Featured User: Ely Cohn

Ely Cohn is 33 years old and lives in Austin, TX. He has been writing about wine since mid 2017 because 1) It's the best way to learn, and 2) It's a little keepsake once a wine is finished and gone forever. He believes Delectable has been a great outlet for those write-ups. His favorite foods are perfectly crispy skin roasted chicken and pizza (not at the same time). His favorite wines are anything and everything that is well balanced and doesn't contain too much oak influence. Delectable: What sparked your passion for wine? Ely Cohn: I’ve always had an obsessive personality, and I find things that I am interested in and tend to go down the rabbit hole until there’s a stopping point. There’s not a stopping point with wine. It started when I was living in Los Angeles back in 2007, and that’s when I started drinking and thinking at the same time. I was living near a wine shop in Los Angeles called Wally’s and being close to all the vineyards there and being part of that California cuisine and wine scene is what sparked it. It became this thing where the more you know, the more you don’t know. I haven’t stopped since, and that was over a decade ago. D: What wine region are you wild about right now? EC: Everything. I’m loving the Mosel . I love Riesling . I think Riesling is one of the most undervalued wines that exists in the $15-$20 range, especially the off-dry Rieslings – the Kabinetts . To get that level of complexity in Chardonnay, you have to spend $30-$60. I’ve consistently loved the Loire . I think that the Loire is one of the most unbelievable wine regions that still has a down-to-earthness which doesn’t exist universally. It’s also one of the regions that I was able to visit and had the the chance to meet with great producers out there like Nicolas Joly, Bernard Baudry and Huet. The Loire produces such a vast variety of wines from classic styles to some of the coolest natural wines. I also love the new wave of California winemakers. I’m talking about the guys who are producing what you might think of as natural wine, but aren’t necessarily the most funky, avant-garde examples. They are just really well-made wines that are in balance. Pax Mahle, Michael Cruse, Bedrock, Hardy Wallace from Dirty and Rowdy, and Arnot-Roberts are part of this incredible California sweet spot for me. D: What is the most unusual wine you’ve ever tried? EC: The most unusual wine that I’ve ever tried is also my favorite wine of 2018. This was a wine by the legendary winemaker Paolo Bea from Umbria. He makes a very heavily skin contacted wine that he calls Arboreus from Trebbiano, and it’s really interesting, starting with the gorgeous color. It has a burnt orange color that looks like fall leaves in a glass. It’s a skin contact wine, but it is so well-done because sometimes those wines can be really flawed. It has dessert notes of vanilla, bourbon and crème brulee, and a lot of tannic structure as well. But it is not sweet at all. It’s just extremely well-done. When I went to Loire, I got to meet Nicolas Joly and hangout with him for an afternoon, which was incredible. He makes a wine called Coulee de Serrant. His wines are so unique. They are biodynamic. They come from vineyards that you would think are the ugliest vineyards you’ve ever seen because there are no chemicals, pesticides or anything like that, so the grapes don’t look gorgeous and the leaves don’t look green and lush like they would in other vineyards. He makes a Chenin Blanc that will in some years reach alcohol levels of 17%, which is way higher than I usually like. About his Coulee de Serrant, he says that it is a wine that you should open and drink it at room temperature. Leave it open over the course of a week and drink it slowly to notice the changes. I opened one bottle while I was there in Loire and brought a couple back with me as well, and I think it is one of the most interesting and spectacular wines that you’ll ever try. D: What is your golden rule for wine? EC: We are looking for wines that we think are beautiful, but the one constant is that they always have to be in balance. If they’re not in balance, then to me it is not a beautiful wine. So my golden rule is that wine is about nothing more than the never-ending search for beauty in balance. D: Say you’re not allowed to have wine, what is your second option? EC: That’s easy. I am a regular drinker of Grappa , which is interesting because Grappa has the worst reputation. Every single night, I drink a little bit of Grappa that I keep in my freezer. If you drink it at room temperature, it’s absolutely miserable. I drink Grappa and I eat chocolate every night. That is my nightcap, and I love it. D: Choose a movie, book, quote, or song and pair it with a wine EC: Champagne with The Godfather because they’re both classic, timeless and will never go out of fashion. D: If you were a wine, what wine would you be? EC: I’m going to say Thierry Germain Les Roches specifically for the label. I love the label because the label sums up my love of wine. It’s a cartoon drawing of a person and it looks like you can see the person’s brain on the inside of his/her skull, but the brain is made up of grapevines. To me it's saying that we should always have our brains turned on when drinking wine. You can drink wine forever and never learn anymore about it, but if you have your brain turned on, if you're thinking, then the benefits and what you’ll get back is endless. I love that wine, and it is a perfect example of a wine that you can drink and enjoy and nothing more than that, or you can really dissect it and think about it and uncover layers upon layers.