David Denton and some wine.
“Wine is like travel in a bottle,” explained David Denton, sommelier at Charlie Palmer Steak, as we sat down for a glass of Russian River Chardonnay. “For the cost of a bottle of wine, you can escape to somewhere exotic. You can get lost in the label, thinking about where the wine came from and who made it.”
Like many oenophiles, Denton developed his passion for wine once he recognized its relationship with food. On a trip to a Melting Pot restaurant in Florida when he was 20, Denton and his friends decided to order some wine. “We weren’t yet 21, but we decided to order something cheap and white – and the waitress served us,” he recalled. While fondue and “something cheap and white” isn’t a classic pairing, Denton remembers being completely engrossed by the wine’s relationship with the food.
“The wine made the food come alive, and the food made the flavors of the wine really come out,” he explained. Fast forward several years – during which time Denton worked in the restaurant industry, but always in the kitchen – and Denton decided to make wine his full-time job.
About five years ago, shortly after Denton and his wife Maria had moved from Florida to DC (she’s the general manager of Ruth’s Chris in Dupont Circle), a position opened at Charlie Palmer Steak. So he decided to take the job.
Charlie Palmer’s, of course, is a favorite of many DC wine drinkers. Every night of the week, the restaurant offers free corkage on American wine, and on Fridays, all corkage fees are waved – even if you’re drinking something that isn’t patriotic.
Palmer himself lives in the heart of Sonoma’s wine country, so it’s not surprising that he’s passionate about wine. And when he opened the DC restaurant, according to Denton, he wanted to make it an American restaurant – so insisted on an all-American wine list. It was, after all, just a stone’s throw away from the Capitol. And a good percentage of the restaurant’s clientele – whether lobbyists or lawmakers – would be there because of its proximity to that building.
At the restaurant, wine director Nadine Brown has assembled a list that features bottlings from all 50 states. Some of those wines, of course, were difficult to track down. According to Denton, acquiring wine from one state proved so difficult that they actually needed a Senator to hand-deliver a few cases!
In addition to his work at Charlie Palmer, David is one of the nation’s leading wine educators. He’s certified at the advanced level with the Court of Master Sommeliers, and pursuing his Master of Wine designation (there are just 117 Master Sommeliers in the world). He’s one of just 240 certified wine educators with the American Society of Wine Educators, and he’s the only American faculty member of the Wine Academy of Spain.
Wine education has taken Denton across the world (when we met, he was preparing for a trip to Bordeaux), and because of his position at Charlie Palmer, he has become known as the “sommelier to senators.” Denton has served a host of lawmakers – from President Obama (back when he was a Senator) to Hillary Clinton (he drink is a vodka martini – not wine).
In many ways, Charlie Palmer becomes a neighborhood restaurant on the weekends. As Sharee Lawler recently explained, “the weekend crowd is definitely more casual than the weekday lunch regulars.” And the staff is fantastic – unpretentious, competent, and friendly. Be sure to bring your own wine – especially if you know a bit about it or have visited the winery. If things are quiet, there’s a good chance Denton or Nadine Brown will stop by your table to talk to you about it.
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