Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/221505
UP Up Front with Layer Cake by Jonathan Cristaldi PHOTO: LEIGH CASTELLI Forget for a moment what you know, or Layer Cake is a value wine made by Jayson Woodbridge and Chris Radomski, the duo behind cult label Hundred Acre. what you think you know, about Jayson Woodbridge and Chris Radomski and their iconic, if not polarizing, Hundred Acre wine. The bottom line is that they've enjoyed extreme successes on two fronts: the cult wine world and the value wine category with their second label, Layer Cake. As Robert Parker wrote while discussing Hundred Acre, on which he has bestowed five 100 point scores: "[Woodbridge] also makes a hedonistic, attractive Pinot Noir from the Stanly Vineyard called Cherry Pie, and he has had enormous success with the high quality yet bargain-basement priced selections from around the world called Layer Cake." Now, Woodbridge and Radomski are uprooting the retail and restaurant scene with an integrated approach to the wine experience which includes pairing food and wine through a campaign called Layers of Flavor, which enjoyed a soft rollout in the fall of 2013. The build up to such a program—a collaboration with chefs to create dishes that pair with Layer Cake wines and with retail partners who agree to stock special bottle-neckers with coupon offerings—began long before Woodbridge or Radomski met, when their passions for food would eventually merge with their desires to make wine. Woodbridge is a skillfully self-trained chef who worked as a trader in oil and gas for a time, while Radomski grew up in an food-centric Italian and Greek neighborhood in Toronto and majored in biochemistry—backgrounds that would prove to inform their winemaking skills in flavorful and molecular ways. The two met in the early 1990s on a ski excursion and soon after began making regular trips together to Napa Valley. In the years since their first encounter and the establishment of Hundred Acre, an icon in the upper echelon of cult wines, any hubris they possessed was brought into check when Woodbridge and Radomski realized that a second, more approachable brand was necessary. The idea came after they had purchased a piece of property in South Australia, which led to the addition of a singlevineyard Shiraz to the Hundred Acre repertoire. The widening gap between the price of Hundred Acre and most other wines on the market set Woodbridge and Radomski reminiscing about their modest upbringings. "We remembered that we couldn't afford luxury wines growing up, nor could our friends and family. So, we set out to produce a handcrafted luxury wine for the value price point category," says Radomski. 6 / the tasting panel / december 2013 TP1213_001-33.indd 6 11/22/13 8:37 PM