A Passion for All Things Wine

Want good wine? You're in good company. At Palate Partners in the Strip, the Wine 101 classes routinely sell out and their 1st and 3rd Friday night wine-tastings draw big crowds. These days, those who appreciate wine are more sophisticated than ever, and still willing to learn. Which is why they appreciate Palate Partners in the Strip, a one-of-a-kind jewel that caters to a specialty market.

The business is a partnership of Dreadnought Wines, a wine distributor owned by Mike Gonze and The Butler's Secret, a wine accessories and tabletop goods business owned by Deb Mortillaro. The two logically joined forces in 1992 and created the umbrella name Palate Partners three years later to market their wine along with their accessories, and gift baskets (a million dollar business) to Pittsburgh and beyond.

Mike and Deb know food and wine inside and out which means they do more than just sell the stuff. They bring a depth of experience and knowledge that helps them to suggest just the right vintage and create the perfect pairing in gift baskets. Deb graduated with honors from the Culinary Institute of America and worked as a professional chef for many years before opening The Butler's Secret. When asked how he got into the wine business, Mike answers with a perfect deadpan face: "Unemployment." And he means it. Mike's brother, the original owner of Dreadnought Wines, offered him a job when Mike was laid off from his position with a food service company. Now, more than 20 years later, Mike has refined his palate with practical wine experience, visiting wineries and attending seminars and tastings all over the world.

As a wine importer and distributor, Dreadnought endeavors to introduce people to lesser-known wines that they can't get through the state liquor stores. And it's different from most wine distributors which sell to restaurants and to the state. While Dreadnought does that, too, it focuses on the retail aspect of wine.

"The concept of promoting retails sales [of wine] to the public is very confusing to people, because people don't understand what that means," Mike says. He explains: Dreadnought sells wine through a procedure created by the state called "special liquor order." Customers can order wine over the phone or stop by the Palate Partner retail shop in the Strip District. Pennsylvania law requires a three-day waiting period between placing and receiving an order, but Dreadnought will also ship your wine anywhere within Pennsylvania for an additional fee.

Find a Good Wine
Deb says that people often come in and say that they want a good wine. "Well, God love ya!" she says with a small chuckle. She and Mike stress that nobody knows what kind of wine they'll like until they start tasting it.

"Wine is food," Mike points out. "Nobody can tell you what beef tastes like if you've never eaten it." And like food, he says, people have their own preferences when it comes to wine. Nobody can tell you what kind of wine you'll like based on their preferences. "I can't tell you, 'Oh, you're going to love this Chardonnay! This is the best Chardonnay!'" Mike says. He points out that if someone hates Chardonnay, no amount of telling her it's a good wine will make any difference. He goes on to compare it to the movie rental store clerk who told him he'd love a specific movie without bothering to ask what kind of movie he was interested in.

Engage and Educate
To help people find the right wine – or the right gift basket – Palate Partners does two important things: engages and educates its customers. Mike stresses that they like to work with their clients to uncover specific preferences. Once they know your tastes, or the tastes of a gift basket recipient, they can make informed suggestions.  

If you stop by the Palate Partners' showroom on Penn Avenue, you'll find everything from gifts for kids and new babies to a host of wine accessories such as the highly regarded Riedel stemware. All of these things and more can be included in Palate Partners' gift baskets for personal and corporate gift giving.

Education? A must. Their Wine 101 classes routinely sell out and their 1st & 3rd Friday night wine tastings regularly draw big crowds. But that's not to say that everyone in Pittsburgh is a wine newbie. Deb and Mike say that the wine culture in Pittsburgh – and across the country – is maturing and people only want to learn more.

"I think people are just becoming more sophisticated about it, though not everybody's a collector, nor do we want them to be," says Deb. "We have also seen the product mix become more sophisticated. At one point in time, we paid the rent by the white zinfandel sales, and now we don't necessarily consistently even have a white zinfandel in our book to sell. Then we saw everybody start to drink chardonnays, and then they went to merlots, and now they're going into more diverse things. So I think that's true not just of Pittsburgh. People are slowly but surely educating themselves."

Some people are even booking private wine tastings, like the one Mike conducted for a bridal shower of 60 people at the bride's home. Dreadnought also offers "non-drinking" classes to business people on how to choose a wine from a wine list by asking their guests a few simple questions. And of course, Deb is always ready to give suggestions on how to pair wine and food.

Just Drink It
Like most of the fine things in life, wine must be experienced to be understood. "You can only read so much to understand wine. You can get some knowledge that way, but it's a sensory subject. It's about the taste and the smell. Until we have 'scratch and sniff' or 'scratch and taste' books, you're going to have to drink it to really understand," Deb says.

"People often ask us how we feel about Two Buck Chuck," says Deb, referring to a brand of cheap wine. Her response?

"Anything that gets people drinking wine is okay."

Cheers to that.

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Jennifer McGuiggan, a freelance writer and editor, is the owner of The Word Cellar

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Photographs copyright Brian Cohen