Sommelier Sees Through Wine Hype

Color and tint can say a lot about a wine. Aficionados twirl their glass and gaze into the bowl, searching for clues only the hue can betray -- the wine’s concentration, age and potential quality.

Not so for Don Katz, 29, owner of the Symposium Wine Bar in Irvine. He is blind.

Unable to see the wine’s “legs” -- how it beads in the glass, which might reveal its sugar content -- or its color when he swirls the wine in the glass, his quest for the perfect vintage falls back on his other sharpened senses.

“A lot of wine is image, salesmanship and knowing what the critics say,” said Katz. “I do true blind tastings.”

Sommeliers have become a part of the urban landscape as wine bars have flourished in Southern California. Katz’s bar is a unique blend of the wine and the owner.

The wine comes in glasses with a red ring at the base of their stem, resembling the one at the bottom of Katz’s guiding cane. His business cards contain the Symposium’s information in letters -- and in Braille.

Robbed of his sight five years ago after contracting meningitis, Katz has refined his remaining senses to excel in a world where bouquet and visual appeal are critical for distinguishing the magical element that separates one grape from another.

Katz doesn’t have the bottle or label described to him, nor does he picture what the wine looks like as he grasps the glass.

“I really don’t care about the color,” he said. “I’m trying to find out what’s inside the bottle.”

To casual wine tasters, the color could be a deal-breaker, said Tim Gaiser, one of about 70 of the country’s master sommeliers.

“Sight is one of the major aspects of tasting, as one assesses a wine’s age, storage conditions and possibly even the grape variety from the appearance alone,” he said.

So reaching the Court of Master Sommeliers, an alliance of wine experts that invites only a few into its ranks, may be out of his grasp.

Katz focuses not on building his resume, but on building his palate.

Along with James Wall, his bartender and fellow sommelier, Katz attends wine tastings and checks out competitors’ bars.

Among wine distributors, his reputation is of an unrelenting and firm businessman.

“You are never caught in-between,” said Rick Ashley, a distributor who visits Katz weekly. “He tells you like it is, and there’s no in-between.”

Nestled in a corner of the Park Place Shopping Center, the Symposium’s color leaps at the eye. Bright red walls flank plush red lounge chairs and a scattering of purple seats. At the bar, about 60 wines are shelved.

Katz fell in love with cooking early, baking chocolate cinnamon rolls with his grandmother “Safta” Jolie. When he and his twin, Ron, performed chores, he always volunteered to cook.

He was infected with meningitis in 2001, in his second year at New York University’s master food studies program. The illness left him blind and using a cane for mobility.

With his dream of working in a first-class restaurant dashed, Katz turned to his other passion: wine. He recalled that he’d been won over before his illness after sipping a Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volante. The journey toward aficionado began.

Now, Katz says, his sense of smell is so keen he can detect what other people are drinking, even across a room.

“I pay more attention to what I’m smelling now,” Katz said. “I don’t even have to have the wine next to me to smell what kind it is.”

The bar has enjoyed moderate success in its year-plus of existence, generally entertaining about 40 guests on Fridays and Saturdays.

Katz has attracted a small contingent of loyal regulars who say he governs a haven where camaraderie and wine mix.

Katz recognizes most customers by voice after two or three visits. Some regulars push the menu aside, relying on Katz and Wall’s choices of the evening.

Theresa Louis of Irvine celebrated her 29th birthday at the Symposium on a recent Friday night. The following evening, she returned, to introduce it to visiting friends.

When Bob Rodes relocated from Arizona, he searched for a hangout and found the Symposium.

Rodes now visits the Symposium three days a week.

Rodes, 49, says Katz sees his disability “as nothing more [than] a nuisance.”

A year after the official grand opening, Katz held a wine tasting class for nine couples on Valentine’s Day.

The night’s theme? “Love Is Blind.”