In Vino Veritas

Last year's Sideways, a comic film about two guys making a week-long pilgrimage through Santa Barbara's wine country, boosted wine consumption all over the country, as audiences responded to Miles, the hopelessly neurotic but utterly engaging hero, and his reverence for pinot noir (and hilarious rants against merlot). It also got us wondering about what passions-and prejudices-might be burning in the hearts of other wine lovers around the country. So we asked some of the big names who will be coming to this month's Naples Winter Wine Festival, along with a cross-section of local experts, to rant-and rave-about the world of wine in 2006.

Burly Midwesterner Kevin Rathbun set the Atlanta restaurant scene on fire when he opened Rathbun's in 2004. Before that he worked at Kansas City's American Restaurant with Bradley Ogden, Dallas' Baby Routh with Stephen Pyles and New Orleans'

Commander's Palace with Emeril Lagasse. He's a first-time guest chef at this year's Naples Winter Wine Festival.

He Drinks: "I'm a big guy, so I'm drawn to chilled beverages. You'll find me drinking white wines-pinot grigios, and I love cava, too. Spanish wines are great. When it's cold outside, though, I like big hearty cabs, but more fruity. I don't like a lot of tannin. It doesn't work with fish and chicken. But at the end of the day, it's all about making your palate happy."

RATHBUN'S LIST: "[At my restaurant] the wines are grouped in tiers starting at $22 and then go up in $10 increments to the $62 group; and then we have second-mortgage wines. When I go to a restaurant, I'm always drawn to the price before the wine. So that's why I started the price-tiered list."

TIMES CHANGE: "People want better value. You can get good wine for 10 bucks at retail, then you see it in the restaurant for three or four times that. Doesn't make it. Cellars aren't that big anymore, either. As a restaurateur, I can't tie up that much money in an inventory. I'm really focused on giving people a lot of options. That's where things are going in the wine and food industry."

Every year Naples attorney John Vega revs up the bidders at the Naples Winter Wine Festival with his lively, knowing descriptions of the wine lots. Writing them is a labor of love, he says, and he is especially excited about this year's offerings, predicting the auction will be a record-breaker.

ON HIS RADAR: "Grenaches from Australia. Many cost less than $30 a bottle. I'm also passionate about the lesser-known wine regions in Spain, like the Priorato. These are old-vine wines. You can find them for $25-$35, and they're drop-dead gorgeous.

"In a couple of years the southern tip of Italy and Languedoc [in France] will be big regions. The winemaking skills are taking a huge leap. They have capital and technique. A big surprise is some of the newer wines from Hungary. Vega Sicilia acquired an estate in Hungary that makes outstanding still whites."

PET PEEVES: "Wine prices. They have gone up disproportionately to inflation and other costs. Gas prices have doubled, and Ridge Lytton Springs zinfandel has tripled."

FRUIT FOR THOUGHT: "My generation was raised on soda pop. We like fruity, young wines. And most people don't have cellars, so wine needs to be made to be more fruitful and enjoyable earlier. It's a new palate. I just read that most Americans now say that wine is their favored [alcoholic] beverage. I see wine being used as an aperitif and an after-dinner drink. It's a pretty exciting time to be a wine lover."

Charlie Palmer, who owns and operates 10 restaurants and has also ventured into winemaking, helped create the New American cuisine movement, which juxtaposed classic culinary techniques with American foodstuffs, fueling artisanal food producers across the country. Palmer is looking forward to his first stint at the Naples event, saying, "My chef buddies talk highly of the festival."

TOTAL WINE IMMERSION: "We [he and his family] now live in the wine country in Healdsburg, surrounded by wineries and vintners. We have a vineyard of our own. I planted all pinot. And we purchase about $4 million of wine a year for the restaurants. This year I worked at Rochioli vineyards at the crush. It was so apparent that it's all about the land and growing the grapes. Then if you do your job in the winery, you'll have great wine."

MEANT FOR EACH OTHER: "There's such a close tie between food and wine. I rarely have dinner without a glass of wine. In all my projects, I think about wine from the beginning. It's always on the forefront."

SEASON'S SIPPING: "In the summer we drink a lot of sauvignon blanc and Sancerre. I like a lot of syrahs; so many people are doing great things with that grape, with different styles from different parts of the world."

SOONER OR LATER: "Right now, many wine makers are pushed to make wine more drinkable earlier. It's the effect of economy-how long can you economically wait to release a wine? At the same time, traditionalists want a well-aged wine that is something special. I recently drank an '84 Montelena cab, and it was fabulous."

GETTING BETTER: "Winemaking has improved all over the world; it's technology driven. Ten years ago who would have thought of drinking a glass of Spanish white? From a consumer standpoint, it's great-$10 to $15 will get you a good bottle of wine. It's just like food-in the kitchen we now can get incredible ingredients, and to cook with better stuff makes you a better cook. Same with wines. The winemaker is presented with product that's really great to work with, and that results in better quality

for consumers."

When Robert Fairbrother, sommelier at the Ritz-Carlton, Naples, started working in the hospitality industry, he began educating himself through books, periodicals, classes and tasting, tasting, tasting.

BEST OF TIMES: "The wine scene is so exciting right now. There are so many emerging regions, so many opportunities to grab something new to taste. For me, wine is an art form. There are new vintages, new vintners, new vineyards-all create nuances and differences in wine, like a painting might have different brush strokes or techniques. Each little element plays a part in the end product."

PERFECT PAIRINGS: "I love to make a connection with a guest. You see their eyes light up. The pairing of wine and food is what I work at, and the unexpected pairings are amazing. It's such a synergy. It can bring each part to a whole new level of greatness."

SING OUT: "A wine has to sing to me. It's really difficult to articulate that feeling, but when you hit on it, it transcends the ordinary and it's seamless. One of my mentors used to say that, and I finally got to a place where I knew enough about wines. That's now my favorite expression."

TASTE TIP: "Taste objectively. Everyone can be subjective-'I like this or that.' But every time you taste wine, put words around it. Descriptors will create a big leap for you as a wine drinker; you'll be able to describe what you want-explosive, mellow, acidic, herbaceous-to a wine merchant or sommelier."

Sukie honeycutt, co-owner and wine director of Naples' Ridgway Bar & Grill, Tony's Off Third wine shop and Bayside Seafood Grill, introduced the concept of wines by the glass in Truffles Restaurant during the early 1980s. "That was well before anyone anywhere in Southwest Florida was doing that," she says. "That's how passionate I was about giving people opportunities to taste lots of different wine."

IT'S ABOUT VALUE: "The majority of my customers are looking for a moderately priced wine that tastes good and is a great value-something in the $25 range. People buying higher-priced wines either are cellaring wines or giving them as a special gift. We do have collectors, but they buy their wines from a variety of sources."

HOLA, SPAIN: "My house wines are pretty much from Spain. Five years ago, it would have been, 'Spain what?' But now we have a generation of winemakers in Spain making fantastic wines. Alvaro Palacios is creating spectacular reds from the Rioja and Priorat regions. Wine by the glass [has been] major in getting people to be more adventurous."

SHE DRINKS: "My palate goes across the board. At home, I drink Sancerre, New Zealand sauvignon blanc, pinot gris from Oregon and Alsace. I also like Mâcon's chardonnays, although I'm very enamored with [Peter] Newton's unfiltered chardonnay. For reds, it's pinot noir-the Sonoma coast, Santa Maria and Russian River Valley. I'm going to Oregon next summer, and I think I'll become an Oregon pinot noir geek after that. I also like the Alexander Valley Redemption zinfandel; it's a favorite at about $35 a bottle."

FRANCOPHOBIA: "Americans aren't purchasing French wines. Part of that is because of Iraq, plus [French wines] are suffering from the focus on New World wines. And some French wines have become really expensive. I'm sorry for that, because I love some of the wines that come out of France, particularly those that are from the Rhone and the Loire."