In Los Angeles, Spago sets the bar—still. In a city of ceaseless movement, where a shifting landscape is the norm (and where plenty of earthquakes drive the point home), such bastions of constancy are small miracles. For Wolfgang Puck—a celebrity chef since the ‘80s, before that term was even a thing—Spago Beverly Hills is more than his flagship, it’s the beating heart of his enterprise. And yet to call Spago an institution is to miss how dynamic it is, how in the 40-plus years it’s been open, even as it maintains California (and Austrian) classics like poached halibut, Liberty duck breast, and, of course, wiener schnitzel, it still manages to be not just contemporary, but innovative. 

Spago’s wine program reflects a similar timelessness. Though the program has served as the proving ground for many top somms, including Michael Bonaccorsi, Phillip Dunn, Cristie Norman, as well as Kevin O’Connor and Chris Miller, it has expanded more in the last 15 years than it had in the previous 25, and is one of the largest and most important wine programs in California. Enter Matt Dulle, who’s been helming the program for about a year, after stints in two extraordinary dining rooms in Northern California: the two Michelin-starred Lazy Bear in San Francisco, and the three Michelin-starred SingleThread in Healdsburg.

It is not easy to make your mark on such a massive, venerable list, which now encompasses more than 2,500 selections, but Dulle is doing just that. He shared with us four often overlooked selections that are not to be missed.

IWA 5 Assemblage 4 Sake ($355/bottle, $45/half glass)

I love using sake in my programs, but I prefer using it in untraditional ways. We use a white wine glass in our pours, which they also do in Japan sake breweries. I love the tradition of the basket and clay cups, but you need aromatics to get a full picture. 

As for pairings, if I have one rule with sake it is “never with raw fish.” The last time I used it was with what we call “breakfast gnocchi,” with guanciale and egg yolk dumplings. It’s very rich, but the sake can handle all that richness. It can be unctuous too—it sits on the palate in a different way than wine does.

This sake is a collaboration of sake master Ryuichiro Masuda with Richard Geoffroy, who was, until 2018, the chef de cave at Dom Pérignon. So: rock star sake maker meets rock star Champagne producer. It’s like a royal marriage. Geoffroy approaches his sake like Champagne; by this I mean that the blending is extremely important. He uses three different rice varieties and five different yeasts in his assemblage. Unlike most other sakes, this one continues to develop with air—you can keep this open for five days and it will evolve, the flavors will build on one another. Sake’s not known for its length, but this one has it.

2015 Lucien Crochet “Vendange du 7 Octobre” VdF ($175)

This wine is an outlier, produced only in years when the weather is optimal for a late harvest, but without any noble rot. I love that the name of the wine is the date it's picked.  All the [Sauvignon Blanc] grapes are golden, and there’s exceptional ripeness, but it’s dry—it doesn't have the sugar or the weight of a botrytised wine—golden and rich, without sugar. So you can use it in the middle of a tasting menu, where it really stands out.

You know that documentary about Wilco, I am Trying to Break your Heart? There's a moment in the film where it’s like 2:00 a.m. and the band is arguing some little point about a song, some nuance; finally Jay Bennett jumps in and says, “Look, if you love the overall song, you're going to fall in love with the shit that's fucked up about it.” That's kind of how I approach pairing; now I just want to nail the basics, how the wine matches up to the body and structure, how the acidity works; then you kind of let the rest happen.

1989 Ravenswood Dickerson Vineyard Napa Valley Zinfandel ($225)

Before I moved to California [from St. Louis, Missouri] I was in Sonoma at the Sonoma County Barrel Auction. I was auctioned off as a sommelier for hire, and the person who won my services was Joel Peterson of Ravenswood. I’d been studying wine for a while and I remember thinking, “Oh great, the grocery store wine guy.” Sure enough, at the table he’s in this big cowboy hat and white snakeskin boots. 

So I start opening up Zins from the early ‘80s, and start smelling them in the glass—my first real experience with older Zinfandels. Oh my God. I’ve never been so happy to eat my words. It remains one of the most powerful sense memory experiences of my lifetime. To this day, every time I taste one of those wines, the hairs on my arm and neck stand up. I told myself I want to build a wine program around that feeling. 

That’s what I did at Lazy Bear, which has a huge selection of old Zinfandel. I think we have the largest collection of Ridge in California, not counting the winery. And I’ve definitely beefed up Spago’s old Zin collection.

I could put any one of those [old Zins] up in this slot, but I’ll settle for the 1989 Ravenswood Dickerson Vineyard. These vines were planted in 1930, one of the last Zinfandel vineyards on Zinfandel Lane. There’s a big eucalyptus tree in one corner of the vineyard, so this wine is kind of known as the Martha's Vineyard of Zinfandel, with these haunting herbal tones. And, oddly enough, the same Dr. Dickerson first owned Martha's Vineyard.

2020 Kracher Grand Cuvée Nummer 4 Trockenbeerenauslese ($65/glass, served from a 6L bottle)

I had to conclude with an Austrian dessert wine, and it had to be Kracher. In my opinion, Alois Kracher was the greatest sweet-winemaker that ever walked the planet. I think that every Austrian winemaker since strives to do what he’s done. On top of that, he and Wolfgang were great friends. [Kracher died in 2007, at age 48; this past summer, Puck flew over to Austria to preside over a vintage celebration at the estate.] Chef Wolfgang and I connected on these, for sure. I've been an Austrian nut for years. I worked in Chicago for Vin Divino, an import company which was co-owned by Kracher. 

We try to pour his wines whenever we can. We just got these Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese in large format—there's nothing sexier than pouring a big fat bottle of Kracher.

In this wine, like a lot of the Kracher TBAs, the sweetness never goes beyond where it should be. The acidity doesn’t just balance out the sweetness—it actually contributes freshness, without the weight of most TBAs. I work closely with my pastry chef, and almost every time we do a pairing with a Kracher wine, more often than not she has to use tart fruit, or take sugar out of the dish. The wines are so bright that they need a dessert that is more vibrant than sweet.