Houston Restaurant King Charles Clark Tells All On Wines, Making It Less Intimidating For Young People and the Bottles Never Opened

I love talking about wine with people who share my passion for it. We open bottles, we trade stories about travel and soil types, terroir and residual sugar, and we talk of taste and food and restaurants. We recommend wines to one another, we drink, and we learn a lot.

In Wine Talk, I introduce you to friends, acquaintances, and people I encounter as I make my way around the world, from Houston to Mexico City, Los Angeles to Burgundy, and other locales far and near, individuals who love and respect wine as much as I do, who live to taste, who farm and make wine. Whether my subject is a collector, a winemaker, a chef, a sommelier, a buyer, a grower, or simply an enthusiastic drinker of wine, you’ll appreciate their insight, and I hope you’ll learn something from them as well. 

If you are an avid drinker of wine in Houston, the name Charles Clark is probably very familiar to you. He’s owned and operated a number of restaurants in the city for decades, and his personality and cooking are bright, vibrant, challenging and dynamic. Ibiza Food & Wine Bar, Coppa Osteria, Punk’s Simple Southern Food and my favorite Brasserie 19

Most enthusiastic Houston foodies have sat down for a glass or bottle and a meal at one of his restaurants, if not all of them.

Clark and his then business partner Grant Cooper opened Ibiza Food & Wine Bar in Midtown in 2001. Though Ibiza closed in 2020, its legacy lives on. A great selection of wines at even greater prices, honest and well-cooked food and a neighborhood-changing restaurant, Ibiza was all of those things, and more.

That is still the epitome of Charles Clark’s style — elegant and confident, fun loving and serious. One can dine and drink well at his restaurants, without spending a fortune.

Brasserie 19 is the Clark property in which I have spent the most time. I always like to take a seat at the bar, on the side affording a view of the main entrance to be exact, and a corner table near the front of the dining room is one of my favorite spots in Houston. The French fries at the West Gray eatery are excellent, as are the escargots, the mussels, and the duck. The wine list is diverse and full of outstanding value, and the people-watching opportunities are stellar.

Clark cooked and lived in Spain before opening Ibiza, and his experiences in that country are displayed daily in Houston. He learned the many ways in which Europeans live to eat, and he cooked with products that allowed profound expression. Houstonian diners and drinkers have been direct beneficiaries of his approach and outlook, and will continue to be as long as Clark is in business.

I recall with fondness the first time I shared a table with Clark. It was at Ibiza, and he selected the food and wine of which we partook. The conversation ran from oysters to rabbit, from politics to the arts. His cooking impressed me — a perfectly grilled ribeye and a lovely bowl of mussels still come to mind from that dinner, which took place more than a decade ago. The wines Cooper picked, which included a Spanish tempranillo and a Burgundy red,  pleased me to no end. What more could one want at the table?

I hope Charles Clark keeps cooking and treating his guests in grand manner for many years to come.

Now, let’s see what he has to say in this edition of Wine Talk.

Tell us about three wines you think are drinking well at the moment. What makes them worthwhile? 

Charles Clark: The first is gamay from Morgon, particularly the 2020 vintage. I’ve really been enjoying these wines lately, and the 2020s are drinking beautifully right now. A lot of people think of Beaujolais as something you need to drink young, but the good wines from Morgon are different. They’re also a lot of bang for the buck.

For the pairing, I love Morgon with a triple-cream cheese like Saint Angel or Délice de Bourgogne. The richness and creaminess of the cheese with the acidity and fruit of the gamay is a great combination. Both cheeses are also pretty easy to find at places like Spec’s or Central Market.

The second is dry furmint from Tokaj in Hungary. Tokaj is obviously best known for its sweet dessert wines, but the dry furmints are really interesting and something I’ve been drinking more of lately. They have great acidity and minerality, and like Morgon, you can find really good bottles without spending a fortune.

You can also lay a good one down for five years and see how it develops. This is one white wine that I really like with sushi or Asian food, especially dishes that use miso. The acidity and minerality of the furmint work really well with those flavors without overpowering them.

The third is Muga Prado Enea Gran Reserva from Rioja, particularly the 2016 vintage, which is a favorite of mine. I’ve always been a big Rioja fan. What makes Muga especially interesting is that they have their own cooperage and make their own barrels, working with both French and American oak. I also have a personal connection to the region. I used to live in southern Spain and would travel up to Rioja, so these wines bring back a lot of great memories for me. (You can find the wine here.)

With the Prado Enea, I’d pair fresh porcini mushrooms braised in a little veal stock with a softly poached egg and a runny center. The earthiness of the porcini and the richness of the egg work beautifully with the depth and savory character of the Rioja.

If cost was no consideration, tell us the one bottle you would add to your personal collection, and why.

CC: That’s a no-brainer for me. Definitely a Henri Jayer wine. He passed away around 2005, I think, and stopped making wine around 2000. His wines are incredibly rare now. But more than anything, they were just made beautifully. There’s an elegance and balance to them that I’ve always loved.

If cost were no consideration, that would definitely be the one I’d want in my collection. (You can find Jayer wines here.)

What is your favorite grape, and why? If you don’t have a single favorite, tell me about one that you are especially passionate about.

CC: It’s definitely gamay for me. I love the versatility of it. You can drink it young when it’s fresh and bright, but a really good gamay can also age beautifully. You can drink some of the better ones at 10 or even 15 years old, and they just continue to develop and get more interesting.

It’s also just so food friendly. You can pair gamay with so many different types of food, which is another reason I’m always drawn to it.

How about one bottle that our readers should buy now to cellar for 10 years, to celebrate a birth, anniversary, or other red-letter day?

CC: I would go with Bollinger La Grande Année, and I’d recommend buying it in a magnum. Magnums usually age better because they age more slowly and can develop greater complexity over time. It’s a great Champagne to put away and let age for 10 years. Whether you’re celebrating an anniversary, a birthday, or another special occasion, you can open the magnum, invite 10 or 12 friends over and enjoy a great wine together.

To me, that’s what a special bottle should be about. (You can find it here.)

JB: Where is your go-to place when you want to have a glass or bottle (outside your home and workplace)?

CC: I love The Library over on Long Point. They have a really deep wine list, with vintages going back to the seventies, and the team over there is great. Usually Lisa and Carl take care of me. Brennan and the team have a great thing going.

I also really enjoy Montrose Grocer, a newer, little wine bar from Mary Clarkson in the Montrose area. She has a very unique wine list, and there are usually some vinyl records playing in the background. It’s a great cozy spot to have a glass of wine.

If there was one thing you wish everyone would keep in mind when buying and drinking wine, what is it?

CC: The one thing I wish everyone understood is that you don’t have to break the bank to drink a really good bottle of wine. There are so many great wines out there at reasonable prices if you know where to look. The Southern Rhône, for example, has some incredible red and white wines that don’t cost a fortune.

I think people sometimes assume that the more expensive the bottle, the better the wine, and that’s just not true.

We’ve all read the countless articles and papers devoted to the dire state of the wine world and industry, the stories of surplus fruit, ripped-out vines, younger drinkers abandoning wine, climate worries, and the role of alcohol in human health. What do you think needs to be done to improve the current state of wine? Better education? Marketing? How concerned are you about the future of the industry?

CC: I think one of the biggest things is making wine less intimidating, especially for younger people. There’s something about walking into a French restaurant, or even an American restaurant with a big wine list, getting to the French page and seeing all those names and pronunciations.

You’re on a date with a cute girl or guy, you don’t want to pronounce something wrong or feel like the sommelier is going to make fun of you. So you think, you know what, just give me a vodka soda or a Cosmopolitan.

There are also so many great craft cocktails right now, and I think the cocktail world has done a really good job catering to a younger clientele and making it fun and approachable.

I think wine needs to do more of that. Take the time to talk to younger people about wine, let them taste it and have fun with it. Don’t intimidate them and don’t try to impress them with how much you know about wine. Make them curious and make them want to learn. I think if we did more of that, it would help the industry as a whole and get more young people excited about drinking wine.

What is your wine eureka moment, the incident/taste/encounter that put you and wine on an intimate plane forever?

CC: The one memory I have of wine really impacting me was in Dallas. I was about 23 years old and going on a date with a girl I really wanted to impress. There was a little place called Pino’s Wine Bar. So I went there about three hours before the date and talked to the wine manager. I told him, “I don’t have a lot of money, but I really want to impress this girl. I’m going to ask you to bring me your best bottle of white wine, and you bring me something for about $14.”

This was around 1984, so $14 could still get you a pretty good bottle of wine.

We get to dinner and I say, “Bring me your best bottle of white.” He brings out this Alsatian wine in one of those tall Riesling-style bottles. I didn’t know anything about Alsatian wine at the time, and immediately I’m thinking, oh my God, this is going to be sweet and I’m going to be embarrassed.

It turned out to be an Alsatian pinot blanc, and it was the most beautiful wine. It was so good with the food, and I remember thinking, oh my God, this wine is really good. Of course, I had to sit there and act like I knew exactly what it was.

To this day, Alsatian pinot blanc has a special place in my heart because of that one memory. That was probably my wine eureka moment.

What has been the strangest moment or incident involving wine that you have experienced in your career?

CC: Early in my career, around 2001 or 2002, I had just opened Ibiza Food and Wine Bar. One Friday night, we were getting ready to close around midnight when, at about 12:30, a gentleman showed up with a group of about 10 people and asked if they could sit on the patio and eat. We were already closed, but I could tell he was somebody.

They had pulled up in Suburbans, and there was a driver with them. So I said, “You know what, sit down. I’ll make it work.” I kept a couple of cooks in the kitchen, got them menus and we cooked dinner for everyone.

He was so happy that, during the meal, he said something to his driver in Spanish. The driver left and came back about 20 or 30 minutes later carrying two bottles of 1999 Château Pétrus. He gave one to my business partner and one to me. I remember thinking, this is a bottle I’m going to save for 10 or 20 years.

Not long after that, John Mariani, who was a food critic at the time and had given the restaurant a great review, was in New York for an event I attended. I brought one of the bottles of Pétrus with me and handed it to him in a bag. Before he knew what it was, he said, “I’m going to drink this right now.” Then he pulled it out, saw it was Pétrus and said, “Oh my God, I’m not drinking this. I’m saving this for a special occasion.” So that was the first bottle gone.

About a year later, we lost one of our employees, Edgar, who was also one of my best friends. He was like a brother to me, and I loved him very much. He loved wine, and we used to have wine drinking parties together. At his funeral, we asked his mother if we could put the bottle of Pétrus in his coffin, and she said yes. We walked over and placed the second bottle of Pétrus in Edgar’s coffin.

So we were given two bottles of 1999 Château Pétrus that night, and we never drank either one. One went to a food critic in New York, and the other went with Edgar. I don’t think I’ll ever have another wine story quite like that one.

If you could journey to one destination (or region) tomorrow to explore its wines, where would you go?

CC: My dream would be a weekend at Le Musigny in Burgundy, in the Côte de Nuits. It’s one of the great vineyards of Burgundy, and I’d love to spend a weekend there tasting the wines, walking the vineyards and really experiencing the region.

Your favorite wine reference in a work of literature (fiction, film, poem)?

CC: I don’t know if I have a favorite wine reference from literature or film, but I do have a favorite wine line that I always tell my friends. If you’re at a dinner party and you know absolutely nothing about wine, and are handed a glass to taste and are asked, “What do you think,” just take a sip, pause for a second and say, “It’s subtle, but yet aggressive.”

That’s it. You’ll look like a professional.