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A Raid Y(our) Cellar session featuring Burgundy, hosted by master sommelier, Jackson Rohrbaugh (top right).
Courtesy Benchmark Wine GroupThe bottles sommeliers, collectors, and wine lovers brought to Thursday evening’s “Raid Y(our) Cellar” event ranged from a 1995 Maison Roche de Bellene Clos Vougeot to a 2018 Willamette Valley Vineyards Whole Cluster pinot noir.
But the style of wine didn’t really matter, as the discussion—led by Jackson Rohrbaugh, a master sommelier—ranged throughout the hour from first epiphanies in discovering the ethereal qualities of Burgundy (1985 wines produced by Henri Jayer were popular) to where to look for Burgundy alternatives (Central Otago in New Zealand, Santa Rita Hills in California, and Bodega Chacra in Patagonia, Argentina).
The point of the virtual discussion—sponsored by the Benchmark Wine Group in Napa, Calif.—was to learn a little something about Burgundy (and Beyond) as the discussion was themed, and to give wine lovers a way to talk about the more esoteric elements of wine with like-minded souls.
But another big reason for the weekly event was to raise money and awareness for the United Sommeliers Foundation.
Cassie Sakai, sommelier at Girl & the Goat in Chicago, was furloughed when the restaurant closed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The barely two-month old foundation is solely focused on aiding somms who have been furloughed or laid off from restaurants as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and who don’t have a safety net to fall back on. Organizations have formed to help out the more than 10 million restaurant employees who have lost their jobs, but “there was nothing sommelier specific,” says Erik Segelbaum, Food & Wine’s 2019 sommelier of the year, who runs his own consulting company, Somlyay.
Segelbaum joined fellow sommeliers Christie Norman and Chris Blanchard, a master sommelier, among others, in a GoFundMe effort to fill that gap, and is now on the organization’s board as vice president.
“We tend to be the first to be let go and the last to be brought back—and not just in a situation like this where they are laying off staff,” Segelbaum says.
That’s because somms, who are highly educated and trained, are expensive to employ, and when restaurants are slow—or forced to close, as is the case now—they tend to cut their most expensive labor first.
“Sommeliers deal in what could be considered luxury, but they don’t lead luxury lifestyles themselves,” Segelbaum says. Most are paid hourly and live paycheck-to-paycheck, often without benefits. And the job is not nearly as glamorous as it seems. In fact, Segelbaum says, “it’s incredibly physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing and intense.”
The foundation has raised $300,000 so far, allowing it as of this week to give $500 checks to nearly 400 out-of-work somms (who are anonymous to the voting committee that decides who gets funded). Segelbaum says the group is considering second rounds of funding for those in acute need. All somms—whether they have some level of certification or not—are considered for funding, and about 700 have applied so far, he says.
“We try to give money away as quickly as possible,” Segelbaum says. “The goal is that the money doesn’t sit in our account more than a week or two before it goes into the hands of someone in need.”
Aiding this effort will be a rolling auction held online via Acker Wines beginning on May 25. Wineries and distributors are donating bottles that, Segelbaum says, easily add up to $250,000 so far. Acker will match an additional percentage on top of the hammer cost, so the “the foundation will receive more than 100% of the value of every lot that closes in the auction.” All the funds will go to applicants in need, he adds.
Dave Parker, CEO of Benchmark Wine—which deals in rare and top-quality wines—was an early donator to the foundation’s founding efforts, as many sommeliers from top restaurants are customers of his rare wines.
Separately, he was organizing a weekly social group on Zoom to have a chance to open a bottle with friends as if they were gathering around a table. These two efforts came together five weeks ago. Since then, a sommelier from the board of the foundation has led sessions each week on a different topic: Bordeaux, aged whites, Champagne, and the three “Bs” of Italy: Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello.
“We thought that would be a great opportunity to promote what they are doing, and to bring in people who understand wine and who are also really good at stimulating conversation about it,” Parker says.
About six participants of the 60 to 80 who join the sessions each week pay $50 to be “at the table” with the leader, meaning they appear on the Zoom screen. Those who join can simply open a bottle from their cellar, or, if they don’t have “an aged white,” for instance, they can order one to be delivered overnight from Benchmark, which sells aged, yet ready-to-drink wines.
The participants who don’t pay to be at the table are not seen or heard, but they are free to participate via chat, and are encouraged to donate to the foundation. The chat group is lively, asking questions of the panel at the table and among themselves, typically sharing what they are drinking as well.
The topics can get heady, diving into vintage year differences of particular producers, for example, but the vibe is intended to be loose, “informal, and informative,” Parker says.
Although steeped in all aspects of fine, rare wines, Parker finds he’s learning new things, too—like about wines being produced in lesser-known regions that are piquing the interest of somms and collectors. The discussion of Italy’s great reds was intended to be about Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello, for instance, but “the subject kept wanting to go to Nizza—the new region emerging around Barbera—and to wander into Sicily and to wines of Mt. Etna,” Parker says.
Somms “always find the cool stuff first,” he says.
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Fine-Wine Drinkers Meet and Raise Money for Somms - Barron's
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