“The only reason I became a somm is that my wife went to grad school,” he said. Once I started to read about wine, I began to better appreciate it.”īarron didn’t consider turning his love of wine into a career until he unexpectedly found himself with a little time on his hands. But pretty soon I started getting into pinots and roses and things of that nature. “When I turned 21, I went to dinner for my birthday, and it was the first time I ever tried wine. “My father was a vodka person, so I didn’t taste wine when I was growing up,” said the West Covina native. Wine wasn’t even a small part of his life until early adulthood. He has a degree in political science, and by day, he works as a facilities coordinator at the Homestead Museum in City of Industry, where he has developed a specialty in restorative techniques. It’s all about making people comfortable and erasing that stigma.”īarron’s passion for wine developed gradually. “I asked them if they needed help and they said, ‘We normally don’t order off the list.’ I said, ‘What do you like to drink?’ They said, ‘We’re embarrassed to tell you: Moscato.’ I recommended a very nice Moscato that was $40. “One night, a young couple was staring at our wine list, not knowing what to do,” he said. I have talked guests down from higher-priced wines.”īarron says the most important part of a sommelier’s job is to make suggestions based on their guests’ personal preferences. We want the guests to get what they like. “The one thing that’s happening with somms is we’re becoming more human to people,” he said. He’s also determined to take the snobbery out of the wine world, at least in his restaurant. Accessibility is an important part of Barron’s philosophy as a sommelier. Mouton was one of the five original Premiers Crus (the highest classification, made by wine brokers based on a winery’s reputation and trading price) designated in 1855.īarron offers plenty of Rothschild wines on his list, and they’re not all sky-high in price one Chardonnay sells for $44. The estate, at Pauillac in the heart of the Médoc, was renamed Château Mouton Rothschild. It was born when Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild, a member of the famous familial financial dynasty, purchased Château Brane-Mouton in 1853.

Apparently, he was impressed.” (The Cellar plans to hold another such dinner on Sept. “We hosted a Rothschild dinner at the Cellar, and there was a representative from the company in attendance. Barron thinks he knows how the honor happened.

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