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Biography |
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Home > People
> Jake Kosseff |
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Jake Kosseff
Founder, Wine Pimp Liquid Love/Wine Pimp
Beverage Services
Jake Kosseff grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was
introduced to restaurant work at the tender age of 12 years old
– filling in at as a busboy at a friend’s father’s Italian
restaurant. He has never held a job outside of the restaurant
industry. In 1995, Jake graduated from St. John’s College in
Annapolis, Maryland with a BA in Philosophy, Classical
Languages, History of Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science.
Degree firmly in hand, Jake decided to continue his path in
the restaurant industry. Beginning as the Chef at Ciao! On West
Street in Annapolis, Maryland, Jake went on to hold prestigious
positions at fine dining institutions such as “General Manager
in Training” for ChickenOut! Rotisserie (in the Washington DC
metro area).
In 1997 Jake moved back to his home town of Madison,
Wisconsin to open Luigi’s Diner for Food Fight Restaurants. In
what seemed like a logical decision to Jake, but was apparently
quite different from anything Madison had seen at the time, the
wine list at Luigi’s was made up of 100% value-priced Italian
wines to go with the rustic Italian fare. The list was a wild
success, and inspired Jake to become a sommelier.
From Madison, Jake moved to Seattle, Washington, the city he
now calls home, in 1999. Following short stints as the Beverage
Director at The Blowfish Asian Café and for Six Degrees
Restaurants, Jake became the Wine & Spirits Director for Chef
Kerry Sear’s Cascadia Restaurant in 2000. While at Cascadia
Restaurant, Jake developed a local and national following based
on excellent wine service and his critically acclaimed selection
of outstanding wines from small producers.
In 2005 Jake became the Wine & Spirits Director for Campagne
and Café Campagne in the Pike Place Market. During this time,
Campagne’s wine program blossomed into one of the most
comprehensive and interesting French wine programs on the west
coast, winning numerous awards, including the “Best of Award of
Excellence” from the Wine Spectator.
Jake has also consulted on some of the most successful wine
programs in Seattle. Wine lists that Jake has written have won
in the wine list category in the Best of Citysearch awards 3
years running: for Crush in 2005 (audience winner), for Campagne
in 2006 (audience and critics winner), and for Qube in 2007
(audience winner). In August, 2007, Jake decided to leave
Campagne & Café Campagne and pursue consulting fulltime.
Jake is the 2006 Chaîne des Rôtisseurs “Best Young Sommelier
in America” and has been accepted to sit for the Master
Sommelier Diploma exam in November 2007 or February 2008. Jake
is also the Sommelier for Seattle Metropolitan’s “Restaurant
Dream Team” (2006), as well as Seattle Magazine’s “Best
Sommelier” (2007).
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Personal
Picks |
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Château de Campuget Prestige Blanc Costières de Nîmes 2006
(France) $14
Dating to 1640 A.D., Château de Campuget is arguably the
greatest estate in the Costières des Nîmes appellation in
Southern France. This 100% Viognier wine strikes a beautiful
balance between rich, exotic aromas and flavors of spice,
flowers, peaches and tropical fruit, and racy, mineral notes of
citrus, stones and herbs. In a sea of non-descript, overly oily
Viogniers from France and the rest of the world, this is both a
welcome relief, and an outstanding value.
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Château de Campuget 1753 Costières de Nîmes 2005 (France) $14
Dating to 1640 A.D., Château de Campuget is arguably the
greatest estate in the Costières des Nîmes appellation in
Southern France. This wine is 100% Syrah fermented in both
temperature controlled stainless steel tanks and traiditional
cement vats. Full of sappy raspberry and blackberry fruit, black
pepper, and lovely herbal and leathery aromas and flavors, this
medium-bodied wine with elegant, smooth tannins is a surefire
crowd-pleaser. 1753 represents another outstanding value from
Château de Campuget.
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Domaine Egly-Ouriet Vignes de Vrigny 1er Cru Champagne
Non-Vintage (France) $61
Domaine Egly-Ouriet has always been one of my favorite
grower-producer Champagne houses, but with this unusual 100%
Pinot Meunier, single-vineyard Champagne, Francis Egly has
changed my view of Champagne with a single wine. Pinot Meunier
is often thought of as the least exciting of the three classic
Champagne grapes (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier)
because it is usually planted only on the sites that are most
prone to frost damage (both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay have a low
tolerance for frost). These vines, however, are planted on a top
Premier Cru vineyard in the Montaigne de Reims, and the results
are stupendous. The Champagne is powerful, with loads of lime
flower, yellow raspberry, acacia and apricot, along with an
almost meaty yeast character (the wine spent 3 years on the
lees), and a stunning minerality. This is not your everyday
sparkling wine, but who has time for everyday things! Another
Champagne house that uses a lot (though definitely not 100%)
Pinot Meunier in its wines is Krug . . . Maybe Francis is onto
something here. This gets my vote for the most thrilling
Champagne of the year.
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Pierre Peters Cuvée de Réserve Brut Champagne Non-Vintage
(France) $47
100% Chardonnay from 100% Grand Cru rated Vineyards (Oger, Avize,
Cramant & les Mesnil sur Oger) in the Côte de Blancs in
Champagne. This is a minerally, lean Champagne, with loads of
lemon curd, acacia flower and yellow apple fruit, balanced with
hints of creaminess and toastiness, and delicate notes of spice
and smoke. This wine is so much more interesting than the more
expensive, more famous Non-Vintage Champagnes from the big
producers that it makes me wonder why I have wasted so many
clean glasses drinking other Champagnes.
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Domaine de la Mordorée Re:NAISSANCE Rouge Vin du Pays du Gard
2005 (France) $14
From the greater Southern Rhone Valley in France, this unusual
combination of 50% Merlot and 50% of the almost unknown local
variety Marselan is a true pleasure, and ready for immediate
drinking (though it will also be good in the next five years).
From it’s intense purple color, to the plummy, spicey, gamey
aromas, to the full-bodied, smooth, and totally unique palate this
wine is a true pleasure. A big part of the joy of this wine is
that it is one of the few wines from Domaine de la Morderée that
is readily available (at least for the next few months).
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Domaine Sorin Cuvée Tradition Rouge Côtes de Provence 2003
(France) $13
Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and a little Mourvedre conspire to evoke
memories of trips to the Mediterranean. A medium bodied wine, with
a loads blackberry and raspberry, smoke, pepper, and grilled meat.
This wine is perfectly balanced, with just enough rustic tannins
to be perfect with a plate of charcuterie (or a burger fresh off
the grill). This is not a wine to be mulled over, but rather a
wine to be drunk, with great gusto, often!
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Domaine de la Fontaneraie Coteau la Fontaneraie Vouvray 1997
(France) $37
100% Chenin blanc from Vouvray, in the Loire Valley in France. $37
for a Vouvray? You bet, and it taste like it cost twice as much.
The Dhoye-Derue family has been making Chenin blanc in Vouvray at
Domaine de la Fontaneraie since 1712, and their experience shows.
This wine is excruciatingly dry, full-bodied, and incredibly
complex. Aromas of quince, lemons, ripe red apples, acacia
flowers, and a hint of smoke, and yeasty/leesy aromas yield to a
chalky minerality. On the palate, the wine is powerful, with lots
chalky minerality, loads of vibrant acidity, an avalanche of
flavors and a texture and finish that lets you know you are
drinking a great wine. Despite all of the superlatives, this wine
goes wonderfully with food, from fish and shellfish, to roasted
poultry, to a leg of lamb (really, I tried). This wine tastes
great now, but will only get better over the next 10 years; but
please decant it before serving, and don’t serve it too cold
(55˚-60˚ F is perfect).
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Domaine de la Serre Hypogee Côtes de Roussillon Villages 2002
(France) $39
Made from 40% Carignan, 40% Syrah, and 20% Grenache, all from 60
year old plus vines. Rich, heady, and complex, this full-bodied
red is a true find. Aromas of blackberries, black plums, and
blueberries are balanced by white pepper, tar, smoke and a
pleasant, sweet oakiness. The texture is silky, with powerful
tannins, perfect acidity, and so much flavor that the first sip is
disarming. This wine is just beginning to show off its character,
and needs another 10+ years to really shine, so try a bottle know,
and save the rest for 2012-2018. This wine is from the
Fenouilledes, a region in the North of Roussillon with legendary
black schist soil that has historically created the inky, powerful
wines used to add body and character to thinner wines from other
places (i.e. Burgundy & Bordeaux). Though such practices have long
been illegal in France, it is not hard to imagine that just a
little of this wine would be enough to make even the most insipid
red taste interesting.
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Ruffino Libaio Bianco 2002 (Italy) $10
This is a beautiful, crisp Chardonnay with intense lemon, apple
and mineral character, a long finish, and just enough seriousness
and character to make it thought provoking.
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Feudi di San Gregorio Rubrato (Italy) $15
A full-bodied, slightly aggressive Aglianico (the same grape as
Taurasi), this wine opens up beautifully after about 5 minutes in
the glass, revealing finely interwoven tannins, deep black cherry
and dried plum aromas, and hints of leather, tar, and scorched
earth. It’s a lot of wine for the price in more ways than one.
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Darioush Shiraz Napa Valley 2001 (California) $65
Intense, deeply colored, and loaded with rich fruit and spice.
This is a beautiful, full-bodied Shiraz with almost enough acidity
and firm, well-integrated tannins to keep up with the colossal
fruit and extraction of the wine. It’s pure hedonistic pleasure,
and could probably substitute for dinner if you were out of food.
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San Patrignano Montepirolo, 2000 (Italy) $47
This powerful, elegant Bordeaux style blend from Emilia-Romagna
has more going for it than just its perfect balance, long finish
and perfect structure. Riccardo Cotarella, one of Italy’s
preeminent winemaking talents, has again made an incredible wine,
with loads of mineral, fruit and power, but in San Patrignano he
has also done a phenomenally good deed. The winery is part of a
larger community designed to re-integrate recovering addicts into
society by providing them with career skills and inspiration.
Riccardo Cotarella has donated his time to lead a team of the
community members in making this wine. Through winemaking and the
other trades practiced in the San Patrignano, the residents pay
for more than 50% of their own treatment and living costs. This
wine is great now, but will be even better in 10 years (2010-2014)
as the youthful vigor and power give way to more minerals and a
silky complexity.
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Torbreck “Juveniles” Shiraz, 2002 (Australia) $35
A big, peppery, wine with sour blackberries, black plums and a
vigorous and intriguing character of tar and Asian spices. Made
from the very old Shiraz vines on the Torbreck Estate in Barossa,
this wine is a great entrée into the unique winemaking style of
David Powell. The wine is un-oaked, and designed to be drunk
young. However, the intense body that comes from the dry-farmed,
low-yielding, bush-trained shiraz vines gives the wine plenty of
structure to make it a very intriguing mid-term aging prospect.
(It is open to debate whether anyone can bear to save any of this
because it tastes so good right now). This is a welcome respite
from over-oaked, non-descript Australian Shiraz. This wine has
personality and style to spare.
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Montes Reserve Malbec Colchagua 2002 (Chile) $9
Though it is relatively rare to see Chilean Malbec in the United
States, Malbec is Chile’s most planted red variety. Aurelio Montes
who has wowed the wine world with his $80 plus Bordeaux blend
“Alpha M” seems to put just as much time and thought into this
value-priced Malbec from his mountainous home-region of Colchagua.
It is a notably big wine, with tons of blackberries and roasted
plums on the palate, accompanied by a nice hint of tarry badness.
Finding a wine this concentrated, that gives this much pure
pleasure for such an incredibly reasonable price is a true treat!
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Bellavista Franciacorta Brut DOCG NV (Lombardy, Italy) $16
80% Chardonnay/20% Pinot Bianco (Blanc) and Pinot Nero (Noir).
Franciacorta is the region in Italy that could give Champagne a
run for its money. While Italy’s most famous sparkling wines
Prosecco from The Veneto and Moscato d’Asti from Piedmont are made
from aromatic grape varieties and, in the case of Moscato usually
quite sweet, they have a charm and character all their own (though
wholly different from that of Champagne). Franciacorta is made
using the Metodo Classico (Methode Champenoise is now illegal to
put on labels in the European Union) using Chardonnay and Pinot
Noir and its variations (Pinot Blanc in particular) and in the
best case has the richness and intensity of Champagne while still
expressing its unique terroir. Bellavista is one of the best
cases. The Non-Vintage Brut is Rich and intense with lots of the
classic autolytic flavors of Champagne (the acacia aromas and the
finesse and silkiness) and a majestic, well-integrated acidity. At
half the price of a good bottle of Non-Vintage Champagne, this
wine is worth trying again and again. |
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