"I miss high fives!"
A sommelier misses the little interactions that make his work so meaningful and a lot of fun.
“My favorite place that I’ve ever enjoyed a glass of wine was on the side of Canal Saint-Martin in Paris.
I was super hungover that day, and for some reason I just felt like I needed a glass of champagne.
So I went out, bought a curry chicken sandwich on a baguette and had it with a glass of champagne before I went to get a tattoo.”
— Eric Moorer
Wine expert, travel junkie, DC transplant
Photo caption: That’s Eric on the left. He’s a great storyteller, a nice guy and a kick-ass sommelier.
Name: Eric Moorer
Hometown: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Current Residence: Washington, DC
Living Situation: House with wife and roommate
Age: 32
Occupation: Sommelier and Director of Sales & Customer Engagement at Domestique Wine
Photo caption: I’ve spent some time cooking.
Before we dive into some meaty questions, let’s do a rapid fire wine-focused Q&A:
Last three places you visited before the pandemic hit?
We went to the Loire Valley in France for work in January. I went to Pittsburgh to visit family, and before that I went to Denver, which was my last proper vacation.
What are the next three places you want to go when air travel is safe again?
The first place I want to go is Berlin. It’s one of my favorite cities, but there’s also this schnitzel place called Scheers Schnitzel that I’ve been craving since lockdown started. I want to eat a double schnitzel and drink a big Pilsner and then go and lay in the sun somewhere. Following that I would go to Wilmington, North Carolina, which is where I went to college. I have a lot of friends there, and it’s a place I can really relax. Third, I want to go to Portland. I’ve kind of neglected traveling in the US outside of the East Coast, and there's a lot of things in Oregon specifically wine related that I would like to see and people I would like to visit with.
Favorite wine region?
The Loire Valley without question. My favorite grape is Chenin Blanc, and I just love everything about it: all the liveliness, all the fun, all the weird and beautiful that comes out of the wines in the Loire Valley.
Wine region you’ve never visited but is on your list?
Napa Valley. The fact that I haven’t been there is a little embarrassing, but it's a very misunderstood place. I think that people expect only one or two things, but there's so much diversity there in terms of what people are actually doing that I'd like to see it myself.
When you close your eyes and picture a happy place for yourself, where is it and what does it look like?
I mean, there's something about being on a really beautiful deck somewhere in front of a lake where the lake has the fog rising off of it and you can just kind of relax and have a cup of coffee. And just look out into kind of everything and nothing at once. There's this one specific image that pops in my head and I think it's from the Francis Mallmann episode of Chef's Table where he's in Patagonia. I just want to be there, that seems like a nice place to get away from everything but at the same time really reconnect yourself with nature.
Best hangover cure?
Sleep. Ok, actually it involves Riptide Rush Gatorade, a banana, avocado, and blueberry smoothie, and Mountain Spring sparkling water.
Photo caption: Evening bike rides are a great way to feel like you’ve gotten away.
When we talked about doing an interview together you said you wanted to talk about travel. Why is that?
It's amazing to me how you could feel like almost a part of yourself is missing when you aren't doing something that you love, something that you truly deeply enjoy. Living through this entire thing it's been very interesting to see how I personally reacted to not being able to go places, to explore places, to immerse myself in different cultures.
A big part of what I do in wine is directly related to people; getting to understand the cuisine, the different kinds of customs, what goes on in places where these wines that I'm consuming are coming from. I think that outside of wine being a product, it's really a labor of love of many people along the way and getting to understand where that's coming from and where that passion comes from kind of drives my desire and my need for travel.
In pre-COVID days you were always searching for cheap flights to...anywhere. I’m sorry that’s been taken from you. What does it feel like?
It’s the worst! It feels like I’ve had a limb taken from me or something like that. I know that sounds dramatic, but I really do love getting out there, and I love seeing different things. I like being uncomfortable. I like getting lost. I like not understanding other languages and working to communicate with other people.
Yeah, everything just feels a little restrictive right now. Everything feels a little off right now. Everything's not really centered in my world, I suppose.
I feel like I've lived a fairly comfortable life, I've never felt like my home life was ever unbalanced or super insecure. So to sort of seek out that little bit of controlled chaos, if you will, was always very appealing to me.
Have you found any way to replace some of that joy that’s been lost?
I have one very specific example.
I got home late one night after teaching a class, and I really wanted to be somewhere else. I grabbed the Talenti salted caramel gelato, sat in front of my TV at like 12:30 AM, just got ridiculously stoned, and watched like two hours of Rick Steves. That was my whole night, and I was like “I’m definitely somewhere else now!”.
I read an interview with you in the Pittsburgh City Paperwhere you described a pretty kick ass wine and travel experience.
[In 2017], Moorer got married, and he and his wife’s Airbnb in Paris sat above L’Ivress Sentier, a wine bar in the 2nd Arrondissement where they often closed a night with a glass of wine and a chat with co-owner Loris Limousin. Each helped the other with language skills, and Moorer and Limousin decided to work together someday. Six months later, Moorer took a leave from The Whale with the chef’s blessing and went to consult on the Parisian bar’s wine list.
That sounds dreamy in general, but now that we’re living in a pandemic, I’m even more green with envy! Tell us what that was like.
That was a really awesome situation where my wife and I eloped. We literally dropped our marriage license in the mail and then went to France.
We wound up staying on a street called Rue de Baguette in this fifth floor walk up with this super unassuming wine bar that had just opened downstairs. I think it was a Wednesday that we walked in and we were the only two people there and wound up talking to Loris, one of the owners, and Olivier, one of his partners. And we just all enjoyed a lot of the same things. They gave us tips for things to do in Lyon, and it was just nice to get to know somebody who does a bit of what I do in a completely different place.
A really nice friendship struck up there, we kind of kept in contact over the next six or seven months. Loris was looking for some outside advice on what they could do for non-French wines within their wine bar, and so I was put on like a recon mission going around to different wine bars and seeing how they were presenting non-French wine in a way that didn't seem like it was a tourist trap, in a way that seemed authentic.
That was a really awesome experience and it allowed me to see a different side of wine —working in restaurants is one thing, but to look at it from a retail and hospitality side gave me a little bit more of a broad viewpoint.
I know you wanted to talk about travel, but I gotta ask about “staying put”. You moved to DC a few years ago from Pittsburgh. You chose this city as your next home. Now that you’re here all the time, what are your thoughts on the place?
I don't think the novelty has worn off for me yet. I feel like there's like a real bedding-in period with DC. I feel like I live here now, as opposed to maybe this time last year where I was still getting used to it.
DC presents me with so many options because it's a microcosm of what the United States really is. It has pretty much everything you could want from a cultural standpoint: there's world class dining, there's activities, there's beautiful parks, there's museums, there's not a real reason to be bored here. I feel like that's something that I've definitely really enjoyed about living here, that there's so much still for me to explore.
I dropped by Domestique the other day to pick up my monthly wine club allotment, and the owner said:
“We didn’t get into this business to be warehouse workers, but here we are.”
He said that appointment-only shopping has helped reconnect staff and customers, but of course, it’s no replacement for the way things once were. What are your thoughts on all that?
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that. I mean, with wine there's always some elements of warehouse work. You're always moving boxes, but the reward for that was always the front-facing things that we get to do, whether it's tastings or just helping somebody from the shop. That in and of itself made every day unique because you would come in contact with so many different people who were in different stages of their wine journey.
There's also this problem-solving aspect of dealing with customers within the shop where you have to find somebody something that they're looking for, or you find something that's close to it, or you're introducing someone to something entirely new. There's something about seeing somebody's face when they're very excited about something that you can't replace on a phone call or in an email. I really missed that. I miss high fives! I miss when somebody is really excited about a bottle that I'm really excited about, there's just like the spontaneous moment of eye contact and the high-five that immediately follows that.
Recently, somebody bought one of our curated six-packs for a friend who'd had a bad day. Their friend had been yelled at on their job, missed a deadline, and there was just kind of a snowball effect. I got to know a lot about somebody who I'd never met before and their really rotten, terrible, no-good, very bad day. Picking out wine for that person was so much easier because this was like a grade three shitty day, and here's what I think you need: you need something bright and fun, you need something a little brooding, you need something that's gonna make you question a lot of things. It felt very personal to create that six-pack because I've been there, and here's what I would drink if I were you. The person even asked to leave a note, so I just left a note that I was like, “Hey, I've been there, here's what I picked out, here's why I picked it, hope this works out for you.”
Domestique just started a fellowship to help address the lack of diversity in the wine world. You’re offering a stipend, covering housing costs, and giving this person experience both in the store, but also at several restaurants across DC. Can you talk about why you started it and why it’s named what it is?
We’ve had this fellowship idea for a while, but my coworker, Rebekah, and I had a big part of getting it up and running. I mean, this is who we are. Rebekah and I run Domestique, it’s a Black guy and a Brown girl, and we are working to make wine more inclusive for people because that’s the way it should be. The Major Taylor Fellowship just seemed to further what we already wanted to do, which is to give a voice to people who may have been overlooked or maybe aren't given enough opportunity.
Domestique’s name is based around cycling because a domestique on a cycling team is someone who puts in the hardest work for their teammates who win races. At Domestique, we’re just the people who are helping the producers get their wine to consumers, so naming the fellowship after Major Taylor, a former incredible black, professional cyclist, was a super logical connection.
Photo caption: My dog is the best. She’s been my favorite part of staying home.
What do you want to take to the other side of this?
I really want to sit in deep appreciation for all of the things that we were able to do in normal life. You know, going up to Big Bear or whatever coffee shop it is, and ordering iced coffee face-to-face with somebody, as opposed to ordering online and picking it up. Really appreciating little tiny details that I’ve really been missing throughout this entire thing.