Every supper club will benefit from having a “wine guy” or fifteen wine guys. This would be guy that has a great selection of wines in his cellar or aspires to have them. A guy that really knows his wines and what pares with what. And, most importantly a guy that loves to share.
Scott Flora is my all time leading wine guy. He doesn’t work for a wine company he just buys a lot. A classic Scott story involved a kickoff party that we had for my daughter’s wedding. We had 75 people at our house in Westhampton and I had bought a variety of 1.5 liter bottles of wine. Scotty asked if I minded if he brought some wine to the party. I told him he had been bringing wine to my parties for years why change now thinking he would bring a bottle or two. During the party I was pretty busy socializing and cooking. I did notice that Scotts table was popular. The next day I realized I still had cases of wine left. Scott’s cases trumped my cases.
Scott will ask what is for dinner and bring a few bottles that speak to the meal. His education has come a long way from Elgin Illinois. Corporate America has done an excellent job of training Scott and others. Working in the medical industry he has worked with doctors around the world. Through his work and travels he has learned a lot about wine and our supper club has benefited from that education.
We once had a really earthy Gorgonzola. Scott tasted the cheese and darted off to his wine collection. He then pared it with this wine that had an amazing terroir. (Terroir is how a particular region’s climate, soils and aspect (terrain) affect the taste of wine.) The combination of the wine and cheese was amazing.
Speaking of terroir, I used to work in the chocolate business. I was at a trade show and Ben of Ben and Jerry’s stopped by our booth. We asked him if he would be interested in buying our chocolate as an ingredient. He said he wasn’t because he didn’t like the “barnyard note” in our chocolate. Translated, he was telling us it tasted like shit, but it had a great terroir.
In the end, all it really takes to be the “wine Guy” at a supper club is to be the guy that brings the wine.
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