(David Schneider is trying to always be at the center of the Denver wine scene at Row 14 Bistro. Photo courtesy of Row 14)
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David Schneider’s restaurant career was firing high on all cylinders. The successful partner in the esteemed Bin 36 (renowned for its wine program) in Chicago also struck culinary gold with a seafood/sushi concept in the chic Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland.
He then had a money guy and all-star celebrity chef inked to a Denver location, but a day before lease signing, the financier got cold feet. “Refresh. Zero. Zero. Zero,” he recalls of the day he kept checking the bank account for a money transfer. “I haven’t spoken to him since.”
So Schneider, new to the city (his soon-to-be wife was the main reason for his upheaval from the Midwest) found himself in need of a job. He took to waiting tables at Rioja, his first time back to that side of the industry in 15-plus years. Four years later, we can safely say it’s a good thing.
Now the restaurateur with a notable Chicago pedigree is the owner of Row 14 Bistro & Wine Bar (891 14th St., Denver), a tasty and casual bistro across from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts that features the best little wine list in the city. Maybe 40-deep at any given time, it’s fun, playful and inventive (including a new Colorado wine flight that features Boulder Creek’s 2010 Viognier) enough to have had it deemed the top wine list in Denver by 5280 magazine.
“Everything happens for a reason,” he says.
The kitchen is headed by youthful chef Jensen Cummings who isn’t afraid to mince Asian highlights into his seasonal menu. The Row 14 interior is stylish and comforting, perfect for a happy hour, pre-theater meal or lavish culinary experience.
It took two failed attempts (or more accurately, two investors overcome by cold feet) at landing a Denver space before Schneider was able to ditch serving and team up with a principal in the Spire building to create Row 14 in 2010.
Oenophiles have been pleased ever since, for good reason. Schneider has spent his entire career as a student of wine. Not formally trained, he’s learned a lifetime’s worth of wine geekery throughout years of tasting and undergone more than a few epiphanies.
His first being while working as general manager in Cleveland, where he was invited to a 20-year vertical industry tasting of Chateau de Beaucastel. “I just developed this passion,” he says. A position in Chicago later sent him to Napa. “Oh my god, a place so beautiful exists in this country? And a half-hour, 45 minutes from San Francisco?” Then, of course, Oregon Pinot Camp cemented his love of wine.
“Wine’s always been my passion,” he says. “Besides my wife and kids and Widespread Panic, it’s wine.”
To give you an idea of his obsession, you just need to hear him talk about one of his favorites, Williams Selyem Pinot Noir: “I just wanted to pour it on the ground and roll around in it naked.”
This intense love led to a whole lot of studying on his own: “I just started to read everything,” he says. “Whether it was Wine Spectator or Jancis Robinson’s books, I couldn’t read enough about it. You just paint a picture of all the different stuff that’s out there in the world.”
And all that “stuff” gets filtered by his palate before winding up on Row 14 wine list. The obvious choices aren’t there, because that would be too easy. Instead, Schneider challenges himself and the customers by finding delicious, hidden wines that span the globe. His goal is for Row 14 to be the it place for wine trends in Colorado, whether it be by featuring obscure Spanish whites or leading a charge to showcase more Colorado wines.
“What I want is people to think of this restaurant as their wine resource,” he says. “Whenever there is something cool about wine, I want to be in the middle of it.”
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Order: Boulder Creek Viognier ($4.5/$9/$35) and Alamosa Striped Bass ($23)
This entree features a veggie stir fry, peppered bacon, pea shoots and soy ginger butter. “There are some nice stone fruit notes. It has a nice acid level to it. A lot of what Jensen does is a lot of Asian influence. With the stir fry and the bacon, the Viognier has enough body to stand up to the butter in the dish and everything else, but it has enough acid to cut through the heat,” Schneider says.
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