I joined Beringer in 1994 after being a chef owner for many years. I had always loved wine and the wine country, and in fact was a wine broker for a short time between when I moved from my family's restaurant to opening my own. During my restaurant days we did well over 100 wine events from distributor events, lunches and dinners to festivals. In our minds we really had the food and wine pairing thing down. Having just coming off years of accolades and national magazine articles about our cooking and our wine program, I came to Beringer thinking I would be able to make an impact on their On Premise sales as 'I talked restaurant' and knew what would work in that setting with our wines.
As I went through orientation with Beringer at the Winery, there was a scheduled meeting for all the new hires to learn about Beringer's famed wine education department and their National On Premise team. This is where I met Tim Hanni, who was then the Director of Wine Education at Beringer. He is well known and published as a Wine and Food expert and has a CWE degree AND a MW degree (only a few people in the world have accomplished this). Tim was the engine that started the 'Why you like what you like' movement explaining how food and wine don't actually go together...they simply react. The meeting was to be a watershed event for me and would connect me to Tim as a friend and colleague to this day.
I remember during the presentation that Tim asked the group ' who knows about food and wine pairing...anyone?' I raised my hand, was selected to speak and started talking about my chef days and the many dinners I had matched wine with food. Tim asked me what the perfect pairing was and I remember exactly the moment: ' It's Pinot and Quail. The smoky Pinot Noir and the gaminess of the quail are a perfect match. Tim asked me how I knew that. I told him that I had a long career in cooking and in my experience, that combination was perfect.
Tim then turned to me and in front of the entire group (and with a grin) said ' You don't know anything at all about why that works. You are full of bullshit !'. As I started to get a bit hot under the collar, Tim then explained...'Mark, do you like quail ?. Well of course I do, I said. 'Mark, do you like Pinot Noir?' 'I love Pinot Noir', I said. Well, Tim said 'That's why you like that combination- YOU love pinot and quail...what if your customer didn't like quail...or pinot... is that still a perfect match?' Even if they do like it, do you really know why? We then went into how I prepared the quail, and discovered I generally make very balanced food between the four key ingredients that influence how food and wine reacts...Bitter, Salt, Umami and Sweet. Any of those items out of balance can make a wine taste differently. And Tim didn't just talk the talk...he walked it by doing a tasting, having us all taste the same wine with each key ingredient to see how bitter and salt can make wines taste soft and delicious while sweet and umami can make wines more harsh or tannic in reds and dumb down a white. He made the same wine taste different ways depending on the flavors we were tasting the wine with.
From that day, I've looked at not how I thought wines would taste, but how a wine reacts with flavors. I also learned and continue to promote the fact that every person has a different palate. Just because I like Pinot and Quail doesn't mean that my partner, friend or customer will. And if they don't, it's all good. Great food or wine is only great if the person eating or drinking something enjoys it...it is not great just because we tell them is great.
If we take the time to find out what a customer or friend they really wants instead of trying to figure out why a person doesn't like a certain combination that we may find perfect, if we ask them the most relevant question...what do you really like and we give them what they really want...the result is that everyone is happy and everyone wins.
Thanks Tim...on giving me insight on how to rethink wines, flavors and customer service. And I' m still learning.
