"sommelier" news and stories

Ubuntu Sommelier Daniel Sarao Photo: Michelle Branton

At Ubuntu, Napa Valley's acclaimed vegetarian restaurant slash yoga studio, it falls to wine director and general manager Daniel Sarao to find harmony between the lush bounty of on-site gardens and a vino list sparkling with biodynamic sips.

The son of Italian immigrants who taught him an appreciation for wine, Sarao put himself through college and grad school working at restaurants, cutting short a trajectory towards a liberal arts Ph.D. for the life of a full-time oenophile. We chatted with him about the myths around pairing wine with veggies (yes, you can drink red!), the wonders of caramelizing and five inexpensive summer sippers to pair with grilled veggies.

Are you a vegetarian?
I am not a vegetarian. The chef is not a vegetarian and neither is the owner. But we believe that vegetables can stand on their own. We are breaking the stereotype.

How much of what you serve comes from your garden?
Right now we get about 75 to 80 percent of our ingredients from [our garden]. Our goal is to get almost everything from there. It makes an amazing difference. Squash and peppers are [in season] right now.

Learn more, plus five great wines for under $25 to pair with vegetable dishes, after the jump.

In just two years as the sommelier and wine director at New York's world-renowned Le Bernardin restaurant, 37-year-old Aldo Sohm has become a wine world heavyweight, having been recognized as "Best Sommelier in the World" in 2008 and earlier this month for "Best Wine Service" at the James Beard Awards. Trained in his native Austria, Sohm came to the United States to improve on his then "dumpy" English so he could better compete at wine competitions. We caught up with Sohm this morning to chat about the unwritten rule of pairing fish with white wine, which vino goes well with grilled salmon and that other reason why he now lives in America.

How did you become a sommelier?

Ever since I was little I had a thing of smelling food and wines. At first I didn't really like wine when I entered the industry. This was [when I was ] 16 or 17. People in the restaurant would ask me what you could recommend and I didn't know and thought this was embarrassing. [Then] I went on a wine trip with my father -- he invited me. I was 20 and I saw it, and it was kind of interesting and just went from there.

You said you moved to the United States to improve your English, but I get the sense there was another reason?

Austrians love to complain. I hate to complain so I figured it is easier to change a country than to change myself.

More about pairing rules -- and how to break them -- after the jump.

Chantelle Pabros, a sommelier at Chicago's L20, is widely considered a rising star of the wine universe. Entrenched among oenophiles since leaving high school, at a mere 26 she has worked alongside world-renowned talent including chef Laurent Gras at his seafood-centric eatery. Though Chantelle has few hard and fast rules about pairing wine with food, she offered a couple tips as we head into prime grilling season. We caught up with her this afternoon to talk burgers and vino.

Do you think burgers and wine go together?
Yes, absolutely. Though we don't have burgers [at L20], I like pairing wine with them. There is this place here called Kuma's Corner. We normally drink beer there, but I am thinking about the possibilities of wines with their burgers.

How does one go about pairing the two?
With pairing, things that you think would go well don't always go. It's trial and error. I start by thinking about the classic burger, cooked medium rare with really fresh lettuce, tomato, onion and a really intense mustard.

Chantelle's five under-$25 burger-friendly wines after the jump.

Some topics don't quite strike me as candidates for online education. Clay modeling. Flying lessons. Childbirth. I might have put wine there, too (since there's no substitute for learning by tasting, after all!) but now a new UC Irvine Extension course may have changed my mind.

The course's main advantages:

1. You don't have to actually go anywhere or talk to anyone
2. If you accidentally taste too much, there's no driving involved
3. If wine makes you anxious, you can learn about it in private

OK, I'm being a little flip. The course is actually interesting. It's called "A Sommelier's Secret Guide to the Wine List: Wine and Food Galore," and it teaches students how to ID value wine on a wine list and pair it with food. If you know nothing about wine and are suddenly entertaining clients on a huge expense budget (though who but AIG has those anymore?) this might be the class for you.

More info: www.extension.uci.edu

According to a recent Los Angeles Times story, sommeliers are reporting a downshift in consumers' "sweet spot" -- i.e., the price range where they feel most comfortable spending. Wine's sweet spot (in LA, anyway) used to be around $80 a bottle; now it's closer to $50-60.

We all know that because of restaurant markups, it's hard to get anything even drinkable for under $20 (consider that a $20 restaurant wine is likely $7 to $8 at retail). If you're like me and consider wine a nonnegotiable part of the dining experience, how much are you willing to pay? Vote in the poll below.