ML - Aspen Peak

2014 - Issue 2 - Winter

Aspen Peak - Niche Media - Aspen living at its peak

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1. Old vines matter. "You get more concentration in the fruit [of old vines]. You get more extract, smaller clusters. A lot of these places have been growing for centuries in Europe, and nothing else will grow there. We have 50 years of history in America with wine. We don't even know if we are planting the right varietals." —Fletcher 2. the reign in spain… "Spain is hot right now. It's classic, but it's being modernized. They are taking old ways, with old roots, and using modern vinification methods to clean these wines up and leverage the great terroir." —Fletcher 3. study the classics. "Exposure to esoteric regions is important, but I think the classics [such as Burgundy and Bordeaux in France, Italy's Piedmont and Tuscany, or Spain's Rioja] are key. That has been lost. It's become more important to try the hip new thing, rather than learn about the classics." —McCoy 4. learn hOw tO describe what yOu like Or want. "Don't expect to walk into a wine shop and know what you are looking for as soon as you get into wine. But learn to express what you want more eloquently. A few key things: Understand how acids influence flavor, the amount of oak, [whether the wine] is fruit- or earth-driven, [whether it's] red- or blue- fruited. Red-fruited flavors are red cherry, raspberry, strawberry. Blue-fruited wines have currant and blackberry." —McCoy 5. learn hOw the classics taste. "By law in Europe, if it says Sancerre, it is mineral grape with no oak. With that, there will be Sancerres that are better than others. But in general, it's pretty darn good, and I know what I'm getting. If I open an American Sauvignon Blanc [the grape used in Sancerre], I don't know if there is oak in it or not; I don't know if it's low or high alcohol." —Fletcher When master sommeliers Jay Fletcher and Carlton McCoy talk wine, people who care about the stuff should listen. On a gorgeous fall afternoon at Element 47, Fletcher and McCoy—the godfather and the prodigy—wax Dionysian on the fner (read: insider!) points of wine connoisseurship. IN VINO VERITAS it is—we are family. We work together. We are athletic. Our brains work well together. It's a small town. We are used to covering one another when we hike and ski. You can't leave the weakest guy behind—you will kill him." Every week, for example, Fletcher hosts tastings for sommeliers-in-training at his home. With practice and guidance—lots of it—they get better. Maybe one day, they will not only sip a wine and say, correctly, "Syrah," but they will also be able to identify exactly where it came from—the precise region, the right estate, and the proper vintage. Fletcher, who lives down the road from The Nell, won't take credit, but good coaches never spend much time hogging the glory. Zimmerman says that in addition to Fletcher's legacy, The Nell's wine success hinges on its ownership and management. Over the years, the hotel and restaurant has invested millions of dollars in wine. It's a big gamble. Selling that wine to cus- tomers demands extremely savvy sommeliers. When the stars align, the pricey cellar becomes a profit center for the hotel. When things don't quite click, the cases of Petrus and Domaine Leflaive Montrachet Grand Cru handicap the restaurant's stab at marching out of the red and into the black. "There is no question The Nell is one of the top wine desti- nations in the country," said Stuckey. "It takes smart stewardship, deep commitment, and trust on the part of own- ers and management, and tons of hard work—year after year. The Nell has stuck to it, and the place continues to thrive." Another of Fletcher's charges, Carlton McCoy, 30, is now one of the youngest master sommelier in the United States and the second African-American with the designation. He also is in charge of wine service at The Nell, where he has worked since November 2011. McCoy is a classic Nell sommelier, cast in the Fletcher mold. He grew up in a tough Washington, DC, neighbor- hood, got to wine through restaurant work, and dedicated his life to the world of grapes, cellars, and service. Like Fletcher, Stuckey, and other Nell sommeliers, McCoy scrapped for suc- cess—nothing got handed to him. McCoy was working at the DC restaurant CityZen when a Little Nell pal told him of a fresh sommelier vacancy at The Nell—the door at The Nell revolves, but not quickly. McCoy had no desire to leave his hometown, where he was flourish- ing in the city's exuberant restaurant culture, but The Nell was tough to ignore. "If you are an ambitious young kid [in this industry], you have to know what The Nell is. It was always on the radar," says McCoy, seated across from his mentor on Element 47's patio. "But I wasn't sold on it. I wasn't used to a program this big. The wine list is a phone book. At CityZen we probably had 600 selections. Here we have about 20,000 bottles of wine! When you move to a place like this, you want to be pre- pared. I felt like I was jumping into the pool with floaties on." McCoy says when he started at the hotel, he was so over- whelmed that for weeks, when he wasn't working, all he did was study The Nell's wine list. "After a year, you finally start to get settled, you breathe," he says. "And you begin to under- stand you are part of something great." The Little Nell, 675 E. Durant Ave., 970-920-4600; thelittlenell.com AP 6. the "natural wine" mOvement (which calls fOr the end Of manipulatiOn in winemaking) is nOt gOing tO take Over wine. "I think it's a good thing, but it's time to back off. I think we went too far manipulating and we needed to scale that back a bit. But then we saw things like orange wine, which was an extreme. [Orange wine is barely touched by winemakers.] It will become what it will become, but there is always a hand in winemaking." —McCoy 7. at meals, the wines and fOOd naturally build during cOurses. "First courses are salads, shellfish, things that are set up for high-acid wines. High-acid wines usually mean lower alcohol, often with no oak; they are crisper and tarter. They are better matches for the early parts of the meal. It's not about alcohol, but acidity. Oak messes with vegetable flavors and fish oils—oak really clashes with fish oils—but it can enhance sauces with cream, for example. We drink multiple bottles of wine at dinner, and we build to the bigger styles of wine by the end of the meal." —Fletcher 8. Old age is a beautiful thing. "The tannins are harsh in Cabernet. You need 10 years of aging for a Cabernet to work out right. Merlot is easier and softer at a younger age. But with Cabernet, it's 10 years and, really, more like 20. People don't [age] wine anymore. They just pop the stuff. Most wine in liquor stores, as in 90 percent, is consumed within an hour." —Fletcher 9. vintage apprOpriate! "Vintage is huge! European wines are very vintage-sensitive. The grape and the producer might be world-class, but if you pick the wrong vintage, like a cold growing season, you might be disappointed with the lack of fruit." —Fletcher aspenpeak-magazine.com  183

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