HAVEN

I am pretty sure It was the 90s when I asked Bern if I could bring Angelo Gaya to the restaurant. The Piedmont maverick was on a marketing campaign in Florida and I was repping him for an importer in Miami.  Bern said “of course .  What he is doing for Italian wine…”.  When Angelo arrived, he looked around the interior of the restaurant which at that time the less enlightened had described resembling a bordello. As Bern walked up to introduce himself, Angelo exclaimed, “I am amazed by the genius of this man!” Two visionaries, one dressed in a tee shirt and shorts, the other in which could have been Armani, hit it off immediately.  Today we know the Laxer Family not only for Berns, but The Epicurean and Haven, the legacy, anchor, and future of Tampa’s enological heritage.

The other night I tasted through Haven’s uniquely dynamic wine by the glass program incisively curated by the wine director Chris Belk. All wines excelled in capturing their genre and geography, and there are two I want to emphasize.

I worked Burgundy for three years and the 2021 Domaine Sophie Cinier ”Les Clos” Bourgogne, (a vineyard in Macon with a tiny 0.2 hectares devoted to pinot noir) reassured me that the French progenitors of this varietal still rule. After aerating, the wine transformed and transcended the grape, yielding a mature yet vigorous wine, beautiful sylvan aromatics, satiny body, and a classic soulful Burgundian finish. Would easily compliment many of Haven’s dishes.

I ordered the 25 year old corovined 2013 Chateau Lassegue St. Emilion Grand Cru nervous about its age. Shame on me for doubting Ms. Belk’s acumen. Aged Bordeaux is its manifest destiny, an appreciation presently absent from the wine literature, presently being revitalized at Haven. My tasting notes are an embarrassment of rambling cliches best left unwritten. In summary, this is a special wine tasting experience, a rare wine tasting experience, the Lassegue capturing a sense of place, a point in time, a glass brimming with pride, sanity and hope.  Ok. One note. Maybe don’t try to pair with food. Let it exhale over a period of an hour. The transformations are dramatic, and peaks with a wine profound in all that is Bordelais. But then, it slowly retreats as to say,” you’ve seen enough for now, naughty boy,” and says goodnight.