Marquette grad carves out career as NY wine director
It’s maybe not what her professors would have predicted. But Amanda Smeltz went from majoring in philosophy and English literature at Marquette University in Milwaukee to being wine director at a couple of trendy New York City restaurants.
A Pennsylvania native, she decided on Marquette because she liked the Jesuit tradition of education — and “I knew about their basketball team,” she said with a laugh during a recent phone interview.
Smeltz, who graduated in 2007, realized that “as a liberal arts major, I had to find something else to do to make money, unless I wanted to be an academic.”
She has not, however, left the scholarly life entirely behind. And she happily reports that the study of wine provides a “particular lens” through which to learn about subjects that range from history and geography to agriculture and economics.
Her current gig in New York is as wine director at Estela and Café Altro Paradiso, two Manhattan restaurants in the Matter House restaurant group. She had several jobs before joining Matter House in 2018; one of the most notable was as wine director at Brooklyn’s famously hip Roberta’s Pizza and its sister restaurant, Michelin-starred Blanca.
When asked what sparked her interest in wine and food, she said it was Marquette roommate Laura Perlman — “an avid cooker” with a passion for Julia Child — who introduced her to the joys of the kitchen. (Smeltz gets back to Milwaukee about once a year to visit Perlman, who is a speech pathologist.)
To earn money while at Marquette, Smeltz worked as a server at a couple of Milwaukee restaurants. And it was at Mason Street Grill where then-general manager and wine director Peter Donahue encouraged her to “learn the cellar.”
“I had no idea what he was talking about,” Smeltz admitted.
But so began her introduction to basics like doing inventory and running tastings.
She has never pursued formal training in wine, instead learning along the way and working her way up. “Apprenticeship is still very real” in the wine business, she said.
She stayed at Mason Street Grill for a year after graduation and then headed to New York City, but she’s proud to say she got her start in Milwaukee.
And she’s delighted by all the new restaurants on the scene: “Wow. I wish they were here when I was at school.”
Smeltz recently took time out of her busy schedule — she works 50 to 60 hours a week — to share some insider tips and recommendations:
The following Q & A has been edited and abbreviated:
Question: What are the wine lists like at Estela and Café Altro Paradiso?
Answer: At Estela, it’s polyglot European, including about 23 wines by the glass, and at Café Altro Paradiso it’s 80 percent to 90 percent Italian, with about 25 wines by the glass.
Prices are from about $45 to $300 or $400 a bottle, with most in the $50 to $120 range. And both lists are made up of entirely natural wines.
(Natural wines, which are enjoying something of a cult status among aficionados, are made with organically grown grapes fermented with naturally occurring yeast. They see little or no chemical or technological intervention.)
Q: What advice do you have for people who are flummoxed by a wine list, one on which they don’t see any familiar favorites?
A: People can get upset when they don’t see any wines they recognize. I always promise them that I can find them something they’ll like, but they need to be open to trying something new. It takes a degree of openness.
It’s helpful for people to think about — and to mention to the server or sommelier — what general category of wine they like rather than to single out a particular brand. So it might be Pinot Noir from France or Chardonnay from Sonoma.
Q: Can you name a wine you think is underappreciated?
A: German Riesling — you can find good examples for under $15 a bottle. Riesling that comes from the Pfalz and the Rheingau regions is often less expensive than from the Mosel.
Q: Are there wines you don’t like much, ones you would probably not include on a wine list?
A: I’m going to make a lot of your readers angry, but Napa Valley as a wine region is a disaster. It’s just too blazing hot for many of the grapes planted there. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Merlot are disasters — overripe grapes, really high alcohol levels. Cabernet does better, but it’s a grape from Bordeaux, which is a relatively cool, maritime region.
Zinfandel is really one of the grapes I think most lovely in California. And way up in the mountains, on Mount Veeder, Sky Vineyards makes natural, rustic wines. Sky’s Zinfandel is beautiful.
Q: If you’re having friends over for pizza, what wine would you serve?
A: Well, I wouldn’t go with Chianti, not because it isn’t a good choice, but because I’d serve something different — maybe a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.
Some other more-interesting, indigenous-variety wines I would drink with pizza are things like: Ruchè from the Piedmont (I like the producer La Miraja especially); Rossese from Liguria (favorite producer is Claudio Vio); or an even rarer but inexpensive Raboso from the Veneto (Carolina Gatti makes one of the only examples).
Q: Among your other accomplishments, you’ve written a book of poetry, “Imperial Bender” (Typecast Publishing, 2013, $16.95). As a poet, do you have a favorite poem about wine, either one you wrote or one by another poet?
A: Yes, “Drinking Alone by Moonlight” by Chinese poet Li Po is a joy.