If you've ever sat in the garden at Arlequin Wine Merchant sipping a glass of Provençal rosé and wondering who put together the list, meet Michael Goss. He's the Wine Director and Beverage Director for the Absinthe Group, and after eleven years bouncing around the company's Hayes Valley empire, he's basically the guy who knows where every bottle in the building came from and why it's there.

We sat down with Michael to talk about his winding path into wine, his honest take on the natural wine world, and why he thinks the best part of his job is also the part he feels a little guilty about.

From Busboy to Bread Baker to Wine Director

Michael's path to wine wasn't exactly a straight line. He started bussing tables at 13 in a Cleveland neighborhood restaurant, moved to the kitchen at 17, and worked his way up to line cook and kitchen manager. When he headed west to California at 19, his plan was culinary school. Instead, he spent a couple of years as an artisanal bread baker, cranking out five thousand pounds of bread a day and learning to respect a wild yeast starter that had traveled all the way from San Francisco to San Diego.

"It's not as romantic as making bread at home," he told us. But the exacting, almost scientific process stuck with him, even if he insists it has nothing to do with wine.

Except, maybe it does. When we asked him about the parallel between chasing consistency in bread and in wine, he put it simply: "They're both living. You have to work with them. You can't work against them."

From baking, Michael moved into bartending and serving, which eventually led him to San Francisco. Wine wasn't really a family tradition (that was more his grandmother's department), but working the front of house at spots like Coco500 and Foreign Cinema exposed him to real wine education. A wine director at Foreign Cinema noticed his interest, gave him his first floor shifts, and helped him earn his Level III certification. From there, it was a straight shot into the Absinthe Group, where he's held nearly every job there is: floor sommelier, opening wine director at Bellota, general manager, and now Wine Director for the whole group.

The Job He Feels a Little Guilty About

Ask Michael what he actually does for a living and he'll tell you, with a laugh, that he has the easiest job in the entire wine chain.

"I get to taste wines and choose what I like. I don't have to deal with monitoring winter water levels, bud break, spring weather conditions. So when people thank me for helping them choose a wine, I feel a little guilty. It's not something I actually had any hand in."

The real credit, he says, belongs to the farm workers, vineyard managers, and winemakers who do the hard, uncertain work of actually growing the grapes.

Natural Wine, Without the Dogma

Given that Absinthe Group is known in the industry for its natural wine chops, we asked Michael how he thinks about the category as it's exploded in popularity.

His take: natural wine has basically always existed, it just got overshadowed for a few decades. Today he sees two camps. There are winemakers carrying on generations-old traditions, and there are winemakers still experimenting and finding their footing. Neither is right or wrong. "Everything is a shade of a color," he said. "It's not guaranteed."

He's also refreshingly honest about funk. Michael went through a phase of loving heavy Brettanomyces character in his wines. These days, he appreciates it in smaller doses. "I had a Mencia yesterday that just had a subtle amount of Brett on it, and I thought that was nice. But there's a certain level where it's over the top." His go-to gateway bottle for the natural-curious? Matthiasson. Classic winemaking, natural methods, and none of the aggressive funk that can scare off a newcomer.

How to Actually Talk to Someone About Wine

Michael's approach to recommending wine is deceptively simple, and it starts with what he refuses to do: intimidate people.

"I don't like precious things, especially when it comes to wine," he said. Instead of asking customers what they like (a question that usually gets him "a dry red wine," which tells him almost nothing), he asks what they've had recently that they actually enjoyed, or what the wine is going with. Price point always comes into the conversation early, too. "I'm not a used car salesman. I want people to get what they want for the price that they want."

One of his favorite recent saves: a customer walked into the shop asking for Mumm Champagne. Absinthe Group doesn't carry it, but instead of a dead end, Michael found out they were celebrating and steered them toward a smaller-producer blanc de blancs with similar dosage. Problem solved, and probably a better bottle in the end.

The Garden Everyone Remembers

Ask Michael about Arlequin's biggest draw and he doesn't hesitate: the garden.

Arlequin Wine Merchant, part of the same contiguous Hayes Valley campus as Absinthe, lets you buy any bottle off the shelf and drink it on-site for just ten dollars corkage. Grab a thirty-dollar bottle, add corkage, and you're looking at forty bucks for an afternoon in what might be the best patio in the neighborhood, indoor and outdoor seating, two parklets, a rotating list of about 15 wines by the glass, and a menu of sandwiches, salads, and oysters to go with it.

"It's the best date spot," Michael said. "The amount of times I've seen a married couple come in and tell me they had their first date in this garden, I couldn't even count."

The shop also runs a monthly wine club (six, three, or one bottle for $75, with 20 to 35 percent discounts built in) and a members-only tasting night that regularly pulls in 40-plus people. Non-members are welcome too: twelve dollars gets you nine wines to taste.

A Tour of the Absinthe Group Universe

For anyone new to the group, here's the lay of the land, straight from Michael:

Absinthe — The flagship, open since January 1998. A brasserie with a slightly elevated edge, but still accessible (there's always a burger and a steak on the menu). Deep absinthe, Scotch, and cocktail program, plus a wine list stacked with decades of cellared Burgundy. Entrees run $25 to $40.

Bosco — The group's Italian spot in SoMa, in the historic SF Jewelry Mart building (also home to Airbnb's headquarters). Housemade extruded pastas, California-inflected Italian cooking, and a wine list that's about 85 percent Italian. Pasta dishes run $20 to $35.

Arlequin — The wine shop and retail heart of the operation, originally opened in 1998 as Amphora before a 2002 rebrand. Home of that famous garden, the Burgundy wall (some bottles cellared since 2008), and the monthly wine club.

Arbor — The casual, counter-service sibling next door. Sandwiches from $14 to $17, salads around $15 to $20, and the same wine shop access next door if you want to grab a bottle to go with your fried chicken sandwich.

Michael's current personal pours lean toward Italian reds (Nebbiolo from both Valtellina and Alto Piemonte), Sierra de Gredos Grenache from central Spain, and, as always, Provençal rosé once summer actually shows up in San Francisco. ("San Francisco has our Indian summer," he reminds us. "It's not summer until September.")

Whether you're after a $30 bottle to split with friends in the garden or a bottle of unicorn Burgundy off the Absinthe list, Michael and the team want you to walk away with something you actually love, not just something with a big name on the label.

Stop by Arlequin Wine Merchant, Absinthe, Bosco, or Arbor in Hayes Valley, and say hi to Michael.