Please The Palate |

Social Responsibility in the Hospitality Industry

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register. There is a new trend in fine dining and it is called “social responsibility.” Recently, I attended Taste Talks Los Angeles, a food and drink festival featuring talks, tastings, dinners and parties. As L.A.'s amazing chefs, restaurants and cultural figures came together, they engaged in great conversation, including the role social responsibility has in the hospitality industry.

According to the California Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing, California has more than 118,000 homeless people, accounting for 22 percent of the nation’s homeless population. Many across the state, from political groups to nonprofits to for-profits to individuals, are working to solve this moral crisis, and the hospitality industry plays an important role.

Chrysalis is a Los Angeles based nonprofit organization founded in 1984 to create a path to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals. They provide the resources and support to find and retain employment. To date, more than 58,000 men and women have been helped and, most importantly, 71 percent of people who find work through Chrysalis keep their jobs, officials said.

29 November, 2017

The wines of Georgia, revisited

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

The world of wine is vast. It is more than California, France and Italy. It is more than chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, merlot and cabernet sauvignon. There are more than a thousand wine-producing regions and thousands of different grape varieties in the world.

When we see a wine from a lesser-known wine-producing country or made from a grape we are not familiar with or made in a style that is not what we consider classic, we may call these wines “weird” or “archaic” or “artisanal” or “natural.” But it is important to have a broader perspective and look at the larger world of wine.

I have had the privilege to be introduced to a vast number of wine regions and wines, and, thanks to my work, I have tried wines from Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Georgia, as well as all wines from the more well-known wine countries.

22 November, 2017

The Beauty of Il Borro

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register. When I was starting out in the wine industry, I volunteered to pour wine at a Wine Spectator event. I was pouring for an Italian winery and was surrounded by other Italian producers. Next to me was a nice young man, and throughout the evening, we would pour each other a taste of wine. As the night came to an end, I was handed his business card and I looked at the name. It said Salvatore Ferragamo. and my first reaction was that I thought it was funny that he would be named after the famous shoe designer. That was my only thought as we said good night and he offered me a few bottles of his wine to enjoy.

The wine was the Il Borro IGT 2000. And when I got home, I did a quick Google search only to find out that Il Borro is the project of Ferruccio Ferragamo, the son of the famous designer Salvatore Ferragamo, and his son Salvatore Ferragamo, is named after his grandfather. I took my three bottles of Il Borro and decided to save them, and over the past 15 years, I enjoyed two of them but have been saving the third and final bottle.

09 November, 2017