Jeff W.
Pronouns: he/him
In the shop: Wednesday - Saturdays, 12-4pm
1. First wine you fell in love with:
’70 Biondi Santi Brunello di Montalcino in the late 1980s. So smooth, round and seductive. Vanilla, spice and everything nice!
2. Weirdest wine experience:
The story of how I found the wine to pair to Gollum from Lord of the Rings. The Gollum description that I was pairing to: obsessive, conflicted, two-faced, complicated, jealous, transformed, misunderstood. I almost took the pairing out of the flight, but then I found a wine at a trade tasting that the wholesaler was giving away for cheap, because it was flat out weird to start AND it was going through a secondary fermentation in the bottle, so there was spritz on top of a wine that was both fruity & bitter, hard to understand, and from a high altitude area in Piedmonte that creates wines we don’t have a reference point for.
3. Movie/TV flight that you’d like to push Jeff to pair to:
Actually lets pair to the staff now that there’s 5 of us! Staff Flight with the adjectives provided by other staff members!!
4. Pairings Portland first contact:
I was originally gonna call it “Wonder Wines.” I think I’m glad I didn’t ;) … and my first time thinking about opening Pairings came the day I told my business partner of consciouswine.com I couldn’t do a business anymore that seemed to have a wall between it and an income stream. ConsciousWine was a 6 year project I started to vet US wineries for organic grape growing, no yeast added winemaking, biodiverse farming practices making wines that didn’t suck aka “vital choices for palate & planet”.
5. Something you love, or something about you that’s not about wine, that if someone knew they might want to know you better:
I’m from NY and have NY Sports addictions. My Dad dressed me in a Met uniform when I was about 8 and it’s still in my DNA. Mets, Jets, Knicks fan. Outside of that anomaly, really into the universe of metaphysics.
6. Any weird random fact OR inspiring line that you repeat to yourself:
Favorite lines I tell myself a lot: "The magic is in the mystery,” and “I am open to being surprised.”And, I love this line from the ancient poet and storyteller Rumi: “beyond the world of right and wrong there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
7. Favorite restaurant/food cart & why:
Restaurant—Urdaneta. You can’t only go just once. Food Cart—Yoshi’s (Multnomah Village). He’s trained sushi chefs and it shows.
8. What music are you playing at the shop, or do you tend to gravitate to:
Disco. Yes I said it out loud. And lots of world beat with a South African lean. Random dancing ops abound.