Sommeliers team up at Bludorn restaurant
When Jack Mason rang in the New Year, he had every reason to believe 2020 would be another wonderful year for him, his family and his company, the Pappas Restaurants group. The Master Sommelier, a College Station native who turns 33 today, oversaw the entire Pappas wine program — with more than 5,000 wines on its various lists — and business was booming, both here and in Dallas.
Lots of fun travel loomed, too. He was particularly looking forward to a March trip for a major Burgundy event that would be taking him back to Manhattan, where he’d earned his MS stripes and made many great friends before he returned to Houston with his wife, Carly, in 2016 to start a family.
Meanwhile, this year loomed as a special one for Molly Austed because she and her partner, Mark Sayre, would be changing scenery, leaving Austin for Houston. Sayre, an advanced sommelier himself, had signed on to become the wine director for the Goodnight Hospitality team, while Austed was joining the Galleria Pappas Bros. Steakhouse team as a floor sommelier, presided over by Mason’s fellow MS, Steven McDonald.
Then the novel coronavirus roared in, upending everything.
By March 22, Mason had been furloughed and Austed also found herself out of work after just a few weeks on the job because the Pappas Restaurants, like all the others around town, were forced to close. Five of them, in fact, have been permanently shuttered, and the downtown steakhouse remains dark, with convention visitors nonexistent and the surrounding office towers largely bereft of would-be customers.
Mason’s Pappas colleague McDonald, Austed’s direct boss at the flagship steakhouse on Westheimer, was also furloughed, but, when that location reopened, he was summoned back. Mason has been less fortunate because he wasn’t tethered to a single restaurant. However, nothing he says indicates that he and Pappas’ management are estranged in any way. In fact, he insists he “completely understands” why his job has been deemed, at least temporarily, redundant and that he still considers himself part of the Pappas team.
Austed? She has officially moved on with the Pappas’ full blessing. Her new gig is overseeing the wine program at Bludorn on Taft. Chef Aaron Bludorn, who, like Mason, cut his teeth in New York, is married to Chris Pappas’ daughter Victoria.
So, although Bludorn isn’t under the Pappas umbrella — the chef found 20 investors for his first-ever solo venture — it’s definitely in the friends-andfamily category. Mason was contracted to build the wine program from scratch. The 30-year-old Austed was subsequently brought on to be the boots in the cellar, in large part because of glowing recommendations from Mason and McDonald.
Mason and Austed already knew each other before she moved to town because Texas wine folks tend to be one big, extended family.
“We became close when I got to Pappas,” she said, “then, all of a sudden, we were both out of our jobs. None of us could have predicted this. It got really crazy really fast.”
Nonetheless, she landed on her feet at Bludorn, where, when it comes to the wine program going forward, Mason said, “It’s Molly’s show. She’s driving the bus.”
But a bus, Austed points out, that’s ready to roll because of Mason’s skill set and the countless hours he has put in since early August. It’s tough enough to build a cellar from scratch under ordinary circumstances. The logistics this spring have been diabolical, especially because the once-obligatory face-to-face tastings with wine reps, a fundamental element of a somm’s routine, have been rendered almost impossible.
“We are so ready for normalcy,” Austed said.
But Bludorn opted not to wait for same, throwing open its doors last week with about 250 wine options. Mason cultivated the list “to play to chef Bludorn’s diverse cuisine, incorporate consumption trends of the Houston consumer and highlight great estates from around the world. The list has both a French and domestic focus with specific energy put into Champagne (his greatest personal passion), Burgundy (where Austed’s love affair with wine began while she was studying design in Paris), Bordeaux and California.” There are 29 wines available by the glass: a rosé, four sparklers, seven whites, 10 reds and seven for dessert.
I asked Mason and Austed to each pick a couple that speak to themloudly — and whet our appetite for what’s ahead on Taft Street.