Sommelier’s pick
Who: Rick Jamail, wine director at Fratelli’s
Background: After 38 years in the wine business in Houston, Jamail has reinvented himself, becoming a restaurant sommelier. His previous gig was in on-premises sales for Spec’s after nearly two decades spent as the wine-education manager and Bordeaux buyer for Republic National Distributing Co. The Spring Branch restaurant, which opened in 2011 and features the original wood bar from the Shamrock Hilton Hotel, has recently undergone a makeover. Jamail now works the floor; longtime local chef Mark Cox oversees the kitchen.
What: 2013 Quilceda Creek Red Columbia Valley
Why: Paul Golitzin, Quilceda Creek’s director of winemaking, is the nephew of the legendary Napa Valley winemaker André Tchelistcheff, who helped get the highly regarded Washington state winery off the ground before he passed away at the age of 92. Although the Red is a “second” label, a blend of declassified lots that didn’t make it into the flagship wine, the juice possesses extraordinary blood lines, like Golitzin. The winery’s topdrawer cabernet sauvignon has received 100-point scores from the critics five times in the past 15 vintages with no score lower than 96, Jamail points out, suggesting that “the Golitzin family is making the best cabs in North America right now.” He says this Bordeaux-style blend, which is 73 percent cab, 14 percent merlot, 6 percent cab franc, 4 percent petit verdot and 3 percent Malbec, is “rich and full-bodied with plenty of fruit and nice acidity and ripe tannins. It will last 10 years or more.”
Price: $135 at Fratelli’s, 1330 Wirt