Corner Office: Where Food & Wine Ethics, Passion and Knowledge Intersect

Rhizo editor Sue Hunt gets to know Jori Jayne Emde and Zak Pelaccio, owners of Corner Office, a natural wine cafe in Taos, New Mexico.
Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Sue: We are so interested in your backgrounds, the heart-felt mission behind Corner Office and the history that lead you to this project and vision.
Jori: We each spent decades in the industry, only after selling our restaurant, Fish & Game, in Hudson, NY, we were both pretty set on the idea that we would never again own or, more specifically, operate another restaurant. Pretty set may even be an understatement: We were dead set.

And yet still

Zak first skied Taos in 1995 and continued to return every few years to ski with friends and soak up the sun and steeps. Jori and Zak made winter visits to Taos a regular thing in 2013, renting houses for a month at a time. In 2017 they bought a house, its intended purpose to serve as an escape. Which it was — until March 2020 when Jori and Zak made their side-place their only-place and the perfect perch from which Jori could continue to run her brand, Lady Jayne’s Alchemy, and the two could enjoy their verve for nature and adventure.

During this era Jori also signed on as a founding member of The Fermentation School, a women-owned and women-led educational space. Zak spent his muscle providing consulting services to developers and hoteliers throughout the U.S. All the while hiking, swimming, skiing, biking, cooking and living life together.

So yeah, they quickly ran out of natural wine.

Jori: We depleted the cellar of wines we had collected over the previous decades. We added to our cellar only occasionally, as our friends, Paul Greenhaw and Martha Aguilar [PM Wine Distribution] grew their natural wine distribution business — without which we would have never even considered the Corner Office project.

Wine wine everywhere — but not a natural drop to drink

By virtue of getting back to the original ways of fermenting grapes, wine culture in the early aughts was starting to come home to itself, much in the same way organic, local and slow food movements were returning balance to food systems. And Zak had an pivotal exposure to this shift thanks to a chance encounter with Giusto and Arianna Occhipinti at COS Winery in Sicily.

Jori: They had just buried their new Qvevri they had brought in from Georgia.

[A Qvevri is an earthenware vessel used in the ancient Georgian winemaking process to bury pressed grapes and all their parts for as many as six months.]

Jori: Zak met the Occhipnit’s just as they were learning the method from Josko Gravner [another big deal innovative winemaker], and Zak had the good fortune of meeting Josko too.

So in 2004, when Zak opened 5 Ninth, a restaurant in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District that New York Magazine deemed “an exercise in authentic, simple excellence,” it was, of course, natural wines being poured.

The following year, in 2005, Zak opened Fatty Crab in the West Village where he sought out Demeter certified Austrian Rieslings and the nutty, sherry-like aged “sous voile” wines from the Jura — wines that pair well with the spicy food his restaurant featured.

Jori joined Zak at Fatty Crab shortly after opening and together they continued to explore the world of wines au naturel. Their shared obsession led to the award-winning wine list curated at Fish & Game and a home among Wine Enthusiast’s Hall of Fame.

***Jori Jayne Emde’s lab at Corner Office - 122 Paseo Del Pueblo Sur Suite C - Upstairs, Taos, NM 87571***

A preoccupation turned occupation

Having spent much of their lives energy searching for flavor and “creating flavors we see and taste in our minds,” Jori and Zak have a propensity for finding themselves early to the party and also the first to leave — weary of those moments when sincere substance gives way to shallow trend.

But alas, having settled (and isolated) themselves in Taos, Jori and Zak began to grow a deeper awareness for just how particular – downright peculiar – their tastes had become. Were they alone?

Jori: We were challenged to find wines we wanted to drink. As our cellar dwindled, we wondered what would come next.

Wandering while wondering

In the beginning months of 2022, the couple followed their whims to Rome where they could post up and revel once more in natural wines from all over the world.

Jori: We spent hours in cellars, tasting new and old vintages, as we have done numerous times over the years. We saw old friends in the business and connected with new ones.

The future began to uncork itself.

Jori: We intuited our logical next step was to bring our passion and our love for great agricultural products and truly iconic cultural products with our new community in Taos.

So, what’s served today at Corner Office are not the stately wines of generations past, but rather —

Jori: Wines made by deft hands with consideration for the land and the understanding that first and foremost wine is a farmed product. Good wine doesn’t come from bad grapes, no matter how much one manipulates the juice.

Abounding Alignment

Jori and Zak wanted — needed really — to have a place where they could celebrate these special wines. A place for all their preoccupations. J: We are obsessed with [agricultural] product. Be it rice, tea, pasta, wine — all of it!

A long way from New York, Jori and Zak were coming to quick terms with a new dead set compulsion.

Jori: We wanted to expose this damn near worldwide community of [natural wine] makers to the Taos community of makers, creatives, and certainly connoisseurs of agricultural and natural beauty.

And Zak knew he didn’t want to travel outside of his community to practice his metier.

Jori: He wanted to drink good juice at home.

And from Jori’s new vantage, the wine, food and creative climate she knew she could foster, was braiding seamlessly with her desire for fermentation and alchemical practices.

Jori: For years, we focused on sourcing well-made wines that communicate the personality of the land on which the vines grow and the cellars in which the wines are made. For years, we have sourced, prepared and cooked local, small-farmed produce and meats that communicate the personality of the land on which they’re grown and raised. When one really gets into product — when you truly learn to taste — you stop at nothing to get the best quality products available.

Wine is the most nurturing and delightfully intoxicating complement to a well-lived life, a good meal, a Thursday afternoon. Why would we not put the same consideration into what we drink as we do what we eat? That’s what we do here at Corner Office!

Sue: I love knowing all of this — I loved Corner Office at first blush, and now I understand why. The love, thought, effort and quality behind everything you offer creates an impression. A haunting, really. Can you talk to us about why you organize Corner Office in the way you do?

Jori: Thank you so much. We hoped Taos would respond to something altogether different. We believe wine must be bright and alive on the palate and taste of the place it was produced — we like to say “buoyant” — and we believe wine goes best with food that is simple and fresh and locally sourced.

Sue: Readers should know, you can literally walk the wine list — rather than just read it.

Jori: Our wine wall is inspired by wonderful folks at The Cellar — we include descriptions of the wines with numbered tabs hung below. The tabs help overcome the intimidation that can sometimes come with trying to pronounce the Domaines, Cantine, etc. in French, Italian, Georgian, Austrian and so on. We’ve found that plenty of folks come up to the bar and ask for a #23, and so on.

Sue: You removed a barrier.

Jori: It was a brilliant move. Also, having the wines lined up next to each other makes it easier for us to allow our eyes across the wines and remind ourselves what we have and more quickly and easily pick up on cues from our guests.

Making it Happen

Now that Jori and Zak have a place with the wine and the food they love, the center is holding.

Jori: It has been a pure joy to share our nerdy, obsessive passion with the town, make new friends, work with farmers and ranchers and really roll up our sleeves and get into the community. We meet a ton of bright, fun, talented and cool folks who we may never have met if we didn’t create this little social hub.

Sue: It’s the details. The music, the art — everything from the service model to the flatware is unpretentious and in total service to the wine and food.
The sum is — e x p a n s i v e.