Sunday, March 09, 2008
Food, "Behind the Bar"
Liquid confidence
Fifth Group Restaurants’ Vajra Stratigos dishes on wines and his achievements surrounding the bottled goodness
TAG:Behind the Bar
CREDIT:Spark St. Jude
Vajra Stratigos of Fifth Group Restaurants
By Hope S. Philbrick
As beverage director and corporate sommelier for Fifth Group Restaurants, Vajra Stratigos doesn’t hide his enthusiasm for his work. Recently, he took a simple vodka tasting to new heights by adding a sensory display that featured an active beehive, fresh pink grapefruits and other elements to portray characteristics of the vodkas poured. First put to work at age 10 by his family of Greco-Italian restaurateurs, Stratigos has gone on to achieve many professional accolades, including level two sommelier certification from the International Wine Guild and CSW certification from the Society of Wine Educators. The Sunday Paper talked with Stratigos to learn more about some of his recent accomplishments and future plans.
Q Last year, you received the People’s Choice Award at the High Museum of Art Wine Auction’s Oscars of Wine and were named a 2007 Rising Star Sommelier by Starchefs.com. What do such awards mean to you?
A It’s very flattering and quite an honor. Starchefs.com is an organization in a position to drive the proliferation and awareness of gastronomic arts and beverage connoisseurship. They travel around the country and do silent auditions where they taste foods from chefs, drinks from mixologists and wines offered by sommeliers. They get impressions and name people publically. At the time they visited Ecco, I was working a couple of nights a week there and apparently one night they’d asked for the wine guy and got me. They were impressed enough to give me the award. What’s most special is that there are 12 or so chefs given a title in each city but only one wine person. That they were inspired to give me the award over a number of other very qualified sommeliers in this city is a great honor.
The Oscars of Wine is a charity event leading up to the High Museum’s annual wine auction. The wines are typically very high quality, and, for the size of the tasting, it’s a great opportunity for real wine connoisseurs because the wines are awesome.
What is your approach to wine?
The details are in the intangibles in the service industry we rely on customers’ perceptions. My philosophy is that wine must be very approachable and not intimidating; from the way it’s connected to the food to how servers explain it. I’ve developed an educational platform that I think is pretty cool; I’ve been told there’s nothing like it in the country. It’s a comprehensive program that engages the servers. With wine connoisseurship growing at the rate that it is, all servers need to be prepared with basic information and also with enough technical information that they can talk to wine geeks. The goal is that when people order wine they feel well taken care of. My belief is that in the next five to 15 years, fine dining restaurants will all be driven into hotels. What people are looking for is a food quality that is very high in an environment that is very casual in relation to the food quality.
I think for the longest time there’s been this expression “food wine” and a majority of consumers never knew what that meant. The trend now is that people are aware of what “food wine” really means and are selecting wines more carefully. The most compelling trend is the increased awareness level of the consumer. It’s grown to the point that people in general pay attention to which wines go with food. Many wines aren’t food wines, including cult wines of California that are so fat and rich in the mouth that cheese and chocolate are the only options. Food wines have balance and acidity. SP
For a schedule of wine events at Fifth Group Restaurants, visit www.fifthgroup.com. For more insight from Stratigos, check out his new blog at www.vajrastraightup.blogspot.com.