Jonathan Ross
Considering the culinary reputation and culture of notable wine collectors that Nashville has, it might seem surprising that there’s never been anyone with the designation of Master Sommelier from the Court of Master Sommeliers. Heck, Louisville has two of them. The closest Nashville has come to representation by a Master Somm was when Louisvillian Brett Davis was an owner of Union Common and was involved in the wine program at the Midtown restaurant. But when you realize that fewer than 300 individuals have achieved the vaunted status since the court began testing wine professionals back in the 1960s — and that there’s only a small handful of Master Somms anywhere in the Southeast aside from Florida — it’s not quite so unusual that Nashville has never been home to one of them. Until now.
New Jersey native Jonathan Ross was featured in the 2015 docuseries Uncorked, which tracked his path through the process of studying and testing for Master Somm status. He served as the head sommelier at legendary NYC restaurant Eleven Madison Park before moving to Australia with his wife Jane Lopes, the opening beverage director at Nashville’s acclaimed The Catbird Seat. Lopes also passed her Master Somm test in 2018 before a cheating controversy — which she was not involved in — led to the invalidation of all the test results from that cycle. She opted not to sit for the exam again, instead starting up LEGEND, an Australian wine-importing company with Ross.
The couple founded the company in early 2020 and found themselves trapped overseas at the beginning of pandemic travel restrictions. Finally making their way back to the States and Lopes’ family home in Southern California, they had their first container of Australian wines shipping to the United States in August 2020. The couple spent much of the next year selling wine out of the back of a beat-up Ford Taurus, criss-crossing the country to visit with associates from their experience in the wine industry.
“There weren’t many restaurants open at the time,” Ross recalls. “We had identified some long-standing family-owned winemakers from Australia with price points that were appropriate for retail sales. We added wines for restaurant lists later.”
The logistics of driving all over the country selling wine got old quickly, and Ross and Lopes looked for a solution. “We were in the wonderful position where we could live anywhere,” Ross says. “In those early days of COVID, New York was too painful and L.A. was too expensive, and neither was conducive to selling wine across the country. Tennessee was one of the first five markets that we had sold into, so we decided to move back to Nashville in May of 2021.”
While Lopes works full time with LEGENDS and Ross is still actively involved with the company, his itch to get back involved with hospitality lingered. Around that time, Arizona restaurateur Sam Fox was putting the finishing touches on his newest venture, The Twelve Thirty Club at the Fifth + Broadway complex in downtown Nashville, and Ross began talking to him about the prospect of doing some staff education or helping out with the wine program. As they discussed engagement, the position expanded — Ross was eventually named the wine director over the operations, including the street-level upscale honky-tonk, rooftop lounge, swanky supper club and private members-only mezzanine level.
Of all the oeno-centric establishments in town, why did Ross choose to cast his lot with a restaurant perhaps best known for the fact that Justin Timberlake is an investor? “Set aside the MS credential,” he says. “The job is about curating the wine list and the culture, creating and enhancing guest experiences. Master Somms are the ‘Green Berets’ of hospitality, who know exactly how to make it special for guests and staff. There’s a new, growing relationship with wine in Nashville, and I think it should be their own. We should make the customer feel engaged and lean into the experience of Lower and Upper Broadway. In Australia, you can get a good glass of wine at an Aussie-rules football match, so I want to be able to serve a wide variety of clientele, from the ‘honky-tonk sparklers’ to the serious collectors. We’ve got the opportunity to do that here at The Twelve Thirty Club.”
Sam Fox is quite pleased with the hire.
“Jon is easy to talk to and very accessible,” Fox says. “He’s also a real gentleman. I think he’s enjoying the energy of the Twelve Thirty Club. He’s embracing service in the big room and the challenges that presents.”
Working with fellow sommelier Ryan Gardner, Ross is on the floor at Twelve Thirty some 10 to 12 nights a month and spends much of his time sourcing wines and educating the beverage staff at the multiple floors of the restaurant — including at the new subterranean tequila-centric speakeasy Pushing Daisies. “A sommelier should be an amenity for everyone,” he avers. “There’s no bottle of wine that’s beneath me to serve.”
Behind the scenes, Ross continues to improve the wine list and bring the beverage staff up to speed. “We sell a lot of wine, so I spend a lot of time managing the inventory,” he says. “We stock what we can in a financially responsible manner, but you don’t just double the number of items on the wine list. I doubled the organizational tools first and doubled the glassware options so that if a patron wants to drink merlot out of a proper merlot glass, we can do that. Beverage people can’t just sit in their silo and not be involved with operations, and that extends to the bar staff. The more bartenders that love wine, the more wine will be sold.”
Ross is also paying a lot of attention to The Twelve Thirty Club’s Honorary Membership Club, which includes perks like complimentary valet parking, preferred reservation access, admission to the Membership Lounge on the mezzanine and priority access to private dining spaces. “We’re looking to expand the membership, and I’m developing educational opportunities for them, holding back special allocated products for them to get the first taste and planning trips to visit wine-making regions.”
Most of all, Ross is looking to create the Nashville version of the hospitality concept he learned through his years working at iconic venues like Eleven Madison Park.
“At a destination restaurant like this, we like to focus on how people feel,” he says. “We’ll teach people about wine when they ask, but most of all we’re pushing that wine is a good time and it should feel good. Most importantly, when it comes to hospitality, we don’t like to say no at a restaurant!”
