Enoteca Roma
“The guy who makes this has got the craziest mullet,” he says, pouring from a 2003 bottle of Au Bon Climat pinot noir. Of the next sample, an Andrew Murray Syrah: “The wine is, like, fighting with you; it’s got all these crazy ideas.” I ask him to describe it using typical wine jargon, and he winces. He says he’s got a good memory for tastes and names, but verbal descriptions aren’t his forte. Besides, he argues, highfalutin winespeak is of dubious worth. “Fifty percent of the time it’s subjective,” he says, though he acknowledges that occasionally words work: for example, a good Burgundy really should smell like cow manure, so the industry euphemism, “barnyard,” makes sense.
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Fabio Sorano, who co-owns Enoteca Roma and Letizia’s with his mom, Letizia Sorano, hired Chizeck because he knew he was a “cork dork.” Chizeck doesn’t dispute the label even as he cheerfully pooh-poohs oenophilic pretensions. (You’ll catch him aerating his wine for a purer taste, but as for, say, scrutinizing its hue, he says, “I mean, you can look at the color if you have a white tablecloth at home and you’re really bored. Otherwise, just shut up and drink your wine.”) Chizeck, who’s 26, has been in the wine business since he was 21, when he quit a job at a Caribou Coffee to work at the Wine Crier, a now-closed shop on Clybourn, and started going to industry tastings, where he was usually the youngest person in the room. (That’s changed in the past couple years, he says.) Later he waited tables and bought wine at Via Carducci and helped Giovanni Scalzo set up Via Due. A regular patron of Letizia’s, Chizeck was aware of Enoteca Roma’s opening and asked if they needed any help. Sorano was about to hire a prior applicant–from a pool of 30–when he received Chizeck’s call and changed his mind on the spot. It turned out Sorano was a fan of Chizeck’s as well–he’d admired his wine selections at Via Carducci, which serves Letizia’s cakes.
“Every single wine bar claims they want to take away the mystification [of wine],” Sorano grouses. “Then why are you gonna give me attitude? They try to create a relaxed atmosphere, but then they play classical music or they have a dress code or they only serve wine and top-shelf liquors. They don’t serve beer; they don’t serve tap beverages. We like everything to be more casual.” He maintains that at the enotecas in Rome, where he lived until he came to the States for college (his mom followed two years later), it’s not like that: the particular wine of a region is served by the half liter; you order red or white. Guys who pull up in Ferraris mingle with laborers, he says. “It’s a very mixed environment.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/A. Jackson.
