A Crisp and Refreshing Book about Wine By Chris Milliken of Peng Wines
Wine is an amazing and complex journey that twists and turns, starts and stops, and changes daily in so many ways. I have been in the wine industry for many years. I have heard so much, seen so much, tasted so much–and the vine keeps growing. No one knows everything about wine; even those with advanced degrees in wine have much more to learn.
On the other hand, wine is just simple fermented grape juice. It’s nothing to be afraid of. Whether you’re a grape farmer, a winemaker, a cork supplier, a sommelier, a waiter or bartender, a restaurant owner, a hotel manager, a wine shop owner, a collector, or just an occasional wine drinker, every experience is unique. This book is the product of conversations about food and wine with thousands of people around the world, a product of formal discussions and long casual dinner parties.
Wine is social and therefore conversational; I recall so many evenings that turned into early morning discussions about wine. After so many exchanges with so many people, I started to notice some patterns. There are many erroneous perceptions about wine. Clever marketing, aficionado perspectives, and opulent desires have created a shrouded industry like no other. I hope to clear the fog from this confusing topic so that each of you can feel confident on your own unique path.
I take wine for what it is and talk about what most wine drinkers want to talk about. There are innumerable books about wine, some of them very technical. I don’t intend to get overly technical in this book. Wine appreciation needs to be fun and casual, not intimidating.
Many of the stories I share in this book come from the most common themes from my recent travels and discussions. I included some history and background information for curious consumers, but if you want to go straight to the practical application stuff and start at Part Two, it won’t hurt my feelings.
Ultimately, a fine wine is about much more than grape juice. Regardless of when or where–at a cocktail hour, a wedding, a birthday party, or just a dinner with friends and family–wine is shared, and sharing is community. For me, there is nothing better than watching people raise their glasses, wish each other good health, and enjoy one of my wines. In these moments I feel a great sense of accomplishment for helping to facilitate enjoyment and friendship.
I hope that you, too, feel a sense of community as you learn more about the drink that brings so many people together. Raise your glass, and let’s savour this wine journey together. How I Became a Wine Producer I have had a passion for food and the culinary arts since I was six years old. I had a bad cold, and my mother took me to the doctor. It was in that doctor’s waiting room that I came across a cookbook for kids. The book was so simple that there was no real cooking involved, but I was thrilled.
When the doctor was ready to see me, I reluctantly put the book back. The entire time I was being examined, all I could think about was that book. “I really like the cookbook in the waiting room,” I finally told the doctor at the end of the check-up. I must have looked very excited, because he laughed.
“Take it with you,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “You can bring it back next time.” “Wow, really? Thanks!” I exclaimed, forgetting about my cold for a moment. Little did I know what that book would spark in me. It was a couple of days before Valentine’s Day, and I had an idea: I was going to cook breakfast for my mom and dad. I couldn’t wait. The recipe that caught my interest most, as I flipped through the book in the car, was for French toast. It called for butter, sugar, cinnamon, bread, and one cup of hot water.
The only cooking equipment needed was an electric toaster, for which parental supervision was recommended. As soon as I got home, I made sure we had all the ingredients. I read the recipe over and over to make sure I got it correct. I still remember it.
Place the butter in a small bowl with the cinnamon and brown sugar; place that bowl in a larger bowl of hot water until the butter melts; stir the ingredients, spread over toast, and serve. See, I told you it was simple. The morning of Valentine’s Day, I carefully followed the recipe.
I was quite proud to enter my parent’s room with my culinary creation. Of course, as wonderful parents do, they ate the toast and encouraged me to keep experimenting with new dishes. Although, now that I think about it, I don’t recall them asking for seconds.
By the time I was eight years old, I knew that I wanted to be a chef when I grew up–and that’s exactly what I did. At 17 I enrolled in culinary school. For those two years, while I perfected my basic chef skills, I worked in hotels and restaurants. I was a full-time chef and a full-time student, constantly on my feet in hot kitchens, trying to keep my chef coat as clean as possible because I had no time to do laundry. As part of my first-year culinary course, I couldn’t wait for a short semester in wine appreciation.
Growing up in the U.S. is not like growing up in most European countries, where wine is a part of daily life. Many of us had never had wine before, and the professor was going to let us drink in class, even though many of us were underage! We tried mostly French wines, and I was disappointed to find that I didn’t like a single one. I was over wine as fast as I was introduced to it. I quickly concluded that wine was not for me. My personal wine journey had begun, and it didn’t look like it was going to go anywhere. I was led to believe that I would be a full-fledged chef by the time I finished school. Wrong!
There is only one thing that can make you a good chef: experience. To get that experience, you must work very hard. And believe me, kitchen labour is not paid well. But I pushed through. By working several jobs at a time, including in large four-star and five-star hotels, I gained experience cooking on the breakfast line, the lunch line, and the dinner line. I worked my way up to the fine dining kitchen and dabbled in the bakery. I cooked banquets and accepted any challenge offered to me.
Finally, after years of stirring and frying and chopping, I had experience. This meant that I could go virtually anywhere and find a job, since there are restaurants and hotels all around the world. That’s exactly what I did: I worked for a hotel chain and looked for transfers to different locations.
I was willing to move around as long as I knew I always had a job. By the age of 24,I had worked full time in ten hotels and restaurants and part time in at least a dozen more. I had lived in and cooked in five different U.S. states. While working at the Denver Country Club in Colorado, I had no clue that my culinary path would take a sharp turn.
I was the only person in the kitchen one morning, taking care of some prep work, when the phone rang. I answered it. “Hello,” said a woman with a heavy British accent. “I am looking for James, is he there?” “I’m sorry, James no longer works here,” I told her.
“He left before I started. ”She started asking me some questions about my career, which I politely answered. Finally, she explained that she worked for a private placement agency for the elite. “One of my clients is looking for a private chef. Would you be interested in meeting with me to discuss the position? ” she asked. “Of course,” I replied. I’m so glad I agreed. A door had opened, and I started cooking privately for the elite. Cooking now became even more fun. Families let me create whatever I wanted.
I could explore in ways that many chefs never get to do. I was welcomed into a community of cultured, sophisticated tastes for both food and wine. Money was no object, and only the finer things in life would do. During this phase of my career I realized that I still hadn’t developed a taste for wine. Since my disastrous tasting in culinary school I had tried wine a few times, but I still didn’t enjoy it. A$15bottle of wine was too expensive for a beginning chef, and my friends drank beer; it was cheaper and more popular.
The complexity of wine pairing started to become clear to me during my second job as a private chef. My boss had a huge wine cellar full of expensive wines. It was my first week at this new position, and I needed a bottle of wine to make a brown sauce. “May I take a bottle from the cellar to make the sauce?” I asked my employer (we’ll call him Mr. Smith). He shrugged. “Sure,” he said, “as long as you don’t use one that’s too expensive. ”I did not want to show my ignorance, so I just smiled and said OK.
I walked into the largest wine cellar I had ever seen, with no clue where to start. There were bottles of white wine and red wine; big bottles and small bottles; old wines and new wines; French labels,
Spanish labels, Californian labels, and Australian labels. Some wine bottles were in wooden cases; some were wrapped in paper; some were covered in dust and had not been touched in years. I knew better than to use those wines for cooking. I absolutely had no idea what to use, so I took a bottle of what he had the most of.
I assumed that, since there were so many bottles of this wine, my employer would not miss one. I will never forget the brand or the label: it was a bottle of 1990 Stags Leap from California. Back in the kitchen, I used about half of the bottle in my sauce and decided to try a little bit of the wine. It wasn’t bad. In fact, I liked it.
Maybe all this time I was missing out, I thought. Or maybe I like this wine because it is from California. Or maybe this wine is very, very expensive and that’s why I like it. Uh oh. A few minutes later Mr. Smith walked in. “Which wine did you use?” he asked. Trying to look nonchalant, I pointed to the bottle. “That’s one of my favourites,” he said. “The cases of that particular vintage just arrived a week ago.” “I hope you got a good deal,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I think I did,” he said, nodding. “I paid $60a bottle.” $60 a bottle! My stomach sank.
I could not believe that was the wine I grabbed. I felt like such a fool, but I didn’t say anything and neither did he. A few weeks later, I learned this was, in fact, one of the least expensive wines in the cellar at the time. What a relief! Still, $60 a bottle, and that was the cheapest bottle. I was very intrigued. If I liked the $60 bottle, I thought I would really like the rest of what’s in Mr. Smith’s cellar. I could only hope that there would be an opportunity to find out. As time went on, I did get to try more wines, and I started enjoying them.
Mr. Smith seemed more comfortable with me picking up $10-$15 wines at the store for cooking, and I tasted them all as I laboured in the kitchen. I tried a few $10 bottles, but I didn’t like them. I still didn’t appreciate the differences between grape varieties, but I was learning. Most importantly, I was learning about wine and food pairings: big Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlot blends with a nice juicy steak, a Pinot Grigio with light seafood. My next chef job was cooking for the “Jones” family.
It turned out that my previous experience with Mr. Smith had taught me a lot–enough to teach Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones had a large cellar too. However, he saw no reason to spend more than $10 on a bottle of wine, since he could never tell the difference. He was correct not to drink expensive wines he could not appreciate, and he taught me many other lessons I would only later understand. One day, Mr. Jones invited the French Ambassador over for dinner.
I knew that the $10 wines in the cellar were not going to do, so I insisted that we up the ante. Mr. Jones hesitantly agreed, and since I was serving the dinner, I enjoyed many compliments on the food and the wine. That very night, even Mr. Jones changed his mind about slightly more expensive wines. I was now in my mid 20s and had travelled across the U.S. I had never left the country before, but I had my passport and I was ready to see the world. My girlfriend at the time was offered a job with her company in Chile.
The thought of traveling to Chile had never crossed my mind; I had no idea where Chile was, and I did not speak a word of Spanish. But I was in love and believed that I could find a job anywhere. So I thought, why not? I quickly found a job in a restaurant, and slowly but surely, I started to learn Spanish. But the wonderful experience of living in Chile was at the expense of my own ego. I was embarrassed about my poor Spanish, and I would often tell people, “Estoy muy embarazada que yo no hablo Castiano muy bien.”I thought I was saying, “I’m very embarrassed that I don’t speak Spanish very well. ”A few years later, my wife (the same beautiful woman I moved to Chile with) came home and said “Estoy embarazada!”
I could not figure what she was embarrassed about. Then she told me, in English, that she was pregnant. The look on my face must have been priceless. She asked me why I was not excited. The fact is, I had just realized that I had been telling people that I was pregnant for years!
Despite my many humiliating experiences, plenty of good things happened to me in Chile. One of these was meeting a new friend with a great passion for wine and food. Max’s attention to the most subtle and delicate flavours just blew my mind. I’ll never forget the day we met, about a month after my move.
He poured for me a Miguel Torres Sauvignon Blanc 1997. It was amazing. I don’t know if it was the wine itself, the way Max presented it, or the overall amazing experience of being in Chile. “Do you taste the notes of straw and grapefruit? And just that touch of asparagus?” he asked in impeccable English. Asparagus? I thought. That just sounded crazy. I smelled my wine very carefully. “Wow,” I said, “I cansmell asparagus!” The wine instantly became my favorite. Then we had a Chardonnay from a Casablanca winery. Oh my...notes of apples, coconut, and pineapple. Who knew these aromas truly existed infermented grape juice? Suddenly,I had a new favourite white wine. Next was a Cabernet Sauvignon 1995 Viu Manent Reserva.
Oh my goodness, this was amazing. Cherries and spice, with a touch of vanilla. I felt like I had found the best thing since sliced bread. I finally understood what the world of wine was all about. I wanted to keep trying different wines nonstop, but alcohol finally caught up with me. This is just one reason why wine is a journey, not a destination. From that day on, my path towards wine appreciation and wine making had begun–and what a fantastic journey it has been. I will always love to cook, but for the past few decades wine has been my life. I have travelled through wine regions in over a dozen countries, taken wine appreciation courses, undertaken Sommelier training, and for over 11years I’ve been making my own Chilean wine with my business partner, Max.
About Chris:
Being an entrepreneur, chef, sommelier and author, Chris Milliken is serious about how he blends his wines. Originally from Ohio, Chris experienced both sides of the United States, from the East to the West coast, and many states in between. With decades of experience in the Food and Beverage industry, he is a master of wine pairing, fully equipped with the ability to comprehend the subtle variances that factor into the partnering of blends with the correct food. Chris believes that wine is something to be shared, to facilitate friendship and community.
Chris set up PengWine in 2008, a boutique wine producer dedicated to handcrafting unique and high quality wines from the Maipo Valley of Chile. His company has since grown and expanded to several other Asian markets. Sharing is caring. He also has a deep passion for the people and products of the countries in which he conducts business and to reinforce his commitment, his Company ‘gives back’ via charitable contributions and voluntary time. Complementary to his commitment to building businesses, he enjoys time with his wife and two daughters, and their exploration of the diversity of cultures in Asia Pacific.
