, and it is very entertainingly written. A number of things he advocates really struck me.

First of all, when someone asks you if a wine is “good” or not, or if one wine is “better” than another, the proper, or at least most relevant, response is, “Good for what?” or, “Better for what?” In blind tastings, the biggest wine generally wins (and this sounds oh so familiar), but a blind tasting ignores the circumstances under which a wine is to be drunk. Some wines are better by the pool with some black olives and prosciutto, some wines are better with a complex, nuanced meal at a Michelin star restaurant. What kind of attitude should you have when tasting wine? Here is what he writes about Richard Olney: ”…as he searched for whatever distinguished each wine. He did not taste with a fixed idea of ‘the perfect wine’ in mind. He valued finesse, balance, personality, and originality. If a wine had something to say, he listened. If a wine was a cliche, he had little interest. If it was different, apart from the rest, he appreciated it more.” I think that if you are really going to be of use to your guests who come to your restaurant, you need to know what camp they are in and what they are looking for in a wine.

Market pressures seem to be as important in understanding a wine as the provenance of the wine. It is almost an extension of the terroir since many of the choices in the vineyard and winery are driven by money. It is, after all, a business, a money making venture, and so it is unrealistic to think that decisions to do with yield, filtration, sulfur dioxide, bottling, oak vs. stainless steel, assemblage, harvest date and more don’t revolve around money.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Vintage charts are the worst kind of generalization; great wine is the contradiction of generalization.”

“Even in the bottle, wine prefers to develop in the same conditions under which the vine roots were nourished.”

Here he is quoting Henri Jayer: “They are perfect, perfectly neutral, worthless. Oh a lot of restaurants like them because they won’t receive any complaints. No compliments, no complaints.” (For what it is worth, I love the construction of those few sentences. One time a co-worker said, “I don’t do well with nothing to do,” and I almost fell over at the sheer Beckettian brilliance of it. I am funny like that I guess.)

Wine laws often govern the raw materials that can be used in a wine, but not the style of vinification. To illustrate, Chave says he can make his Red Hermitage by Carbonic Maceration, and no one can tell him he doesn’t have the right. He can still call it Hermitage. Wine making methods that are centuries old can contribute to a wine’s classic character.

Reading Lynch talk about wine and the people who produce it in so many different, varied ways has encouraged me to do the same. It can only help you understand the very thing itself better. And as someone who faces the daunting task of memorizing a large quantity of information over the next months or years, I have to say that attacking from different angles only makes something stick in my brain more easily. I learned more about Bandol by reading Lynch’s take on the evolution of Domaine Tempier than I possibly could have with flashcards and a map alone. Different descriptive styles build your capacity to think about a wine (or a piece of music…), and that is what I am after in the end, right?

The size of a swallow is key! Are you sipping your wine and examining it in detail with a subtle dish in front of you (Red Burgundy, Premier Cru or better) or are you eating a large, rich meal and need something thirst quenching with lower alcohol and more straightforward pleasures (Beaujolais Villages). Again, this could be key in recommending the appropriate wine to a guest, being the best Sommelier you can be.

Finally, he says, “My job is not only to taste and buy wine, I must sell them too.” And so he buys and sells cases of vintage chart stars even if he thinks they are lacking. I feel the same way to some extent, and my first question when I taste a potential candidate for the list is “Can we sell this wine?” (Lately, I have also been thinking “I would like to be able to sell this wine,” and, “What would it take to be able to sell this wine?” and, “How could we get our staff to be able to sell this wine?”)

Last night was fairly slow in the bar. A guest entered and brought a 08 Kosta Browne Pinot Noir in. I know it is in high demand, I know it is hard to get. I say, “That’s a nice bottle of wine you have there, sir,” and he smiles knowingly. Orders a Coors Light. Two more gentlemen show up to join him with an unlabeled bottle. They are in high spirits. They ask me to open both bottles and I offer to decant one or both if necessary since I didn’t know what the other bottle was or what their preference was. I was treated to a long speech on why decanting was unnecessary and snobby by the gentleman in the middle, and I opened both bottles without a word and poured small pours so that they can taste them side by side, which I gathered was the point of the evening for them. Before the speech, I was told I should taste them, but I was at the moment very busy and felt like charging them corkage for sure after the grandiose speech I was treated to, and wanted to keep things really professional. Twenty minutes pass and things slow down. They are ready to go to their table,...

I have been listening to a fair amount of Wagner recently after my curiosity about the Rhine and its place in German culture reminded me of the story that sets Wagner’s Ring Cycle in motion. Most things in viticultural Germany seem to be linked with the Rhine or its tributaries, and the story of the Rheingold being stolen from the bottom of the river has somehow stuck with me for years. Mostly I enjoy listening to the prelude of Das Rheingold, and I encourage everyone to do so because it is so incredibly beautiful. I can’t claim to be a music enthusiast. Most of what I know about Wagner comes from his contributions to theater theory, if you will, and his ideas of placing the director as ultimate auteur and having all of the actors replaced by these uber puppets. I think I am remembering that right. I connect the word uber with him, and it is sometimes fun to place the word, prefix-like, in front of a variety of things. Anyway, once the singing starts, I am reminded that I don’t speak German and don’t know the story, and that opera is probably best experienced in performance.

Still, that prelude, the Vorspiel, it conjures up what I imagine the beauty of the Rhine must be. Surely the steeply sloped vineyards of Berg Schlossberg are as dramatic. The heat of the midday sun on the blue slate in the Summer, the plunging temperatures of Winter, the desire to construct a wine with a transparent, vertical axis of tension between soil and sunlight, the heavenly longings from earthly elements, it all has a sort of operatic grandeur, no? A river carving through slate over centuries! Grapes ripening through the most improbable (but all the same inevitable) circumstances! The back breaking labor of man over decades, centuries, to produce a wine that can last as long and elevate us all through a vibrant acidity singing through sumptuous fruit in a crystalline voice. What more is there to say? It is inspirational.

I have gathered a few Rieslings to taste and will probably be somewhat disappointed with such grandiose preconceived notions. I am unsure about the producers, but I do have a Wehlener Sonnenuhr, a Goldtropfchen, and a dry Rheingau to taste. I looked through our distributors’ catalogs, and Germany is definitely not their forte from the looks of it. I think I could build some relationships with other vendors, but to be honest, it would seem like a lie to build that up just so I could get a decent selection of wines to purchase for myself, wholesale, bottle by bottle. We certainly don’t have a big market for fine Rieslings at my steakhouse.

And that is really the problem, I think, that I am facing. My market and the types of wines I have available to me and the types of wines I think I need to be tasting, surrounding myself with, in order to learn more about wine and be the best Sommelier I can be. Certainly I am filled with undying gratitude to the fine people who come in to my restaurant every night. Many of them are my regulars and they enjoy big Cabs with their steaks. God bless them, and I know I can help them decide or introduce them to new ones. Still, there is a staggering amount of wines that remain, at this point, theoretical to me. Greek wines, most of South America, large swaths of France including almost all of the Loire Valley. Wines that are fine and playful with varied cuisine. To solve this I have been seeking part time work at a couple of wine shops. I don’t care if it doesn’t amount to much money (although I have to make a certain amount, obviously, to support my family). Even if it just comes down to labels and bottles to go with my World Atlas of Wine, I would be fine with that. But I really just need something different.

I blame it on Kermit Lynch, to some extent. His first few pages of “Adventures on the Wine Route,” had me nodding in agreement as he described wine tastings where the “biggest” wine always “won”. How does one wine “win” over another. Can we really trust ourselves to be the ultimate barometer of quality? Can you parse and dissect it? Is there a grid involved? What is quality? In “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” the lead character drives himself crazy over this very question. I think, more often than not, we mislead ourselves into filtering out what we are experiencing with a wine through our own preconceived notions about what it “should” be. I see it time and time again in others and in myself. I hate to keep hammering away at this, but I come back to my own ideas about Sauvignon Blanc and wood fermenting/aging. Where did I get this idea that stainless steel was the most noble route to take with Sauvignon Blanc? Lynch all but rails against stainless steel tanks in his writings on Vouvray, and I found myself thinking, “maybe oak is the way to go after all.” But that is just as crazy because I am still just talking through an empty skull, swallowing other people’s ideas whole and spitting them back out. Maybe I should have a glass of wine in my hand instead of a book when going back and forth about whether or not oak is ok in SB or not. And who is to say, ultimately, that one is always better than the other? I am really just making it harder on myself with all of this mental clutter, and why? To feel like I am learning about wine? To feel like I know something about wine? Is that some sort of precondition to feel good about myself or what I am doing with my life? Or maybe it is easier to distract myself with arguments like this that cannot be won (because I am arguing with myself, which means I am always both winning and losing) instead of doing the real, and somewhat scary, work. Scary because I am not altogether sure what the work is or if I am doing it right (?). I don’t usually take myself to task like this, but I am including it here because surely, surely I am not the only one who goes through all of this. It seems easy to get lost in other people’s opinions and mistake the mechanics of what other “successful” Sommeliers do as the soul of what a Sommelier does. I guess I just have to keep trying to be the best Sommelier I can be…

And I do try. Quite a few times in the last few weeks I have stepped out from behind the bar to act as a Sommelier when a guest has questions about our list or a server is not sure what wine to suggest. Sometimes a bar regular will be sitting out in the main dining room and I will just go out and help them because I know their tastes, budget, and spirit of adventure. It takes time away from my bar duties and shifts the burden of work a bit onto my bartender co-workers (for no extra money, basically), but I feel like I just have to do it. If I am the best person to help the guest, that pretty much makes it my job.

We roll out our new by the glass list tomorrow, and there will be some changes in the bottle placement pricing as well. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out on the numbers side.

Play well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

PFJ

I didn't cross post this at first because it is so intrinsically tied up with the restaurant industry, but decided I would just do it anyway since I promised to cross post and there is absolutely nothing going on poker-wise for me. Feel free to skip this...

This is something I have been pondering for a long time now, and it comes up every Monday when I do inventory with my manager. We are coming up on a menu change with the end of the quarter soon upon us. I had heard lots of talk from two of my managers about what would stay on the wines by the glass (WBTG) list and what would go. Every three months I am confronted with this, and I have to say, I am still not exactly exactly sure on what basis these decisions are being made. I was insistent that we begin the decision making process by looking at the numbers though, and I am going to make that my mantra for the next two weeks whenever the subject comes up. There seem to be a few mental traps that are easy to fall into.

Personal bias is a big one, and it comes in many forms. It could be for or against a certain varietal. It could be against the representative for this wine. It could be against the people who drink it, even. There is one wine in particular that I don’t understand the success of on our BTG program. People absolutely love it, and I think it is some of the most horrible dreck to pass over my tongue. Well, I am exaggerating a bit, but it is certainly not very good. I caught myself actually being upset at its success, and bemoaning the need to order another two cases. I like to think that I have since made my peace with it, and we sell more glasses of this particular wine than any other at nineteen dollars a glass. Incredible, but thank God people are choosing to drink it at our restaurant. We also have, by my count, three unnecessary cases of Sauvignon Blanc. I think my superior just has a penchant for it.

I find myself personally biased against wines that aren’t fitting in to their “classic” characteristics. I think this has come out of my involvement with the guild and really trying to concentrate on identifying classic wines in blind tastings, or if not concentrating on it, then at least fixating neurotically on it. What can I say, it has become the standard for me. And while it seems like a good idea to have standards, I don’t necessarily think that my idea of what someone else’s standards may or may not be is a particularly healthy habit to fall in to. I am very dismissive of Sauvignon Blanc that has been fermented or aged in oak barrels in particular. I think this kind of swallowing whole of other people’s value systems, of talking through an empty skull, really just gets in the way of evaluating a wine, honestly, as tasting a wine blind and identifying it seems to be something that requires a zen-like openness and olympian caliber concentration. And a lot of practice, obviously.

Lastly, the cogs percentage weighed against the dollar amount of profit is presenting a little bit of a puzzle to me. In actuality, I think I have it figured out, but I am not aware of the “industry standard,” if there is one, and if you put that much stock in that sort of thing. There was talk of removing a particular wine, which was expensive at $21 per glass. We don’t sell a huge amount of it, but it is certainly not under performing in the turn over department. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, and wouldn’t publish them even if I did, but let’s say that we are getting a little over 26 % cost on this particular selection, which is above what we want to deliver on average in our BTG program. However, since it is a higher end wine, when I look at the sales for the quarter, it is ranked in the top 15 % of wines on our list in terms of profit for the quarter. (In fact, all of the wines that deliver the most on the bottom line are at 26 % cost or above with one exception.) This wine was presented to me as a candidate for removal. At first I just didn’t understand. And then I looked at the numbers, and I really didn’t understand. It seemed like a winner to me. So I pointed to the profit column and said, “but isn’t a little bit higher cogs acceptable if we are making a decent amount of profit?”

My manager said, “This isn’t really profit,” as he pointed to the column clearly marked ‘Profit.’ ”This has nothing to do with the bottom line. We are actually losing money when the Cogs are too high.” He seemed pretty convinced, passionate even, about this. So I excused myself with a copy of the sales report and said I would look it over during the weekend.

There are a few high end wines we don’t have published on our wine list. I absolutely do not understand this. Actually, there are a few single bottles that we have in which I do understand this. 1986 Cos d’Estournel. Must be screaming good, and once we sell it we have to reprint because we can’t just order it again as we got it from someone who buys from auctions of private cellars (I would love to do that, by the way). I guess I can understand that, but part of me thinks we get a lot of advertising impact by listing that on our menu and it only enhances our reputation for those in the know about wine. Give them something to ooh and ahh over. Let them know that we are that kind of restaurant and they should be coming here when they decide to drop that kind of money on a bottle of wine. Someone on the guildsomm website made the point that it is actually cheaper than many of the other expenses for keeping the ambiance in a restaurant nice (flowers, linens, etc.) and the guest experience impressive.

I sold one of these wines that are not listed over the weekend to a regular who has a taste for more expensive bottles and the means to purchase them when he comes in. Usually my GM helps him, but my GM wasn’t there that night. So I volunteered myself to be the Sommelier. I did not see it listed on our menu (which may have been a selling point), but I compared it to what he said his “standard” was in terms of price and quality, sold him on it, and decanted it and poured it for him once he sat down. We would never sell this wine at 30 % Cogs. At 60% (and probably a wee bit underpriced in my opinion) it is already one of the most expensive bottles on our list, but we (…I) have managed to sell five in the last two and a half months. People are deliriously happy with it. So I mentioned to my manager during inventory that we should actually put it on the list. He said, “No, no, that is a hand sell. We lose money when we sell that, and if we put it on the list we would probably sell more of it and I would have to raise the price.” I pointed out that we made over a hundred dollars with every bottle we sold, but again, I was confronted with this idea that we were losing money in this way. Then he said something to the effect that he didn’t care for the rep and didn’t think that the wine was worth the money we paid for it wholesale at the restaurant ($175), and he insinuated that maybe no wine was worth that much. Aha! I thought. Personal bias! Now we are getting to the crux of it. (I was pretty certain that there was something like this going on with the BTG placement he wanted to axe, too.)

I felt pretty self satisfied when he said this, even though I was somewhat incredulous at what he was actually...

Last week I went to Joseph Phelps with my wife, sister-in-law, and friend. I had met someone who worked there at the Wines of Chile tasting through the Guild of Sommeliers, and I took her up on her offer of the Insignia Blending Seminar.

I couldn’t believe what horrible weather we were having in June in California. The drive up was a little stressful with all the wind and rain, and I am always always on edge about being late to things like this. Well, ok, everywhere, actually, but that is just me. The rain broke when we got to the Napa Valley, and everything was green and lush and beautiful.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. The recent tastings I have gone to have all been private and intimate, even somewhat informal, and I was expecting the same thing. But we were shown to a room just off the entryway to the winery and there were three people there already. I was a little disappointed, but immediately thought that I must be getting really jaded and/or snobby to expect exclusive treatment wherever I go through my industry connections. Spending time in Napa was beginning to have an effect on me, I guess. I introduced myself to the family of three sitting across the table of numerous empty glasses. They were visiting from Minnesota. A few more people arrived, and then we got started. There was an introductory video, which was a first for me, and then Jurg guided us through the wines.

First up, a 2009 Sauvignon Blanc from estate grown fruit in St. Helena. Honestly, it didn’t taste very much like a Sauvignon Blanc to me. Fermented and aged in oak, it was a bit more tame on the nose and softer. My first thought, as it always is, was if I could pick this out in a blind tasting. I don’t think I would be blind tasted on an oak aged SB, honestly, seems a bit unfair. I had to remind myself not to think less of the wine because it wasn’t a “classic” Sauv Blanc. I think it is interesting to note how I have so quickly assimilated a heirarchy of wine (that I somehow ascribe to the Court of Master Sommeliers) into my experiences tasting wine. It isn’t as if anyone is trying to make a Sancerre or New Zealand Sauv Blanc in Napa. I had to remind myself to take a few deep breaths again. It is these kind of preconceptions that actually get in your way of tasting, I think.

We seemed to be on some sort of schedule because the Sonoma Freestone Chardonnay was in my glass before I knew it. It was a bit too cold, but I used most of my pour up going back and forth between the SB and the Chard, so by the time it warmed up, I had very little left. I cadged some from my wife. Next was the Freestone Pinot Noir. For the very first time, all of the descriptors provided by the winery (there was a power point presentation on the screen behind Jurg) were in the wine. Sandalwood and Cola most notably. I have to say it was really delicious, and I think I should get up to Sonoma a little more often instead of being so Napa-centric (which was starting to have a subtle affect on my personality).

After that, we were confronted with six wines, one Merlot, one Petit Verdot, and four Cabernet Sauvignons from different areas in Napa. The same juice used to blend the Insignia (minus Malbec, which my wife told me later must be the “secret ingredient”). After tasting them all and trying to pick out which cabs were which blind with the help of a partner (I was two for two!) we started to mix. Using pipettes, we made our own blend in a glass and tasted it against the 2007 Insignia. I was really disappointed in my blend next to the Insignia, but it isn’t as if I am a professional. Also, the wines we were working with were unfinished in that they were not aged (or completely aged) in the barrel, so it wasn’t as if anyone was going to make a better wine. I would have more to report on this, I guess, had I been taking notes (and spitting more frequently), but it is a bit muddled in my brain as to how they make the Insignia as far as the sequence of blending and aging in oak. At any rate, there is a pretty profound difference made by aging in oak barrels.

Next, we got to taste the 2005 Backus Vineyard Cab side by side with the 07 Insignia. By this point I was very hungry and thought I shouldn’t be drinking much more. The Backus was so good, I accepted a second pour on my way out to the terrace and we watched the wind and rain from under the eaves.

Once we were out, our friend said, “what’s with the prices?” and I had to laugh a little because she isn’t in the wine industry. We didn’t buy any wine. Both the Insignia and Backus were $225 per bottle, and the Pinot and Chard were $55. Even with the discount that was so generously offered, we could have easily dropped $500 or more on wine. I forget how accustomed I am to witnessing people spend these amounts of money on wine while at work, and the winery makes it very easy to buy directly from them by framing the experience in terms of quality and exclusivity. I counted at least three mentions of the 2002 vintage Insignia being named wine of the year, and the video presentation was really selling the brand’s history, so to speak, with testimonies from such pillars of the valley as Mondavi and Heitz. The facility itself was elegant in a rustic sort of way. There were six other people at the tasting besides our group, and I am pretty sure they all bought a few cases between them.

I had a great time. And now, sitting down to write about it I realize the importance of taking notes. I should remind myself that I am going to these places for work, mostly, and as an aspiring Sommelier, I can use the practice as far as objectively evaluating a wine.

I am close to wrapping up my studies of the German wine regions. I am sure I will be continually adding bits of info and flash cards, but I will be focusing elsewhere next week. I don’t know why I started with Germany since we have so few German wines on our list at work. It makes it much more academic and I long to taste Rieslings from the Great Wall in the Mosel or taste Rheingau, Rheinhessen, and Ruwertal side by side by side. In that respect, it was a good choice in that it makes me hunger for more.

There are a few interesting developments coming up. First of all, in July, I will be heading to New Orleans for a cocktail convention. My regional VP asked me to go along with one other person from his region, so it is quite an honor. It will be an all expenses paid sort of a thing. I am not sure exactly what a cocktail convention entails, but I will have fun finding out.

Second, I have been selected to take part in the Napa Enrichment program in October through the Guild of Sommeliers. I can hardly believe I get to go. It will be four days of exploring the Napa Valley with Sommeliers, F & B Directors, and wine writers from all over the world. It looks like we will be doing some work at a few wineries both in and out of the vineyard as well as tasting a variety of wines from Napa.

Third, I am putting together a Bordeaux wine dinner (also in October) for my restaurant. I am trying to take as big of a role as possible in working with our wine warehouse rep and picking out wines, etc. Hard to say if it is really “my job” or not since I occupy a strange quasi-managerial role in our restaurant....

I was feeling very optimistic today. I hit the wine books pretty hard for a good three hours, and find it super interesting. Makes me want to study more. Makes me want to pass the Advanced Somm test in a year. I become more and more involved in the guild site, which I think is a good thing, and there is a list of other wine blogs going around. I have been going back and forth about starting a new blog on a different site and just cross posting here, or just continuing on here exclusively and giving this blog out to everyone who is interested. Or, I just realized I was also considering a third option, namely, dropping this blog altogether and starting fresh. I am considering a tumblr account because it seems like you can just snap a lot of photos from your iphone and add some text and post. Good for spur of the moment wine tasting, etc. I hate to say my reservation about just continuing on here, but maybe I should because it is something every poker player deals with at some point. I never really talk about poker or my experiences with it to anyone other than my wife. And even then, only sometimes. Do I want all my new contacts looking through all of my old posts? Do I want them to know I play, well, ok, played poker?

I am not really sure how it will be taken in the Sommelier community, tbh, and maybe I don't want to be known as the poker playing Sommelier. Dual blogs seems kind of like a lot of work, honestly, and I know I just wouldn't bother eventually. I think I could make a case for relevancy. The similarities between blind tasting--deducing what a wine is and where it came from--and playing no limit hold'em are pretty startling. Only you don't lose money when you get a wine wrong. Maybe I could get only a couple of posts out of that. And do people here really want to know about wine or my experiences as a Sommelier? Restaurants? Maybe this isn't the right place for it. Do my Sommelier colleagues really want to know about hand ranges and frequencies? Maybe they would just stop reading.

Oh yeah, I am not playing poker anymore, either. So not a lot of content opportunity there. Of course I still harbor hopes of playing in the future. I had just began winning regularly when it all came to a screeching halt. I am sure it will be legalized/regulated in a year or two, and I don't want to start from scratch. Plus I really do enjoy the game. I miss it. I want to play some live poker, but it is such an inefficient use of time, I just can't justify it at the moment.

Anyway, the Carl Rogers/Gestaltist in me says that I have to fully integrate all facets of my personality in how I live my life and I can't just live a fractured, shadowy life. It will only hinder my development in all other areas by spending unnecessary energy reserves hiding my poker proclivities. Maybe there are upsides. Maybe some knowledgeable sommeliers who love to play poker will take me under their wing? Maybe they aren't any good. Maybe I run the streets at lucrative home games against donks who want to share their fine wines with me while I take their money. One never knows.

(I almost changed that last part about "donks" and "take their money," see what I mean? That just doesn't sound good to people who don't play poker, work on poker, try to improve themselves by playing poker. It sounds arrogant. Do I want to come across as arrogant to possible future employers? Do I want to compromise what I write here so it sounds better to people not in the community? I have tried to be super honest in the past with this blog. I would like to keep it that way.)

Anyway, thoughts from all of you on what to do would be greatly appreciated. I guess I am still in the closet when it comes to poker, and I seem to be at some sort of crossroads. There will be a lot of changes in my life in the coming year. At least I want there to be. And I feel like I have to make them happen. I know I joked a bit in the last two posts, but even though I have only met two of you in real life (Probability and Beans), I do feel like I am a part of this community. I have given you the best 119 blog entries of my life, after all. I guess that doesn't compel me to share every part of my life here.

Part of me hates this sort of deliberating in public. Is that what I have been reduced to? Blogging about blogging? Baiting people into telling me that they really like reading about my life? This is the kind of self-absorbed aesthetic that I wanted to avoid! What's next? Looking to see how many views I have and trying to move up the list? (Used to do that. Haven't done it in a long time. Just did it.) Oh, the conceit!!! Oh, the egoism!!!!! Oh, the wanton flailing for meaning in my life reducing my sense of self worth to roughly the equivalent of the number of responses to my late night ramblings!!!!!!!!!!!

Kidding.

Sort of.

Sigh. I should probably just go to bed.

As a general sort of life update, we have a couple of offers in on a couple of different houses. They are short sales, so they could be a while. California realty remains expensive, although less so than three years ago. (A house that sold for 650k in 2008 went on the market recently for 370k.) Currently, 310k gets you a 3 bdr/1ba 1100 sq.ft. fixer in a nicer neighborhood. A bonus room and/or extra bathroom run an extra 30-40k, depending on the quality of the work, etc. It is only because I have been working so hard and putting so many hours in at my restaurant job that we are able to do this.

At work, I am slowly becoming more and more involved in the wine program and my opinion is given greater and greater weight. It is like my Sommelier pin has given me special powers. Maybe I just care more now, or maybe no one thought I took it seriously before. I have talked the beverage manager out of bringing in certain wines, persuaded him to pull the trigger on others. I am cultivating regulars, selling them on expensive wines before we have them in the restaurant and then bringing the wines in and selling them promptly. I am instilling myself in the sommelier community and bringing the benefits of those relationships to my restaurant, whether it is knowledge, hard to find wines, or increased visibility in the restaurant community. I feel like I really thrive in face to face relationships. I feel like I can do better. I feel like I can go far in the Sommelier community and elevate the lives of my family by providing better income, better connections, better quality of life. I am uncertain if people knowing I play poker or not will hold me back.

Play well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

PFJ

Dear Leggo,

As I posted a few entries ago, I had been cheating on you by blogging on another site, www.guildsomm.com. I thought we had come to an understanding, Leggo, and hoped we could go forward stronger and more confident in our relationship than ever before. A few days ago, that other site pulled my blog. I don't know, I am all confused about it. Was it something I said? Did I not post enough? I just know I got an email telling me they had been meaning to "clean up" the blog section for a while now and thanked me for my contributions, but they were going with screened content not available elsewhere. Maybe they would have a topic for me to write about in the future. Sigh. Breaking it off via email is not as bad as a text, but they could have at least called. Even a private message would have been better, imo.

I haven't even felt like blogging since then. I have had some incredible wine experiences and been to a couple of interesting wineries since they broke it off with me, but my heart just isn't in it. I feel adrift. There is no poker content in my life to speak of. I don't even know if I can get my roll off AP. Maybe I just need a few more days to recover. Maybe I will alternate poker and wine blogs. I certainly have a lot of hands I could go over and post.

I guess I really just want to say that no other sites understand me like you do, Leggo. Often times, they have other ideas about just what a blog is, I guess. I am sorry to have put you through all of this. Maybe we can pick up where we left off...

Play well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

PFJ

It was all very last minute and unexpected, but I had the great opportunity to go to the Taste of Oakville yesterday. My GM told me I should go with my beverage manager a few days ago and arranged for me to get in the day before. I was assuming I would be doing inventory on Monday like every other Monday the past year or so up until that point, so this was a welcome change of plans to say the least. I didn't get a whole lot of answers as to when it started or what it entailed or even where it was, and I had the feeling my manager only knew that it was at the Mondavi winery and he offered to drive. We ended up staying late Sunday night doing inventory and I really pressed to get there early the next day and see what was happening. If we were going to go, I surely didn't want to miss anything. Maybe there would be a barrel tasting, I reasoned. We went back and forth a bit, but eventually decided on leaving at 9:15.

It was nice not to drive, and it is pretty rare that I spend time with any of my managers outside of the restaurant, so I definitely got to see a different side of him. I don't know what it is about being in someone else's car, but you get a good idea about who they are. I phoned in the weekly orders to our wine reps during the second half of the drive, and when we got to Mondavi I had one more to do. The place didn't look that busy with the small parking lot in front maybe half full. "Go ahead and phone that in, I will go and look around," he said. As I finished on the phone he came back in a hurry, urgently tapping on my window. "There's a class that just started, let's hurry!"

We ran through the parking lot like two little kids on their way to the carnival, me fumbling to put my phone and order guide away. We signed in and quietly took our seats. There were four panelists. I could see the middle two, Phil Coturri with Oakville Ranch and Kirk Venge with Saddleback Cellars. Someone from the winery poured me what I saw maked on my tasting menu to be the Oakville Ranch 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. To be honest, in the excitement of unexpectedly being able to attend, running through the parking lot, registering (my name was not on the list. "Are you attending in someone else's place?" That name was not on the list either. I gave a business card and they wrote me out a pass by hand) and thensitting down suddenly in an environment where everyone was concentrating their attention, I just couldn't concentrate for the first ten minutes or so. So I all but missed what was said about the first wine. I was just getting my mental bearings when they poured the second wine. I figured out that we were doing a tasting of three wines from three different areas of Oakville. Oakville Ranch on the Eastern edge, Saddleback cellars in the center of the valley, and Bond Estates Vecina vineyard on the western edge of Oakville. Phil Coturri was the vineyard manager and viticulturist for Oakville Ranch, and Kirk Venge held the same position while also being the winemaker for Saddleback Cellars. Later Mary Maher, viticulturist for Vecina spoke. There was also a gentleman who I couldn't see at all moderating the discussion. He was sort of this disembodied voice, but from the way he put the others' comments into perspective in terms of the geological events of Oakville along with his comments on what we were tasting in the wines, I figured he must be a Master Sommelier.

There was a lot of info, and I don't think I could possibly write it all out here. It was super interesting to hear what the viticulturists had to say about their vineyard and soil and then taste the wine, though. It reminded me that it always starts with the vineyard site. Each vineyard had different soils. Mr. Coturri's site has rocky, minerally soils and a lot of heat from the afternoon sun. He plants lots of different cover crops to bring nutrients into the soil. I got lots of black cherry notes predominantly in the Oakville Ranch wine, and of the three, I would have to say his was the most "youthful" both in the color exhibited and fruit aromas and flavors. Saddleback has more of a clay based soil with gravel mixed in, and the vineyard is dry farmed with no cover crops planted. The water table is high, and Mr. Venge spends a lot of his effort controlling vigour rather than encouraging it. I found his wine (2006 Venge Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon) to be much more earthy by comparison, but still with that black cherry (which turned out to be a theme in all the wines). Interestingly enough, although he is on the valley floor, he gets budbreak much later and picks much later than lots of vineyards because of his soil which doesn't heat up as soon as even some of his neighbors. Generally, he is around two weeks behind them, if I am remembering correctly. For the 2006 vintage, they picked on November 1st at 24 brix. The Vecina vineyard has a much thinner soils on top of bedrock that require compost and cover crops. They irrigate frequently because the drainage is so good, and they find themselves waiting for the tannins to mature on the western side much longer and that is what drives the picking decisions for the most part. The 2006 Vecina had heady aromatics, pepper, cloves, vanilla, dark cherry and a hint of fresh pine. It was the most dense, darkest, most brooding of the three, with finer, more pronounced tannins.

During the general question and answer period, I made a few notes:

Oakville is much closer to Burgundy than Bordeaux. The terroir is varied and the vineyard land is broken up into small parcels. People confusingly think of it as Bordeaux-like, but that is because of the predominant varietal that it has in common with Bordeaux.

Cab Franc is really great in the East where the high Iron content of the soil does wonders (think of the soils for Cheval Blanc and Ausone). The sedimentary soil in the West is great for Merlot.

20 years ago, you didn't see winemakers in the vineyards, now they are there frequently. Just as frequently nowadays, you find viticulturists in the tasting room to get info back on their farming processes.

2010 was the first year that Napa was actually cooler than Bordeaux. 2005-2009 they were tied.

A big part of being successful in the vineyard is bringing around the talent of the workforce. Canopy management is much more important than it was 30 years ago (when they did very little) and keeping a crew employed year after year with the knowledge and experience carried through is vital.

Oakville has alluvial fans forming from the Mayacamas erosion, and if you look distantly down the valley, you can see the gentle upswells where perhaps the gravel is a little deeper (I guess it is like Bordeaux in that respect...).

The red wines being truly red and not black or purple results from the higher acidity which helps set color in the grapes (and wines).

They battle mites in the vineyard with other, predatory mites.

They use phermone traps to disrupt the mating cycles of vineyard pests.

At the end of the question and answer period, we were asked to relax on the lawn as they were going to change the room over for lunch, and I just could not believe my luck in how this whole thing was working...