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By DEVIN WEEKS

Staff reporter

Meet Beau Brooks, the winemaker at Coeur d’Alene Cellars. Beau has been with the winery since he moved to Coeur d’Alene from Los Angeles eight years ago, and their winemaker since July of 2015. The 2019 harvest was his fifth as winemaker.

Generation:

“I’m a Gen-Xer. I think the movies that best describe or depict my generation are “Reality Bites,” “Slacker” and “Singles.” Mine is the generation of grunge and alternative music and a deepening appreciation of existentialism and irony. Kurt Cobain is my generation’s John Lennon.”

Career and community involvement:

“As the winemaker at Coeur d’Alene Cellars, I oversee the production of approximately 4,500 cases of wine per year. We currently have four white wines and fourteen reds in our active portfolio, as well as four different wines we sell to The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

“My company is actively involved in the local community. Our owner Kimber Gates and her parents Sarah and Charlie have been very involved in the local community for many years. We participate in events that benefit organizations such as Community Cancer Services in Sandpoint, as well as a large yearly benefit for Idaho Youth Ranch. The first of those was actually held at our winery in 2013, raising more than $100,000 for that organization.”

1. When and why did you decide to get into the business of winemaking?

“I got into the wine business when I joined Beverages and More in 2004 as the assistant manager of the Bevmo in West Hollywood, California. I immediately became immersed in the retail side of wine and was able to attend some of the best wine tastings in the United States. Wine education was a huge emphasis in that organization. My best friend was the company’s wine education coordinator. Eventually, I became one of the instructors and taught wine education classes in San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties.

“I left the company in 2009 to pursue more creative endeavors and moved up to North Idaho in 2011 to be closer to my family. I got a job with Coeur d’Alene Cellars immediately after moving up here, and worked in the wine bar on Sherman until it closed at the end of January 2012. I began working in the cellar with then-winemaker Warren Schutz in the spring of 2012 and continued to learn the craft from Warren’s successor, Dirk Brink (now at Basel Cellars in Walla Walla) from early 2013 until Dirk left the company in the summer of 2015. By that point I was ready to take over the mantle of winemaker.

“Why did I get into it? Because wine is the most amazing beverage on the planet. (But I usually drink beer.)”

2. What is one of the best flavors/combinations/experiments you’ve ever created?

“I think I’m most proud of the 2014 BDX blend which I put together in the spring of 2016. I blended together 5 different varietals — a total of seven different red wine lots — for that wine, and the flavors just blew me away. I knew I had unlocked some secrets in the process of crafting it. Blending that wine in my first full year as winemaker gave me the confidence to experiment with different combinations, including those which might seem counterintuitive or plainly wrong.”

3. Why do you think wine has been such an important part of so many cultures for so many years?

“Without checking Wikipedia on the anthropological origins of wine, I will just say that wine grapes have produced a beverage which has astounded humans for a few thousand years. Beer is wonderful but not astounding. The best beer in the world costs 20 to 30 bucks a bottle.

“There is nothing like red wine in the entire world. The best red wines taste like a million different things all at once: cherries, lavender, vanilla, caramel as well as those descriptors which everyone laughs at — leather, tobacco leaf, cedar boxes, etcetera.

“Aside from the complexities and nuances of great wines, there is no doubt that the communal nature of sharing a bottle of wine is special. You don’t get that with beer or vodka. Lastly, wines taste different all over the world. The specialness of the place is imbued in the bottle, and people who live in the great wine regions around the world have a lot to be proud of when they share their wines with visitors. This goes to the concept of terroir, which essentially speaks to how the flavors of a wine are influenced by the place in which the wine grapes were grown.”

4. What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?

“That I produced a video podcast for a “Therapist to the Stars” along with a very prominent comedian.”

5. If you could visit any vineyard with any big name in the industry, where would you go and who with?

“I would like to visit Chateau Petrus in Bordeaux to find out why this Merlot is often released with a price of $3,000 per bottle. I would take my girlfriend, Michelle. If not Petrus, then any of the Grand Cru chateaus on the Left Bank of the Gironde, such as Lafite-Rothschild or Latour. I’m more interested in appellations than actual producers, though. I want to visit Bordeaux, Barolo, the Côte-Rôtie and Vosne-Romanée more than any others.”