Struck by the Beauty of a Perfect Pairing

An ah-ha moment of a young career

As both a new Junior Wine Portfolio Manager and a junior wine enthusiast, I have been extremely busy these past few weeks here at Italian Wine Merchants. My first two weeks as a Junior PM made me a student in the most intense crash course in “Wine 101” that I ever could have imagined. I learned about wines and their history and their production; I discovered how environmental factors influence wine; I was schooled in the art of fine dining service; and I grew to know IWM’s corporate culture. I’m a recent Finance and International Business graduate from Villanova University, and in taking this job, I’ve found that my mind has been inundated with a lot of information in a short period of time, all of which has been challenging to absorb, but also extremely exciting to learn.

Of course, it’s not like I never drank wine in my life. I have, and more than enjoyed it, I saw it was important. However, I can’t say I “got” wine. Prior to my wine exposure at IWM, I struggled with the complimentary relationship between wine and food. Cooking has always been one of my passions, so I can appreciate the use of wine as an essential ingredient. However, I couldn’t internalize the idea of wine as an integral component to a flawlessly prepared meal. This changed a few weeks ago at my first formal wine tasting.

Prior to the tasting, I told myself to abandon my uncertain and somewhat cynical opinion of how wine and food interact with each other. I had been schooled; I was primed; I was ready. But while I did my best to convince myself, my taste buds were still somewhat naïve and skeptical—until my wine epiphany.

All it took was a sip of the 2004 Ada Nada Barbaresco Cichin and a perfectly prepared taste of braised veal cheek with polenta to make me see the light.

In that white-light moment, I struggled to find the perfect words from the wine nomenclature I’d so recently been steeped in. But the only words that came to my mind were these: “Holy cow, that’s fantastic!” Just to make sure that this experience was something special, my skeptical taste buds and I went in for a second try. My mouth savored the tender and juicy veal cheek as it softened the tannins in the Ada Nada. I focused on the spices and fruit that the red wine had to offer; I had finally been struck by the beauty of a perfect pairing.

This “ah-ha” moment has transformed my opinion on pairings and has become another driving force for my wine curiosity. I not only find myself excited to taste wine, but also thriving on the experience I had. I look forward to opening my senses and my mind to a world of “ah-ha” moments as I cultivate the career—and the tasting journey—that I’ve embarked on.

Macaroni and Cheese

Feeding Hong Kong’s Wine Frenzy

Today I met Mark Bailey, the new Sommelier at Dakota Prime to introduce IWM while sharing one of my favorite food and wine pairings in Hong Kong with him—Dakota Prime’s Macaroni and Cheese with Truffles, a dish that is not your kid’s SpongeBob Mac and Cheese, and San Giuliano’s 2005 Barbaresco, a wine that a revelation for those of us who want to let our Giacosas age but want to drink a great Barbaresco now. We talked about unique opportunities we have in the Hong Kong wine community, and our conversation reminded me of my first impressions of the Hong Kong wine market when I arrived twelve months ago.

The eyes of the wine world remain on Hong Kong because of the city’s staggering auction results, but that phenomenon is not quite an accurate picture of the wine scene on a day-to-day basis. Upon my arrival, many clients here told me of how they saw many wine merchants open businesses in hopes of capitalizing on the spending frenzy frequently reported by Bloomberg and other major media, only to close their shops just as quickly as that frenzy ended. The newspapers would have had me believe that a throng of local collectors would greet me at the airport with blank checks and ask me to fill their cellars unto bursting with Italy’s best wines. What I’ve found is less a mania for collection and more a profound love of wine, and I like it.

Hong Kong’s passion for enjoying life’s finer things manifests itself in an obsession to understand wine, and not simply to bid wildly on Lafite at auction. The wine lovers of Hong Kong move beyond first growths and Parker scores and search for the story in each bottle, and they appreciate the way a farmer can put his heart in a bottle, just as art lovers appreciate how Van Gogh put his heart onto a canvas. (Would Ales Kristancic cut off his ear? Would you be surprised if he did?) When you think about it, the deep appreciation felt by Hong Kong wine aficionados makes sense; a culture largely influenced by principles of Feng Shui is naturally adept at feeling what lies beyond plain sight.

Today I met a friend for lunch who has recently taken classes in Italian wine, Champagne and Burgundy, who is preparing to take her Level 3 WSET exam for fun, and who will travel to Piedmont and Bordeaux this year. The joy she gets from the education in wine makes the journey itself a destination. This attitude is inspiring, and this attitude drives me and my peers in the Hong Kong wine community.

When I arrived in Hong Kong bearing the strange gifts of Italian wines—like Ales’ biodynamic beauties that call for you to open underwater and decant overhead—I wondered how both I and my wines would be received. I was fully confident in IWM and our ability to contribute to the wine community’s thirst for the world’s very best wine, and I felt sure I could serve both the people and the wines properly. But would anyone care to understand what was in these bottles? I was fortunate to meet some of the leaders in the HK restaurant scene early on, and on meeting them, I knew we had found the right place, and the right partners, to share our passion.

Mark’s designs for Dakota Prime’s enhanced wine program will offer HK foodies countless opportunities to discover what’s beautiful about wine—and not merely what’s most familiar. And his innovations are evocative of the Hong Kong restaurant scene in general. When Giovanni Perna at Domani recommends a new Italian wine to me, I don’t think twice about trying it, even if I experience only a fraction of the passion he feels for this wine. When I dine at Tuscany by H, I don’t open the menu; Chef Harlan tells me what he thinks and I trust him completely. (If you’re a fan of great service, watch him operate on any night and you’ll see how much he genuinely cares about every guest’s experience that night.) At the new Otto e Mezzo, GM Danilo Nicoletti’s face lights up like a Roman candle when he talks about the art of Italian wine and his own culinary artist, Chef Bombana, and the collection of fine art in the restaurant itself is an ode to a time and place in Italian culture. Make no mistake: Hong Kong is an awesome place to be a wine lover.

If you’re reading this with a glass of wine in hand, as I have been while writing this post (I’ve been drinking Movia 2006 Pinot Grigio—I usually don’t love Pinot Grigio, but this is art, my friends), I hope you’ll drink to Mark’s success in guiding us wine lovers to profound wine discoveries. May I suggest the San Guilano Barbaresco paired thoughtfully with Macaroni and Cheese and perhaps a side of Porterhouse?

Drinking History

Adversity can breed excellent art, and wine

When I was a student, I was curious about history. It was less knowing the historical events in and of themselves—though places, names and dates do have a certain charm—it was more understanding the connection between what was happening in music and in art and what was happening politically and economically. Certainly, when there was prosperity, the arts flourished. But when there was time of economic hardship, they took on a very different tone, and in many ways the arts grew more interesting during hard times than they were during times of comfort.

Adversity can breed excellent art. For example, it’s an accepted notion that artists need to suffer for their art. This is undeniably true for blues musicians. The pain of relationships often forces blues musicians experience raw feelings, and then they release those feelings in their music. This art-born-from-suffering concept can hold true for many artists working in multiple genres. Certainly the horrors of the Spanish Civil War inspired Picasso to tell the story of the bombing of the Basque town by German pilots in his painting Guernica. It vividly shows the horrors of war, in particular the suffering of civilians. But does this theory relate to wine?

I think it does.

In many ways, wine requires both peace and prosperity. For one thing, the land must be in a harmonious state to produce wine’s most basic and beautiful raw materials: the grapes. The vineyard owners must have a healthy cash flow in order to manage the considerable expenses of the operation. But what of the winemaker him or herself? Take for instance the historic Gaja Barbarescos from the 1970s. Gaja made these wines during a time when he was sharply criticized for reducing his yields, using small French oak barrels, even vinifying and bottling single vineyards separately. And yet, these wines show the passion and the conviction of a young man who dared to defy his colleagues, even his father. They demonstrate the fortitude of a visionary who believed that his wines could rival the finest in the world. They are wines that changed the way people understood Barbaresco.

So what is an original piece of history worth? Is it tens of thousands, even millions of dollars? I would venture to say that to buy a piece of history for well under $500 is a true value. To experience a part of wine history that is still in perfect condition for this price is a remarkable value. Moreover, the fact that you or I can own, drink, enjoy, and imbibe history itself demonstrates the core values of IWM because in many ways Sergio’s mission is similar to Angelo Gaja’s—to show the world that Italy produces wines that are not merely enjoyable, not merely value-conscious, not merely beautiful, but can transcend being just a bottle of wine and become a bit of history itself.

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