Sauced

Court of Master Sommeliers Scores One of Seattle’s Own

Shayn Bjornholm heading up prestigious education program.

Posted by: Julie H. Case on Oct 31, 2011 at 03:30PM 0 Comments

Shayn Bjornholm. Photo courtesy of Washington Wine Commission.

Want to get pinned? You’ll have to go through Shayn Bjornholm first. In early November the Seattle sommelier (and Canlis alum) takes charge of the education program for the Court of Master Sommeliers, perhaps the world’s most prestigious beverage service accreditation program. To date only 186 people worldwide—Bjornholm included—have passed the CMS’s diploma exam to earn the title of Master Sommelier, and the shiny gold lapel pin that goes with it.

His new role likely means more prominence and prestige for Washington’s wine and service community.

“I think for the service industry it validates the fact that we’ve been passionate about this for a long time,” says Bjornholm. What’s more, he says having someone from the Seattle sommelier community helping lead other communities is amazing. Normally that would be someone from New York, San Francisco or Chicago. Now we have a Seattle guy doing it.

For the past several years, Bjornholm has been serving as the assistant education director for the CMS. (He’s also been the education director for the Washington Wine Commission—a position he’ll relinquish to serve the CMS—and working with former Canlis chef Greg Atkinson on the wine program for his upcoming restaurant Marche.) Still, he wasn’t a shoo-in for the title of examination director for the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas: he was chosen by a committee of his MS peers.

In his new role, Bjornholm will oversee all education and examinations for the CMS, which accredits at the introductory, intermediate, advanced and master levels. It’s a rigorous process: applicants for the advanced exam spend two-and-a-half days in lectures, followed by two-and-a-half days trying to pass an oral theory exam, practical tasting exam and service and salesmanship exam. Fewer than 30 percent of applicants pass the advanced level and are eligible to sit for the MS exam. Of those, fewer than 5 percent pass. Seattle, for the record, is home to at least 12 MS candidates.

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Tags: Wine, Sommelier stuff, Shayn Bjornholm

Well-Priced Wines from a Seattle Expert

This week: Esquin’s Jameson Fink.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 06, 2011 at 01:06PM 2 Comments

Wine expert Jameson Fink is proud to drink wines that are cheap and cheerful.

Photo Courtesy: Jackie Donnelly Baisa

New series: There’s no shame in it. Everyone loves to discover, and show off, great inexpensive wines. Even—nay, especially—the pros. So I’m asking local wine experts to weigh in on their budget bottles.

I pick an expert. The expert picks a theme, then offers up a red, white, sparkling, and rose wine in accordance with it. Meantime, you drink well and cheaply. Because let’s face it, it’s always been about you.

The Expert
Jameson Fink, European Wine Buyer and Social Media Director, Esquin Wine Merchants.

The Cred
Who, outside of a Roald Dahl book, gets to be named Jameson Fink? I love that name. Plus I follow him on Twitter and have learned that he knows a lot about wine—including how to have fun with it. And that is perhaps the most important wine-related skill there is.

So what’s this week’s theme, Expert?
“Cheap and cheerful wines under $10.”

Why did you pick that theme?
“These are my daily drinkers. I don’t come home to a bottle of Chateau Fancy Pants as often as you’d think.”

All right, let’s get to the wine.

The Red
2009 La Carraia Sangiovese Umbria ($8.99) “The ultimate pizza and pasta wine. The Wine Advocate calls it ‘full throttle’ and ‘not for the timid’ but I disagree. It’s just an easy drinkin’ red.”

The White
2009 Domaine des Cassagnoles Cotes de Gascogne ($7.99) “Every wine nerd in town is selling or buying this wine. The definition of a porch-pounder, it’s a light and fresh wine to consume liberally. And if you see the words ‘Cassagnoles Gros Manseng’ on a label, buy first, ask questions later.”

The Rose
2010 Miradou Cotes de Provence ($9.99) “Yes it comes in an enticing, hourglass-shaped bottle that should influence your buying decision. (I am not immune.) It’s also a textbook crisp, dry rose. Poach some shrimp, grill some salmon, and slake your thirst with this pale, austere gem.”

The Sparkler
NV Mas Fi Cava ($9.99) “Bubbles forever! Unfortunately there is an ocean of ungodly awful, cheap sparklers that will make you hungover just by looking at them. This Cava from Spain, however, is a little charmer that you can actually enjoy all by itself or with a mixer. Get creative.”

Thanks Jameson. Before you go, give us three reasons why you work in wine.
“The convivial eating and drinking, the cast of characters in this industry, and the fact that the lucrative job market for my MA in History seems to have dried up.”

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Tags: Sommelier stuff, Sparkling Wine , Cheap Wine for Weekdays, Well-Priced Wines from a Seattle Expert

A Stupid Question for a Sommelier

Seastar’s sommelier tells us when we can (and can’t) send the bottle back.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 25, 2010 at 01:00PM 4 Comments

Yashar Shayan says you can send a bottle back if you don’t like it, but he himself employs a wait-and-see approach.

The questions in this new series aren’t really stupid. But the whole wine thing can be so (unnecessarily) intimidating. Good thing for you I have no shame.

This week’s expert is Yashar Shayan, a sommelier at Seastar Restaurant and Raw Bar (Bellevue, South Lake Union). Shayan says he loves the way wine allows you to “experience the world’s cultures and history one glass at a time.” Another reason he became a sommelier: “I thought it would make me look cool.”

When he’s not at Seastar, Yashar helps out in the cellar at Woodinville winery Efeste.

Here, a stupid question for Yashar Shayan.

When I order a bottle of wine, can I send it back if I don’t like it, or only if it’s bad? Also, how can I tell if it has gone bad?

Many restaurants will take the wine back simply because you don’t like it. We won’t force you to pay for, and drink, a wine that you don’t like, because we like our guests to enjoy their dining experience.

Personally though, when I have wine, I don’t really analyze it on that first taste. I don’t look at color and legs, or consider things like complexity. When I get the first pour, I smell it and make sure it’s drinkable, meaning it doesn’t have any off smells or serious faults like TCA (a compound present when a wine is “corked,” more on that below) and oxidation. From there, I’ll take my time and examine the wine over the entire course of the meal, see how it opens up and how it interacts with various foods. I’m almost always surprised how a wine that may not have really grabbed me at the beginning has me wanting more by the end.

The main reasons a sommelier pours you that small taste of a bottle before serving it are: 1. TCA (I think we should stop calling it “corked” and figure out a new, more accurate name for it) and 2. oxidation. Corked wines, which smell like moldy newspapers or damp basements, get that way when chlorine (specifically a group of chemical compounds known as Chlorophenols) interacts with fungi found in nature to produce the compound 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or TCA for short. Though the cork is the most common carrier of TCA, it can lurk on a variety of surfaces porous enough to grow fungus. I’ve had shoes with “corked” soles, I’ve eaten carrots and scallions that were tainted with TCA (or something like it), and even been served corked water at restaurants. This means that wines using cork alternatives—yes, even screwcaps—can be tainted if they pick it up from a bad barrel or another source before bottling, but that’s far less common.

An oxidized wine is exactly what it sounds like, a wine that’s gone bad due to overexposure to oxygen. To me, oxidized wine smells like vinegar or an apple that was peeled and left on the counter for a day or so. That vinegar smell is caused by acetic acid, which you’ve smelled in your bottle of vinegar at home. The old apple smell I typically associate with Acetaldehyde. If you find your wine is oxidized when it’s freshly opened, it could mean that the cork was bad in the sense that it didn’t seal perfectly. Screwcaps can also fail here if they were damaged or crushed during assembly or shipping. I have opened several bottles of the same wine and found they all seemed bad, which led me to think they were oxidized before being bottled.

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MORE STUPID QUESTIONS!
Dawn Smith explains what to do when a sommelier hands you a cork.

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Tags: Bellevue, South Lake Union, Wineries, Booze 101, Wine, Sommelier stuff, A Stupid Question for a Sommelier

A Stupid Question for a Sommelier

Purple’s wine expert tells us what to do with the cork.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 15, 2010 at 10:00AM 4 Comments

Heavy Restaurants Group’s Dawn Smith says a funky cork isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but make sure it’s moist.

Okay, the questions in this new series aren’t really stupid. But the whole wine thing can be so (unnecessarily) intimidating. Good thing for you I have no shame.

This week’s expert is the lovely Dawn Smith, the Wine Director for the Restaurants at Bellevue Towers: Purple Café and Wine Bar, Barrio, and a third top-secret project she’s not allowed to talk about.

“I came to wine through food,” says Smith, whose first-ever instructor (at an International Sommelier Guild class) was Shayn Bjornholm, then also the wine director at Canlis. “I continued my wine education with more advanced classes and about a year-and-a-half later Shayn called and asked me if I would apply for a floor sommelier position at Canlis. Crazy! I got the job.” The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

Here, a stupid question for Dawn Smith:

Why does the sommelier hand me the cork after her or she opens the bottle of wine I ordered, and what am I supposed to do with it?

“The primary reason a sommelier hands you a cork,” says Smith, “is so that you may inspect that the wine has been stored properly." The older the vintage, the more important that it’s been stowed right: "on its side, away from light, vibration, and at a constant temperature of 55-58 degrees.”

A moist cork means your bottle has been sitting pretty, but you might also want to smell it to check for taint. (Stop giggling). “The cork from a ‘corked’ wine will smell of cork taint—often described as damp cardboard or wet basement,” says Smith. But, she says, “this is not really the most reliable way to judge the soundness of a wine. Corks, particularly older corks, can smell a bit funky even though the wine is pristine. Most sommeliers will smell the bottle or actually pour a small taste of the wine to confirm the quality before offering it to the guest. Gratefully, most faults in wine are detectable on the nose so you never have to experience the foul taste.”

You can also inspect the cork to make sure you get what you ordered. “Most corks will have the producer and vintage of the wine branded onto the portion of the cork that is within the sealed bottle.” When the sommelier brings the bottle to the table, he or she should show you “the label and state the vintage, producer, name of wine and area of production,” but inspecting the cork is your final chance to ensure you’ve got the right juice.

So there you have it: when it doubt read the cork, make sure it is moist, and smell it, if you are feeling saucy. Then, drink up.

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Tags: Bellevue, Booze 101, Wine, Sommelier stuff, A Stupid Question for a Sommelier