The demise of traditional wine media in Miami means that any hunt for information typically drives a person online or to an app installed on their phone. Amateur wine bloggers are everywhere, offering varying degrees of knowledge, and therefore not always reliable. And the sommelier scene, though significantly improved from just a decade ago, is still trying to gain widespread traction.
“We’re still seeing the sommelier role in Florida on more of an upscale restaurant level,” says Virginia Philip MS of The Breakers Palm Beach and the Virginia Philip Wine Shop & Academy in West Palm Beach. “Many sommeliers are acting in a true sommelier capacity here, but at smaller restaurants they’re often acting in a managerial-capacity-slash-sommelier role.” Such juggling of roles can result in a wine list being created by distributor representatives wielding sales data of the wines people are drinking in a restaurant’s neighbourhood, without a thought given to what the chef is doing.
There is a talented core of true wine professionals in Miami, of course. Some have run major programmes elsewhere, some have inherited major programmes and improved them, and some have even taken over the wine list for some overburdened, role-juggling manager, and are now running their own programme. These are the sommeliers who are serving as the true front line of high-level wine education. Here are some of Miami’s best.
Daniel Toral
Daniel Toral is wine director for John Kunkel’s 50 Eggs, Inc. group of restaurants, which includes Swine and Spring Chicken, located southwest of the downtown in Coral Gables, and two iterations of the southern-themed Yardbird: the original in Miami Beach, and a second at The Venetian in Las Vegas.
Yardbird is where Toral’s touch is most evident. While the “finer” dining southern theme requires the wine list to remain heavily American-influenced, Toral, beginning when he took over in late 2014, has steered it to be much more internationally representative. To pair with fried chicken, for example, Chartogne-Taillet Cuvee Rosé and Col de’ Salici Prosecco di Valdobbiadene now sit beside Mumm Brut Rose from Napa.
The programmes at Yardbird’s two locations do differ: “My program here is a lot smaller,” says Toral, explaining how Miami’s space constraints have forced him to be highly selective. “We’ve got about 70 wines; 20 from the glass using a Coravin system.”
Toral is StarChefs’ 2015 national Somm Slam winner, and while he may remain extremely modest about that achievement (“I’m not exactly a showman when it comes to being in front of an audience.”), it is no doubt a credit to his blind tasting skills, which are “exceptional” according to Miami wine writer Lyn Farmer.
Heath Porter
Uvaggio Wine Bar in Coral Gables is the barely-two-year-old creation of owner Craig DeWald and managing partner/‘head wine-o’ Heath Porter. Porter’s two decades of experience includes stints managing wine programmes for the W Hotel’s Diamond Head Grill in Honolulu, the five-star Sea Island resort in Georgia, and The Greenbrier luxury resort in West Virginia. In a departure from his previous responsibility for managing an $18m annual beverage programme, Porter has conscientiously constructed Uvaggio’s 30-wine, Coravin-enabled by-the-glass programme and 125-bottle cellar to tilt heavily toward the interesting instead of the obvious.
“We’re doing things that nobody else has done in Miami,” says Porter. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the conversation about why we don’t have any Merlot or Malbec, or why there’s no Napa by the glass. There are umpteen million restaurants in Coral Gables — 40 or 50 right here on the Miracle Mile — why would we do what they’re all doing?”
When asked how he’s gone about assembling his list, the answer is predictably straightforward: “I sit down with the chef [Tanner Gil] and my business partner [DeWald], and we taste a bunch of juice,” he says. “We automatically have great pairings.”
Examples from the list include Pierre Yves Colin-Morey “Les Baudines” 2011 from Chassagne-Montrachet, Chateau Musar 2007 from the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, and Radikon Oslavje 2007 from Venezia Giulia, Italy, listed on the menu under “Wacky juice that probably only I will drink.”
Porter also organises wine trips for his customers, and at the time of writing he and his gang were waiting patiently to depart Miami International Airport for Northern Italy.
Eric Larkee
Eric Larkee is wine and spirits director for Michael Schwartz’s The Genuine Hospitality Group, which includes Cypress Tavern, Harry’s, ella, Michael’s Genuine Pub (on Royal Caribbean’s MS Anthem of the Seas cruise ship), and the flagship Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, where Larkee first joined Schwartz’s side as sommelier in 2009. Prior to that, he was beverage director at Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner’s Michelin-starred Wallsé in New York.
Larkee is a prominent figure in South Florida wine, enjoyed by his peers as much for his direct brand of humour as his thoughtful curation. His current obsession with concise, clean lists continues to pay off for Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, and now the entire group.
“There’s something I really like about conciseness of lists,” says Larkee. “I can get sucked into a 400-bottle list and not be able to make a decision. Sometimes, I look at a wine list and I don’t know what to do,” he laughs. “And I’m supposed to help people know what to do in this situation, and I’m confused and I’m lost. How do normal people even do this?
“The longer I do this professionally the more simple I want things to be,” adds Larkee, “and the less I feel like you need to try to please every single person, or, in some ways, impress myself.” He’s trimmed the wine list from last year’s 270 or so bottles to 160 bottles today, but drops hints on the list that there is more to reveal. “You have to have that conversation with the sommelier to unlock it,” explains Larkee. “People know that about us. There’s not just what’s there. It gives a reason for the interaction.”
Amanda Fraga
Full of enthusiasm, Amanda Fraga, former sommelier at Michael’s Genuine Food & Beverage, has recently expanded her role to beverage manager for the group, and she embraces the challenge of trimmed down lists. “It’s not 400 wines, it’s 150 wines,” says Fraga. “It’s fun and challenging at the same time. If you get a guest looking for something in particular it can be a little tough, but it’s fun to work with them. We hit every region, every style, and I try to get the best for that region. So if I have one Pinot Grigio, I want it to be the best Pinot Grigio; traditional style, no skin fermentation, and I’ll taste 20 before I find the one I like.”
Incidentally, Michael’s Genuine’s one Pinot Grigio is currently produced by Livon, from Collio. You’ll also find Gruner Veltliner from Weingut Nigl in Kremstal, Peyrassol Côtes de Provence Cinsault, and 1967 Bertani Amarone della Valpolicella Corvina, to name a few.
Brian Grandison
Brian Grandison manages the wine program at Fontainebleau Miami Beach’s Hakkasan, the first US location for the chain of distinguished Cantonese restaurants and lounges that can be found in some of the world’s most exciting cities. Considered a “true professional” by his Miami peers, Grandison manages a list that he enjoys for its versatility. “It’s fun, it’s a little bit unconventional,” says Grandison. “It’s based on titles as opposed to regions or varietals, so it’s listed as terroir and classics and new classics and biodynamic; you might find Riesling or Chardonnay or Cabernet or Point Noir over several different pages.”
While the organisation of the list may seem unconventional, that’s not to suggest that any slack exists. “We go through a rigorous process to make sure all of our wines suit our food because of the spices,” explains Grandison. “The chili and ginger can really affect the wine in a certain way that can set off a bad taste, so we work hard to avoid that. We taste blind. It’s purely about the flavour and the texture.”
A somewhat recent cause of excitement for Grandison, because of how well it went with Hakkasan’s food, is San Fereolo Coste di Riavolo, a Riesling-Gewürztraminer blend from southern Piedmont.
Jennifer Wagoner
When Jennifer Wagoner moved from New York to Miami 10 years ago, in her early 20s, she recalls that there weren’t many sommeliers her age in South Beach. Sometimes — such at the restaurant at which she worked — there was no sommelier at all. She coupled her Italian wine shop experience with an obvious interest in developing a wine programme for the restaurant, and they gave her the chance.
With stops as head sommelier at South Beach’s Wish, the art district’s Wynwood Kitchen & Bar, and the award-winning Japanese restaurant and sake bar Zuma, Wagoner is now lead sommelier for Fontainebleau Miami Beach’s StripSteak, Michael Mina’s innovative steakhouse, and the more casual, bistro-style MM74.
Wagoner’s 44-page wine list at StripSteak features, thanks to a Coravin system, such high-end by-the-glass offerings as Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Echezeaux Grand Cru 2012 and Chateau Lynch Bages 1996, extensive lists of magnums and champagne, and detailed listings from Pauillac, Margaux and Pessac-Leognan, to name a few. If the 44 pages fail to impress, there’s a corkage fee if a customer wishes to bring their own bottle; and then there’s “the vault”, a shared cellar available to all Fontainebleau sommeliers that houses allocations of first-growths, aged Barolos and more. With stock worth more than $1m, only one person holds the key.
