Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/856981
august 2017 / the tasting panel / 55 hen it comes to wine and music, Jacob Lieberstein, the Los Angeles– bred, Chicago-based oboist and five-year employee at City Winery Chicago, pursued both with equal passion and commitment. This October, Lieberstein, 30, will carry that work ethic over to his service as a musician in the U.S. Navy, noted to have one of the strongest music programs among the branches of the military. "I have been a musician as long as I can remember," affirms Lieberstein. "My father, a professional musi- cian with a degree in composition from the University of California, Santa Barbara, is my hero. He used to put me in his lap while he was playing bass or guitar until I was old enough to be able to press the instru- ment strings down on my own. As I grew older, I became interested in keyboard instruments, but the orchestra and the oboe were always my true calling." Although the oboe carried him to a Bachelor's degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a Master's degree and Orchestral Performance Diploma from the Chicago College of Performing Arts, he had to work hard to keep his skills on the challenging instrument sharp. "Oboe is an intense woodwind instrument that requires a lot of time, from making up your reeds, to practicing, to attaining the physical condition required to play the instrument at the highest level," he explains. "This is an important consideration, as I am prepping for Naval training, with a daily cardio regimen that includes a three-mile run and a 1,500- meter swim." Leiberstein adds that parallels between perfecting the oboe and recognizing good winemaking provide him an interesting perspective for his job at City Winery, especially when serving Wente Vineyards Chardonnay at private functions and recommending wines made in-house from grapes brought in from California, Washington and Oregon. "To be a great player, you need to make those reeds exactly right," he says. "Also, the weather affects this woodwind instrument, from humidity to atmospheric pressure. This correlates with winemaking, as it is affected by those same factors, from where the grapes are grown to the barrels they are aged in. An orches- tra tunes to the oboe, influencing the final overall sound; selection of the right wine will affect how a dining experience will turn out." Lieberstein was 17 when he took his first restaurant job at Sagebrush Cantina in L.A.'s West Valley. When he moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music, he took restaurant jobs to pay the bills. Soon, he realized that a knowledge of wine would not only get him in the door at white-tablecloth restaurants and help earn him more money, but enrich his life. "The weather affects this wood- wind instrument, from humidity to atmospheric pressure. This correlates with winemaking, as it is affected by those same factors, from where the grapes are grown to the barrels they are aged in."