A to-die-for wine career
Texas’ first Master Somm learned early that vino ‘can be transformative’
NAPA, Calif. — There was something terribly wrong with this picture. I was dining with Paul Roberts, Texas’ first Master Sommelier, over huevos rancheros and lemon ricotta pancakes, and there wasn’t a bottle of Colgin or anything else in sight, just two cups of coffee.
It may have been 5 o’clock somewhere, but it was 9 a.m. in the Napa Valley, and Roberts was flying off that afternoon for an exclusive wine expo on the shores of Lake Como, Italy, where he would be touting Colgin’s merits. So breakfast was our only option.
Roberts, 43, has already had a career any wine lover would kill for. The Bellaire High School and University of Texas graduate serves as COO for Ann Colgin’s winery, which makes some of the country’s most famous “cult” cabs.
His résumé includes: sommelier at Cafe Annie in Houston. Master Sommelier status through the Court of Master Sommeliers, with fewer than 250 members worldwide. Floor sommelier at Thomas Keller’s celebrated French Laundry in Yountville, Calif. Beverage director for Keller’s entire restaurant empire. Estate director for Bond Estates, another hyperelite Napa producer of highly allocated wines. And it all started because he followed a girl he was wooing to a wine tasting in Austin during his junior year at UT.
Handing Roberts a glass of red wine, the shop owner said, “Wine can be transformative. It can place you all over the world or at any point in history.” Roberts, of course, was thinking, “Hey, let’s just get to the drinking.” But, after smelling and tasting the wine, he began to figure out that something special might be going on beyond the drinking part. Then the host handed him a piece of cheese from the same place the wine came from. Finally, Roberts was shown an old copy of the New York Times, with stories about Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War prominent on the front page.
Finally, he was told, “This is a ’68 Gran Reserva Rioja. Welcome to the world of wine.”
Bingo, instant epiphany. It has been Roberts’ world, too, ever since. After college, without a clear picture of what he wanted to do, he found a part-time position at Scott Spencer’s Wines of the Americas, now the Houston Wine Merchant. Later, a friend, Tony McClung, hired him to assist with the wine program at the Rainbow Lodge, which, like Spencer’s shop, has been a proving ground for Houston’s best and brightest young wine talent. He landed the posting at Cafe Annie by telling chef-owner Robert Del Grande he’d work for free just to expand his base of knowledge. Del Grande agreed (but soon began paying him).
Roberts’ successes in national sommelier competitions plus being able to wear the “MS” button on his lapel — he nailed all three parts of the exam on the first try, a rare hat trick that earned him the Court’s highest honor, the Krug Cup — caught Keller’s eye. It didn’t take too much arm twisting from the man who is America’s most decorated chef to persuade the seventh-generation Texan and his wife, Katie, who’s fifth generation, to pull up stakes and move to the Napa Valley.
“I worked pretty much every day for the first two and a half years I was here,” Roberts said. “But Thomas was doing the same thing. It was an incredible experience. Basically, he told me, ‘If it’s liquid, it’s your responsibility.’ I remember ordering a case of Pétrus to split between two of our restaurants one morning, then negotiating a better price on a huge milk order for our bakeries because of all the cappuccinos and lattes we were selling.”
He and Keller also partnered on a Napa cabernet called Modicum to feature in the Keller spots. That project whetted Roberts’ interest in “the production side of wine,” leading him to Bond and now Colgin, where, in addition to overseeing the business operation, he serves as an in-house sommelier, playing devil’s advocate and troubleshooting the winery’s IX Estate Red, Cariad Red, Tychson Hill Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon and IX Estate Syrah.
Today, Colgin’s wines, although super pricey, sell themselves. But tomorrow? Roberts’ week-long trip to Italy with a return stopover in London was about being proactive.
“Knock on wood, we’ve been very fortunate,” Roberts said. “We still have great demand for our wines. But we work very hard to remain relevant. We don’t just stay here up on the hill, not traveling, not talking to anybody. We’re coming up on our 25th year, and we want people to keep thinking we’re making the best wine we’ve ever made. While the wines are expensive, there’s a reason. They’re rare (total production of the four labels is about 3,000 cases) and they have a level of quality they’re achieving every year.
“The market likes new wines. I see it in young sommeliers. … We — everybody in the industry — have to be cognizant of how many good options are out there.”