Memory of wine expert Sandy Black Leave a comment
Swirling vociferously, each inhale placed esoteric aromas on the map and pinned amorphous flavors to varietals and vintages. Flight after flight, hours became days, and the wines began to speak, telling him who they were.
In 1992, Alexander “Sandy” Neil Block became the first person on the East Coast and fourth American to attain the wine world’s most select honor: Master of Wine. (Only 496 individuals globally have become masters since inception in 1953.) He went on to be inducted into the Confraria do Vinho do Porto and receive Corporation des Vignerons de Champagne’s Diplome d’Honneur. As New England’s leading wine expert, Sandy transformed the industry over his illustrious 30+ year career as sommelier, distributor, importer, educator, writer and wine buyer. Ever a polymath, Sandy was also a widely published Pushcart Prize nominated fiction author with 45 short stories published in 38 literary journals.
On Nov. 21, Block died at age 72. A New York native who made Wellesley his home for three decades, Block is survived by his wife of 36 years, Joanie, sons, Daniel and Matthew, and brother, Stephen.
While a PhD candidate studying American Intellectual and Cultural History at the University of Buffalo, Sandy worked as a dishwasher, cook, and waiter. After leaving Buffalo, Sandy moved to Boston and waited at two restaurants, spawning his lifelong loves.
At the Harvest, he found his life partner in a young maître-d’ named Joanie. Then, at Le Bocage, Sandy’s career took a sharp turn when he was promoted to sommelier after the prior one quit. His qualifications: speaking French well enough to pronounce ‘Sancerre.’
Wine’s blend of history, science, culture, geography, and language intrigued Sandy. He pored over books and tastings, eventually pursuing the MW exam. In pursuit of knowledge, Sandy often said with a smile, “master is a misnomer, you can never really master wine.”
He was among the first East Coast sommeliers to add American bottles onto all-French wine lists of the early 1980s. He introduced American palates to high-quality, obscure wines from Portugal, Spain, and Chile that he imported as VP of Whitehall Companies, running the Signature Imports Division. As editor for the Improper Bostonian, his columns demystified regions such as Israel, New Zealand, and Chile for U.S. consumers.
In 2004, Sandy joined Legal Sea Foods as VP of Beverage. During his 16-year tenure, he created an industry-leading wine program for Legal’s 34 restaurants;, instituted a first of its kind “lowest price guarantee” for the entire wine list, spurred 50% growth in the beverage program’s contribution to sales, and became a trusted business advisor to Legal’s CEO, Roger Berkowitz. Sandy also upended the traditional method for choosing wines for menus, by employing blind tastings to democratize wine selections, inspired by his days pursuing the MW. Sandy’s ethical approach to buying wines ushered in a new model for the industry.
Sandy had no secrets to conceal, mentoring dozens of aspiring wine professionals, and often said, when asked his opinion of a wine, “if you like it, it’s good.” He developed and administered a cutting-edge training, the Beverage Seminar Program, for Legal’s front of house employees, conducted wine courses for the Whitehall and Horizon Beverage salesforces, taught chefs at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, co-created The Wine Studies Program at Boston University, where he lectured from 1999-2021, and founded the World Trade Center’s Boston Wine Center.
I had the pleasure of taking the last wine class Sandy taught at Boston University, his “History of Wine” course which blended his passion for history with his knowledge of wine. Seeing my father behind the podium, I received a first-hand glimpse into why his students had such affection for him. Yes, he was erudite, witty, engaging, and caring. But what stood out most was his interest in learning from his students. Most “masters” don’t see a learning opportunity from teaching those new to their craft. Not Sandy. He genuinely wanted to understand how his students perceived wine – what they were drinking and why, which trends did they observe in the market, what influenced their buying decisions. To Sandy, there was always more to learn, and everyone had something to teach.
As tirelessly as Sandy’s commitment was to his craft, what those who knew him found to be so refreshing about his style, was that he never did take wine – or himself – too seriously. At restaurants, he didn’t have qualms dropping an ice cube from his water into a glass of wine if it was too warm to his liking, much to the shock of any sommeliers in eyeshot. When our family gathered for Passover seders, my father always made sure to pick up “boy-wine,” grape juice in glorified mini bottles that the kids could drink alongside the finer stuff drank by the adults. I’m not sure my palate ever did graduate off the boy wine to the more sophisticated flavors in his cellar. But Sandy didn’t care. After all, the whole wine thing, he’d quip, with a twinkle in his eye, “its just a beverage.”
In the last decade, Sandy returned to the fiction he was drawn to growing up in Brooklyn, where he would read and write for hours on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. Since 2015, Sandy’s fiction was awarded a Pushcart Prize nomination and coveted Inkslinger Award. Many of his stories are inspired by Brooklyn. Wine appears, if at all, only as a prop.
Sandy’s legacy lives on via the hundreds of pieces he has written on wine for the Improper Bostonian, Massachusetts Beverage Business Journal, Wine Enthusiast, and countless other publications since the early ’90s, his approximately 5,000 students that are at the helm of shaping the modern wine industry, and through forthcoming books he assembled for publication: two volumes of his short stories and a memoir, aptly titled: So Far: … The First US Master of Wine on the East Coast and His Improbable Journey from the Streets of Brooklyn
