Sommelier Pick
Sommeliers are some of our favorite people. The good ones can make a good meal great. The great ones can open your eyes to wine choices that you didn't even know existed. They awe us with their dedication; they inspire us with their imagination. In each issue, the Wine Skinny will spotlight one Sommelier who we think is doing a tremendous job.

Mark Ellenbogen, The Slanted Door, San Francisco
Mark Ellenbogen has been with one of San Francisco's most popular destination restaurants since the beginning. The Slanted Door, with Executive Chef Charles Phan's soulful Vietnamese cuisine, remains at the top of the restaurant scene after nearly a decade of operations. Ellenbogen has built the wine list from the ground up, crafting a focused list of wines that work beautifully with the food, predominantly German and Austrian whites, with considered handfuls of French and domestic reds and whites to round things out. Despite the considerable safety net of the restaurant's reservation waiting list, it is a brave wine list that does not cater to the lowest common denominator of customer comfort with nary a California Chardonnay or Cabernet to be found. Instead, the list is a study in efficiency, just shy of 70 bottles strong - each one carefully chosen for its quality, value and synergy with the food. According to Ellenbogen, "Something happens when you pair these wines with this food that doesn't happen in other cuisines. Mediterranean food and Mediterranean wines taste good together fairly easily. But when you taste one of these German wines with one of Chef Phan's dishes, there's a lift. Almost an electric buzz. That's what I want customers to get from these wines." Ellenbogen cites the Messmer 2001 Riesling Spatlese Pfalz Burrweiler Schawer ($50) as his current favorite on the list, especially when paired with anything spicy like the caramelized shrimp (delicious, by the way!). Ellenbogen doesn't worry that customers will be deterred by the array of unfamiliar wines, believing that trying new things is part of the experience of dining out. His bigger concern is guarding against the tendency of wine lists to become clones of each other, bloated with too many wines that have no relationship to the food. Of course, it doesn't hurt wine sales that German wines remain one of the great values on the market today and The Slanted Door's wine list reflects this affordability with more than one-third of the list priced under $40. We highly recommend working on that Slanted Door reservation now  the food is terrific and this wine list is one of our favorites of the year!