I had the honor to meet one of the most prolific contributors to the global wine and food industry at the recent Taste Washington event in Seattle. Master sommelier Evan Goldstein was in town for the event and conducted seminars on testing your “wine I.Q.” Unfortunately, I wasn’t a pupil in one of his seminars, but I did have the opportunity to informally meet him on a couple of occasions. I was blown away by the breadth of his knowledge and the comforting ease with which he communicated that knowledge.
I know this may not seem like an earth-shaking occurrence to most people, but to a cork dork like myself, it was a pretty big deal. In fact it was one of the highlights of the Taste Washington weekend. It’s a bit like being really into hoops and running into Michael Jordan for a spontaneous game of one-on-one. And much like M.J., Goldstein could have easily taken me to the rack, flushed me and made derogatory references as to my lineage. But Goldstein was overwhelmingly courteous and gracious.
Becoming a master sommelier or the similar pinnacle, master of wine, is enormously difficult. Goldstein was pretty much a child prodigy in the world of food and wine, the youngest recipient of the prestigious designation of master sommelier. He passed the stringent three-day exam in 1987 at the ripe old age of 24. Quite a feat when you consider that there are currently only 48 master sommeliers in the United States, and 105 in the entire world.
“I just grew up around great food and wine,” Goldstein said when we met. (The San Francisco native is the son of Joyce Goldstein, a chef and author.) “I remember having wine with our meals from the time I was very young, and it was never a big deal. I realized, from an unusually young age, that I appreciated the subtleties of wine and how it integrated with food. I also realized that I had a very good palate memory that came in handy during my master sommelier exams and throughout the rest of my career.”
Goldstein began his wine and food odyssey at age 19 in the kitchens of the famed Restaurant Le Saintongeais and the Hotel Lancaster in Paris, Napa Valley’s Auberge du Soleil, San Francisco’s celebrated Square One restaurant, and Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkley, Calif. He went on to share his passion for wine education as director of the Sterling Vineyards School of Service and Hospitality where he trained more than 15,000 professionals in the finer points of restaurant service.
Today, Goldstein oversees all educational elements of Allied Domecq Wines USA. He has contributed to many magazines and cookbooks over the years and is having his own book published in a few months. “It’s the kind of no-nonsense, practical guide to wine and food that people have been looking for,” he said.
Given Goldstein’s outstanding abilities as a teacher, moderator and trend analyst, I thought I’d ask him what wine regions in the world he thought were the most interesting, dynamic and held the most promising future.
“Obviously Washington state is in an amazing growth period in its overall evolution, and I think it is only going to get even better. There are some amazing vineyard sites producing outstanding fruit and you have some real high-quality winemakers that know what to do with it,” he said.
“I also think that Argentina is showing that it will have a huge presence in the world’s ultrapremium wine markets. What’s happening all around Mendoza is truly exciting, and I predict that, like Washington, this area will be producing some of the world’s greatest wines in the not too distant future.”
I concur, and in fact I think in next week’s column we should explore just what Argentina’s wine industry is up to these days and what wines currently available in our market are worth investigating.
I hope Goldstein’s story helps diminish the perception that people with such credentials in the wine world are raising the snob index. Granted, it is the melding of wine and academia, and you might think that this merger would result in some kind of aloof pompousness. The truth is actually quite the opposite.
Their efforts are heartfelt, passion-driven attempts to accomplish the same thing as pretty much everyone else in the wine industry. And that is to simply expand the consumer base for wine and the quality of life associated with it. Oh, and also to have fun doing it.
It seems appropriate to also mention, and congratulate, Shayn Bjornholm at Seattle’s Canlis Restaurant, who recently passed the stringent exams necessary to be declared master sommelier.
Jeff Wicklund can be reached at 425-737-2600, or wick@colbyhospitality.com.
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