A Somm’s Tale Sommelier Scott Patrick Cowan
Scott Cowan has been a certified sommelier for a dec- ade and has been a dyed-in-the-wool hospitality con- sultant, floor presence, columnist, teacher and man- ager for nearing two decades, holding the title of Best Sommelier of Atlantic Canada (ASI) between 2021 and 2023. His passions are grounded in guest experience, re- search and development, travel, food and beverage harmony, and collaboration. On a day to day, Scott finds inspiration from customized client experiences and regionality as a centre point. He leads a foraging rooted beverage program and evolving wine cellar for the Fogo Island Inn. In his home life, he values family, friends, chipping away at a manuscript, blind wine tasting and celebrating the outdoors.
THE SUBTLE DEPARTURE OF TRADITIONAL WINE PAIRINGS
There is a story of a brave sommelier serving an au- thentic Italian principal sauce like Bolognese with a white wine, and then getting bawled out by a well-in- tentioned (but firm) Italian senior lady in a dining room. This was several years ago now and I am still not the same person. As a consequence, I recommend a wine from Tuscany, today, and break my own rule of never not rule-breaking. The best wine for tomato contains the sangiovese grape, which gets its name for the brick color in the glass, “the Blood of Jupiter” and pairs as a starting point with any classic red sauce. There are variables, as there are with anything, and once chef introduces heat, the pairing changes, but can ideally orbit around sangiovese with a little touch of barbera or a little bit of syrah. The next consideration is sugar — once it’s in there (hint: tomato is sweet!), we’re going to pull a lot of spice notes from whatever oak barrel the wine was raised in. This can be a good thing, but it’s usually to
be avoided if you don’t want your wine to be suddenly mulled. For reasons such as these, I recommend a simpler wine, with less luxuriant oak, perhaps second-use oak, but a wine that is smooth, ro- bust, and joyful – something easy. The word ‘fiasco!’ comes from Chianti and
references a large bottle size, up to 5.7 litres. Montre Bernardi brings
the spirit of a classic fiasco, with juicy wild red currant, patented leather, contained bush smoke, and not-too- much-spice to overwhelm chef’s impactful under- standing of simplicity and tradition. They also throw in a heap of other unique, non-legal
grapes into the wine that go outside the appellation rules,
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