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Hosted by a Toronto-based sommelier Tasting Notes Toronto explores the people shaping the city’s food and wine culture—from Michelin-starred chefs and master sommeliers to restaurant operators and winemakers. Each episode goes behind the scenes of hospitality careers, restaurant culture, and the decisions that shape what we eat and drink in Toronto today.
So in the year 2000, Palazzo Versace opened up on the Gold Coast Of Australia. Was
Bruce Wallner:We're going way back.
Alex Abbott Boyd:We're going way back. It was the first luxury hotel brand in the world branded with a luxury fashion house, and you were the chef Sommeliers. Yes. What was it like being part of something like that that had never existed before?
Bruce Wallner:It was great, mostly. I think any time you're part of an ambitious project like that, it's all fantastic. Budget takes a back seat, so you get to have a lot of fun. Like, when I arrived there, they had already been open, but they hadn't opened their signature restaurant yet. And this will give a little insight.
Bruce Wallner:The the house of Versace said the hotel looks great, but where is the signature restaurant, and where is your sommeliers? They forced the developer that was running the hotel and managing the hotel to get a sommeliers in and have a signature restaurant that was already at that time fine dining was a little bit determined to be avoided, so it was a signature restaurant. And they were kind of desperate to get into sommeliers, which I think worked in my favor.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Were you already in Australia then?
Bruce Wallner:I was in Australia, and I had a job that I loved in Sydney, and I was with this remarkable woman at the time, and presumably she's still remarkable, and she got this job offer at the restaurant attached to the hotel. I was like, Okay, I'll move you up there, but I can't leave my job. I said, I'd have to have the most remarkable gig to leave this job that I'm loving in Sydney. And we went there, we went to check out the hotel because we heard that there was all kinds of back and forth about, Oh, these guys don't even have a Sommeliers. So we went in there, and it was crazy.
Bruce Wallner:Everything was a Versace, so it was really flashy. And then he turns to me and says, Are you also Sommeliers? And he leaves, and then the food and beverage director comes by. This is nice chatting us up, and he says, Okay, so enjoy your brunch, and then afterwards we'll take a tour of the hotel. So we did that, and so they bought us brunch, took us on a tour of the hotel, and it was so beautiful.
Bruce Wallner:It was so flashy. I'm not really a Versace kind of guy.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It was like every single thing was branded Versace, right?
Bruce Wallner:It was crazy. The first suits that they brought for us to wear was me and a bunch of Australian guys, and we didn't fit, right? Because they're all super slim and everybody's not so slim. Everything had to be refitted. It's weird to think that I would be a good idea for that brand.
Bruce Wallner:I'm not exactly tall and slender, right? We took this tour and I was just blown away. He was like, Okay, we'd just like to talk to you about working here. I was like, This is crazy. So eventually we ended up moving up there, and they had a wine list.
Bruce Wallner:They had a cellar that had $140,000 worth of wine in it. I said, Okay, so send me that inventory sheet and we'll build a list around it. And they said, No, disregard all those wines.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What have they been buying?
Bruce Wallner:They'd just been buying a bunch of Australian wines, really, just some classics, just some standards. And they said, No, we don't want you. Don't worry about that. We'll find a way to use that, but forget that $140,000 inventory. Just start from scratch.
Bruce Wallner:Wow. I was like, That's insane.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It's got to be pretty fun.
Bruce Wallner:Yeah. That's nice when that's happening. When you get an opportunity to do that, it's loads of fun.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah. And how did you end up building it? Because I would imagine maybe they wanted Italian wine, probably also Australian wine or
Bruce Wallner:Yeah, I didn't take that approach.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay.
Bruce Wallner:That was mostly French wine. There was this one importer that was bringing wine into Sydney and Melbourne, and he just drove it up himself, although our first order of whatever it was, 40 cases of French wine. And then we went Italian, and then we started buying sellers of collections of old Australian wine, which I find that's where the magic is, right?
Alex Abbott Boyd:How did Australians respond to just a Versace branded hotel? It's just so funny that's where they chose to test this idea.
Bruce Wallner:Yeah. There was a reason behind it. So it was a developer that built the hotel, obviously, but it was also a developer that managed the hotel, like the same developer. Sunland, I think it was called. And they, yeah, they just wanted to sell a bunch of condos, not just at the hotel, but for everything they were developing around the Gold Coast.
Bruce Wallner:The Gold Coast was thought of as being a little bit trashy. If you go to Niagara Falls and there's that one street where it's all T shirt shops, bells and whistles, and so much noise, that was the thought of what the Gold Coast was. And then they said, No, it should be a luxury destination. And so they really turned that idea on its head, and that was just to sell properties, quite honestly. But in the end, it became almost a revolution.
Bruce Wallner:So, what was the reaction with Australians? They have that tall poppy syndrome, right? They say, You know what happens to a tall poppy? We kind of set off. So Australians were like this.
Bruce Wallner:They came in off the start and just trapped the place, because initially it started only with the all day dining. They didn't have a signature restaurant. That was the thing, The reason that I got to work there was because everybody was coming in saying, Oh, this is a joke. They kept saying, The world's first seven star hotel, I think that was what they were saying, something ridiculous like this, And feel like, okay, so we're going take a look, and they came in and said, no, it's trash. And people were loving trashing it, just absolutely having the best time trashing it, because the only thing you could go to was the all day dining, which was a buffet.
Bruce Wallner:Then And they opened up the place V that was attached really on the water, really quite beautiful, and then we opened up Vanitas, the signature restaurant, and then we slowly started to rebuild. Again, And that was really cool to be a part of as well. So me and the chef and the maitre d' were just working all the time, which I loved it. Was fantastic. And then eventually we took over the restaurant that was attached.
Bruce Wallner:It was a fun time. Fun time for a young guy that was super excited about wine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Where did you head after Australia?
Bruce Wallner:I went to Spain for a little bit and then to The UK. I always thought I had to go to The UK because I because I wanted to finish the the the master sommeliers program. So that's the only way to do it is to really submerse yourself.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay. And what in Australia were you advanced?
Bruce Wallner:Yeah. I went I arrived in Australia as a certified sommeliers, then threw we someone else through the ISG, an organization that used to be prominent in Canada and is a bit less so now. So we went down there and done our certification through ISG, and yeah, was great, we should do this MS thing. So we skipped the first level of MS. We didn't do their certification.
Bruce Wallner:It turned out to be a terrible mistake. We said no, we just wanted to do advanced. So we wrote a nice letter saying here's how long we've been working in the industry, and this was my partner at the time. We both went over there and we got our advanced then in London, specifically Tunbridge Wells, like a little town outside of London, a little what they call a cathedral town, and came back and kept working there. But I thought to take that final step, I thought you have to be.
Bruce Wallner:I guess you could do it in New York, right? Or you have to be at one of these center of the worlds for wine. Yeah. Like London or New York, where maybe the production is a little bit modest and the thirst is high, and lots of people are spending money on wine.
Alex Abbott Boyd:You landed a pretty great job there, right? You were a chef sommelier at Hotel DuVon.
Bruce Wallner:Yeah, I specifically wanted to work with Charred Besset.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Okay.
Bruce Wallner:So that was the
Alex Abbott Boyd:kind of thing He's been cited by past podcast guests as an inspiration.
Bruce Wallner:He's a legend.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How did you come to work with him?
Bruce Wallner:I don't know what the initial connection was. I must have just I don't know. I don't know what the initial was. I heard about just said
Alex Abbott Boyd:you talked your way into Chef Sommeliers at a Versace hotel, and now you're saying you just showed up in The UK to work with Gerard Bessette. You don't even remember how, but you made that happen.
Bruce Wallner:I didn't. Oh, wait. Hang on. First off, I didn't in Australia. In Australia, I said, who else are you talking to?
Bruce Wallner:And they said, oh, this local guy. Oh, that guy's quite good. You should take him. And then we left. And then they had some other motivation, so they decided that I should be there instead of this super skilled local sommeliers that already knew all the contacts, which probably would have been a better choice, but in any case, they disagreed with me.
Bruce Wallner:And I do recall now because sent an email to Gerard to say, I'm in Barcelona, and I want to keep going down this path, so should I work at a winery? Should I volunteer at a bottle shop? Which incidentally I tried to do, and they were not interested unless you can work here. I'm like, no, I don't want you to pay me, and I said, no, there's no way we can do it. We'll have you working here if you're not legal to work.
Bruce Wallner:So I briefly went back to Canada and got my UK citizenship, But when I made that call or when I sent that email, I don't even recall which now, Gerard said, oh, that's interesting. Listen, I'm gonna put you in touch with Henri Chappon who heads up the wine team here, and right away they just put me in. And so I chatted, I got back to Canada, and I chatted with them, and I said, Okay, the paper's coming through, everything's cool, and they were like, Oh great, so where do you want to work? I said, I don't know anything about England, you tell me. And it was so funny, the conversation ended immediately.
Bruce Wallner:They were like, Great, you're in Birmingham. And that was it. That was the end of the story. I'm like, what's the deal with Birmingham? So I looked it up afterwards, and it's a bit industrial.
Bruce Wallner:It's the best place to work, though.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What was it like there at the Hotel du Vin?
Bruce Wallner:There was a bunch of hotels, and by the time I got there, I'd heard that he'd already sold it. But the hotel I was at, was still doing his called du vin, which were these weekends where they'd specialize in one region. Him and Henri would take this small group of I remember it being like 12 people, I don't know now but this small group of hotel guests, and they just take them on this tour, so Friday, reception, light dinner Saturday, lots of classes, and there's a big dinner on Sunday, a little something, and off they go. And it was kind of remarkable, so I got to work directly with Gerard Bassett, which I didn't even know would be the case, I just wanted to work within that team. It was great, though.
Bruce Wallner:That town at the time was newly wealthy, Maybe not newly, but we had guests coming in who just had so much money to spend and no pretension at all. It was the most amazing. And you just had this volume of wine that you were going through all the time. You could always bring in new wine and always opening a wine, and people were always open and excited with no no idea of, like
Alex Abbott Boyd:were no preconceptions like, I only want to drink this region. They were they were Okay.
Bruce Wallner:They were favorites, but you didn't there was no there was nobody showing off and saying, here's what I know about wine and let me tell you the contents of my cellar kind of thing. Yeah. It was just this open curiosity, and I it was such a beautiful place to work.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Do you think that's a Birmingham thing? Hotel and
Bruce Wallner:Maybe. But Hotel Devon had their restaurants were bistros. Right? They were super casual. They just had these crazy wine programs.
Bruce Wallner:It's like you took a Michelin star wine program and put it on top of a bistro. It was really cool in that we had our team, and our team were comically hardworking. It was ridiculous. On the Somm team, they didn't do anything else at all. There were no hobbies.
Bruce Wallner:Some of them were football fans, that was about the biggest hobby, but all you did when you got up in the morning was go to work, and then you don't really come home until you're ready to sleep. There's nothing else. It sounds like a poor work life balance, but for us it was amazing because that's all we wanted to do.
Alex Abbott Boyd:If you wanted to become a master somm, probably sounds like finishing school, right?
Bruce Wallner:Yeah, I don't know. I've never been to finishing school. That's tough for me to answer. But no, was crazy. It was beautiful.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What are some of the most important things you think you learned from Gerard in that time?
Bruce Wallner:I don't know. I hope that I learned some graciousness, because he must be the most accomplished guy in wine. He was so humble and gracious all the time.
Alex Abbott Boyd:For anyone who hears this, he was a master of wine, master sommelier, and eventually won world's best sommeliers. And had an MBA in wine and was a master of science. He
Bruce Wallner:was just interested, so he stayed interested. And He kept going and going, and he just became I don't know. I've never met anyone that was given that kind of reverence as he was. I remember being at an exam in London, and all the Somms were sitting around a couch, a big group of Somms, and everyone's talking shit. Everybody was like, oh, no, I can't believe I got that wrong or whatever it was, and everyone's having a laugh.
Bruce Wallner:And and he walked in the front door of the lobby, and everyone sitting on the lounges I don't know how many Psalms there were there was at least ten, twelve, 13, I don't know everybody just stood up, and they just stood there as he walked in. This is crazy, not just a spontaneous thing like this drug busting, and everyone's standing at attention, and then he comes in and says hi. I don't know, he was rightfully given such an incredible amount of respect in the industry. He was a beautiful guy, and to be so accomplished, he also started this hotel chain and expanded it to 11 hotels when he sold it. He was extraordinarily successful in business as well.
Bruce Wallner:He had beautiful family. He so accomplished and yet so humble at the same time. It was quite amazing. I hope I took some of that away. I remember being on a trip in Burgundy with him, there were lots of people there, not just me and him, and he was talking about how you should look after guests.
Bruce Wallner:If somebody comes in and they want to say hi to him, and he's busy with other things obviously, and this really struck a chord because, like I said, we're working all the time, and you're doing the two services a day, and you're trying to get all your other stuff done as well, so he got a little bit frantic all the time. He'd said, No, and in that case you have to put down what you're doing, and you go talk to them, because you don't know who this is coming in. It's probably someone coming to sell you wine. He's like, No, you don't know. You just go, you talk to them, and you give them your time, because those are the people that make this possible.
Bruce Wallner:It was a level of hospitality. I don't think I'm stating it correctly. It was a level of hospitality that I thought, I don't know if that's possible. Can you do that? But then after that, that's what I always did.
Bruce Wallner:Always said, oh, put this down. Let's go see who it is.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I was actually really struck by you came to a wine dinner I did once at Henry's Restaurant serving some great Australian wines, and it was you, and then it was mostly just my private collectors who are passionate about wine, but they're just normal people who like wine. And I remember just looking over and seeing one of them explaining to you their interest in wine and their favorite wines, and you were just treating them as if that was the most interesting thing in the entire world and listening very rapidly and giving them full respect. What you were describing Gerard was doing, I have seen you do.
Bruce Wallner:That's good news.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What was it that was motivating you? You moved to The UK because you wanted to go for MS. You were in this lifestyle where it was wake up and work and spend all your time with Sommeliers. Why did you want that goal? Well,
Bruce Wallner:environment is super enriching. We actually had that in Sydney as well, and I tried to build that when we were at Palazzo Versace, where you have this team of Psalms and you all kind of feed off of each other and you taste all of the samples together and you try to do blind tasting together, which is always hilarious, right? Because everyone gets a chance to make an ass of themselves. It's unbelievable to be part of a tight community like that. It's so nice.
Bruce Wallner:Think it's one of the core necessities of life, to have community, to have someone that you can talk to and relate to, and just be entirely open, and know that you're going to make mistakes, and that's cool. Also, together with that, this little bit of competition and having fun but in a very focused way. I think that's the dream, isn't it? Everyone would want to work like that, wouldn't they?
Alex Abbott Boyd:Well, 100%, but you don't have to find that by going for one of the world's hardest wine tests. There's other ways to find community at work.
Bruce Wallner:Yeah, but maybe you always need a catalyst. I don't think people just buckle down and focus if there isn't something in there. So you have these tests that you've got to complete, and I think it's a great motivation. You know, they say it's not the destination, it's the journey in a very cliche way, but it so much is. With this, it so much is.
Bruce Wallner:Passing the exam is always great at the time, but it doesn't really make any difference, honestly. It's also very humbling, right? Nobody's successful at every step. There's always things that you're messing up, you go back and try again. And it's an amazing, very concentrated development.
Alex Abbott Boyd:How did you go about preparing? I've heard there might have been some interesting sleeping habits at one point.
Bruce Wallner:I don't know.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What do Sleep think four hours, study for a bit, sleep four hours,
Bruce Wallner:study Yeah, sure. I don't know if that works well for me. I still do that. I like to in chunks. I like to be up early, especially now with kids.
Alex Abbott Boyd:You don't have a choice, really.
Bruce Wallner:First off, you don't have a choice, especially when they're brand new, so I'm sorry that you're going go through that again. But there's very little time that you have to focus on things because they need stuff always, relentlessly. So, only time you have to get up before them. So, that's a beautiful time of the day, right? Everything is quiet.
Bruce Wallner:So, I tend to go to bed a little bit late and then get up hilariously early. If I could do it, ideal thing would be, yeah, you sleep four hours, maybe five hours, and then you have a little nap in the afternoon. If I could get that program going, it's not that I want to sleep less, I don't know, I want to be awake at the quiet times.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What was the main way you were prepping the MS? Was it just like that community? You'd all taste together? Would you quiz each other?
Bruce Wallner:Yeah, I think that's super helpful. I think that's probably the most important thing is to have a community. I ended up moving to Glasgow, and in Glasgow I was back at the point similar to Australia where I had a junior team and I was constantly chasing with them and training with them, and then I wasn't seeing these senior sommeliers in the company as often, and so I was having trouble. I needed someone to help me here, and so it became a bit of a much more of a solo effort than I wanted. Of course, I jumped at every chance to taste with somebody else.
Bruce Wallner:If anyone was visiting, they were like, okay, you're doing a tasting for me, right? But I just had a closet that was packed full of tinfoil wrapped wines with reds on this side and whites on this side, and you just go in and you crack them open without looking, and you pour yourself Are you feeling the glass as you do it, you pour yourself a little bit, and you line them up without looking, and you go, okay, go. And I had my local odd bins. There was woman there that's helping me out, and she was just selecting a bunch of stuff at random, the classics at random, so I never knew what I was getting, so I'd pay the bill having no idea what was in there, and every time I would have a chance someone would come by and say, Okay, just bring two tinfoil wrapped bottles. I'm just going put them in stock, I'm going to forget them, then when I'm reaching in, I can still set up wine tastings for myself.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Were there any certain wines that really tripped you up? I know there's classic areas of confusion some people have, say, Nebbiolo and Sangiovese and maybe Rioja sometimes. There's a triangle there No, that trips
Bruce Wallner:that you doesn't exist for me. No, that's not true. But I want to tell you the best part about this. Because I sat at this long table all by myself with these wines that I set up, and I had Jancis Robinson used to have a book called, I think, just Grapes, and it was a small book, and her image was on the cover, and so I would prop that up, so when I would do the tasting, Jancis would be staring at me. Was very helpful.
Bruce Wallner:Of course, there are wines I struggle with. Yeah, Elberno is always difficult. The only way I have ever identified Albireno blind is when I think it's Pinot Grigio, and then I realize I'm enjoying it. I'm like, Oh, it's not Pinot Grigio. This is like the greatest Pinot Grigio I've ever had.
Bruce Wallner:Ah, it's Elbernio. So that's tough. Think Nebbiolo is fairly distinctive. I confuse Nebbiolo and Pinot Noir a lot. If you're having fancy Pinot Noirs that are more structured.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah.
Bruce Wallner:Like, you have Grand Cru Cote d'Nuit, that's a bit tough.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Yeah, I've that one. Someone called it Nebbiolo and it was granite.
Bruce Wallner:That's the thing, smells pretty and then it has really firm tannins.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Firm tannins, you can see it's got the right color, it's got the red fruit.
Bruce Wallner:Pinot noir is so delicate. Okay, not always, right? So, that's the problem. We get this idea that pinot noir is so soft, and then when you get a structured one, go, I don't know what to do with this. Must be Aetna.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I just have one of these theories that there's so much focus by places like the court On Burgundy and some Bordeaux and these old world places. But I just wonder if it was happening today, maybe there would be a lot more focus on Australia and other new world places.
Bruce Wallner:I think there's always the desire to be looking for what's going to become classic. I'm always interested with what they're taking in or taking out or putting into the lineup of what is testable, to the point where I don't care about testable at all. I think there's classic, so you taste classic. You've got to think of it this way: if somebody comes into your restaurant or even into your home and says, Oh, I love Muscatay. I love Muscatay Sevres, Amen.
Bruce Wallner:And you say, Oh, that's not a Test of One. I don't know anything about that. Well, of course you have to know that. That's a reference point, right? Same, I don't know if Gruner Veltliner is testable or not.
Bruce Wallner:Think it is.
Alex Abbott Boyd:It is even at Advance, no.
Bruce Wallner:But there was some playing around with that. I don't care. You have to know what it tastes like, so you have to spot it blind. What is this? It's crazy to think, oh, what's the list going right now?
Bruce Wallner:I better check the list before I start tasting blind. No. You taste reference points. Right? There's a point you worked
Alex Abbott Boyd:for mister Donald Trump. Right? Were a part of the Donald Trump Did you ever get to meet Mr.
Bruce Wallner:No. He had no ownership there. I don't forget the guy who developed it, but he was a Canadian with a Russian background and I don't know, just had a lot of money and thought that the Trump name would be a great brand. Quite a while ago that he did that, right? I don't think anyone would do that now, would they?
Bruce Wallner:No. But I went in there. I didn't even understand why they wanted me there because we weren't building anything. And eventually, I found out that they just wanted me there to clear out all the old stock, all the fancy wines that nobody was drinking. So there's loads of grower champagnes.
Bruce Wallner:And if you're pouring grower champagnes for guys that are used to drinking Dom Perignon, a lot of times it's more acidic. It's not easy and immediately rewarding, Whereas these big brands, the marquee brands are they're approachable by almost by definition. So when they're like, oh, we'll have this wine because it's super expensive, we'll have this champagne because it's super expensive. And then you bring this wine and it has this really zero dosage and all the acid, and they're like, woah. We don't this isn't what we want.
Bruce Wallner:Yeah. So they couldn't move all that stuff. They had a bunch of cherries and they had all kinds of crazy stuff that you were like, who on Bay Street is drinking this? But that was their goal to have this tremendous wine program. And then unfortunately, when I was speaking of the other places where you're building the program, that's the best.
Bruce Wallner:If you're downsizing the program and you're trying to get rid of all this stuff, that's a drag. I enjoyed working there. Was fun. But I was walking home one morning, and it was starting to get light out. And our first child was due in two weeks.
Bruce Wallner:And I was like, forget this. I can't do this. This is garbage. And it creates like restaurants, especially in Canada, you work all the time, but there's nothing you don't get anything back. My case, there wasn't that much money.
Bruce Wallner:The business plan of a lot of restaurant groups, I'm sorry to say this, but in the business plan is the exploitation of their staff. They do this dangling carrot thing, or if you work really hard, you can be the assistant manager, and then you can be the manager, and then you can be the regional manager, and then this imaginary individual ends up being the regional manager, and now I'm working even more, and not getting paid much more. But this idea of, oh, you just make the sacrifice, make the sacrifice, make the sacrifice, I don't know if there's that much payoff. It's a faulted system for sure, but then also we have the problem where everything's expensive in Canada, and nobody wants to pay a bunch of money at a restaurant. I feel like we're working overtime to destroy dining, certainly, that was my experience at Tram.
Bruce Wallner:I enjoyed it. Great. I felt it was positive, but
Alex Abbott Boyd:I was pretty happy when it was over, too. Do you think that's uniquely Canadian? Look,
Bruce Wallner:like what we had Australia where they would give you a 100% support, and also the wineries would be giving you a 100% support, and you go and visit the wine regions, and everyone was sharing all the time. Like, in my think it was my second week of being there, I was at a tasting, and I was being introduced by the Sommeliers team that I just joined. And they were, like, making this oh, making a big fuss. And I'm like, what's the okay. So I joined the team.
Bruce Wallner:This is great. And then I'm talking to Steven and Pru Henschke. And I felt like saying, Excuse me, do you know who you are? Because they're just so open, and it's just everyone's learning and everyone's developing together. And then in The UK, it was so amazing.
Bruce Wallner:There was so much support for building that team and educating that team and building the list and looking after guests. And okay, maybe we have I think we can look after guests pretty well here, but looking after our team is a fairly new concept, and I'm delighted to see that there's more restaurants that take it seriously now. But it's been a checkered history in Toronto for looking after your team. It's hard to say because I love the industry, but the truth is it's great that we're getting better now. What did team care look like in Australia?
Bruce Wallner:We started this great training program. Actually, it was the basis for what became the certified program at Somm Factory at my wine school. We started that in truth, we started that in Sydney for this group of restaurants I was working with, and then we expanded it out, and it came into its full form at Palazzo Versace. And it was a crazy thing because you would train people, and in some cases we'd take them down on wine trips, we took this fabulous trip to Adelaide, and before they went everybody had to agree, Okay, but you're going stay with us for at least a year. And on return, two of the women that went with us were like, listen, I've got this other opportunity.
Bruce Wallner:Which is at the time, I'm like, this is bullshit. Can I say that? Yeah. This is bullshit. I can't do this.
Bruce Wallner:We're putting so much effort in. Yeah. And you start going to the restaurants around town, and it's quite cool because you go there, and then the people who trained with you are at the restaurant. It's amazing to see them there and doing so well. So you can't transition to this thing of jealously guarding your fabulous staff to a point where it was a relatively small town, right?
Bruce Wallner:A point where it's like, this is great. Now when I go out and get wine service, it's fantastic.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What do you think are maybe one or two of the most important things that do need to change?
Bruce Wallner:I think if we're looking at a blank slate, which we're not, we have all the traditions of restaurant management and how the flow of a restaurant goes. But if we were in a blank slate, have specialists on your team. A Sommeliers on your team is so much more efficient than having waiters with Sommeliers knowledge. Let's say you have a Sommeliers and assistants, Sommeliers, they're the people that are receiving the wines, so they're putting the wines away. They know exactly where every wine is.
Bruce Wallner:You order a wine, or after you order it, it should be in your glass no more than three minutes later. Why would it take longer than that? You go grab it, you open it at the table. But the system of putting your chit and okay, oh, hang on. That guy's busy.
Bruce Wallner:Oh, wait. Oh, we didn't see the chit. And then someone goes, looks for it. Nobody knows where it is. And it's crazy.
Bruce Wallner:I've there's been loads of times where I waited forty five minutes to get a bottle of wine and then in your appetizer, you're done your appetizer by this point. So what are we doing here? It's ridiculous. Don't have somebody you don't have the waiter doesn't take the order and then go, okay, I'll just let me just me just grill the fish here. No, you have somebody doing that.
Bruce Wallner:The same with the bartender. A mom and pop restaurant, the waiter takes the order and then goes back behind the bar and he makes the gin and tonic. Okay, that's fine for a real small operation. But if you're getting to any sort of size, if you have more than three waiters, what are you doing? Just have one dedicated to wine service, and that's all they do.
Bruce Wallner:And don't worry, if you have that focus on wine, that guy's going be running. He's going to be working all the time, producing revenue all the time, making guests happy all the time, and then, oh, now they want a second bottle. Oh, great. Because the guy who waited forty five minutes to get that bottle is not getting a second bottle, right?
Alex Abbott Boyd:No, but I agree with you, but the trend I see here in Toronto is the exact opposite. More and more of the people that I sell wine to buy wine and are the GM or buy wine and are something else. I've had people on the show saying, You can't just be a sommeliers anymore. You need to have these other skill sets.
Bruce Wallner:Okay, there's a couple of base problems. First off, it was always like that. It was always with a manager sommeliers or waiter sommeliers. It's always been like that, and we had a little brief thing where we entertained the idea of having sommeliers on the floor, dedicated sommeliers on the floor. Unfortunately, when we did that, there were some sommeliers that came in, and they thought their job was just to float around the restaurant and consult with guests.
Bruce Wallner:That's not your job. Your job is to get wine into a glass. Think there was confusion with the world because we didn't have a widely accepted role as a sommeliers in Toronto. I'm not sure if we ever had. So when we suddenly said, Oh, no, every restaurant should have a Sommeliers, you had Sommeliers that read about it, and they knew a lot about wine, and they were good at their job, but that proper job description wasn't there.
Bruce Wallner:I think it's crazy, and I've seen this so many times, I think it's crazy to sit down with an importer while the rest of the room is prepping for service. And so they're all going around you doing all their mise, and you're sitting there having a glass of wine with it. You're tasting wine, okay, it's something you have to do. That's pretty weak, though.
Alex Abbott Boyd:When should they be tasting wine with an emblem?
Bruce Wallner:Honestly, I think if you're a serious sommeliers, you have an idea about the wines. Right? So if there's something you're curious about, you're like, oh, I don't know. This vintage, I'm really worried about this vintage. Okay.
Bruce Wallner:So they bring it in, you taste it, and that's it. I don't get this thing where you sit for an hour, and you have a great time shooting the shit with your friend, the importer, which is lovely.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But how does that work for a new importer like me? I moved to Toronto. I knew absolutely no one. I was bringing in new wines that had never been in the province, a bunch of Oregon Pinot. Should they have just looked at my list and somehow decided?
Alex Abbott Boyd:Because in this scenario, I just never would have gotten any meetings. That was what the first month was like. It was a struggle to get those first meetings. But how do you get new things that way?
Bruce Wallner:I think if you're tasting new things, you do it super quick. You don't sit down. You stand at the bar and taste it. Thanks so much. That's amazing.
Bruce Wallner:And maybe you place the order. On the other side, we have a weird thing where you sit down and you have this, I'm going to say indulgent tasting. And then afterwards, you don't order any wine. What are you having an importer come in, taste all of these wines with you, explain all the wines with you? Let's say it's an hour.
Bruce Wallner:Sometimes it's more than an hour. And so you've taken that big chunk of time from the importer, from the restaurant. If it's during prep, then everyone's seeing you sit down there. That's not good for morale. But this very important chunk of an hour during your workday, and you spent that and everyone has made allowances for that, and then you don't order anything?
Alex Abbott Boyd:Like what are you doing? Don't get me started on that. I give people two or maybe three of those and then I'm just not going to taste Yeah, mine with you
Bruce Wallner:I think Sommeliers in Toronto really took advantage of their position and they enjoyed it. And this idea of that's how you get to learn. It's so crazy. No, you learn on your own time. Sure, training should be infused throughout the whole day at work.
Bruce Wallner:But to go as a sommelier and say, No, I have to taste these wines because I want to learn about them. You're not taking an hour just to sit down and learn about these wines. That's insanity. How does that fit on a spreadsheet?
Alex Abbott Boyd:I'm going to point you again, which is I've heard you say the role of a Somm is to be the link between the guest and the winemaker. Yes, sure.
Bruce Wallner:100%.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But I, as an importer, am that link. When I have an hour long meeting, mostly they're half an hour, that's when I tell the story of that winemaker. I share what they're doing, why they're interesting, what is special about them. And I'm sure you could just quickly taste it and go, Okay, this is above average albarino, or, Oh, this is an interesting one. It will work with the food it won't work with.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But if you want to bring that to life for the guests, you need to know about this maverick guy forming specific story, don't you? And how else are you going get that without that thirty minute meeting?
Bruce Wallner:Yeah, 100%. But I think that's got to be effort that's made on your own time. That's how you get better at your craft. So, how are you taking the restaurant time? You're being paid to sit down and hear the stories?
Bruce Wallner:That seems quite ridiculous to me. That should be something that we have a conversation, we have a coffee or something outside of work, and you can tell me about all the backstories. Or you should be researching that, or you should be visiting the winery, but all of that stuff happens not while you're being paid to carry boxes and put away wines, and check invoices, and submit new orders, or do your mise en place. I find it really strange that it's okay to learn those stories while all the other staff are prepping around you. I guess that's where I would draw the line.
Bruce Wallner:You cannot do that during setup. There's no way. There's absolutely no way that can happen. Okay, come in at 09:00 in the morning. Do your tasting then before anyone else is there.
Bruce Wallner:I know there's this magic time between lunch There's and dinner service where everyone tries to fit this also not lunch service in most of the
Alex Abbott Boyd:restaurants I work with. Usually, they're opening five and I'm meeting at one or two. It's tough. I hear what you're saying. I also just don't know.
Alex Abbott Boyd:I'm biased. You work till ten, eleven, twelve, and then you're saying then show up at 9AM and take your importer meetings then.
Bruce Wallner:I think that would be a professional thing to I think it's a big mistake. Never did that even I can recall, I never did that even once working in Australia or working in England. You didn't have time for that. There's also an expectation where it's like, you don't know these wines? Why?
Bruce Wallner:Make sure you get to know these wines, and then come back to work.
Alex Abbott Boyd:But if all you're doing is working, when are you getting to learn the wines? Well,
Bruce Wallner:I just saw him with a great idea. He's a Quebecor actually working with me in in Birmingham. And when he went to the gym, that's he'd be on the treadmill and he'd have the thing in front of him, and that's where he'd study wine. You fit it in where you can fit it in. Also, the thing is, in the work environment, you're grabbing bottles, you're looking at labels, you're learning anyways.
Bruce Wallner:It's not that you're not learning. But to separate yourself out and have this session when everybody around you is working. The best thing I heard recently was one of these posts about the things I learned from my dad. And one of the things that really resonated with me is you're never sitting down when someone else is working. I think it was stated as, Oh, never be seated while another man is working.
Bruce Wallner:I was like, Yeah, that's you don't have me a lovely chitchat while people are working around you. It's terrible. It's also terrible for the spreadsheet. You can't pay someone to do that. That's craziness.
Bruce Wallner:I don't know. I realize I wish that our restaurant industry progressed in a different way. I used to have a restaurant, the wine bar, man, was so beautiful in some ways, and then also not viable at all. Was impossible. It didn't matter how busy we would be, which in the end it was during COVID, so we weren't.
Bruce Wallner:But I wish things changed with restaurants here. First off, I wish that all the crazy hoops you have to go through to operate, that's got to disappear. And then our approach is crazy. Don't have a bunch of people standing around. Have a couple of people.
Bruce Wallner:Everybody should reduce their staff by half, and then get going. I think there's so much downtime in restaurants, and it's a shame, but it makes Look, I like to pay a minimum of $25 That's my thing. If you're a fully functioning member of staff, then you should be paid $25 an hour, Which I don't even know if that's a living wage anymore, but at least it's closer than a minimum wage. If you're doing that, then you can't have a bunch of staff. Like, how would you pay them?
Bruce Wallner:So then the alternative is to pay your staff as little as possible and try to squeeze extra hours out of them. Don't. Just make sure that your systems are super clear so you're not wasting any man hours at all.
Alex Abbott Boyd:What are those government hurdles?
Bruce Wallner:Maybe we shouldn't go down this road because I carry a lot of anger about the COVID shutdowns as well. That whole thing was just such a disaster for me. All the things we had to do and seemingly isolated it as restaurateurs, are we the only people doing this? This is so crazy. Just think there's just a lot of boxes to check, And depending on who you're working with, depending on who your health inspector is, it's like, oh, this is great.
Bruce Wallner:Yeah. Okay. So he knows we run a clean thing. Everything's easy every time. Or it could be not great.
Bruce Wallner:If someone new comes in and they're like, Oh, okay, so here, take me through everything. I'm about to go into service, so this is inconvenient. But I just think for businesses in general, we do have a setup that, to me, looks like it's designed so that your first business always fails. That seems to be designed for us, because there's so many hidden charges. And you know what?
Bruce Wallner:I think our industry, if you take hospitality and wine and put it together, I think it's such a beautiful industry that's filled with making people happy all the time. I think it's really complementary to family life, which everyone says it's not, but I don't know. I can bring my kids to work. I often bring my kids to work. They can be there when I'm doing a wine tasting for a class.
Bruce Wallner:It's really family friendly, and it's really such a beautiful community to be part of. I wish we looked at it that way and understood what we have and how magic it can be, and everyone went that way. We should spend less time complaining about it.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Can a sommeliers in their thirties running a wine program bring their kids to work, though?
Bruce Wallner:No. No. Don't know. Depends on where you're working. No, but when I first had my kids, they would come to Tastings with me.
Bruce Wallner:My daughter did. I'm taking two kids, that's a different story.
Alex Abbott Boyd:When my three year old plays restaurant, she has options. She's like, Do you want the Albarino
Bruce Wallner:or the Lambrusco? The main one. Amazing.
Alex Abbott Boyd:To end on a lighter note, what are some of your personal favorite wine regions that you spend your own money on and you're drinking?
Bruce Wallner:I like lesser village bourgonies. For sure, I drink a fair bit of Chablis as well, but for red bourgony, I much prefer cheap villages or less expensive villages. Example Drink marsinade, or drink Savigny Lebonne. Drink whatever, maybe Savigny Lebonne is becoming fancy now, I don't know. But as those wines progress and those top wines get better, and I think more full bodied and more oaky, What I used to expect from Grand Cru, now I get from Premier Cru.
Bruce Wallner:And what I used to expect from Premier Cru, I get from Village. And what I used to get from Village, I get from second tier Village now. So, I enjoy cheaper red burgundy. I enjoy all white burgundy, Shepley included. Northern Rhone Syrah is a real favorite of mine.
Bruce Wallner:I drink a fair bit of champagne and a fair bit of Riesling, and I want to explore Niagara more. Lately, every time I go out there, I'm just blown away by what I try, and it just doesn't translate to when I'm just going to the LCBO and grabbing a wine, I open it up, and I'm like, that's not the same. And so, I bring wines back from Niagara, and they remain fantastic, but I guess they're these smaller producers.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Have a Niagara producer in the portfolio. He makes 90 cases of one and one hundred and fifty cases of the other. He's not making it to That's the tiny.
Bruce Wallner:That's probably pretty good.
Alex Abbott Boyd:Bruce, thank you so much for your Great
Bruce Wallner:pleasure. Thank you.