Byron Bates Sommelier
The Wine Importer would like to congratulate Byron Bates of Bette Restaurant in New York for winning last year’s annual Louis/Dressner Selections contest during our October National Portfolio Tasting. Byron was one of over two hundred attendees who put their business card in a fish bowl at our annual drawing. Yes, it was Byron’s card which was picked at random to win the big prize – a feature article on this blog.
Byron has been very patient, particularly as it has taken me nearly 11 months to publish this article. There were several legal obstacles – one of New York’s best known sommelier, whose name I legally cannot reveal, threatened action against me if I featured Byron Bates on my blog. This sommelier, who now is the head buyer for a major restaurant in New York, insisted that the contest had been rigged and that we had intentionally awarded the prestigious article profile to Byron Bates because he buys a lot of our wines for Bette Restaurant. After several months of wrangling between his attorneys and our legal team, the sommelier has dropped his legal pressure and I am finally free to publish this article. Let me assure you, dear readers, that the drawing was at random and under the supervision of one of New York’s leading accounting firms.
So, Congratulation to Byron Bates and the whole Byron Bates Family!
What do Thierry Puzelat, George Clooney, Colman Andrews, Pierre Breton, Florence Fabricant, Christian Chaussard, Uma Thurman, Cher, Michelle Williams, Ed Norton, Paul Giamatti, Eric Nicolas, Stanko Radikon, Russell Hermann, Scarlett Johannsen, Ellen Barkin, René Mosse and Alyson Careaga have in common?
All of these people are presences at Bette Restaurant in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Amy Sacco has brought her clientele to this restaurant where famed sommelier Byron Bates has put together a world-class list of natural, real wines. Rather than serving what would simply be easy to sell, recognizable brands which everyone buys without thinking twice, Byron Bates has tried to bring the world of natural wines to this part of Manhattan’s cultural scene.
Byron Bates was born in Forth Worth in 1968. He father worked on an assembly line at a General Motors factory and his mother worked for Bell Telephone (the predecessor to Skype). He was a cute, cooperative and devoted son.
Byron came to New York to make it as an actor, as many demented young people have done for so many years. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but found that dramatic exercise and rehearsals tired him out. He became sick of pretending to be a bear or a lion.
Like many young drama students, he started working in restaurants to make a living. From the beginning, the wine side of the restaurant business seemed intriguing to him. Byron loved the weekly tasting sessions for the staff, where he would learn about wine and how it worked with food.
“I got into the wine trade by default,” Mr. Bates said. “I just took an interest.”
Mr. Bates career had its ups and downs before he arrived at Bette. “I don't think you can find anyone in New York who has worked in more places. I’ve been fired or banned all over the place,” he said.
“I was horrible” Mr. Bates said, “I always rubbed the managers and owners the wrong way. I joked around too much and didn't follow procedures…. It was like still being at school, and I was class clown of the restaurants.” As an example, Mr. Bates fondly recalls sneaking behind patrons and picking them with toothpicks in their thighs while they were reading the daily specials.
Mr. Bates’ career settled down and he began to get more serious about wine because of Opus One, of all things. “I was working in a restaurant in 1995 where a sales rep from Opus One came in to train the staff,” he said. “The guy went on and on about the marriage between the Mondavi family and the Rothschilds and everyone is all perked up and impressed. It was a big wine event for us, because usually we were drinking crap like Kendall Jackson and management had talked up this wine event for weeks,” he added.
“Finally, I tasted the wine and remember thinking it was horrible,” Mr. Bates said. “I realized then that I had a perspective on wine and could see through the bullshit. That's where my real wine interest started, or maybe I should say my disinterest in California wine.”
Mr. Bates then went on to work at Pravda and Balthazar and learned much under the wine programs of Jonathan Nossiter, who later went on to make the movie Mondovino. “He wasn't interested in points or trends and during the tastings we only tasted wines that were 30 dollars or under. It didn't make sense to me at the time; I wondered why we were not drinking the heavy hitters. “
But Mr. Bates came to admire the style of wines that Mr. Nossiter was featuring. “The idea was that those were the wines that were going to be everyday wines. Rieslings, food friendly wines. Cabernet Francs and Gamay.”
“That's when a lot of us got interested in simpler, real wines,” he said... “Right after that I became a Beaujolais freak. I became obsessed. Everyone called me Beaujolais Byron.”
In 2000 he spent four weeks in the Beaujolais and cycled all over the region to taste with vignerons. Every day he would drink Beaujolais, hop on the bike, and drive all over the often steep hillsides of the Beaujolais Crus.
“I started going to France once or twice a year and began to understand that wine was an everyday thing. They weren't drinking Opus One or anything like that. That connected me and I was really proud that I understood that. That it wasn't about perking up to a Mondavi/Rotschchild collaboration. Instead, it was working class, almost honorable.”
Now that Mr. Bates has his own wine program, he finds that the clientele is incredibly receptive. “Drinking natural wines is fun, we match them to the food and people love them. It is really as simple as that.”
Mr. Bates still has difficulty making concessions. “I subscribe to the French notion of wine service -- everything should be at temperature and don't preopen bottles,” he insists. “Especially temperatures…it never ceases to surprise me how four star places get away with serving too hot or too cold. Or too oaky or too high in alcohol. You can’t get a good restaurant rating if your cutlery is not up to snuff, but you can if you serve boiling red wine. It makes no sense to me.”
Bette Restaurant has now been open for over two years and with Byron’s help is more than a celebrity hangout. Yes, Amy Sacco is a fabulous host, and if you combine that with Mr. Bates' great wine list and the superb cuisine of Ken Addington, you have a fabulous way to spend your evening.
Byron Bates truly deserves the 12th Annual Louis/Dressner Award for Distinguished Service to the Wine Industry!
Or whatever award he won 11 months ago!
help me. help me. the sheriff.
Sheriff: you have to help yourself.
Was Mr. Bates the little boy actor in the "Toy" with Richard Pryor?
Sheriff, your rap is getting quite tedious. Go take it somewhere else. Merle (Shaker Heights Townwatch)
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