A few weeks ago Houston wine guy David Keck traveled to Aspen, Colo., to take the final section of a famously rigorous test – some call it the hardest test in the world – to join the elite Court of Master Sommeliers. He’d previously passed the written test and service exam. The final challenge was a blind tasting in which candidates identify the grape, region, sub-region and appellation of six wines without even viewing the bottle shape. On May 18, at The Little Nell hotel, Keck got his pin. His success brings the number of Master Sommeliers in Texas to a whopping eight total – and still fewer than 250 worldwide.
Keck operates Camerata, a wine bar on Westheimer east of South Shepherd. He notes that he grew up with wine always on the table and enjoyed wine tastings with friends while pursuing an undergraduate degree in English at Columbia University. Then he plunged into the music world for a while as a professional opera singer with scholastic credits from the Juilliard School of Music and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. After settling in Houston, he changed directions again and went fully into the wine business. He began the slow and deliberate process of certification, collecting wines along the way. Earlier this week we sat down with Keck to talk about the path to Master Sommelier.
What do you love about wine?
Wine is very much the same as music – you can study history, language and theory. There’s a huge spectrum of multidisciplinary study involved. You get to study culture, agriculture, biochemistry, molecular biology and geology. And you drink wine and taste it at the end of the day. That’s a very sensory thing, so it’s artistic in a way.
Tell us about food-and-wine pairing.
In the best situations, a sommelier is able to work with a really good chef for collaboration. Everyone likes to debate and talk about what works and what doesn’t, but what most interests me is sitting down with a chef and talking about how beverages can complement the food. It’s a talk about various elements – acidity, weight, density, sweetness and complexity of flavors. It’s about finding ways for the two to marry and make each other better. Recently I tried strawberries and Amontillado sherry together. Theoretically, they’re not supposed to work, but, surprisingly, they did.
What ambitions do you still have?
A huge part of what the Court of Master Sommeliers stands for as an organization – and what I firmly subscribe to – is paying it forward. For me, the next stop is education and mentorship. I’ve always enjoyed teaching and will do that in the future to help the community become more educated, as well as working with the staff at Camerata.
Photo by Chuck Cook
What do you think of Houston’s wine culture?
We are growing rapidly. In a complete wine culture, we’re on the brink of being really great.
It’s on us in the service industry to pick it up. The beverage culture is usually right behind the evolution of the food culture, but I think we still have a lot of catching up to do on that.
In Houston, there aren’t a lot of places for sommeliers to gather, taste wine and talk about it. There are some great wine bars in the city like 13 Celsius and Public Services, but when we opened in this area of Montrose there was nothing like a wine bar. So Camerata was inspired by the lack of something rather than the presence of something. Ownership and management need to find people to do that job of creating excellent beverage programs properly so that we can create a culture of drawing certified people to the city rather than having certified people go to other cities like San Francisco and New York.
How would you suggest a beginner approach wine?
Come sit at the bar, talk to someone who is gentle and kind in their approach, and try a bunch of things. The world of wine is massively diverse, and there’s no “golden ticket” wine that will introduce you in the most perfect way. Some people want rich, full-bodied red wine, some people want something bone-dry and highly acidic, some want something sweet. Just try something on the spectrum and dial in on what you enjoy.