Rosé Champagne Master Class

A year in the making, Pappas Bros. Steakhouse’s three Master Sommeliers—Barbara Werley, Jack Mason and Steven McDonald—are hosting a Rosé Master Class for the ages, featuring highly allocated, extremely limited Champagne from top producers.

“The opportunity for us to open and taste all of these wines—in some cases, multiple decades and formats—is extremely rare,” said Jack. “I don’t know many other places in the country where this could be possible.”

Why? Barb, Jack and Steven are three of only 269 wine professionals worldwide to earn a Master Sommelier certification. This means their access, connections and knowledge is broad and deep, and it still took them a year to gather the wines for this event. As Steven says, “It took some fancy footwork to get all the vintages here.”

The producers are the most well known in the business—Dom Perignon, Krug, Louis Roederer "Cristal,” and the most rare, Paul Bara, which they sourced directly from the winery in France. For a long time, Paul Bara was the only Champagne house to make a rosé special club wine. It’s limited, and the small supply is usually purchased quickly by people who know the value—so it’s a wine rarely seen on shelves or menus. And the Pappas team was able to secure four vintages of their special club rosé for this event.

The format of a Master Class is slightly different from Pappas Bros.’ walk-around wine tastings. The Master Class begins with passed hors d'oeuvres paired with a large format rosé Champagne, paired by a seated tasting with classroom-style seating. Food is paired with the wines—not a full dinner, but very heavy hors d'oeuvres.

This is the first Pappas Bros. Steakhouse wine event with all three Master Sommeliers in attendance. Each is highly educated—and opinionated—and guests can expect to hear about their unique experiences and touchpoints with each wine.