Rivoli's and Corso's Roscoe Skipper: Professional Pairings

While my Coq au vin post is cooking, which, by the way, takes as long to write up as it does to make, I thought I'd introduce you to a wine friend of mine. Meet Roscoe Skipper, the wine director/owner of a top 100 San Francisco Chronicle Bay Area restaurant, Rivoli, and the new Tuscan style trattoria, Corso -both in Berkeley, California. Roscoe's been drinking and pouring wine at top restaurants around the country for years and if anyone has a mind prime to pick for food and wine pairing inspiration, it's Roscoe. I'm much obliged to include him in the Professional Pairings series, and am certain you'll take as much any from this interview as I have. Thank you Roscoe!


You've worked at some highly reputable restaurants in San Francisco, like Square One, Masa's, and other celebrated places around the country. Could you trace your path in food and wine for Vin de la Table readers, and briefly describe how your professional life led you to where you are now, a wine director and owner of two restaurants?

Well, I started as a bus boy for Shoney's Big Boy restaurants in 1971. I was a cook for years, but wanted to attend college, so I started
waiting tables. This is when I started getting into wine. In '86, I
started at Square One and Even Goldstein was the sommelier. We had
daily wine tastings and were the guinea pigs for the course he was to
teach for Seagrams about wine, so I learned a ton there. After that,
Masa's with Mike Bonnacorsi, Chaya Venice in LA with Greg Louie, with
a great eclectic wine list, another year at Masa's with sommelier
Burke Owens (where I had the greatest wine I ever had, '66 La Tache!),
then I opened Bizou with Joseph Graham. In each restaurant I got to
taste a lot of wine and learn. Also, I went to France and Italy a few
times, where wine is a part of life, not just a part of restaurants.
When we got the opportunity to open Rivoli, the wine list was the fun
part. But I learned the most about wine after my motorcycle accident
in 2001. Because I couldn't be at the restaurant for a couple of
years, I started intensively reading and writing about wine in order
to better educate myself and my staff; the whole Oxford Companion to
Wine, the Wine Atlas of the World, all of Clive Coates, Bastianich,
Belfrage. And then writing: I've got tasting notes and background
descriptions of wine regions and producers for probably 1000 different
wines.


If you could pinpoint a moment when you decided to be a sommelier, what would that be?

It had to be when we opened Rivoli. As much as I loved wine, I kind of didn't want to make it into "work." I didn't really like a lot of the seriousness around it so I never thought about working as a sommelier. But the wine list was the fun part of starting Rivoli, so that's when I started taking it seriously.

Many people are curious about how wine lists are constructed and wonder why certain genres of wines are particular to certain styles of restaurants. You have two restaurants, Rivoli's and Corso, in Berkeley. Could you explain how the wine lists differ and your process in selecting wines for each place? How does the food, service, and atmosphere in the restaurants affect the wine list, for example?

The wine list at Rivoli is meant to complement Wendy's food. I know everyone says that, but I had no space for a big wine list, so I really had to throw out everything that wasn't necessary. Rivoli was based on seasonal, local ingredients with French and Italian techniques. So, duh, California, French and Italian wines made sense. I've dabbled in other areas, Australia, Argentina and even Croatia, but I always end up with just the three areas. However, I feel that Germany and Austria make the finest white wines in the world so I represent them too. Rivoli is more of a special occasion place, so it makes sense to have special occasion wines, so I concentrate on bio-dynamic and organically raised wines from specific vineyards, though I do offer less expensive wines that show me something, a varietal flare, a sense of place or typicity for a good price. The wines should say they're from somewhere, just like our food does. And for the style of wines, I tend to offer more whites that are crisp and fruity, like Veltliners and Soaves and reds that are not overdone, too much oak, too extracted, too high in alcohol. Wines that are on the extremes aren't very friendly to Wendy's food.

With Corso, Wendy wanted to do a Florentine trattoria, and in Italy,
you just don't see wines from anywhere else, in fact you rarely see
wines from outside the region. My favorite trattoria in Florence
doesn't even offer Brunello for Christ's sake. So I thought it would
be fun to do an all Italian list, with an emphasis on Tuscany, though
all regions of Italy are represented. Here, the emphasis is on
different styles of Chianti Classico, modern vs. traditional, and I
usually use the lesser bottlings from good producers, as seems fitting
for a casual trattoria. For example, Lonardo is one of my favorite
producers in the Taurasi region of Campania, so for Rivoli I offer his
finest wine, the 2000 Taurasi. For Corso, I offer his 'second' wine,
made from the same vineyard, just the less good areas, the less good
barrels, less oak treatment, lower price, simply labeled Aglianico.


What have been the most surprising food and wine pairings you've encountered? Feel free to explore the good, bad, and the weird.

The good: California chardonnay and corn soup. The bad: foie gras and
Sauternes; really, you need a Loire Valley Chenin with some residual
sugar. The weird: Duckhorn sauvignon blanc and tomato soup. Don't
know why it works but it does.

What do you eat and drink together when not at work, or at the end of a long shift?

I'm comfortable enough in my masculinity to admit I drink rose. All
summer. And not just a little bit. In the winter, I tend to drink
Loire cabernet francs and nebbiolos. And Burgundy when I can afford
it.


Do you have other favorite pairings?

Where do I start? Of course the classics, goat cheese and Sancerre, oysters and muscadet, prime rib and Bordeaux, grilled chicken with lemon, thyme and garlic with chardonnay, charred rare rib eye with Barbaresco.


Lastly, now that you have the chance to speak to Vin de la Table readers interested in the holy combination of food and wine, would you care to share any parting pairing guidelines, wisdom, or suggest any experiments in the world of food and wine?

Wine is a part of our shared cultural heritage. As such, its history needs to be understood, so I urge everyone to read about wine. Some of what's written is pretty dry, but Matt Kramer, Clive Coates and the greatest of them all, Andrew Jefford are simply great writers and very engaging even when they get detailed. It's probably geeky, but everyone should own the World Atlas of Wine. I mean, who doesn't like maps? Oh, right, just me. And as I just put together a wine list for an Italian place, don't get too concerned about food and wine pairing: the Florentines drink everything with Chianti. Am I going to tell them they're wrong? And now I'll leave you with my favorite quote about wine:

―"A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine, except that on a
day without sunshine you can still get drunk"- Lee Entrekin

Winemakers Interview: Bill Easton of Terre Rouge and Easton Wines

It’s interview central here at Vin de la Table. Last week it was Ryan Williams of Ana Mandara, this week, it’s winemaker and owner of Terre Rouge and Easton wines, Bill Easton. Ah, but we are a blessed crowd. So many interviews, so little time.

One of the most notable winemakers in the Amador County, Sierra Foothills region of California (yes, they make wine there!), Bill Easton is a true wine professional. Not only is he experienced in the field, in the cellar, and in the tasting room, Easton owned his own wine shop, served as a European wine importer, and acts as a mentor to inspiring winemakers from across the globe. And he makes some damn tasty wines.

When I spoke to Easton he had just finished weeding, tuckering, suckering his vineyard, and setting up irrigation to battle with low rain yields in the fields.

We're familiar with each other because you were the first owner of the shop where I currently work. You owned the shop for seventeen years and made a name for it as a great place to go for small production California wine. When did you open Solano Cellars, and when you first opened the shop, did you think that someday you'd try your hand at winemaking?

I owned Solano from March 1978 to June 1994. I had been in the wine business since 1975, right after UC Berkeley. While I was at Solano, I also worked in Russian River Valley, at a winery, and I went back and forth between there and Berkeley. My heart was always in the production side, but the path I took was in retail, for a little capital accumulation. I started making home wine in 1980, and in 85,' I started the Terre Rouge label.

At that point, I didn't own a vineyard. I owned house in Fiddletown [small Amador County town], which is now my business office. I talked to local grower and convinced him to graft over vines to Grenache, Syrah , Mourvèdre, and Cinsualt. That was the beginning of the Terre Rouge project.

Later these were supplemented with historical sources- old plantings of Grenache that I suspect were used for home winemakers on east coast after World War II, that were eighty-five plus years old.

We later abandoned some of those vineyards because now we have better plantings. We experimented and now we are more sophisticated about vineyard sittings and terriors.

In what ways?

Well, we now know where some varieties are excellent. Light, sandy, loam soils are good for Grenache. Syrah likes volcanic soils and high elevation. And if you use different clones, you'll get a more different, varied syrah palate and flavors. Mourvèdre likes sandy soil. Basically, every site is going to give you a different grape expression.

What was the final push that lead you to owning your own vineyards?

I decided that I wanted to consolidate my life in the foothills. My wife Jane and I decided that we wanted to raise our son there. And I exhausted my interest in retail. I realized that my passion was the wine and terriors of Sierra Nevada.

Why Amador county? Why not Sonoma County?

It's the terrior. To start, the winery is in the Shenandoah Valley of California. This is where our Cabernet Sauvigon and Zinfandel are located, in granite-based sandy, loam soils. The winery business office is in Fiddletown. That's where we also have some Syrah and Viognier, where there are granite and volcanic soils like Côte Rotie. In these soils is where these grapes excel, as in the old world - France. Condrieu [a Viognier appellation in the Rhone Valley] is basically decomposed granite, for example. These are some of different terriors around us.

I was attracted to the foothills because they’re so many varied terriors and they are so similar to Rhone terriors [where many of the same grapes that Easton grows are centered]. That’s why Rhone winemakers like my wine so much. People complement me by saying that my wine taste like Rhone wines. They don’t have that overly fruity, high alcohol fruit like some in Central Coast or Washington. They’ve got a backbone. I think that you can grow wine more authentically like Rhone wines here than you can anywhere else in the United States.

Do you find the differences in lifestyle in Napa or parts of Sonoma affect the style of wine- the final product?

The kind of wine that I wanted to make is the number one thing; lifestyle is secondary. I really admire people like Josh Jensen at Calera, Paul Draper at Ridge, the Bennetts at Navarro, and Jim Clendenen [of Au Bon Climat] in Santa Barbara, with his mineral chardonnay. They are people who put the wine first. They put their passion for terrior before lifestyle.

Plus, around here it's quiet. Fiddletown is a really nice, quiet town. But there are also some great restaurants nearby, and we're close to cities like Sacramento and San Francisco. Living here is probably more similar to the more rural living around Howell mountain in Napa as opposed to living off Highway 29.

Who were your early influences when you started winemaking? Any of the people that you just mentioned?

Their inspiration was really in the way they approached their projects and terrior. As far as my mentors, I spent time in cellars in Europe. I spent a lot of time there in particular when I was buying wine for Solano Cellars. I went to France, Italy, Spain, where I spent a lot of time in cellars. I was also fortunate to tour with famous wine writers in Italy. I got to hang out, ask questions about philosophy and technique. I learned so much from these meetings and I've always been interested in winemaking in that way. I mean, even when I owned Solano Cellars, I subscribed to winemaker magazines.

When you starting winemaking, did any experiences from your wine shop/bistro days shape your winemaking style?

I try to make the best wine I can from the fruit I have to work with. I try to wine balanced wine that I like to drink. Two of my main things are that I make wine that appeal to my palate, wines that I want to take home and drink. I also try to make hedonistic wines, that after you have one glass, you want another. I tend not to make monolithic wines and don't focus on scores. My wines often make Parker's newsletter, and he's said good things about them, but I don't focusing on getting extreme scores.

Good friends of my family, Joanne, Felipe and Joseph Craig-Ferraz have a little house in Fiddletown. I found out a while ago that they have been renting out one of their rooms to burgeoning young winemakers who have come from different areas in Europe to learn from you.

I have a program that is my way of giving back to people who are passionate about wine. Or, it's also a program that allows people to find out if they are really passionate about wine, or passionate enough about it. From late August to November, people come from France. They often rent a room in that Fiddletown house, which is in an old brewery. It's kind of a French atmosphere, the interns like it.

How do these people find you?

They’re hooked up with me through winemaker friends. They make recommendations.

I've been to France, and even in Paris, there didn't seem to be as much exposure to smaller production California wine as there is here. If fact, Cali wine is hard to find there and pretty expensive. Most wine in shops was Gallo or Mondavi. That being, how did these Europeans find out about your winery? Do you travel to Europe on business?

There's not much a market for U.S. wines except at two or three wine shops, and at some restaurants in Paris, and in tourist areas. Most parts of France are still very regional with their wines. They drink the wines of the area with the region's food.

Something I am really looking forward to is going with ZAP next June to promote Zinfandel in France and other European places. We'd like to create more exposure.

How does it make you feel that people are coming from another country that has centuries more experience than our own in winemaking to work with you? Seems pretty flattering to me…..
What do they learn from you that they might not in, say, France?

[Laughs] They often come to learn English better. They come because people who want to be world class in wine these days, they want to have experience in California, not just their region. They go out to other places. They want to see how we are approaching wine, along with South Africa, Australia. They want to expand their knowledge of cellar and vineyard techniques everywhere.

FOOD AND WINE

We recently taught a food and wine class where we used your Terre Rouge de l''Ouest Syrah to show how a nicely fruited, well-balanced Syrah is an excellent wine to lean on when pairing wine to cuisines that most times aren't traditionally paired with wine. It was fantastic with Indian food and Moroccan chicken, for example. And, it was also showed well with a sharp cheddar- a cheese that can be finicky with red wine.
Is this news to you at all?

Syrah is such a luscious wine, but also it's spicy, gamey, with great garrigue. It likes spiced foods. One of best matches for Syrah is lamb. That's my top match, and it's great in a Moroccan style preparation.

What do you drink with your wine at home?

My wife is a chef, so we eat well. Last night, we had a Côtes-du-Rhône with leftover chicken sausages with fresh squash from Red Bluff. Another night, we made some pizza dough and topped it with tomatoes, pecorino and had a salad. We don't always drink our own wine. We drink lots of French, and Italian. Recently we had a Corbières with lentils and greens with jasmine rice and pine nuts, and a salad. We're well fed!

Jane is a really talented cook- she started the bistro at Solano Cellars after returning from Europe. She started it simply with quiche, meats, and fruit. Then before we knew it she was cooking cassoulet, and braised duck legs.

At there foods at winemaker dinners hosted at restaurants that you commonly see paired with your wine, or have you had exceptionally good pairings at any of these events latley?

One of the best dinners this year so far was one at Plymouth, CA, at Restaurant Taste.

I’ll leave you here, Vin de la Table readers, with the menu that Taste was kind enough to send me. Food and wine for thought. I hope that you enjoyed the interview.

2008 Seasonal Dinner Series featuring Terre Rouge and Easton Wines at Restaurant Taste – Plymouth, Ca, Sunday, June 1, 2008


Grilled Jumbo Prawn Bites, Lobster, red pepper essence

2007 Terre Rouge Vin Gris


Crispy Soft Shell Crab, creamy risotto, spring peas, spring onions, fava beans

2005 Terre Rouge Roussane
[earned 5 stars from Easton for best pairing]

Roasted Diamond H Ranch Quail stuffed with mushroom duxelles, fresh cherry compote, savory goat cheese danish

2005 Terre Rouge Tete-a-Tete


Grilled Cedar Springs Lamb, caramelized fennel and eggplant caviar, grilled local asparagus

2003 Easton Estate Zinfandel
2001 Terre Rouge Sentinel Oak Syrah Pyramid Block


Toasted Almond Tuile, apricot sorbet, toasted coconut, caramel

2004 Terre Rouge Muscat-a-Petit Grains


Next month’s winemaker interview.... Laura Cantena of Argentina’s Luca Wines.

Merry Edwards & Philippe's French Dip

Los Angeles is a city to which I’ve been on a number of occasions, but not one that I’ve really enjoyed until taken on a local’s tour by my friend Kate, of My Friend Kate Tours. A town where many of the best restaurants and bars are barely marked or nearly windowless, LA aches for an introduction. Especially a culinary one.

Thanks to the tried and true experience of our friend, my husband and I ate the best tamales in Echo Park (true they were the only ones sampled, but their silky lard inspired texture, tender meat, and expert chile heat left convinced). Then, we were lead to Philippe’s restaurant, where we consumed French Dip sandwiches in their birthplace and had a beautiful imbibing experience.

According to Philippe’s website, the owner Philippe invented the French Dip sandwich, a sandwich whose bun is dipped in au jus, or meat juice drippings, when a customer’s bun was accidentally dropped in a meat pan and the customer was so enamored with the creation that he brought back his friends for more. And more. Inspired by his French heritage and the like last name of the customer who fell in love with his mistake, Philippe named his new delicious moneymaker the French Dip.

After I heard the story of the sandwich, the only question remaining in my mind was: Should I get a cup of the 10 cent coffee that Philippe’s still sells, or should I pair wine with my French Dip. Guess my answer.

I swore that I would expend any wine snobbery and order whatever the place sold for wine, just for the experience. If Philippe thought Charles Shaw or a white zin was the best paired with his meat-wiches, then so be it. I’m always willing to try someone else’s wine pairing and figured that if the offering was unpleasant, merely a sip would provide sufficient means for a post. Besides, one of my wine pairing pet peeves is that people always go for the tried and true beer and sandwich or BBQ or soul food match when any of these foods may actually taste better with wine. Although I love a good brew, I didn’t want to go there. If what they had didn’t work, I knew that I could come up with one back at home.

Then I arrived at the restaurant and my jaw dropped.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised to find the glories that I did on the menu. Philippe was a Frenchman. Did I really expect him to permit consumption of white zin in-house?

Not only did they have Spottswood, one of the best biodynamic/organic Napa Cabernet Sauvignons on the menu, they had Merry Edwards Pinot Noir. And more. Now, I don’t know if you know how wonderful Merry Edward’s wines are, or how hard they are to acquire (restaurant only, not available in wine shops), but I certainly do. After much work, I was able to buy them for our bar. We had to send them our wine bar food and wine menus, tell them of good intentions with their wine, promise to only pour them at the wine bar, and lastly, sign a contract saying that we would not sell their wines on the floor or buy them for personal consumption. It was so worth it.

Back at Philippe’s, I ordered the 2006 Merry Edwards Russian River Valley Pinot Noir with my French Dip, because it is one of my favorite wines, and because I’ve never had the honor of drinking this wine in a restaurant sans a white tablecloth. We got a pork and beef dip to share .

The Merry Edwards Pinot Noir is always a force to be reckoned with. Her Russian River version in particular, with its deep cherry, pomegranate and wild spice flavors and a backbone of bright acidity, is a Pinot Noir that can stand up to…. wow, almost anything.

There is an assumption out there that Pinot Noirs are always shy, delicate creatures. In actuality, and as demonstrated by such Pinots as Merry Edwards, Fort Ross, Cargasacchi, the Alfaro Family, many Pinot Noirs have the strength and grace to stand up to darker or lush cuts of meats and triple-crème cheeses as well as lighter fishes or poultry. They can be so well-structured, in fact that any of these Pinots will taste even better after sitting opened in their bottle for a day or two or three.

True to its reputation (spread by Vin de la Table) of being a Pinot Noir that’s remarkably easy to pair well with food, the Merry Edwards was fantastic with the French Dips. It could easily handle the sliced roast beef, but alas, I like it best with the pork. I’ve always preferred roast or pulled pork sandwiches (the aforementioned would taste awesome with a bigger Pinot Noir) to sliced roast beef, so call me partial, but the luscious fat bits remaining on the pork meat really shined with the wine.

And the sandwiches? Lord they were good. The idea of an entire sandwich dipped in meat juice never appealed wildly to me, but I’m an adventurer and wanted to test my sandwich boundaries in the dish’s birthplace. You can either have them dip the buns for you- which is good for beginners scared by soggy buns- or one can order a bowl with the juice to dip the buns themselves. Imagine a crispy bun, softened with au jus, and filled with supple meat. Exactly.




Needles to say, my food and wine experience in LA was one that I won’t forget. It was also one that inspired my husband and I to decided that in five or six years, if either of us were offered a fantastic job in that city, we might consider relocating to Hell-A. Just consider, mind you.

Coming soon: Cheddar and Wine, Straight Outta Chocolate, Chocolate and Wine... more winemaker interviews, and more and more.