By Crissy Pascual

What makes you Steve the Wine Guy?

In my family, we are all cooks. My joke is: In order to be born into the family, you have to cook a meal and if it don’t work out – back to the womb!

When I was 10, my mom poured me some wine and she said, "You hold it this way." She taught me how to hold it and she wanted me to drink it and then try the food. It was some kind of beef roast. So I tried it and I don’t know why she had a feeling that there would be something there for me but I could tell how it played off the food in a way. I did like it but I wanted my milkshake back. 

All it takes to become an aficionado is to recognize that you like wine. It’s a personal thing. It’s like art or music. Once you like it, you’re off and running and the world of wine opens up to you. 

I was in my 30s when I ran into a perfect pairing. It was the confluence of both substances, the wine and the food and how they go together. And that’s really what got me started.

I’d see my cousin, Bennie, at family get-togethers and he goes, "You’re into wine? Yeah, me too." So we would trade bottles. And about 16 years ago, he called me and wanted to see if I would help him out with his wine. (Bennie Tiapon, current owner of the Grocery Outlet in downtown Petaluma, was managing a Grocery Outlet in Oakland.)

I think my mother probably phoned him up and said, “Hey, give your cousin a real job!”

Bennie’s brilliant with groceries and I asked him, “How’s this work?” and he goes, "Just schmooze with the customers,” and walked off. So I kind of figured it out on my own. And since I was sort of a writer anyway, I started with a few comments about the wine and it’s become a part of what I do now, my little write-ups. 

What’s your criteria for recommending wines? Is a $100 bottle really better than a $10 one?

Not necessarily. Maybe they just have the money for marketing. It depends upon who they’re marketing to. And some wines have gotten a kind of reputation. 

I always tell people, what makes a good bottle of wine is if you like it. Wine, to me, is what I call Mother Nature’s ultimate roll of the dice. That, coupled with farming skills and craftsmanship. Like with Two Buck Chuck, they always taste the same. But that’s what they’re going for. 

But if you like a $100 bottle of wine and it meets all your criteria, sure, buy it. When you love it, it’s going to have a balance of all the elements you like in a wine – the complexity, the tannins, the astringent. Nobody can argue with you about the things you taste because it’s your mouth. 

The way you enjoy anything in life is it's up to you. The excellence in artistry is all subjective. We will all argue tooth and nail about what was a horrible (or great) movie. Well, we're both right. And it's sort of the same thing with wine. It's not worth it if you have no real opinion. You need to have an opinion.

There’s a difference between the bottle that you like and the one you can’t leave alone. 

What’s your personal favorite food and wine pairing? And if you were a bottle of wine what would you be?

A sparkling wine from Champagne. A great brut sparkling wine will go with any food. I also love a great pinot. Beef and pinot. 

I’d be a bottle of pinot noir. A French one. Medium-bodied with plenty of earthiness. I’m going to be complex. And my label would have a classic look to it. I don’t want anything flashy and gimmicky. And I’d have a cork, a good quality one. I’m gonna spend money on the cork. And a substantial quality heavy glass bottle.  

How should I drink a glass of wine? 

You start off looking at it. Sometimes they aren't great looking. They can even be cloudy. That's not a flaw. It's just the nature of that fruit.

Swirl it because when you swirl it, it opens up the air, especially with reds and it’s maybe even gonna change the look of it. I mean, if you pulled me out of a bottle, people would be going, "What is that? It’s all gray and shriveled up. Oh, it’s a human being." The air changes everything. It will change over time so take your time with these things. 

Don’t just pour some and down it like you’re thirsty for water. You’re gonna miss what it is. But when you take the time, you smell it and then roll it around. 

I definitely smell it. I love it when I smell secondary elements coupled with fruit. Things that are not associated with fruit like leather or fresh cut hay. I love it when I almost smell someone’s wine cellar and there’s a dustiness to it. That’s all part of the experience. And when you finally drink it, just breathe it in. 

I want many things, I don’t want one note wine, one flavor. I want a symphony of notes. And you want a clean finish. 

What is something that most people don’t know about you?

I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t playing something. My parents were always giving me instruments. At one point, I’m like four or something and they go, "Choose whatever you want.” And I said, “Drums!” 

They brought home a piano. 

I took lessons for ten to twelve years. The British invasion was huge, not just musically but sociologically – the fashion and guys growing their hair longer. When I was in junior high school, there were bands everywhere, which was cool. You didn’t have gangs, you had bands. The only thing worse than being dumped by your girlfriend is your band breaking up.

My cousin (Max) had a band (Canterbury) and I was hanging with them. The first time I performed, we were playing in Tiburon and the lead singer wasn’t there so my cousin goes, “Grab the mic and sing.” (“Hit the Road Jack.”)

So my cousin said if you want to be in the band, go buy an organ. I was 19 when I bought a Hammond organ. 

Then I joined a group called Rise and Shine and that was all original music. What kept me interested in music was arranging, writing music, and putting together my own melodies and experimenting with lyric writing. 

I did a lot of session work. The one thing that you learned if you had enough skills is that you’d never starve because you’d get a gig down the street or at a bar. I had an agent. 

Now I’m all about the doggies. I mean, I grew up with dogs and kitties too. My family showed dogs – English bull dogs. 

But my breed are the bully breeds, pit bulls. I don’t know any dog that came out of the womb vicious. It’s been 33 years and I’ve had five. I say they rescue me. 

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Crissy Pascual is a photojournalist and co-founder of Petaluma Voice. She can be reached at photos@petalumavoice.org.