Jake Kokemor pursues his wine stewardship with the zeal of the converted – although his career in the restaurant industry was hardly one he had envisioned. After a false start at college in Chicago, he came back to his hometown of New Orleans and landed a job at a Mexican restaurant, where he simply fell in love with the service industry.  Working at various restaurants while back in college to pursue a film degree, he could never get beyond the fact that he enjoyed the restaurant business more than his studies.  And then there was the wine.

During a stint as a waiter at another New Orleans restaurant, Jake would casually drink wine with his friends — primarily Merlots, Cabernets, and Zinfandels.  One night, as he and a buddy were sharing a few bottles, he suddenly realized that he could tell the difference between a Cabernet and a Zinfandel.  While this seems pretty elementary today, Jake knows that it was at that precise moment that he became smitten with wine.  From there, his curiosity grew and his knowledge burgeoned.  He came to cherish words of advice from a friend who recognized his growing affinity for the grape, “Just taste the wine…and don’t ever stop tasting.”  These words proved magical to the future sommelier and became the basis for his wine philosophy:  there are those who drink wine and those who taste wine and to truly understand and appreciate wine, you must TASTE it.

Over the next few years, Jake moved through the New Orleans restaurant industry as a waiter, finally landing at Ralph’s on the Park, where he was given the most intensive training possible — which included a fantastic education on wines.  The wine list at Ralph’s was rather strange and eclectic, but it proved to be a tremendous learning experience for Jake, who was fast becoming familiar with different grapes and varietals from around the world.

Jake joined Besh Steak as Assistant Sommelier a few months before Hurricane Katrina hit.  Not long thereafter, the sommelier left and Jake was told “the wine room and the wine list are yours.”  Before he could make any significant changes, the hurricane destroyed the wine room.  When he returned to New Orleans to help reopen the restaurant, there was a silver lining in the form of a very rare opportunity for the 28-year-old Sommelier: he was tasked with creating his dream-wine list completely from scratch.

While Jake has created quite an eclectic collection of wines from around the world (he is still in search of a Croatian Zinfandel, a Portuguese Red, a Hungarian Red, and a North African wine worthy of The Steakhouse cellar) — he has come to realize that while having interesting and expensive wines on the list is just fine, the key is in educating the customer.  He knows that he cannot put a quirky $60 bottle of wine on the list and expect it to sell itself.  As a result, he spends a lot of his time educating Steakhouse clientele and encouraging them to try something different.  In fact, Jake believes that one of his most important qualities as a Sommelier is the ability to make diners comfortable with what he suggests — even if it is something they have never tried before.

Jake notes that there are people who are perfectly comfortable in drinking the same type of wine time after time.  He tries to communicate the fact that winemaking is an art, and that vintners put so much time into crafting wine that those who consume it should not just drink it, but TASTE it. Only after truly tasting it and learning what the wine is all about, should it be judged good or bad.  And trying bad wine, he believes, is just as important as trying good wine, because it establishes a benchmark for likes and dislikes, and provides an even greater appreciation for a truly fine wine.

Currently, Kokemor’s goal is to make the wine list at Besh Steak the most fun and interesting list in the city.  Already, he has set himself apart by doing the unthinkable — because he feels a wine list should be as simple as possible, instead of dividing it by region, he lists his wines by type and puts them in order by “body.”  He even has a section for Cabernet Francs, a new addition of Red alternatives never before offered by the restaurant.  A Slovakian Riesling is his current favorite white on the extensive and varied list, and he is working to secure a “Champagne” from, of all places, Michigan, which he is told could be the best of its kind.

For a man who has developed such discriminating tastes in wine, he laughs when he realizes that when it comes to beer — which he prefers to drink on his day off — he usually goes with the cheapest beer around, one with zero flavor:  Coor’s Light.  Perhaps everyone’s taste buds need a day off now and then….