Food & Wine
Getting Wine From A Stone
by Karen MacNeil
July 1997
Hanging out with actor and comedian Robin Williams is a great way to lose weight. During a recent dinner party at San Francisco’s Rubicon restaurant, I sometimes found myself laughing so hard, I couldn’t eat a thing. Still, I made sure I kept on sipping. Most wine shops don’t sell rare bottles like the ones Rubicon’s sommelier pulled from his cellar for the evening, and I wasn’t about to miss out on anything.
Robin Williams and his wife, Marsha, arranged the party to honor their friend Dale Chihuly, a celebrated glass artist whose latest work, four monumental vessels holding flowers on serpentine glass stems, had just been installed in the restaurant’s dining room. Chihuly arrived for the festivities wearing paint-splotched shoes, lime-green pants and a watch on each wrist. Robin, in contrast, was a relatively sedate presence – at least until he began impersonating the flowers in Chihuly’s sculpture.
Robin is one of Rubicon’s co-owners, which helps explain why he chose to throw the party there. (The other owners are filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, actor Robert de Niro, restaurateur Drew Nieporent and San Francisco builder John Gaul.) But there are reasons anyone would opt to have a wine dinner at a restaurant rather than at home. Certainly a restaurant’s resources, from a generous supply of glassware to a large, knowledgeable wait staff, can ensure that the evening proceeds seamlessly. And even more invaluable is the contribution of a well-connected sommelier, who can obtain hard-to-find bottles that elude the rest of us. At Rubicon, the man to know is super-sommelier Larry Stone.
The Super Sommelier
At the age of 45, Stone is a legend in wine circles. He’s garnered all the top tributes, including the coveted Master Sommelier title from the English Court of Master Sommeliers. Elfish and bow-tied, he inventories his wines on a laptop computer yet labels the shelves in his cellar by scrawling notes on scraps of packing tape.
Stone explains why sommeliers have the inside track in procuring rare bottles. "Wineries prefer selling to restaurants because they want people to drink their wines and pass on the good word. Sometimes, private wine collectors don’t open the bottles they buy." Stone is careful, though, not to brag to customers about the preferential treatment he receives. "Once the mother of one of my winemakers came to the restaurant and saw that I had many of her son’s wines." Stone recalls. "She wanted to know how I got several of those vintages – when she’d asked her son for those bottles, he told her that he was sold out. In fact, he did have bottles left, and he let me buy them. So I had to cover for him."
Stone’s ability to size up situations also serves him well when he’s planning wine dinners with clients. These meetings generally occur a few weeks before the event with Rubicon’s chef, Scott Newman, in attendance. A customer might get "antsy and distrustful," says Stone, when Newman recommends a dish with ingredients that don’t traditionally partner successfully with wine, such as asparagus, artichokes and beans. "But a great chef can take these wine-antagonistic foods and transform them," Stone insists. "Scott’s food is very wine friendly. He doesn’t try to do wild stuff on the plate; he understands that flavors need to be harmonious. It’s when flavors in a dish don’t work together that you have trouble with wine pairings." On the evening of the dinner, the host will often send a glass of whatever’s being poured to the kitchen so that Newman can fine-tune the seasonings of the food.
Party Planning
The Chihuly dinner provided a terrific opportunity to watch the Rubicon team in action. Lori Nuss, a close friend of the Williamses who often plans parties for them, met with Newman and Stone on a sunny afternoon several weeks before. After an amiable discussion, she and Newman agreed on a menu. When it came time to choose the wines, Nuss explained to Stone that everyone who’d be at the dinner (except Robin, who doesn’t drink alcohol) loves bold wines full of personality. These oenophiles were eager to try challenging wines, those with super-concentrated flavors and layers of complexity. Timid choices wouldn’t do. Price was no object.
"Before everyone sits down, can we start with something really special?" Nuss asked. Stone suggested a 1985 Krug, one of the most lavish, full-bodied Champagnes from one of the best vintages. A harsh winter in 1985 killed off many younger vines in the Champagne region of France, so older vines produced much of the harvest. And older vines usually yield grapes with more concentrated flavors. The Krug has rich, honeylike aromas, but it also has enough crispiness to balance its sweet ripeness.
Nuss was ready to take a risk in choosing a wine to pair with the first course, lobster ravioli with fresh peas. With this mandate, Stone proposed that she pick from among three opulent California Chardonnays. "After a Champagne like Krug, we should select a white wine of equal weight and impact," said Stone. "We also need a buttery wine to bring out the richness of the lobster." Nuss eventually settled on a 1994 Talley Rosemary’s Vineyard Chardonnay from Arroyo Grande, on California’s central coast. Its overtones of citrus and peach, married with toasty spicy oak, would emphasize the lobster’s sweetness.
Picking a red wine for the following course – stuffed quail with creamy polenta – proved a bigger challenge, as reds are generally more complex than whites. Stone narrowed down the choices to reds made from Pinot grapes. These wines, with notes of cinnamon, clove and black berry, highlight the succulence of game birds. Stone suggested a red Burgundy, which is made from Pinot Noir grapes. But Nuss wanted to experiment with an American Pinot.
"Oregon, then," Stone declared. Oregon is where America’s Pinot revolution began. The two settled on a 1993 Beaux Freres, a dry, supple wine with a hint of bitterness in the finish. The tiny but much celebrated Beaux Freres winery in the Willamette Valley produced only 1,250 cases of Pinot in 1993. "It was a very difficult vintage in Oregon," said Stone. "The quality of the wine is a testament to the skill of the winemaker, Michael Etzel, who oversees the planting of every vine himself." Beaux Freres is co-owned by wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. "Now we can critique the critic," Nuss mused.
For the next course of roasted lamb with wild mushrooms and fava beans, Nuss and Stone considered several Cabernets, including Rubicon’s namesake, produced by Francis Ford Coppola’s winery. "Great lamb has deep, rich flavors, and so do great Cabernets," commented Stone. "Some Cabernets even seem to have a slight aroma of rosemary, the classic seasoning for lamb." Stone proposed pouring two wines: the silky 1993 Robert Craig Mt. Veeder Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and the luxurious 1992 Vineyard 29 Cabernet Sauvignon from Grace Family Vineyards. "The 29 is one of the superstars of Napa," Stone said.
When it came time to choose a dessert wine, Nuss hesitated. "Would it be a mistake not to have Sauterne's with the dessert?" she asked Stone. He grinned, then proposed a 1995 Long Vineyards Late Harvest Johannisberg Riesling from Napa. When Riesling grapes are harvested late, the cool temperatures concentrate the sugars, creating an ethereal sweetness. This wine would be perfectly suited to the dessert: a delicate white peach and Champagne soup garnished with fresh blackberries and blackberry sorbet.
The planning session came to an end, and Nuss sat back with a contented sigh. "How do you get these wines?" she asked Stone.
"Winemakers know we’re all wine lovers at Rubicon," he replied. "Even rare wines find a home here." And with that, he was off to his cellar to check on the newest arrivals.