Elway's, Denver - Winning Wine And Service
Visits to two of John Elway's upscale steakhouses in Denver could not have been under more opposite circumstances, yet both yielded outstanding experiences worth repeating.
Elway's Downtown
First, my wife and I were thrilled with an anniversary dinner at Elway's Downtown, inside the Ritz-Carlton. Arriving for a reservation, we were recognized and seated immediately in a cozy, semi-private booth, complete with flowers. Several members of management and staff cared for us throughout the evening, with Executive Sommelier Gail Oversteg taking the lead. She gave excellent recommendations from the wine list and food menu. A pair of truly prime steaks were perfectly prepared, and we are now loyal users of Elway's steak seasoning. Gail continued to exceed expectations throughout the evening. After I inquired about the aerator she used to decant our Burgundy, she produced a new, boxed and gift-bagged version of the device that we gladly purchased at cost.
On another trip, we made a spontaneous drop-in to Elway's at the airport, on a game day no less. Anxious about a short layover, yet hungry for great food, we cautioned the hostess of our dilemma. She mentioned that the menu would be limited (no prime steak this trip) for such a brief meal, but assured us it could be done. Our waiter, Andrew, was aware of our time frame when he introduced himself, and reassured us we were in good shape. A strong list of wines by the glass included selections like Guigal Cotes du Rhone and Acacia Pinot Noir. The Spicy Steak Chili was exactly that, with chopped chunks of beef bringing serious heat. Andrew presented the check immediately after our meal. We were in, out, and fully satisfied in twenty-five minutes!
Completely different experiences in scope, with identical happiness. Elway's has a high-five recommendation for wine, food, and service.
Elway's Downtown - Ritz-Carlton 1881 Curtis St. Denver, CO 80202
Elway's at DIA - Denver International Airport, B Concourse
Wine Talk With Rajat Parr
Rajat Parr has invested two decades in restaurant and wine service and oversight, wine education, and now wine making, to become one of the world's most influential Sommeliers. While juggling all these responsibilities and collecting the industry's highest honors, he remains abundantly outgoing and gracious. Clearly, he lives the quote of Mahatma Gandhi that adorns his email signature: "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." Here are highlights from conversation he shared with me surrounding his passion for wine.
On how he got started with wine...
I was born and grew up in India, and went to hotel school. I always loved cooking, but there was not a cooking school in India at the time. So I went to hotel school, and then I was accepted and moved to New York to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. While I was there I joined the wine club, and I fell in love with wine. So my focus shifted to wine, and I started working, and moved to San Francisco and worked with Larry Stone at a restaurant called Rubicon. I started as a busboy and moved up to Sommelier with Larry as his assistant. Then I was Sommelier at Fifth Floor, and then Michael Mina, and opened around twenty restaurants. I was already making wine, so I did both from ’04 to 2012, and then I finally moved full-time to Santa Barbara.
So you have four different wine projects. I can see why you had get out of restaurant business. How do you manage all of them?
Ha ha! I don’t know. Yes, two estate projects and two negociant or purchased grape projects. There is Domaine de la Cote in Santa Rita Hills, and Seven Springs Vineyards in Oregon that are estate. Then we have Sandhi, and Maison L'Oree in Burgundy, small negociants. All of these things just happened very naturally and nothing was forced. We have great partners, and we work it out. We have fun doing it. We have a great time working with Seven Springs, an old vineyard, planted in the mid-eighties. It’s pretty great to work with an almost thirty-year old vineyard. Then Domain de la Cote is a new vineyard, planted in ’06. Pretty great to see the potential of the young vineyard. Hopefully it will be great in twenty or thirty years.
On Santa Barbara and the new California wine scene...
I always loved Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and I think you can grow Chardonnay and Pinot Noir pretty well in Santa Barbara. You can make wines which have good levels of high-acidity, very vibrant wines. Sonoma was another option, and Santa Cruz. They all are different. I just felt Santa Barbara was more my style. When Domaine de la Cote was planted, early on, I was quite astounded by the results from the vineyard, so I decided to go all in.
In Pursuit of Balance was supposed to be just a small gathering or tasting. Me and my friend Jasmine Hirsch, when she was just starting to work with her family vineyard, and I had just started Sandhi. And we said let’s do a tasting, get some like-minded people together. So we did a small tasting of twenty people in 2011. It was a big success. There were a lot of people interested in listening to what’s happening in California, focusing on Chardonnay and Pinot, and that small tasting now has a pretty big following. There was a great article, one of the best articles written, by Anne Crable. Are you on Twitter? I put it on Twitter. One of the most informative articles I’ve seen.
What advice would you give to the wine drinking community, with so much good wine and new trends?
I think that the most important thing is to have an open mind, and to try different things. Sometimes people just always drink the same wines they drink, and stay in their comfort zone. I think it’s important to open your mind, try different things. Different wines with different foods, and see. The only way your palate will evolve is to taste different things. If you taste the same things every day, you’re not evolving your palate. Keep an open mind, try different things, that’s the most important thing. That way you can really explore new things, try some fun wines, and learn more. The younger generation (is like this) for sure. The Millennials are very curious. Quite different than the Baby Boomers. They like the classics. Which, there is nothing wrong. But if you want to learn more, you must have an open mind.
Rajat was honored with the 2011 James Beard Award for Beverage for his book, Secrets of the Sommeliers: How to Think and Drink Like the World's Top Wine Professionals. I asked how things have changed since it was published:
I think when we wrote the book, we didn’t really account for so many young sommeliers now. The core of the book is still really relevant. There are a lot of regions that have really developed in the past five years. Things are changing rapidly in the wine world. I think we will have to do a new edition to update all the new wines. Australia for example. California was really small at the time, and now there is so much more. I think the core story and core content are still really relevant. Definitely that. And I am working on a new book as well.
When he won the 2015 James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine, Spirits, or Beer Professional, I asked for his comments on a second Award:
The James Beard Award means a lot to me. It's a huge honor and an endorsement by the food and wine community. I feel humbled!
See notes from my tasting of Domaine de la Cote and Sandhi here.
Brian McClintic, Master Sommelier And Much More
Master Sommelier. Vallin winemaker. SOMM Film Star. Les Marchands Wine Bar owner. Brian McClintic shared some of his experiences from all aspects of his busy schedule.
What was it like having a camera in your face while studying for the master sommelier exam?
I think it impacted me positively. The Master Sommelier test is very social. The tasting is with a panel. Service is obviously social. The theory test is oral. You’re walking around with so much information in your head, a lot of people become socially awkward. The film forced me to come out of my shell, to lighten up and stay loose, and be the best version of myself. I was able to stay outside myself, to not get lost in myself.
how do you drink your way through a calendar packed with wine projects?
I cry myself to sleep every night?! Really, they just flow into each other. We were already making wine, and it all happened at once after the movie in a whirlwind. It’s ironic, wine is to celebrate, it’s social. It’s not like coffee, not a shot of espresso and go about your day. With wine we take our time. My day is not like that. Imagine if your job was eating just your favorite food. Now imagine if I asked you to start eating it twice a day. And you love steak. You wouldn’t be able to do that very long, not without throwing a salad in. I’m tasting wines constantly. Your palate can only take so much. But I love what I do. I remind myself at the end of the day that it’s just wine.
What wines were difference-makers for you?
As for ah-ha wines, there was never one, but there were several stages along the way. I was working at a steakhouse, and it was all about Napa Cab. From five to five-hundred-dollars. That’s where I learned to taste the difference. But then a guest would ask about our tiny French section, and I would think, “Bordeaux, is that a grape or a section? How do you pronounce these things?” So one night I splurged. I bought an eighty-five Pomerol, and took it to a friend who would know, and it was like, “Oh!” The smells and tastes were like nothing I knew. That was my new to old world intro. At a certain point you experience Burgundy, and at first you think, “It’s thin and soft, it smells light. Why is everyone going crazy for this?” I was working at the Little Nell in Aspen, and had my first Grand Cru Burgundy. That was when I got Burgundy. After that, going back to Napa Cab...they seemed unctuous, over the top. If it were just me, ninety-percent of what I drink would be whites.
what do people need to know about santa barbara wine?
Oh, I could talk forever. So there’s the new world of wine, it’s still in it’s infancy. In the old world, monks have been making wine over the course of centuries. Santa Barbara was only planted in seventy-one, so it’s very young. All of California, really, are like infants playing in a sandbox. Just highly gifted, intelligent infants. It’s the old world we learn from and give credit to, and we’ve come far very quickly. But do we know what grows best where? No, not until we know what is best viticulturally. Santa Barbara is a geographic anomaly. San Francisco area is great, cellar temperature year-round. Santa Barbara has the coolest, longest growing season in the valley. It allows us to plant grapes that ripen, but grow over a longer period of time. But it’s branded for tourism. You say “Napa” or “Sonoma” you immediately think wine. You say “Paso Robles”, you think wine. You say “Santa Barbara”, you think palm trees, sun, beaches, and bikinis, not wine. Everyone asks, “How can we change it?” I say, “Don’t! Stay out of the spotlight while we figure it out.” Maybe Gruner Veltliner is perfect for growing, but Pinot Noir is the most marketable. Now there are progressive growers who choose to plant what’s best, not what is most marketable. There are makers who want to work with Gruner Veltliner and others like it. And there are drinkers who want to try Gruner Veltliner, that are more open than ever. I like to say Santa Barbara has unlimited potential.
On winemaking and service
Vallin was not started to be a money-maker. It was to keep four guys connected together. But once we started, we decided, “OK, we’re going to do some serious wine.” Lots of somms make wine, put juice in a bottle, put a label on it, we’re not doing that. We said, “So Syrah is not the most marketable wine. Syrah is a world-class grape, let’s get behind it.” Northern Rhone is the heart of Syrah, and we made it our focal point. We were in Burgundy, drinking Jamet Cote Rotie. Let that sink in. Vallin was on the label, we liked how it looked on the label. We researched and found it was a street name, then went further and found it was actually a surname. Vallin means valley dwellers, from people that originally settled the Rhone valley. We said, “That’s cool and simple, let’s go with it.” It’s exciting to see three years later, we sold out of the ‘twelve, and are just waiting for the ‘thirteen in the barrel to be ready to bottle.
Brian exams the well-stocked shelves at Les Marchands
Service for a sommelier is different than any other service. The court teaches specific standards of service, so that if the Queen of England asks you to do a wine service, you could deliver that. It’s very technically precise. With staff, it’s different. You take the clientele, the concept, into account. Les Marchands is not buttoned-up like formal fine dining. We’re very warm and approachable, and technically proficient. Usually it is one of these, but not both. This is without being stuffy or pretentious. We size up each guest. We tailor service to each guest, it’s all about how we meet them where they are. Michael Jordan, the sommelier not the basketball player, is a master sommelier and my mentor. He said, “It’s not how much you know, it’s how much you care.” That’s something that has stuck with me, so simple but so powerful. We guess where guests are at, and think how can we meet them there. Invariably every night there is one guest you could have done something better. And being attuned to the needs of others is something applicable to every area of life.
expect to experiment at Les Marchands wine bar & merchant, santa barbara
Most people look at our by the glass list and say, “What language is this?” But then we pour them a tasting and they’re in. We’ve found that “yeah, I’ll try it” makes up about ninety-percent of our clientele. When we originally told our investors we wanted mostly lesser-known European varietals on the list, they said, “Are you crazy?!” But these are balanced out by the local wines. There are tremendous values from strange places. Not just to be strange, but good, high-level wines. But they're not marketed, so they’re way underpriced.
What Brian described here played out in my experience at Les Marchands. Several staffers combined to accommodate my group's requests with recommendations that were right on target, and there were many unfamiliar wines available for tasting, along with attractive pricing. Wines by the glass change frequently, allowing for an ongoing educational process for those fortunate enough to be regular patrons.
Les Marchands Wine Bar & Merchants
Wines Of The Year
The best times with wine involve people, places, and excellent service experiences. Here are my top wines from 2014, with the events surrounding them.
- Gehricke Carneros Pinot Noir 2012 - This is a fabulous first production, with earthy leather, red berries, and some spice. I found it at the Primo's Fine Wine and Spirits wine tasting event in Tulsa. $35
- Caymus Vineyards Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 - The 40th Anniversary edition is powerfully dark, velvety, and lasts seemingly forever. Fearing's Restaurant in Dallas offered it to me first. $60
- JL Chave Mon Coer Cotes-du-Rhone 2011 - Thanks to Master Sommelier Craig Collins and Arro in Austin for the introduction to this value Rhone. $19
- Brooks Bois Joli Riesling 2012 - This was my favorite find on a tasting tour of Oregon. Lots of citrus and just enough sweetness. Brooks is very generous, and they have a touching film about winemaking you should see: American Wine Story. $24
- Domaine Henri Gouges Nuits-St-Georges 2009 - Affordable Burgundy acquired at a wine lover's paradise, Brown Derby of Springfield, Missouri. $55
Wine and Turkey Talk
Turkey Time
If there is a traditional meal of turkey and all its trimmings in your near future, does it require a similarly predictable wine? I think not. The likelihood of a larger group of people with a multitude of tastes and preferences is high, and the ease of accessibility to experiment with diverse and affordable wines that work for such a meal has never been greater. Why not broaden out in your wine and food pairing experience? Here are a variety of wine styles and recommendations, from expected to out of the norm, for turkey dinner on any day.
Reds
Russian River Valley Pinot Noir - Bright, with dominant red berries, spices, and hints of sweetness, even cola.
- Frei Brothers Reserve Pinot Noir Russian River Valley - $20
- Williams Selyem Russian River Valley Pinot Noir - $52
Cote de Nuits Burgundy - Elegant expressions of Pinot Noir, complex, and earthy. Narrowing further, Nuits-St-Georges are typically reasonable in price.
Washington Syrah - Heat up with Rhone-style beauties aplenty. If Syrah is too hot and heavy for you, try a Washington Grenache or Cabernet Franc.
- Abeja Estate Syrah - $40
- K Vintners The Boy Grenache - $45
Whites
Oregon is turning out increasing numbers of intriguing white wines, with one to fit any occasion.
Sancerre - Aromatic and refreshing Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc.
Champagne - Bubbles and the bird. It may surprise you.
What is your style: Traditionalist, contrarian, or both? Share your favorite wine and turkey finds.