Is André Hueston Mack more known for his fun, approachable Mouton Noir wines from Oregon or his cheeky T-shirts? You could make the argument either way, but let’s start with the T-shirts.
These shirts are like catnip for aging hipsters — guys who misspent their youth at crossover thrash and rap concerts and are now in their early 40s raising kids, and spending more money than their wives realize on those cases of wine piling up in the basement.
Risking copyright infringement every time he comes up with a new T-shirt, Mack riffs on the Suicidal Tendencies logo as “Vinocidal Tendencies,” while Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s gothic lettering gets re-rendered as “Beaune Thugs-n-Burgundy.” One of his most famous T-shirts (one that has occasioned a lawsuit or two) shows a sketch of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti owner Aubert de Villaine over those unmistakable block letters, reading “RUN DRC.”
If you get all these references, you're probably wondering how you can get your hands on one of these shirts STAT. Hint: go to www.moutonnoirwines.com.
Mack ships the T-shirts all over the world. The wines are available on a few wine lists and in some retail shops, including pH Wine Merchant in Peachtree Hills. The pH guys brought Mack to Atlanta for a dinner at Local Three and meet-and-greet with potential buyers last week.
“I’m always excited that people show up to listen to my [expletive],” he said to the assembled wine buyers, who understood right away they weren’t going to hear a dry disquisition on growing conditions and barrel fermentation.
Mack said he was working as a waiter in San Antonio when he “caught the wine bug.” He soon entered a national competition for young sommeliers awarded by the Chaine de Rotisseurs, and walked off with the title of Best Young Sommelier in America. That was enough of a calling card for to land a job on the sommelier team the French Laundry, the famed Napa Valley restaurant. Chef Thomas Keller selected him to be head sommelier at Per Se in New York, where he managed the cellar and consulted with the chef daily on menu pairings. While in New York, other top sommeliers began referring to him as the “mouton noir” or “black sheep” of the club. “There wasn’t anyone else who looked like me,” he joked.
But after years of pairing recherche wines with exorbitantly expensive food, he began to think about how he could “fall back in love with wine.” The only way, he figured, would be as a winemaker.
Mack makes his wines in the Willamette Valley of Oregon but lives with his wife (Phoebe Damrosch — the former Per Se waitress who wrote a bestselling tell-all service memoir called “Service Included”) — and their two kids in Brooklyn. He travels a full 180 days a year, pouring bottles of his friendly juice and charming crowds.
His entry-level wines are, to my taste and wallet, the most interesting. Knock on Wood is a lovely unoaked chardonnay, with more melon than apple on the nose, and a lean, mineral-driven flavor that seems unusual in American chardonnay. Like other Oregon winemakers, he uses a Dijon clone rather than the Wente clone more popular in California. He says this clone works far better in Oregon’s cool climate.
O.P.P. is his entry level pinot noir. The name stands for “other people’s pinot,” since he buys and blends to the grapes for his house style — brawny and briary with plenty of earth and spice. There’s a little grapey spritz on the finish, suggesting a bit of malolactic fermentation (whole-berry fermentation). It is flat-out delicious, the kind of screw-cap wine that you can’t wait to break out when someone stops by. The kind of wine you’re happy to drink from a juice glass. Both these wines retail for about $20.
Mack also makes upmarket chardonnay and pinot noir, under the “Oregogne” label, a play on Bourgogne. Both wines are indeed Burgundian in style, and if you’ve got $45 and want to try a wine that is as finessed as it is fun, you may need to get a bottle or two.
And if you do, invite me over. I’ll wear my Run DRC T-shirt.
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