Like most small business owners, Deb Mortillaro wears multiple hats at Palate Partners, Pittsburgh’s premier school of wine, spirits and sake.
Along with teaching wine classes and hosting Friday tastings, she coordinates deliveries, oversees gifts and corporate events and organizes European trips. She even unloads trucks.
In her “spare time,” “The Queen of Quaffing” also achieved a pinnacle in wine certification last month, earning a Diploma of the Wine and Spirits Education Trust in London, England.
Founded in 1969 to advance the educational needs of industry professionals in the United Kingdom, today WSET qualifications are available in over 70 countries. It is arguably the most recognized professional certification in the field of wines and spirits education, and also the most rigorous: Students must pass six individual units covering a broad range of topics that include everything from viticulture and wine production to global wine laws.
Mortillaro’s journey as a wine and food professional began growing up in Rochester, N.Y.
“We pretty much caught, killed or grew everything that we ate,” she recalls, with meals that regularly included venison, rabbit and lake fish since her father, Jim, was a hunter and angler.
Mortillaro’s mother, Marge, who tended a large garden, also enjoyed preparing dishes from magazines such as Gourmet, while her father favored Italian cooking. Her maternal aunt Millie, with whom Mortillaro spent substantial time, prepared simple, nourishing “American” dishes such as meatloaf.
At age 10, she recalls going to a restaurant buffet and deciding at once to become a culinary professional. She followed her goal in high school by participating in restaurant internships in Sienna, Italy — an eye-opening experience with demanding work.
“We killed, plucked and butchered everything available,” she says. “Our restaurant was farm-to-table before it became trendy.”
Back home, an 18-year-old Mortillaro enrolled at the famed Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley.
“There were 20 men to every female student, so it was a little intimidating,” she remembers. “But you knew that you were studying with the best instructors. It was very formal and European, and there was lots of yelling.”
From cooking to wine
After graduating in 1981, Mortillaro became a private chef for a prominent Pittsburgh family.
This demanding yet exciting experience included duties ranging from preparing everyday meals to planning private dinners parties for large groups. She served some meals while sailing on a yacht and traveled extensively. Gradually, she became acquainted with a wide swath of Pittsburghers. Seeing the wines served at the meals she prepared made her realize how little she knew.
“I grew up around homemade ‘dago red’ wines, and did not drink myself,” she says. “I had a very steep learning curve.”
Then she met Mike Gonze, who made wine deliveries from Dreadnought Wines, one of Pittsburgh’s leading distributors of fine wines. Her wine education took off, and eventually Mortillaro made the leap to become business partners with Gonze. In 1992, they started a new venture called Palate Partners, offering casual wine classes and tastings for the general public. Its motto is to “enlighten, excite, and educate.”
“We saw a need in Pittsburgh for tabletop wine accessories, corporate gifts and food and wine education,” Mortillaro recalls.
In 2015, as business grew, Mortillaro and Gonze moved from a rented location in the Strip District to a larger purchased building at 3401 Liberty Ave. in Lawrenceville. The new location provided more space for classrooms, a more spacious wine accessory area, and a more efficient warehouse. Their businesses continued to blossom as demand from hospitality professionals began to grow.
“Sommelier John Wabeck coming to Pittsburgh [in 2012] from Washington, D.C. was a real game changer,” Mortillaro recalls of the man who served as general manager at Spoon and beverage director at Richard DeShantz Restaurant Group before becoming wine director for Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group in 2022.
“His example and interactions made industry professionals realize they had to up their knowledge by studying and taking courses in wine and spirits.”
Palate Partners responded by offering certification under the WSET programs to both industry professionals and consumers. They hired Rob McCauley, a London native already familiar with the WSET programs, as instructor.
As industry professionals began studying at Palate Partners, consumers followed suit. Mortillaro realized that to teach the WSET program content, she would have to take the journey to certification herself.
“I love teaching and I’m good at taking tests, so it was a natural move for me,” she says.
Even so, the process has required years of commitment, as WSET certification in wine covers four levels, each with its own examinations and other requirements.
The first level, Mortillaro says, provides foundational knowledge by exploring grape varieties used around the world in making wine. In level two, students put their knowledge of varieties to use by taking a proverbial walk around the world. One question, for example, might ask why Chardonnay grapes planted in two different countries can produce vastly different wines.
The third level goes deeper in appreciating the nuances of wine regions and subregions around the world. “It requires more critical thinking and understanding of wine styles and quality,” Mortillaro notes.
Level four challenges students even further, with six in-depth steps and taxing, detailed tests. Along with viticulture and viniculture, students must learn the business of wine and make a comprehensive study of global wine regions. That includes developing wine tasting skills to an expert level for table wines, sparkling wines and fortified sweet wines.
Since the final WSET Diploma recognizes the recipient as an authoritative wine specialist with global recognition, each student must complete a research paper on a topic chosen by the WSET. Mortillaro explored the rise of low-alcohol and non-alcohol wines, currently a hot category especially with millennials and Gen Z folks.
“It is not that they are not drinking wine at all, but generally they prefer less alcohol for health reasons. And they want to have a drink to enjoy in social settings,” she says. “The low-alcohol wine and spirits categories are exploding.”
For research locally, she turned to The Open Road, which operates a brick-and-mortar bar and bottle shop offering non-alcoholic wines, beers and other beverages at 600 East Warrington Ave. in Allentown.
Selections with catchy names include “Buzzkill Cabernet Sauvignon,” “Better Than Booze Mojito With Lime” and “Blind Tiger Sidecar.” Open Road’s website lists over 80 Pittsburgh area establishments, including Apteka in Bloomfield, that offer non-alcoholic wine and beverages. And the list keeps growing.
Moving forward
Her research paper was accepted June 26, and Mortillaro officially holds her WSET Diploma. Moving ahead, she looks forward to teaching at Palate Partners not only about wine but also sake, spirits and beers. She emphasizes that classes still welcome causal students as well as those seeking the more formal WSET certification.
“Each person learns differently and has different goals, so we work hard to accommodate every type of student, including casual drinkers.”
Deb also emphasizes the importance of traveling to wine regions when possible, because “it’s hard to understand a region fully until you visit. The more I travel, the more it opens my eyes.”
She recently organized a tour visiting the Italian island of Sardinia. Afterward, she visited Alsace in France and Germany’s Mosel Valley for the first time. And from October 8-16, she will lead a group tour of Piedmont, Italy. The agenda includes numerous winery visits, a truffle hunt, a cooking class, visits to UNESCO Heritage sites, great meals and a visit to Turin, home of the famed Slow Foods movement.
Meanwhile, here at home, if you are looking for a refreshing summer red, check out the Quinta do Ferro, Espumante Bruto Tinto, Portugal ($28.04, available from Dreadnought Wines at the same location as Palate Partners).
The wine comes from a blend of Chardonnay and pinot grapes grown in the Vinho Verde region. It is a lightly effervescent, easy drinking red with a dark ruby color, ripe dark cherry and citrus aromas and flavor, and ample refreshing acidity. With only 10.5% alcohol by volume, it is a perfect pick for aperitifs on warm evenings with charcuterie and cheeses.
Cheers!
(All Photographs courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette where the original version of this story was published.