Episode 9
· 49:55
I think that the one thing people have to understand is, as Ahsom, you work for a restaurant, you're hired for a restaurant. It's not your wine list. It is the restaurant's wine list. The decisions you make, they have to be decisions that are gonna benefit the business in terms of whether they're gonna make the business enough money. The wines you're buying, they're gonna move.
Julie Garton:You need to make your guests happy. Most importantly, you're writing a wine list, and you don't have anything accessible for certain people because you made the wine list all about what excites you. So very good. You're not doing a very good job because it's not about you.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Hey, everyone. Welcome to Tasty Notes Toronto. I'm Alex Abbott Boyd. In this episode, I sit down with Julie Garten, a sommelier and hospitality professional who's led the wine programs at multiple Michelin starred restaurants. This was a straightforward, no nonsense conversation that I think was packed with both some practical advice as well as some real wisdom.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Julie shares what it takes to work in wine at a high level and how to build a career while doing it. As always, I've included links in the show notes to books referenced in the episode. And if you enjoy this conversation or any of the past episodes, please don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Here's my conversation with Julie Garten. Jules, thank you so much for being here.
Julie Garton:Happy to be here.
Alex Abbott Boyd:To kick things off, could you share just a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you found your way into wine and hospitality?
Julie Garton:Yeah. So I am I trade a certified sommelier. So advanced through Quartermaster Sommeliers, certified through the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers. I've done my Denali ambassadors, so lots on the education side. And then more or less by trade, I would probably just classify myself beyond being a sommelier as a hospitality professional with lots of years in the industry.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. How did you start learning about wine when you were first getting into it?
Julie Garton:I think the kind of best way to look at it is I got into hospitality, maybe a little bit by accident. So when I was younger, everyone we all go through the same kind of motions, like, you're in high school, and then you're gonna go to university, and what do you wanna do with your life? And some people really have their stuff put together, and they decide they wanna do something at a young age and follow that through. I was a little bit different. When it came to a university, it was the next step, but I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Julie Garton:So in some respects, I kinda fell into hospitality. I started working in the industry as a student. Basically, paying bills are more or less like my drink money for the weekend as a student. And then when school ended, I had no clue. I studied something that was interesting to me.
Julie Garton:Maybe not something I wanted to build a career out of.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Was that just out of curiosity? Film theory.
Julie Garton:Which is great. Like, my roommates used to give me so much crap because I'd be sitting in a lecture hall watching some of the greatest cinema going back to the mid nineteenth century. When they'd be sitting in poli sci or psychology or whatever they chose to study, when they'd just give me shit that I was, like, writing papers about films and stuff. Was like, you could study this. When school ended, that was a really difficult chapter, because I was like, I don't really know what I wanna do.
Julie Garton:I don't wanna spend any more money on education unless I'm sure I can have my foot in the door with hospitality. And then I chose to travel after. So I got certification to teach English as a second language, ended up in Asia, spent a year in Taiwan, traveled around kinda Southeast Asia, which was incredible, opening me up to a lot of new experience. From there, I moved to Australia. Australia got back into the hospitality industry.
Julie Garton:Obviously, English speaking country, very important when working.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Good. What part of Australia were you in?
Julie Garton:I was all over. I spent majority of my time in Melbourne. I would say that was my home base. I loved it. But then I went all the way up the East Coast on the typical backpacker route.
Julie Garton:Got up to Cairns, had a couple of friends. We hired a van that was doing, like, a relocate deal. So you basically drive it from one spot to another for them. They don't really pay anything because they need to get the van there. So that took us up to Darwin, spent winter in Darwin, so that that would have been off season here.
Julie Garton:It was just chasing the sun. Then I ended up coming all down the West Coast back, so through kind of Kankadoo. Kimberly ranges all down the West Coast to Perth, which was beautiful because it's so untraveled.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Like a stunning deserted landscape
Julie Garton:there. It's amazing. There's a beach that, like, you just feel like you're on a beach but in a desert at the same time. There's reef over there that no one really talks about. So aside from the water being really cold, it was incredible.
Julie Garton:And then popped to Adelaide, went up to the Rent Center, went to Tadmania. So really, in the span of a year, I saw more of that country than I've ever seen in my own country.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Wow. That sounds like an incredible trip.
Julie Garton:Yeah. It was great. And I was always into wine at that time. It's fair to say I drank it. Did I drink good wine?
Julie Garton:No. I was a broke backpacker in Australia. But when the opportunity arise, I went into the Brassett Valley, and I went through Vineyards and Margaritaville, and I was interested. And ended up in hospitality there and a couple of different ventures through areas of the country. And then I ended up in The UK after that, and again, built my roots in hospitality.
Julie Garton:And that was a really interesting time for me because at the time, I was working with one of those kind of 30 under 30 top chefs who started his own restaurant.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What was the name of the restaurant?
Julie Garton:It was called Raspberry James. I don't think it's there anymore. I think it probably had a bit of a short lived career. I think it maybe only saw, like, couple of years. Really small little neighborhood spot, but but I had a lot of exposure to wine, though, which was really interesting.
Julie Garton:So that opened the door for me into wine suburb and d and Rio High, and all of these kind of great wine appellations that prior to that, didn't have a lot of exposure to at much younger age. That kind of motivated me for wine a lot when I was over there, especially just what was available. Before I moved, I went from working in a restaurant in Guelph, like, town, And then to London, England from there, also working in restaurants. Like, back at the time, a rose was a white Zinfandel. You never saw anyone drink rose.
Julie Garton:Two men sat at a table drinking rose would be like the talk of the town. And then six months later in The UK, rose was everywhere. Everyone was drinking it. This is when it was just becoming
Alex Abbott Boyd:a The bit start of rose all day?
Julie Garton:Yeah. Basically. And so it was interesting just to see how maybe a hint of the times Europe or at least The UK was compared to what was happening in
Alex Abbott Boyd:Ontario or
Julie Garton:Fancain and in Maccabat.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Were there certain bottles in that time in England that kinda made wine start to click for you or that really lit the passion, or was it just a slow build?
Julie Garton:I think it was more of a slow build. I remember before the restaurant opened, I think we're I can't remember if we were working with it. Was one of the larger kind of importers. And they put the list together with the GM at that time. And they came in, and I remember going in for our day of wine training.
Julie Garton:And they opened like, it wasn't a large program. So maybe there was 30 to 50 bottles, but they opened everything. Like, why not everything? Like, in what world does that sound trading these days? We talked at all and tasted it all.
Julie Garton:And then they're like, okay. Well, we can't sell it. So guys, take it home. But I'm at home sitting there with poutine mantrachet. It should be.
Julie Garton:That's a bottle of Merceau and these great wines. Right? And they're just like, okay. Yeah. Take them home and drink them.
Julie Garton:It was a very it was a fun experience, but it opened the doors a little bit.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What was it working in those spots in The UK that did get you a little bit more interested in wine? Because it could have been the cooking side
Julie Garton:of things.
Alex Abbott Boyd:So what was it about?
Julie Garton:Honestly, it was both. Like, it really was both. Dishes that you just you didn't see. Right? Like, it was not fine dining in this restaurant, but the chef had come from a very fine dining background.
Julie Garton:So he's one of the things he was famous for putting squirrel on the menu.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, wow.
Julie Garton:I know. It's been a while that was, like became as, a trademark dish or something. I didn't eat it, but it was there. But, yeah, it just opened the door up to, like, different technique. One of the guys was, like, a call me in the kitchen, so he had was my age and was just getting into cooking, like, from whatever his background was.
Julie Garton:And he became a really good friend. And so he was on that kind of kitchen side, and we'd always go out for a beer after work. You hear that kind of back of house stories and whatnot, but that put hospitality in a more serious capacity for me, from maybe what I was doing when I was younger and just paying the bills through university and traveling around Australian kind of pubs and, like, locals and whatnot. So it was the first inside look into kind of real cuisine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah.
Julie Garton:I could say that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. I know once you came back to Toronto, each of the places that you worked at, you tend to spend quite a while. And this is after a period where you're traveling the world and just going from spot to spot. What do think has kept you committed and grounded in each of the roles you've had here in Toronto?
Julie Garton:I think it's a couple of things. I think it's really important that you make the right decision for you when you are. Right? Like, it's you're interviewing, and you wanna show what you can do. But you have to understand that business as well and make sure that's a fit for you.
Julie Garton:For me, if I'm hiring or whatnot, if I see people and then they've been at, like, 12 different places in three years, like, that's a red flag for me. Because they're not they're showing they're not maybe committed, or they're they make the wrong decisions quickly, so they're not doing that research. I'm also I'm pretty loyal. But especially from the wine side of things, you don't build it in a week. Right?
Julie Garton:So if you're working somewhere and running a serious program, it takes time to get that program where it needs to be. A lot of the best wines in the world, like, they come out maybe, like, once a year and that you have opportunity to buy them. For me, it's like knowing where I was going to work was really important, knowing the company, the philosophy a little bit. But I also tended to take on opportunities if there was an ability to grow. So you could move up and evolve and develop was really important was making those decisions.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How do you identify those kind of opportunities? Like, I would imagine many places might promise you opportunities to grow. But how do you do that diligence to know that it's gonna be that kind of good fit?
Julie Garton:I do make a point to talk to people that have worked in an organization. So I do my own interviewing to see what people think of the culture of the place, the employers, the managers, to get a little extra insight. But I've always considered myself a good judge of character, so I think you get a feel for get a feel for it as well. Well, so
Alex Abbott Boyd:can you tell me, what was it like when the Michelin guide came to Ontario, and what effect do you think that's had on our restaurant scene?
Julie Garton:So I think it's positive. I'll start by saying it's I think it's positive. So anything that is gonna bring more focus on hospitality, focus on restaurants, I don't think is a bad thing. That was 2022, the first year came in September. So at the time, having already been working at a restaurant that was, I guess, heading that trajectory.
Julie Garton:Right? So we didn't have the guy here, but they were always it was a fine dining. Was Don Alfonso, fine dining, elevated service. They were doing that, as you would call Michelin style service. So for them, it it was big.
Julie Garton:For the company, it was big. Like, they wanted that that star. It was a huge focus. When we knew it was coming in, and you knew that inspectors were in town and this was possible, it was the goal for the restaurant. And I'm sure, I know there's a lot of top chefs out there that were probably chomping at the ban to to get that kind of recognition, which is great.
Julie Garton:So I would say in terms of its effect on the industry, I think all publicity is good publicity. Yeah. Even the bad. But I guess in terms of the downside, I it's gonna make things more expensive. And it has, and restaurants start getting the star.
Julie Garton:They start getting more expensive. But then you have people that start chasing that star. So you have great restaurants that operated maybe a certain way, and now maybe they're they realize something's out there. So then they start maybe changing concept or model a little bit and hoping of achieving that. And sometimes maybe it's for the best.
Julie Garton:Sometimes maybe not for the best.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if I think maybe there is a certain kind of ambitious chef who might leave Toronto if it's not possible. But maybe they'll stay here. I would also say for someone who supplies restaurants, it's very meaningful for some of my suppliers when I can tell them
Julie Garton:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I put your wine into a Michelin starred restaurant. Yeah. I think that's even just raising our profile among winemakers.
Julie Garton:Yeah. For sure. People love doing taste, and and it did help. The first six months to a year after they they first came, the restaurants that had stars, like, they were really busy. There was a definite effect, And it changed.
Julie Garton:I think the customer coming in was a bit different as well. Maybe you get more people that are maybe traveling, and they use a guide as a resource. So you see some people from out of town. But in terms of the dining, like, people spent more money. The wines we started selling were wildly different in terms of kind of the caliber of them.
Julie Garton:So in that, for sure, that's a benefit. Four years later, I don't know.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What did it mean personally for you to have more than one program that you'd been the wine director for win a star?
Julie Garton:That was great. That's fantastic. I don't know you can say anything other than that. In terms of those, like, personal achievements when you're building your career or whatever, to be able to have that on a resume is it's huge. And to be able to be a part of it from the beginning for both, like, building those programs essentially from scratch, and you're not really getting the star based on the wine program, but it's an important part of the restaurant for sure.
Julie Garton:Yeah. It was
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. I've alluded to this when you mentioned just the kind of wines you were selling changed. But but how do you think expectations have changed around wine service since the Michelin Guide came and especially now at the handful of restaurants that have stars?
Julie Garton:It's different. I think that it's a hard question to answer because the restaurants are so different. Right? So for us, at our wine service change, it didn't change because we were offering very high level of wine service. We had all of the tools.
Julie Garton:Someone ordered a pack vintage wine. We were handling that meticulously as you would, cradling it, decanting it with candle, going through the full process, open handed service. So that was part of the service before the star came because that was the standard of the restaurant, essentially. That didn't change too much. Like, you have to look globally at Michelin.
Julie Garton:You have a taco truck that has a Michelin star. Right? So one star is like a walk of things. So I think it's kind of restaurant to restaurant in terms of whether they felt that meant they had to change how they did anything in the restaurant.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. I guess if you got a star for the way you're doing it, why
Julie Garton:Yeah. It kinda
Alex Abbott Boyd:makes you want see too. Don't
Julie Garton:I think what I was more mean is just the kind of the dollar spend. We started selling a lot more kind of high end, really premium wines that weren't moving as frequently before
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay.
Julie Garton:We got that recognition. And I think that was just more to do with Like I said, I think I do think it really benefits the businesses that have them in terms of just the kind of marketing or media behind it. People I'm sure when they travel, and I do, and I don't know if you do it, but by my way, and I'm going to a new country or a big city or whenever, I'm reading. Maybe it's just a biblore monk because I don't wanna break the bank. We are reading to see what's out there.
Julie Garton:Do I agree with every decision? No. But I've Titched through.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And Just shifting gears then a little bit. What would you say are some of your favorite parts of being a sommelier?
Julie Garton:Definitely the service side of it. It's fantastic to go to auction and buy all the great wines and have all the allocations. Like, that's fun. It's more fun when you can actually open them and sell them and get to taste them. But I I've always really loved the service side of it.
Julie Garton:It's that's what hospitality is. It's that guest connection at the table. I always say it's like being a detective. Right? So you gotta engage with the guest and figure out what it is they're looking for.
Julie Garton:So there's ways you can go about doing that and asking questions and whatnot. But I always love being able to find that perfect wine that guest is looking for. I just love that reaction as well when they're like, this is great. Yeah. It's a real highlight.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What are some of the ways you go about trying to figure out what that perfect wine is for someone?
Julie Garton:It's really just through conversation. So sometimes you have to understand how things translate. Right? So one of the things you'll hear a lot in restaurants is people being like, oh, I don't want a wine that's really sharp or sour. Or they'll have these kind of adjectives they use.
Julie Garton:And really, they're talking about, I don't want, like, a high acid wine. Right? They want something more smooth, more soft. So that's what I was saying. It really comes down to how you translate things.
Julie Garton:There's lots of ways to go about it in conversation, simply asking the last wine they really enjoyed. And then it's, do you want something that's intended to pair with the food? But that comes down to the scale of the job. It's having those kind of skills to be able to engage with people, also to make them feel comfortable, to find out what someone's budget is. There's nothing worse than someone coming to the table, and they just start suggesting wines that are far above your price point.
Julie Garton:So you've gotta figure out that approach a little bit as well.
Alex Abbott Boyd:If someone gives you a budget, I don't know, say, $100, and talking to them, you have a killer wine at $200, you think that's the right call? Absolutely. Yeah.
Julie Garton:This is why I think the industry is gonna be misaligned a little bit. Right? For me, it's about building trust with a guest. Right? No restaurant's gonna survive having a guest come one time and never coming back again.
Julie Garton:Not in Toronto. Like, you need to build that kind of repeat visit. So if someone's telling me they have a budget of $400, it's not my intention to try to squeeze every penny out of that budget they're willing to spend. I'd rather find them the best wine for what they're looking for and for what they're willing to spend. And you know what happens?
Julie Garton:I did this 10 times. They have a second bottle.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Because they put
Julie Garton:bunch in the budget. Yeah. So you get people and I hate seeing this, and you'll get sounds of like, prisoners, a $100 wine, so that or the other. And then get over it. Open it.
Julie Garton:Serve it. And you know what? They'll drink, like, it'll be a bigger table. They'll drink four bottles. I'm like, you wanna sell one $350 bottle of wine, or do wanna sell four $100 bottles of wine?
Julie Garton:If you're thinking from the sales side of it, and if we are, like, our job is to make money for the restaurant.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Are your tips? Your tip is connected to the total, and is you sell a more expensive wine?
Julie Garton:Exactly. Right? Servants love it when you sell an expensive wine. But, yeah, I think you have to really, like, do right by the ass, and it's building trust. And they recognize that, and they will come back.
Julie Garton:Yeah. We're still I think it's changed a lot, but there's still that awful reputation of the stuffy som in the suit that's just looking to take you to the cleaners. We don't need that. We don't want that. No one benefits from that.
Julie Garton:We want people to want us to come to the table, to wanna use that. And when I first started, or maybe restaurants are a bit more casual, I used to think to them, just stop saying, do want the salmon to come to the table? Because they're instantly like ask them if they just want someone that can speak more to the wine list or answer some questions, like soften it a little bit. Yeah. It's great in fine dining, like I have to say, especially working in restaurants that are maybe more tasty menu focused because people already go in with that idea of wanting to marry the food with the wine.
Julie Garton:So people are really I found really receptive. Even if they're just looking for a glass, but they're just really receptive to having that kind of conversation with you, which is nice. Because I will say, with a lot of time in this field, it wasn't always like that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. When did you think people started becoming more open to just being guided through a new experience?
Julie Garton:I don't know if it's about necessarily the tasting menu, but I I would say in the last kind of eight to ten years, it's changing a little bit where people are more excited to talk to the som. So I'm not really sure necessarily what's fueling that. It may be more serious wine programs at casual restaurants, maybe some films that everyone got excited to watch, and suddenly it was super cool to be a soiree. So I think it's lots of different things. Again, I don't have millions of years of background specifically in restaurants with tasting menus, so I don't know if it's necessarily changed.
Julie Garton:I would say in my experience of working with those concepts, people always seem really receptive to speaking to the beverage professional to help guide them. So I'm not sure if that's because it's necessarily that kind of tasty menu in the restaurant, or just people are in fine dining. Maybe it's like the size of the list because restaurants like that do tend to have pretty deep So there's more option to sift through. I'll ask people sometimes if I know exactly what I want and the list is like a book, I'm like, oh my god. It's hard not to read it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah.
Julie Garton:It's really hard not to read it. It's so rude to the person at the table with me when I'm like, oh. But you just there's always gonna be something in there that you don't wanna miss. But, yeah, if you're out and you know exactly what you want, I love getting this onto the table, especially if it's a producer that I haven't tasted. I can be very specific about, you know, what I wanna know about that that kind of wine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Your point about being with the guests in a way that creates the repeat experience. I've had Yeah. So many great experiences at restaurants in Toronto. But honestly, my most memorable one of the last year was probably when I asked Assam at a restaurant for recommendations on Grenache and gave a budget, and I was recommended a Lebanese Chateau Musar for more than my budget. I'm gonna tell this story forever.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. And it's almost what I think about when I think about that restaurant now, which is just such a shame.
Julie Garton:Yeah. It it that's and that's why I can't stress enough how important that rule is, but how important it is to be good at that rule. Yeah. Yeah. It's And for a long time, I was came more focused at one restaurant.
Julie Garton:Right? So the last chapter of my career, it was a big company. It expanded a lot. And so you didn't really have a home. You were all over through multiple different restaurants.
Julie Garton:So it's a little different. But for example, like when I was at the Four Seasons, especially because you're in a hotel and you have residents, you had so many. Like there was, everybody had the same couple come every Saturday night. So you really got to new people, which was great. And it was to the point that I had residents and I would buy wine, like, for this person.
Julie Garton:I wouldn't even put it on the list. I would just put it in the system. They liked it. Or I would take something off because someone really liked it. I only had a couple of balls and I couldn't get more.
Julie Garton:To me, that that is hospitality. That is what's going to continue to make a restaurant successful. Looking after people, building those relationships, building that trust. And a lot of places do this now. Great building that profile, understand people's preferences.
Julie Garton:If they're coming in and you can give them the favorite table without, like, disrupting everyone's experience at night, coming in for dinner, like, why not? It's easy to say yes, but everyone just loves to say no.
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's how you build up loyal
Julie Garton:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Customers who love to come That's how you
Julie Garton:stay in business.
Alex Abbott Boyd:On that point, how do you think about crafting a wine experience, whether it's writing the list, creating a wine pairing, or even just recommending a single bottle?
Julie Garton:I guess when it comes to pairings, like, terms of putting together maybe a the entire pairing for a tasting menu, there's always a couple important care side. We always wanna make sure the food works with the wine that's one zero one. But it's building it. Right? Like, I I don't tend to really like going to a restaurant when it's like a blind wine pairing or tasting menu.
Julie Garton:I wanna know what I'm gonna get. And then that's always what we did. So we printed out the menus. We printed out the wine pairing options. And you're always gonna have a few maybe really niche wines in there, but you want people to have this experience.
Julie Garton:You want people to buy it. So I think you really also have to structure it a little bit where there's wines on there that people are, like, super excited to be able to try. I always find that, like, very important, the kind of success of making that experience happen for a table. So things that maybe aren't easily accessible, really important regions or producers or back vintage or stuff that's really appealing to the guests.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Over time, did you learn a good ratio? Say it's three quarters classic and familiar, one quarter, a little niche and obscure, or fifty fifty.
Julie Garton:I don't know it was necessarily a perfect recipe. The real challenge with it was always the budget because you always had x amount of dollars to spend. So it was because you had the balance of having those really, like, heavy hitters on there and where you could save money on the menu without not compromising because you're never gonna compromise it because the wine's great. So it was like finding a value. I always wanted to start with champagne, but it's like finding a value champagne so that we had more money to put, like, putting a back vintage Barolo or back vintage Pomeroll.
Julie Garton:For us, like, if we had seven courses on the menu, I wanted three of those wines to be just absolute showstoppers. And then you could have one or two that are beautiful, but maybe lesser known, more interesting kind of wines for somebody. And then it's great because you're guiding them through that tasting as dinner goes on. And you get a chance to really get into that region and get into that producer, get into that kind of native grape varietal they've never heard of. And they wouldn't maybe otherwise drink that wine.
Julie Garton:So then that also is really important for them discovering something new. I don't know how many times I've been in a restaurant, and maybe it was through a tasty menu or something we had by the glass or just people generally trusting you at your job, where people have been, can I buy this wine? Where can I buy this wine? Is there a wine like this you can recommend? Is this in the LCBO?
Julie Garton:So that was always
Alex Abbott Boyd:That's a strong endorsement of your
Julie Garton:job, Aaron. That's right. Yeah. When people are, I've never heard of this. Where can I buy it?
Julie Garton:Like, nowhere. Come on back. But it's I think that's it's great for wine in general because, obviously, it's tough times now. I don't think that's a secret. A lot of people are drinking less.
Julie Garton:A lot of people are not drinking, whether it's for health or whatever it is. We have to really find those ways to reengage people in beverage really in general.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I suspect the answer to this is gonna be, it depends how many courses the chef wants. But have you found there's a good number of wines to have in a wine pairing program? Because you mentioned 7%.
Julie Garton:It depends. Right? I say seven because I worked at restaurants. I had eight course tasting menus, and seven was what we did. But I've been to restaurants.
Julie Garton:I was just in London last month. We went to a restaurant called A Wong, which was exceptional. It was a two Michelin star restaurant, Chinese restaurant, tasting menu. But honestly, they're the best meals I've had. But I think we had maybe six or seven pairings, but, like, 33 bites of food.
Julie Garton:There's 33 that was came to the table. Like, there's no way you're having
Alex Abbott Boyd:33 wines.
Julie Garton:No. Because the other thing too is you're not pouring a full glass of wine with the tasting, but you have to have enough to enjoy it with the dish. For us, it ended up being about three and a half glasses of wine. Oh. Sometimes the people were driving, they maybe just get one for the table, and they'd share or whatnot.
Julie Garton:Yeah. So I think it's just restaurant to restaurant. Many courses are you serving in your menu? And then can you if you have one of these really elaborate menus, maybe clustering dishes together and then finding that one wine, which I think would be a lot harder.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. That's a good challenge. Probably an interesting challenge to work on.
Julie Garton:Yeah. Because you're working on multiple different flavors.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I'm just genuinely curious what kind of wines were served at this restaurant just because I feel like recommendations of Asian inspired cuisines can all be so similar. Off dry Riesling or Sake or, like, what worked well.
Julie Garton:It was all over. You had your champagne course in there. You had a we had an off dry Riesling. There was a couple that I maybe didn't think worked as well. I think one course has a coattro tea, and I was, like, very excited to be served coattro tea.
Julie Garton:Don't know. Yeah. Maybe the best was something to put dishes. I think it even had I think American Cabernet, I feel like, on it as well. So really, it was like it was all over.
Julie Garton:It was not like one style of wine for for all the courses.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Any marsaline? I feel like that's the grape of China. It would be cool to No find Chinese wine. Okay. Interesting.
Julie Garton:Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I I've had some nuts not bad.
Julie Garton:Yeah. When I flew
Alex Abbott Boyd:to Australia, I flew cafe, and so I was drinking all Ningxia wines, the whole thing.
Julie Garton:Oh, cool. Fair enough. I just said an event that I helped Ian Diagoda with, who lives in China now. If anyone doesn't know Ian Diagoda watching this, buy his book. He's an Italian wine genius.
Julie Garton:He's just a genius. But he brought a person over from Silver Heights, and we did a whole kind of masterclass with that. It was it was cool. Don't do a lot of in the market, so it's always neat to try something new, see what's happening, see what kind of styles they're producing.
Alex Abbott Boyd:To round things out on just building a great wine list, what do you think does truly make a great wine list? Is it depth? Is it storytelling? Is it accessibility? Like, making sure there are stuff that people can recognize?
Julie Garton:I think I think it's exactly that. It's literally all of those things. It's all of those things. It's a balancing act. And I just say the harder wine list to build are probably the smaller ones because you have so much less budget or space to work with, and you wanna tick all of those same boxes.
Julie Garton:It's almost a little easier when you have that kind of storage and space. But I think that the one thing people have to understand is, as a somm, like, you work for a restaurant, you're hired for a restaurant. It's not your wine list. Is the restaurant's wine list. The decisions you make, they have to be decisions that are gonna benefit the in terms of whether they're gonna make the business enough money.
Julie Garton:The wines you're buying, they're gonna move. You need to we don't have endless amounts of overhead or whatnot. You need to make your guests happy. Most importantly, you're writing a wine list, and you don't have anything accessible for certain people because you made the wine list all about what excites you. It's not very good.
Julie Garton:You're not doing a very good job. It's not about you. It's about what the concept is of that restaurant. So I think that's really important. But really it's balance.
Julie Garton:It's knowing where to have kind of value on the list for people that are gonna recognize that, having familiar varieties or kind of wine styles or regions for people that are maybe a little less comfortable and don't wanna feel silly at the table, but they just wanna drink something they know they're gonna like. Yeah. So it's just a huge kinda it's a huge balancing act.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. So you mentioned it's important to have value, but also you're hired by a business to make them money. How do you strike the balance between those two things?
Julie Garton:Giving away all the secrets. There's lots of ways to do that. A lot of people will cooperate on maybe those wines that sell really easily might have a higher on them. You're buying the glass is going to have a higher markup on it. And then values in maybe a wine that might be a little harder to sell isn't gonna move maybe as quickly.
Julie Garton:Or I've always I always really structured my programs, like, at the top. If you were coming in and you were drinking a fairly expensive bottle of wine, wasn't gonna have that same amount of markup. I wasn't gonna punish people for wanting to spend money on a bottle. Don't think you should punish people in restaurants. That's part of knowing your job a little bit.
Julie Garton:It's the business side of it. So it's knowing how to structure a list and making sure maybe the wines that are gonna move are gonna make a little bit more margin. So the wines that aren't gonna move as much or maybe more at the top end don't need to make as much, but you're still gonna end up with that
Alex Abbott Boyd:kind of
Julie Garton:cost of good you wanna get in the middle.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. So those higher end ones, the margin might be smaller, but the dollars are
Julie Garton:A $100, baby. Yep. Goes a lot goes a long way. You have a $20 bottle of wine at a 30% cost of goods. You're selling it for $65.
Julie Garton:You're making $45 profit. You have a $200 bottle of wine. You could be silly and charge $1,200 for it and never sell it, or you can charge 400, $450 for it. Have a smaller markup on it, but walk away with $250 in profit.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Probably someone who's excited that they could buy it because if they're used to standard markups and they see that little bit of value.
Julie Garton:And it makes a big difference. And I've seen that, like, in in my experience with where I work. People are more willing to buy at the top if they recognize that there is value there. They're like, oh, wow. Okay.
Julie Garton:And think that's why you see a lot of people and it's great. If you're a collector and you've invested all this money, you wanna be able to enjoy your wines. You wanna enjoy your wines with food. So I think that's why corkage, what is something that is throughout the industry, it's important. Some restaurants don't.
Julie Garton:But I think a lot of people look to do that as well because to drink that wine in a restaurant, they're gonna pay through the teeth.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Of course. Shifting gears, how would you describe your personal taste in wine? There are certain regions or styles that really get you excited right now?
Julie Garton:I would say for me, for whites, I'm a little bit more open for whites. I like racy, mineral driven, higher acid white wines. I don't necessarily gravitate to aromatic white wines. But that being said, like German Riesling, yes. So I'm all over the place with whites as long as it's just a really good glass of wine.
Julie Garton:Wines with salinity. I love wines with salinity. And then What
Alex Abbott Boyd:are some of those sounded you you described Chablis to a tea.
Julie Garton:Yeah. Chablis Maybe
Alex Abbott Boyd:Albarino, Riesling it. What would
Julie Garton:be some of can. Anything volcanic terroir can. So, like, Mount Etna, you get a little bit as well. So Greece, you can get a wines with a nice little bit of salinity and the nice kind of fresh acidity as well. It's not like I necessarily have to drink one thing or I only drink one thing.
Julie Garton:I'm open to tricky wines from forever. It's more just the quality of the wine, I think, at this point. And reds, I'm a little bit more kind of fussy about, I guess. I tend to gravitate to slightly lighter, a little bit more ethereal, I'll say balanced alcohol, not necessarily low alcohol. But I struggle with really, like, big, bold, high tannin, lots of oak.
Julie Garton:Extraction alcohol, not really my style. I could appreciate when they're well made, and I'm happy to buy them and recommend them. I have a bit of a tougher time kinda drinking those.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah.
Julie Garton:But that being said, Northern Rhone or Piedmont, I'm drinking, like, a fuller wine, it's gonna be Syrah for a bit of whole.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Me too. I think that's about as as about as big bodied as I go is
Julie Garton:medium It just it depends. Right? Can you age it? Knowing vintages is really important as well because certain vintages might profile and be a little kinda smoother on the tannin.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Can you tell me I know you recently went to Italy and had a chance to make some wine. Can you tell me about that trip?
Julie Garton:I did. I don't know if I made it. Helped. I helped. I observed.
Julie Garton:I was in I got was really fortunate. I spent a month in Italy in September, and I spent a couple weeks of that in Abruzzo with Cristiana in Tiberio and her team. So they are located, like, thirty minutes outside of Pescara, situated between two big mountain ranges. Beautiful place. Smaller production, 30 hectares.
Julie Garton:So it was really nice because it's a team of five people, which was great. So it made it a much more kind of personal experience, which I really appreciated. And I think you learn a lot more for that as well. Got to do a little bit of everything.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What were the jobs that you did?
Julie Garton:Honestly, we I did a kind of just like a little shadow. So we went through everything. So we would get up in the morning, and we would measure the bricks and all of the tanks going through fermentation just to make sure, like, the consumption was good. Because everything's very natural in terms of they aren't, heating tanks or cooling tanks or anything like that.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, it's not self
Julie Garton:controlled? Fermented. No. I mean, they can do, but they don't. So you just wanna make sure everything is on point.
Julie Garton:And I was there for two weeks. It was kinda wild because the first week was pretty warm. But by the last couple days I was there, they were in there shutty in the windows because you could some tanks would start slowing down because of the temperature. And even picking, you start picking a bit later in the day, so the temperature of the juice isn't too cool when it gets into the tank. But I think that is also very specifically because they are doing all natural fermentation.
Julie Garton:They're not inoculating with any kind of cultured yeast. So we would measure all the brinks, then might need to do pump over on certain tanks, sometimes automatic, sometimes more manual, depending on how much kind of juice they needed to get or how wet we needed to make the cap. And then racking. So if they had fully fermented the kind of bricks and residual sugar to where they wanted it, they would crack it off the leaves. We did some picking, which is great.
Julie Garton:We had one full day of harvest, and everything is by hand there. They have a little bit that they do manually with machines, but it it that chooses younger vines than it is sold. So that was really fun. We did a couple small experiments because it was a good vintage for them, which was fantastic. It's been a couple of difficult years in that area.
Julie Garton:So we got to use some of the fruit to do kind of experimentations with whole cluster. We did a small vat of, like, 50 liters, but we literally picked every berry off the stand by hand. We sat there for six hours. It's very therapeutic. Have to say.
Julie Garton:I didn't hate it. So, yeah, it was just a little bit of everything, topping up the couple of barrels they have for the cleavie. Yeah. It was really good.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Was that the first time you'd done that kind of winemaking experience?
Julie Garton:Yeah. It was the first time I've ever been able to do a harvest, which was great. I think it's probably every Psalm's kind of bucket list to be able to do it. But in our industry, time off is hard to get. And so few and far between to be able to say, I'm gonna take a chunk of time and go away and do it.
Julie Garton:But really, honestly, it was a really good experience. But I think also very fortunate, the team I was working with and having already, like, a good relationship with a winemaker, just going to hang out with a friend, which was really nice. Yeah.
Alex Abbott Boyd:No, that sounds great. And do you did it deepen your appreciation, like, maybe when you're trying, especially their wines, between the cause and effect of what happens in the vineyard and the winery, and then how that ends up in the class?
Julie Garton:I think it was really great for kind of the understanding. Because we read about it all the time in textbooks, and maybe you go and you'll go to a vineyard and you'll see it. But it's different when you're going through the process of really understanding how certain things affect a wine or the final kind of finished product of the wine, for sure. Will I be buying a case of everything? Absolutely.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But then then I think you
Julie Garton:best wine I've ever tasted? Probably.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It didn't give you some as payment for two weeks. Okay.
Julie Garton:We're years away from these puppies being released.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Is there a payment for two weeks of labor, or is it more just, like, you do it for the experience?
Julie Garton:Full volunteer. Yeah. No. It was full volunteer. It was more like, well, you take me.
Julie Garton:Because you have to understand, this is such a busy time of year for them to have someone come and get in their space. Like, it's like, there's nothing worse than when you're training a new person in a restaurant and it's like you just get crushed at night. Because everything is slower and longer to do when you have to explain to someone why you're doing everything the entire time. So Yeah. I was really cautious of the effect of my being there was gonna be on them.
Julie Garton:So I was like, I tried to stay out of the way when I needed to and be as helpful as possible.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Would you say that it's something that soms who are aspiring to work at a high level that they should figure out a way to get some time off to go do a harvest. There there's two chances a year with the Southern Hemisphere.
Julie Garton:Yeah. It's it doesn't hurt. Do you have to do it to be great at your job? I don't think that's necessary, but I think that's a really nice opportunity if you can make it happen for sure.
Alex Abbott Boyd:If you're ever at a table and talking about wines even just from that region again, you'll be able to really bring them to life.
Julie Garton:But that's just traveling, I guess, traveling for wine in in general, like, especially with the you've you've been somewhere and then you come back. And that's also why these trips exist. Right? There's a lot of enrichment trips for sommeliers where the kind of governing body of wine has that kind of marketing budget. And so they'll bring people over.
Julie Garton:They'll bring media and journalists and sommes over to show them around. And it's so you basically come back and be an ambassador of sort for that area, discover maybe something you hadn't tried before or wine style. You don't maybe have a lot of exposure to to drink. And I was fine. Because vintage is so important in wine.
Julie Garton:I was fine. I was just, like, talking to the person that made the wine. So whenever I'm in front of a winemaker, depending what region they came from, I'm always like, can you tell me about the last three vintages in detail? Like, everything that happened? Because it's such a huge effect on that that finished product.
Julie Garton:So it's just the best kind of firsthand knowledge you can get.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Oh, for sure. Shifting gears again just a little bit. How do you think about mentorship in the wine world? Do you think it is important for someone starting out to really seek out some good mentors?
Julie Garton:Yeah. Absolutely. Like, 100%. Because it's just it's interesting. Right?
Julie Garton:Because there's not really a school for wine. There are courses you can take for sure. I started think that's why I did CAPS when I first got into wine was because it was one day a week in a classroom. But I would not be where I am today if I did not have the help from people above me. So I chose to take exams.
Julie Garton:And then I chose to take higher exams. And I chose to do competitions. And that was all because it benefited me, and that was how I learned. So I'm like someone who learns really well, but it's good if I have a date. It's good if I have a deadline.
Julie Garton:It's good if I have an exam. Gets me moving a little bit. But even just to pass those exams, you need people that have done it before you. It's not really sort of school with CMS. You go and you can do the reading, you have to do the kind of theory and study like that on your own.
Julie Garton:But that's where I'm having study groups. So I've had multiple different tasting groups going through that process with other songs in Toronto also going through that same process. And it's yeah. It's it's super important.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you have tips for making those groups work? I guess I'm I'm on several groups, and they either never possible meet up who wants to come, which is not also in the plan. Yeah. So I find getting it, like, that good group that's really serious can
Julie Garton:Well, exactly what it is. Unfortunately, there's no real easy to answer that. You just have to get a tasting group of people that are serious, and they're gonna show up. We're an industry that relies on people to show up on time when they say they're gonna be there for a reservation. But inherently, we are the absolute worst of going anywhere on time.
Julie Garton:Like every masterclass I've gone to, like half of them are late. But just show up on time.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Right.
Julie Garton:So I know it's busy industry. Honestly, it's tough. I think people that are actively sitting exams are the best people to form a tasting group with because they're on the hook. They've got a date in front of them. So I always had the most success with small groups of people, and we were all sitting within the same year, the advanced exam, or some people doing an MS exam.
Julie Garton:And that's right. They're very focused, but people show up.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Speaking of exams, how valuable do you think wine tasting as a skill for Assam is?
Julie Garton:I do think it's important. But you have to be able to sit down and evaluate an entire wine and be able to get it right, or you're shit at your job, maybe not. But it's important because you need to look for you need to understand markers, varietal typicity, quality. So how do you know if there's a good chardonnay in front of you that someone would even if you don't really know what that chardonnay should show? Yeah.
Julie Garton:I guess. That's the kind of the kind of short version of it. But, yeah, I do think it's it is a it's a useful skill. And it's good in terms of just, like, how you're gonna analyze something. And it's a really fun party trick.
Julie Garton:It's a really fun party trick for good at it. I think just in terms of understanding, like, what is varietal typicity, understanding, like, where vintages come into play, understand where winemaking comes into play. It's really good for assessing it. I know when I was still really going through that, like, exam process, if it was, like, an agent, we had a good relationship, and no one was in a rush or anything like that, I'd be like, can you pour me three of the wines that we're gonna try today? Just pour them for me blind.
Julie Garton:It was always really interesting because they'd like, okay. I think it's this. I think this is how much it costs. This is then you'd be either really surprised. You'd be like, wow, that wine is so good quality for the price.
Julie Garton:Or you'd be like, not coming on the list.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But How did agents respond to that?
Julie Garton:No. They were great. Again, you don't do it with everyone. You do with people that are, like, good and receptive to it. So they think it's fun.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. Yeah. Is there any other you've shared a ton of great advice, but is there any other advice for someone starting out as a som that that you'd like to add?
Julie Garton:Yeah. I guess just maybe to reiterate some of the stuff we talked before. I think it's really important that people understand. If you're put in a position, you're given an opportunity, you're gonna run a wine program, it's not about you. Can't stress that enough.
Julie Garton:But you have to understand what is the philosophy of the restaurant. What is the goal of that restaurant? What are they hoping to achieve with that menu, with that wine program? And then you gotta understand who are the guests. Every time I'd gone in anywhere, I've spent a couple of weeks in a restaurant before I've really started to make any changes.
Julie Garton:You have to understand who's coming in. What's the kind of spend people are looking to make? What's that kind of hotspot area where you wanna focus the list around? Do right by the people you're working for. Do right by the guests coming in your restaurant.
Julie Garton:You have a little fun with what excites you, because there's always gonna be people that are gonna come in. They're gonna do that. But there's I can always tell when I go into a restaurant, and the song's just written Hawaiian list that excites the song. You're like, okay. Great.
Julie Garton:That's not really if you own the restaurant, maybe it's different. But you have to really understand what your job is in that space. And your job is, one, to make the guests happy, to make the restaurant money. And
Alex Abbott Boyd:What keeps you excited about wine after a number of years in the industry?
Julie Garton:Honestly, I'm just to say having a little break, which I've had right now definitely helped. It was really getting to the point where wine just became all about business. It'd be great on a day if you go and open wine, but you start to you get to a point, I think, in the industry, because it takes a lot out of you, where you start to lose your passion a little bit because it becomes so about kind of work. It becomes about the business of it. For me, it's it's that camaraderie.
Julie Garton:It's having I have a lot of my friends now from years in the industry are certified toms or wine professionals. And, you know, we have great nights where we just get together to do a blind tasting or whatever we wanna call it. And everyone just brings great bottles. And that's what wine's about. Right?
Julie Garton:It's about experience. That's what I love about it. It's you can have a shitty day, but you have a great bottle of wine, you get really excited about it, and it becomes part of the meal, it can change everything. Some of my more memorable experiences will lead back to who I was with, but the wines we had that night. I firmly don't believe you should be drinking champagne because it's a special occasion.
Julie Garton:You should drink champagne every day.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Every day.
Julie Garton:Yeah. Like, why? What does that have to be a special occasion?
Alex Abbott Boyd:They can turn around a really bad day. You just have
Julie Garton:a chubby day and drink some champagne, and it's great.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. A 100%. I'm also trying to spread that message here. Especially because I don't know if it's fully translating into prices on menus yet, but I think there's too much champagne right now. And I think the prices are coming down.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And I think over time, that's just gonna make it even more attractive to drink I on your
Julie Garton:have to say champagne's always been that kind of one category as well on wine list. It didn't seem to get as marked up as other categories in a wine list. You could usually find a little bit of value in champagne. It's expensive in general, right, to get a good bottle, so it's not gonna be ever cheap to drink. But, yeah, sometimes you can find some decent value
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yep.
Julie Garton:At the right restaurant. A
Alex Abbott Boyd:100%. What's next for you? What kind of projects or challenges excite you these days?
Julie Garton:It's a million dollar question everyone's loving So to ask right I actually have lined something up that I'm going to be doing next. But as I haven't started yet, I might not go super public with it. But yeah, I guess for me, and what I think is going be great about this is it's very collaborative. So for me, I work really hard. That's just I work really hard.
Julie Garton:I think like an entrepreneur. I work like I own a business. So it's just really important where I'm gonna spend my time, and I'm gonna spend that energy. Not only will it obviously benefit that business, because that's what they're hiring me to do, but I just wanna make sure it benefits me as well. Yeah.
Julie Garton:That's really important. And I love wine. I like just being really wine focused, really guest focused. I think I found something that's a little different than what I've done so far. I've been very focused on wine, which I'm excited about.
Julie Garton:Tons of freedom to do some really fun things. And to have the ability to it benefits me the harder I'm gonna work, and that's a real bonus.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I'm sure you're going to be knocking it out of the park. Finally, what do you think people in the industry can do to keep hospitality vibrant, sustainable, inspiring? I think you've once or twice some of the challenges in the industry right now or things that you think are happening that aren't as good, but what can people do to keep it exciting?
Julie Garton:Stop charging so much money. Sorry. I get it. It's expensive to operate restaurants. It's re it can be really expensive to operate restaurants.
Julie Garton:80 is low margin, but it's gotten out of it's gotten out of control. Not everywhere. For me now, I look at a menu before I go to a restaurant because there are some places out there that are so egregious, and the markup is so high. I'm not gonna give you my money. So I think focusing on hospitality is super important.
Julie Garton:Building connections with your guests. A lot of that comes back to service. I think no one really talks about service. They talk about the chef and the food and this, but service is so important. I go back to places because the service is great.
Julie Garton:Yeah. I've gotten to know them, and they know what I like. And that that's huge. I think we're in a time where, sure, Toronto has a lot of money, and there's a lot of people out there that aren't worried about it. But there's a lot of mouths to feed right now.
Julie Garton:There's so many restaurants that have opened, and they're all charging pretty top ticket prices. I think if you wanna sell more wine, you've gotta look at that structure. And believe me, everyone in the industry knows exactly who they are. But if you're out there charging 400% plus markup across your whole wine list, that's crazy. I don't know how you can sell wine.
Julie Garton:Because I think people that go out and spend money on wine, like, they know what things cost. So I would look at that. Right? Where can you save money in your restaurant? Do you have too much labor on the floor?
Julie Garton:Can you get better food costs by digging around a little bit? Can you find more efficiencies in your restaurant to save money that you don't have to charge so much freaking money for people to go out and dine. Yeah. Because I'm sure you experienced this too. The fact that two people can't go out for dinner in the city and spend less than 3 or $400 is crazy.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. It's a shame. I would love to support the restaurants that support my business more. Yeah. But it's tough.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Because you're right. It is just very expensive. Yeah.
Julie Garton:So I think I just think reviving what hospitality is. Hospitality shouldn't be about how to take every penny off of every guest that comes into your restaurant. It should be about making that connection, looking after them. And then it's about the numbers, right? It's not about the sales.
Julie Garton:It's about the covers. You want more covers coming through your restaurant. If your sales are the same, but your covers are going down, it's just a result of your prices going up and your restaurant's not really growing.
Alex Abbott Boyd:No. That makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you so much for your time.
Julie Garton:Of course. It was good to be here.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Thank you all for listening. Now if you enjoyed this episode, I just have a quick favor to ask. Please hit that subscribe button. I've got a ton of exciting interviews booked with the people behind some of the very best restaurants in Canada, and I would hate for you to miss an episode. Your subscribing is how I know that people are into it and that I should keep it up.
Alex Abbott Boyd:And to the many of you who have already subscribed, thank you so, so much. Until next time. Cheers.
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