Begun in 2009 as an underground, pop-up dinner party, Lazy Bear quickly established itself as one of San Francisco’s most exciting restaurants once owner and chef David Barzelay moved it to a permanent home in the Mission District in 2014. Known for defying standard fine-dining trends, Lazy Bear’s team extends that philosophy from the kitchen and dining room to the Wine Spectator Best of Excellence Award-winning wine program, which encompasses more than 2,000 selections, including a massive assemblage of aged California wines, with vintages dating back several decades.
Beverage director Jacob Brown, who joined Lazy Bear in 2019, began his beverage career as a ski-bum bartender in Park City, Utah. After taking an introductory sommelier course, his interest in wine led him to hang up his ski poles. He moved to Austin to continue his journey in hospitality, working every position in restaurants, from dishwasher to beverage director.
Today, Brown oversees a team of four full-time sommeliers (five other staff members and chef Barzelay are also certified sommeliers) and curates the beverage pairings for the tasting menu, working with the Lazy Bear chefs to perfect the matches. As part of his effort to challenge and inspire the sommeliers to provide the best experience for customers, Brown encourages them to share anecdotes and stories about the wines they’re serving, including their place in history. He’ll often ask diners their birth vintage to scour the cellar for a bottle that will make a potentially excellent match with their meal.
Wine Spectator senior editor Aaron Romano sat down with Brown to discuss the challenges and benefits of pairing older wines with food and his strategies for success in harmonizing the two.
Wine Spectator: What was your strategy for creating this wine list?
Our cuisine is one of hyper-locality, so it only made sense to have a focus on California wine. One of the things we found unique about wines here in California is how amazingly they age over the years. Before I started, we had one of the most significant lists of older California wines anywhere. Today, well over 60 percent of the selections are from before the year 2000.
There were three beverage directors before me, so I did inherit [an existing list] of about 1,200 selections, and now we're sitting just north of 2,000. The former beverage director and I always talked about how much we admired Kelli White's list when she was over at Press in St. Helena. That was a huge inspiration—a California wine list with a ton of voice—and that's what we aim to achieve.
When pairing older wines with food, what's the first thing you consider—the wine or the dish?
Always dish first. My job isn’t always to send a message [with wine], so it’s usually what the dish calls for. Also, it’s a collaborative process with the culinary team. We taste every dish and pairing together. I might pitch certain wines more frequently, but there are plenty of vetoes beyond me. If I try and force a pairing, the others will look at me funny. They trust me to critique their dishes, and I trust them to critique the pairing honestly.
What are some of the challenges involved with pairing older wines? And what are some of the benefits?
Do you know that part in the movie Inception where they first play the music and it’s really fast, and then when they go further into dream mode, all of a sudden, the music expands and you hear all the intricacies? That’s what happens when wine ages. All those tight notes, you know, the fruit, tannin and oak of a young Cabernet, they’re delicious and super gratifying. But when you allow that Cabernet to age, all those flavors spread themselves out.
Pairing older wines with any cuisine can be challenging, especially with punchy or pungent flavors. We use a lot of wild [foraged] ingredients in our cuisine, and we talk a lot about complementary and contrasting pairings in terms of older wines. So sometimes a challenge is whether the wine is too complex for the dish. Aged wine can show a lot more complexity and flavor profile in a way that younger wines just simply cannot. For example, young Grüner is a little bit salty, bright and refreshing. But when you allow Grüner to age, you get those deep cabbage notes and savoriness that comes out in a way that younger wines can’t possibly show off. And that complexity is unique and can really add to dishes.
What types of dishes lend themselves to excellent pairings with aged wines?
I find that a lot of veggie-forward dishes do a lot better with older wines, because vegetables tend to have more nuanced and lighter flavors if they’re not being cooked in certain ways. For example, some of my biggest successes with older wines are Chardonnay from California with corn. One year, we did 1994 Far Niente Chardonnay, and those wines can hold up in a unique way that allows that rich character, which can be off-putting to some when they’re really young, to develop [and become more integrated].
And then another is broth courses. Broth or soup courses are hard to pair because they are different from a big chunk of something texturally and structurally. Because of that, they are super complex and allow older white wines and older red wines to be amazing. Right now, for example, we have a cod broth where we’re using wild alliums to aromatize it, so it’s a really warm, homey, comforting broth that allows amazing pairings.
How do you know when a bottle has reached a good drinking stage and ensure that each bottle served is sound?
That goes back to a challenge of pairing older wines, as they can be inconsistent. [It’s] a little bit of trial and error. Some of that is just selling through the wine. If an older wine shows differently than it should [for a customer], any reputable restaurant will take it back. I can use myself and the sommelier team to judge whether a wine is good enough. Even if it’s my last bottle, [if it’s off] I have to reject it.
There’s also definitely a point where wine becomes more interesting than it is actually good. It’s great when the wine is interesting and good. But I never want someone to say, “Wow, that wine was super interesting. It wasn't very good, though.”
Our motto has always been that we’re not a museum; we’re a restaurant. The wine list was not designed to be etched into the side of Mount Shasta; it was designed for people to come in and drink. So if somebody buys all of my really cool old Bordeaux, oh, no, I have to replace it! And it becomes a new challenge to find the next cool wine.
Are guests excited about trying older wines when they dine at Lazy Bear?
We have a very high proportion of people who do the [tasting-menu beverage] pairing, and we do like to feature older wine on that pairing quite frequently. It’s cool to introduce somebody to 15-, 20-, 30-year-old wines and show how complex the flavors can become.
There’s also a healthy mix of [customers]. Being in the Bay Area, with the most educated wine-drinking force, people know their stuff here, which can sometimes be intimidating. But I don’t think a lot of people have experience with older wines. And it’s fun to introduce them to special eras of wine, like Joseph Phelps from the 1970s, for example.
What’s your go-to wine pairing?
Champagne. Champagne is cheating, though, because it’s one of the only wines on planet Earth that can be rich because of lees aging but still super bright because of the acidity that comes through. And then, arguably, it is an aged wine. The best Champagnes are not released until 10 years of age. Age allows Champagne to develop those brioche notes and richness and oxidation on the palate. But then, because it is coming from this super mineral-driven area with a ton of acidity, it just cleans up. And that’s cheating because you can pair it with a lot of things.
