Sonoma sommelier honored

In the wine industry there are “cork dorks” (a hybrid of oenophile and know-it-all), cellar rats (those in the employ in the nether regions of a winery) and then there is Christopher Sawyer – otherwise known as the “Sommelier to the Stars” for his celebrity-studded client list and uncanny ability to pair wine with just about anything.
Next month, Sawyer is being honored as one of  “20 Stars of 09 – Saluting of the Talent of Napa and Sonoma at Luna Vineyards” in the sommelier category. The event is sponsored by The Tasting Panel Magazine, which will also celebrate 19 other wine country luminaries at an awards ceremony. Other Sonomans being honored include James Dick of the El Dorado Kitchen, Gary Saperstein of the girl and the fig, Ron Kantor of Della Santina and Enoteca Della Santina, and Windee Smith of the Valley Wine Shack.
“What we learn from wine education is more about our own personal palettes. I could smell this wine for an hour straight,” Sawyer said with a smile as he swirled a glass of red wine during a recent interview. “We have so many different types of grape varieties that grow here. There’s so much wine out there on the marketplace, and the great thing is that they all don’t taste the same.”
Meredith May, publisher and executive editor of The Tasting Panel Magazine, has long-admired Sawyer’s contributions to the industry at large.
“Chris has been a friend, and he also has been a contributing editor to the Tasting Panel Magazine for several years,” said May. “I’ve been on his radio show and he is a sommelier to the stars, but he’s also a friend to the industry, and as the publisher of an important industry trade magazine, we feel that he has taken giant steps in bringing the industry closer with his trade-tastings, his movie screenings, his unbelievable knowledge of wine. So we want to salute him.”
When not acquiring honors (he is also credited as the “world’s first film festival sommelier” for pairing wine and film for prior iterations of the Sonoma International Film Festival), Sawyer pens articles for local and national wine magazines. He is also a sommelier at Carneros Bistro and Wine Bar at the Lodge at Sonoma and a partner in Wine Radius, a wine education and online retail venture recently opened on First Street West and on the Web at WineRadius.com.
Sawyer’s current career trajectory was set when he sneaked his first bottle of wine as a teenager – a $400 bottle of Château Lynch-Bages, which he shared with a young Petaluma actress later known as Winona Ryder.
“I took it from her dad’s cellar,” Sawyer laughed. “We were watching ‘Name of the Rose,’ one of my favorite movies. We just needed something to drink so we snagged something.” He then added with characteristic deadpan, “I thought it tasted pretty good.”