Sherryfest

Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2012 Wine Tasting

In NYC a lot has changed with Sherry in the past year. Sherry is lovable now, and this is a great thing.

Any restaurant with modern or hipster ambitions has Sherry on the wine list. Wines that previously were difficult or impossible to buy here are now readily available. For example, almost the whole line of Valdespino Sherries wines are now imported by Polaner.

In Jerez you can walk into any small grocery store and buy a 750 ml bottle of Inocente for maybe 8 Euros. Inocente has only been available (when it is available, which was rare) in 375 ml bottles. Tio Diego, the delicious young Amontillado and the excellent Palo Cortado called Viejo CP were unavailable here, except when the intrepid Joe Salamone at Crush would find a way to sell a few bottles. Now these and other Valdespino Sherries can easily be purchased at many stores. And let me tell you that there is nothing like a 750 of Inocente - you should try one.

Fernando de Castilla's Sherries are now imported too, by David Bowler. The line of Antique Sherries is excellent - my favorite is the Palo Cortado, but they are all worth trying.

And my friend Peter Liem's new Sherry book will be released in less than a month! He wrote the book with Jesus Barquin of Equipo Navazos, and it promises to become one of the absolutely definitive pieces of writing about the region and the wines.
To top it all off, Peter and Rosemary Gray have created what will be the largest and most important Sherry tasting the Unites States has ever seen. It is called Sherryfest. There will be a grand tasting on Monday October 21st (you have to register and reserve a spot if you want to go, demand is large enough so that they have to be serious about this). There will also be seminars where you can taste with cellar masters, and dinners at great restaurants that feature the Sherries of selected producers.
This is a very big deal for the Sherry industry, for Peter and Rosemary, and for us as consumers. Congratulations to Peter for his groundbreaking new book, and to Peter and Rosemary for creating Sherryfest! I'll see you there...

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Shell Beans

Date: Fri, Sep 21, 2012 Wine Tasting

It took me a while to actually buy the beautiful fresh shell beans that appear in the market throughout the summer. I read about how easy they are to work with and how delicious they are, how it's hard to go back to dried beans afterwards. And I was tempted, but really? Would I do all of that work for beans?

Yes I do and it's not really much work, especially if you do it with your kids or a friend. It feels good to work with food like this, to start with it in its unprocessed state. It gives me the illusion that I live in a better and healthier way than I actually do. And what I read is true - shell beans are remarkably easy to work with and are quite versatile too. You can use them however you would, well, beans.

Not sure what kind these are, although from the outside I thought they were cranberry beans. But mostly they were light green in color, not the white with red veins that I associate with cranberry beans. No matter, these were beautiful too.

I like to braise them in just enough liquid to cover them and then eat them as a side vegetable. Or with bread as a main dish. Perhaps the most classic of seasonings for the braise is rosemary and garlic, and then finished with olive oil. You won't go wrong with that, but that feels wintery to me. On this late summer evening I imagined something different, something more summery. I had a crisp red pepper in the house and a fresh bunch of parsley, and so it was.

Sliced onions sweated in a heavy bottomed pot, a small clove of finely chopped garlic too, and some diced celery. I added two small anchovy fillets because it seemed like a noble thing to do. When everything was aromatic and enticing, I added a small glug of sherry vinegar, a bit of salt, and then enough water to just cover the beans. After they came to a boil, a bay leaf, some coarsely chopped sweet red bell pepper, reduce the heat and cover almost all the way to braise for 20 minutes. I don't know exactly how long until they're done because it depends on the temperature, the kind of pot, and the kind of beans you're using. I start checking at about 20 minutes.

When they are almost as tender as I want them to be I uncover the pot and raise the heat again to reduce the liquid bit. I finished the dish with a small glug of good olive oil, chopped parsley, and lemon zest. The peppers never got as pliable as I had hoped for, which I take as a sign of their absolute freshness, not my incompetence. You may see things differently and that's fine.

My daughters and I ate these beans with rice and they was nary a complaint. In fact, the younger one insisted on putting on her own parsley and lemon zest. What to drink with this dish? This is not a difficult problem, as i think it would be hard to offend this dish with wine.

I went with the 2007 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet Granite de Clisson, $22, imported by Louis/Dressner. This is completely wrong of me because you have to drink Muscadet with seafood, preferably oysters. It's not allowed to go with beans or meat or anything like that. Seafood, that's it. One really should follow the rules, but I did not. But I had a half bottle remaining from the previous day and those rules are, of course, ridiculous. The wine is developing beautifully! It exceeded my expectations on both days. At first it was beautiful as a wine, with lemon and leesy richness and crystalline purity, long and fragrant on the finish. Just a detailed, balanced, and delicately articulated very fine wine whose fineness belies its power. And on the second day it becomes more recognizable as a Muscadet with briny notes emerging, and more of a leesy sense on the finish. This is excellent wine and although earlier in the week I said that I have no idea what will happen to the wines in my cellar, I'm betting on this one to be gorgeous at every point over the next 20 years.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Guesswork in the Cellar

Date: Sun, Sep 16, 2012 Wine Tasting

Recently I had the rather disturbing realization that almost half of the bottles in my cellar are wrong. They are not wines that today I would bet on to give me the pleasure that I look for in mature wine. There's nothing terrible in there, but there are plenty of wines in which today I would not make the investment of money, cellar space, or time. It got me thinking again about this whole question of aging wine. How should I decide on the wines I want to age?

Let me be clear - I am not asking about which mature wines I want to drink. That's easy, I would say. I want to taste any and all mature wines so I can learn more about what to expect from various young wines as they age. I'm asking about about selecting young wines for the cellar.

Keith Levenberg wrote something interesting about this a little while ago, telling a story about buying 6 bottles of 2001 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche, drinking one and not being moved, and then "disposing" of the rest by bringing them to dinners with people who don't care which wine they are drinking. And then he drank a bottle of the same wine but from the 1983 vintage, and was moved. Enough to bring newer vintages of La Chavaroche back into his cellar.

I have never tasted a young version of a classically made and age-worthy wine, and then aged that wine to maturity. I simply have not been collecting wine long enough to do that. I have never tested my own ideas about which wines in time will become what I'm hoping for, and which will not. I don't know if I'm right when I drink a young wine and then think "yes, this wine should age well."

Think about it - you have to have been collecting wine for 25 years if you've tasted a great old bottle of Burgundy, Bordeaux, Barolo, or northern Rhône wine that you bought upon release. It's rare to be in the company of such a person. I only rediscovered wine about 7 years ago. Who knows if I will still care about wine in 25 years? Will I drink my 2007 Bernard Baudry Les Grezeaux with the same delight that I felt in putting it into storage, planning for that day? I'm just guessing every time I put something in my cellar. I'm more educated now with my guesses, but I am still guessing.

I actually feel pretty good about what I put into the cellar these days. Some of this is simply understanding what it is that I like in wine. For example, I cellared almost nothing from the 2009 vintage in Burgundy. 2009 was a ripe vintage that gave big wines and that is not the thing that excites me about Burgundy. I saved a few nice bottles from 2007 and 2008, though. Wines from those vintages tend to have less ripeness and body, but while very young they showed a balance, clarity, and detail that I found compelling. Will that translate to mature wines that are exquisitely balanced, thrillingly detailed, and terroir-expressive? Honestly, I have no idea. I do like the idea, though, of cellaring wines that today show some of the characteristics that I want to be amplified in maturity.

Another thing that I'm enjoying lately is thinking of all of the recent vintages I've had of wines that I actually have built some familiarity with, and trying to decide which recent vintage is the one I would cellar if I had to choose only one vintage. This is not always easy to do.

For example, I've drunk several bottles of Foillard Morgon Côte de Py each vintage since 2006. I was in love with the 2007 and felt that it would age well so I saved a few bottles in the cellar. But then one night a couple years ago I was hanging out with Joe Salamone, one of the wine buyers at Crush, a lovely guy whose thoughts on wine are always smart and well-considered. I asked him what he thought about the 2007 vintage of Foillard Côte de Py, hoping he would confirm my belief. He said that he liked the wine a lot, especially for short term drinking, but that he didn't think the 2007 was a good candidate for long term aging. Hmmm. So maybe my read is wrong on age-worthy Foillard Côte de Py. I've since drunk all of my remaining bottles except for one, and it's true - it is already showing mature notes and it feels completely harmonious. Still, I think I need to see what will happen with another 5 years or so. You know, to confirm or refute my own hypothesis. The 2010 Foillard Morgon Côte de Py, by the way, is the recent vintage that I would now bet on for best future satisfaction.

Another example is Pierre Gonon's great St. Joseph. I've had several bottles of each vintage since 2006. Hard to pick the one for the cellar. Definitely not 2008 or 2009 - too dilute and too ripe respectively. 2007? It certainly had great energy and really strong acidity. 2006? So well balanced. I would pick 2010 if I had to choose only one. I drank a bottle last week and it's just a fantastic wine that shows great clarity and detail, good acidity and structure, and although it's a bit rough and raw right now, it shows lovely balance.


It will be fun to see what happens with these wines down the road, as I have a bottle or two of each vintage in most cases. I hope I still care about this by the time they mature, and who knows, maybe the 2008 Gonon will turn out to be best in 15 years.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

The Weight of Expectations

Date: Thu, Sep 6, 2012 Wine Tasting

The other night a generous friend came over for dinner. He told me earlier in the day that he would bring "an interesting Burgundy to try." That works well because I happen to love Burgundy wine. He arrived and produced a bottle of wine by one of the most famous names in the history of Burgundy, in all of wine, I would say.

I laughed out loud when I saw the wine. I mean really - to have the opportunity to drink a bottle of wine by Henri Jayer is an amazing thing. Jayer started farming vineyards, mostly in Vosne-Romanée, for 50 years or so. He never bottled all that he harvested, as a lot of the land he worked was owned by others, but he of course bottled his own wine too, and it was legendary during his time. Prices went through the roof after Jayer died in 2006. For his top wines - the iconic Crox Parantoux, Richbourg, and Échézeaux - each bottle begins in the thousands. Multiple thousands. This year a case of 1985 Jayer Cros Parantoux sold for, um, $265,200 at auction (more than 22K per bottle for those without a calculator). I was not the person who bought it, in case you were wondering.

Until the other night I had never tasted a wine by Henri Jayer. Most of us haven't, even those of us who were into wine back in the 70's when top Burgundy cost hundreds, not thousands of dollars. There never was very much of the wine. Now that bottles are astronomically priced it's just an unlikely thing, to drink a bottle of Jayer. There are several wines like this that immediately come to mind and sadly, many of them are Burgundy wines.

What would it be like to actually drink one of these wines? Really, try to imagine it for a moment. Someone shocks you with a bottle of Jayer, or something else rare and iconic. Something you otherwise would never have the chance to drink. Something you've heard about, read about, wondered about, and never expected.

There is no question that the experience of drinking such a wine would be glorious. But what about the part where you try to figure out if you like the wine, and how much. What about the part where, regardless of whether or not you like the wine, you try to figure out if it is a good wine.

Wouldn't it be easy for your judgement to be clouded by the fact that you are drinking Henri f*#ing Jayer?!?

I've heard wine pros and other folks too say that their judgement is not clouded in these situations. I believe this but only if that person has the breadth of drinking experience to make this possible. Most of us don't have that kind of experience, and we are only human, are we not? You'd have to be a hater to walk into your first bottle of Jayer and dislike it.

So, my generous friend brought with him a bottle of 1993 Henri Jayer Bourgogne, Jayer's most humble wine. But Jayer, no less. And I will tell you that I loved the wine before it came out of the bottle. Okay, that's not true, but I was definitely all set to love it, so take everything I'm about to say now with a grain of salt.

This was not even close to being one of the top Burgundy wines I've ever had. But it was among the best Bourgogne wines I've had. I think it compared quite favorably to many of the best Villages level wines I've had. It had a delicacy to it that contrasted with the pungent and smoke-inflected flavors. Especially on the second day (my friend left me the bottle!) the wine had this sheer sensation to it, this elegant and lacy texture, and the flavors were more detailed. I wanted to find Vosne spices, but mostly I didn't. Something in the wine, the powerful and almost muscular way the wine delivered its smells and flavors, made me think of Gevrey or Nuits-Saint-Georges. But I have no idea where the grapes for this wine came from. In the end I really liked the wine, I could tell that it was a very high quality wine, and it was thrilling to drink.

And yet, the next day when I bragged to my friend Peter about drinking this wine, I also said this to him in my email:

Jayer Bourgogne was very good. but a lesson in terroir in that it in the end was Bourgogne, perhaps with some villages fruit in there? But it's hard to make a grand cru wine from Bourgogne site, even if you're Jayer I guess.

Peter wrote back, and as he tends to do, he said something concise and smart that made me want to write this post. He said:

That bottle is too weighed down by expectations. When it was made it was supposed to be a good, easy-drinking yet high-quality wine, like Lafarge Passetoutgrains or Dugat Bourgogne. Now, though, it's expected to be Jayer.

Food for thought.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

The BLT and Fried Green Tomatoes - End of Summer Tomato Gluttony

Date: Mon, Sep 3, 2012 Wine Tasting

Amazing that it's happened so quickly, but summer is basically over. The good news is that fall happens fast too, and after Thanksgiving it's just a few winter months, and then it's almost summer again. So yes, it's almost next summer already, and that is exciting.

This time of year I eat tomatoes shamelessly. Tomatoes of all colors, shapes, and sizes, at any time of day, with any combination of foods, and prepared in all sorts of ways. I try to be creative and still, some of my favorite late summer tomato dishes are the classics. Really, I ask you, could you turn down a well-made BLT? Could you refuse a plate of fried green tomatoes? I should think not.

The BLT, just in case you require a little tomato inspiration. I like mine on good white bread.

And high quality thick-cut bacon is a must. I'm using Lou's Natural bacon these days, and it's very delicious and not too fatty.
But in the end, this sandwich is about the tomato. It has to be flavorful enough so that it actually offers contrast to the smokey bacon. I've used heirlooms of various colors on a BLT and while I wouldn't kick any of them off my plate, it is the classic orange variety that gets me on a BLT.

This is a Ramapo tomato grown by star New Jersey farmer Bill Maxwell and it is not to be trifled with. It isn't as firm as some others and therefore gets a little sloppy when in sandwich, but it is well worth it for its wonderful fresh essence-of-tomato flavor. Really though, this is a messy tomato and is better eaten at home where you can get all sloppy with it.

Fried green tomatoes require a little more time but not much more effort. You are slicing green tomatoes to about a half inch thick, coating them in flour, dipping them in a mixture of buttermilk and egg, then dredging in seasoned cornmeal. There are many variations here and all work fine. I like to use breadcrumbs as a solid third of my cornmeal mixture because the crust stays together better after cooking. And I season with salt and pepper, nothing more. I'm sure there are at least 146 correct ways to do this, so do what feels right to you.

After the coating, the dipping, the dredging, and the frying, the hard part of your work is done. Now it's about choosing a vehicle. Fried green tomatoes are delicious as a side dish, but I like them to get top billing. Last week I served them as a first course, interspersed with slices of a beautiful ripe Green Cherokee tomato and topped with green goddess dressing. Green goddess dressing is ridiculously delicious and pretty easy to make, but that's for another time. This was a good dish, by the way. My friend asked for seconds and happily cleaned his plate.

What to drink with this sort of late summer tomato goodness? Anything really, from an acidic white wine to a light red wine.

I've been enjoying rosé with these dishes. A good Bandol rosé, the 2011 Terrebrune Bandol Rosé, $32, for example, imported by Kermit Lynch, has the complexity, depth of flavor, and the body to stand up to this hearty food, and also the acidity and fresh fruit to cleanse the palate. And there is something about the way Mourvedre rosé works with bacon...But I drank the leftover half of the less ambitious 2011 Domaine Les Fouques Côtes de Provence Rosé Cuvée de L'Aubigue, $14, David Lillie/Chambers Street direct import, with a BLT today and it was great. Then again, I don't need much of an excuse to drink good rosé, especially now that it is almost next summer.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Drinking Sherry Over Several Days - Further Experiments in Brooklyn Prove Useful.

Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2012 Wine Tasting

Sherry improves for a few days after opening. I know, this goes against what we've all heard for decades. But it's true, especially if we are talking about quality brown Sherries that are shipped carefully. After hearing about this for a while I experimented a bit in early 2012 and confirmed this idea. Now I routinely open a brown Sherry (Palo Cortado, Amontillado, and Oloroso) several days in advance of the night on which I plan to drink it.

What about other kinds of Sherry - do they also improve over several days? Recently I decided to experiment with a bottle of Sherry that has no official category, but we might call it a Fino-Amontillado. This is a Fino Sherry whose wines are old enough (perhaps 8-12 years) in which the flor has begun to die, and it thins and becomes patchy, no longer fully protecting the wines from oxygen in barrel. The wine begins to take on a darker color and a certain richness that comes with oxidative aging. But although it has some of the characteristics of Amontillado it is not yet Amontillado, and retains much of the brisk Fino style. This style, Fino-Amontillado, is a favorite of many Sherry aficionados, for whatever that's worth, including singer Paula Abdul, the magician Gallagher, and wine writer Peter Liem.

On a recent Wednesday night we opened a bottle of Equipo Navazos La Bota Nº 24, a Fino-Amontillado from the Pérez Barquero soleras in Montilla. A few unusual things about this wine: it is from Montilla, inland of Jerez and Sanlucar, and in Montilla even the Fino wines are made of Pedro Ximénez, not the Palomino grape. That's right, the same grape that in Jerez is used to make sweet wines in Montilla is used to make Fino style wines. Secondly, this wine was bottled almost two years ago in September of 2010. So we were experimenting with a wine that has already had some bottle age - another thing that we've traditionally heard not to do with Sherry, but that given the right wines, we now know can actually be highly desirable.

Please let me say that La Bota Nº 24 is an utterly amazing wine, one of the most compelling that I've tasted from the La Bota series. Peter said that it may have been lost in the La Bota shuffle, it may have been overlooked. It is a tremendously beautiful wine with such finesse and grace, such intensity, such detail of aroma and flavor. It was beautiful a year ago when I first tasted it and it continues to improve. Fino-Amontillado is a style of Sherry that is really worth seeking out if you haven't tried one. La Bota Nº 24 is basically sold out, but you can probably find a bottle if you look hard. You might also try Emilio Hidalgo Fino La Panesa, a wine made in the same style, or a Manzanilla Pasada such as La Bota Nº 30, which inexplicably continues to grace some retail shelves in NYC.

Okay, so what happened here, drinking this bottle over several days? The experience was a bit different from slowly drinking a brown Sherry. Brown Sherry improves over several days - it is better on day 3 than it is on day 1, for example. La Bota Nº 24 changed over the course of a week, and it never faded in that time. My sense is that it neither improved nor declined, it just changed. In the first few days the flor is more apparent on the nose and the palate, showing a lemony and almost creamy aspect. But after a few days the Amontillado characteristics become more pronounced and the wine shows a nutty richness and pungent salted caramel tones, the finish becomes less creamy and rings out with a complex oxidative tang. The wine always carried itself with finesse and grace, but the particulars changed, like a woman with innate class wearing different outfits.

This proves nothing, I'm aware. This is a wine blog, not The Lancet. Still, the more I drink Sherry the more I find pleasure in aging it in bottle, and then in drinking it slowly over several days.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Whoa!

Date: Fri, Aug 10, 2012 Wine Tasting

You know how sometimes you eat a wonderful dish or drink a great bottle with friends and although you want to share the joy, you just never seem to work it into a post on your blog? Me too, I know exactly how you feel. Here are some things from the past few months that I haven't managed to write about, but are worth sharing:

Earlier in the summer in a Japanese restaurant I ate this small appetizer plate of young bamboo shoots. They were probably simmered first, or maybe parboiled, and dressed with a Japanese herb the name of which I do not know. And the rest of the dressing - I have no idea. I have felt frustrated that I didn't ask more about the dish, but I didn't - that's that. I still think of it though because whoa, it was so good. Next year early summer I will go back and in general, I will eat more bamboo.

I know I just mentioned Bodegas Tradición Palo Cortado last week, but that was a glass pour at a restaurant. Thinking that the wine is not imported to the US (the Oloroso and Amontillado are, but not the Palo Cortado for some reason), I brought a bottle home in my luggage last October. I opened it when some one was over for dinner, and then had a small glass every day for a over a week - you don't need a lot in one sitting. The wine is great, my favorite of the Bodegas Tradición wines, but it takes a few days to unfurl after the bottle is open. There is almost none of this wine in the US, and I'm telling you, if you like Palo Cortado comprised of very old wines, you should try this. It's amazing in it's richness and depth, and whoa - it has so much finesse. A bottle will run you $90 but think for a moment before you say "no way." You're going to have 10 glasses minimum, so it actually becomes cheap considering what it is you are drinking. Crush has 3 bottles as of this writing, for the few and the bold among you.
A generous person brought this bottle of 2000 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses to a dinner, just to get things started properly. This was a Barolo dinner and there were a few blue chip wines on the table, including wines by Giuseppe Mascarello and Francesco Rinaldi. The Clos des Goisses was the wine of the night for me. It clearly showed the ripeness of this very fine vineyard, and also its elegance and detail of flavor. Whoa, a special treat.

Recently I decided to drink red wine while having dinner at home, a rarity these days. I opened my last bottle of 2007 Filliatreau Saumur-Champigny La Grand Vignole, and it benefited well from a scant few years in the cellar. I love this wine with a couple years on it, particularly in the vintages that are not 2005 or 2009 hot. Whoa, the 2007 is in a great spot right now, very fresh but there are prominent leathery and earthy notes too, and the minerality is strong on the finish. A lovely under $20 wine and a great candidate for mid-term cellaring.

This is bluefish crudo. Whoa, raw bluefish. I ate this not long ago on Martha's Vineyard at a dinner hosted by Chris Fischer, the former chef and current farmer who I believe sells produce to several hip Brooklyn restaurants, including the Andrew Tarlow joints. Anyway, bluefish is oily and very strongly flavored and isn't something that I think of eating raw. But this fish had been caught earlier in the day and it was beautiful, simply served with lemon, olive oil, salt, and herbs - full of fresh and complex flavors. Memorable.

Peter came for dinner one night and brought these two 375 ml bottles of Manzanilla: Equipo Navazos 'I Think' and Valdespino Deliciosa. Drinking these bottles next to one another, whoa - that is a particularly interesting experience in that it highlights the impact of filtration on Manzanilla Sherry. Deliciosa is bottled from a solera in the great Sanlucar bodega called Miseracordia. 'I Think' is a blend of selected wines from that same solera, including barrels from earlier criaderas. It is bottled unfiltered. I think both are great wines and drinking them together like this was fascinating. Deliciosa has a fineness that 'I Think' does not achieve, and 'I Think has a complexity and depth' that Deliciosa does not achieve. You can perform this little experiment yourself for less than $40 at Tinto Fino, the shop devoted to Spanish wines in the East Village. They are the only retailer to carry 'I Think,' and they also carry Deliciosa.
A friend had a BBQ the other night and one of his pals brought this fine old bottle of 1987 Quintarelli Valpolicella to share. Whoa! I've had Quintarelli maybe three times in my life and this is by far the oldest bottle. It was wonderful wine. So much to say, and although much of it was in a language that is foreign to me, there is no mistaking the quality here. The wine is detailed and expressive and fresh as a daisy at 25 years old. After some time I began to notice what I thought might be dried grape flavors. Should that be - isn't the Valpolicella the dry wine in the stable? I contacted my buddy Jeremy who sent me an informed and amusing set of messages about the wine and the idea that dried grapes could have made their way in there. I could almost hear him laughing as he discussed this, and it seemed to me as though he was saying that there are rules against this, but who knows what really goes on sometimes. "The Valpolicella can be made with up to 70% ripasso wine, wine that has been aged on the lees and solids of Amarone" Jeremy wrote. "So the answer is yes, although not directly." Jeremy also said that wine originally destined to become Amarone was blended into the Valpolicella in some vintages. And as he said, "who's complaining?"

Lastly, I just want to share the wonder of this old bottle of Cream Sherry. Not old as in old wines at bottling. Old as in Whoa, I found it in my parents' liquor cabinet and my mother maintains that she bought it over 10 years ago and periodically uses it for cooking. It has not been refrigerated in that time and it was a little more than half-full. I had to try it. It was actually not so bad, I enjoyed a glass. I swear, I'm not kidding.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

A Delicious Summer Breakfast Featuring Okra.

Date: Mon, Aug 6, 2012 Wine Tasting

So I'm going to reveal to you that back in fall of 2008 I was a Brooklynguy who practiced home-pickling. I found, though, that I was unable to grow a good looking soul patch, or really any facial hair that looks normal. I grew a mustache once as part of a Halloween costume but it freaked people out, they said I looked like a porn star. 86 the mustache, they said, and so I did. So clearly I should not be pickling vegetables at home either. But there was a time when I was doing some pickling. Okra, even.

What's also funny about the post I linked to above is that there is mention of essentially the same okra recipe I'm going to share today. It's the simplest of recipes - the important thing is that you use good ingredients. You are braising okra in a sauce of fresh tomatoes and garlic. And then creating a beautiful weekend breakfast by topping this with a sunny side-up egg. There are variables you can play with here. I like to use a jalapeno pepper in the braising sauce, but you can play with heat, or leave it out. You can use wine in the tomatoes, or not. You can season the braising liquid with anything you like, although I find that with super good ingredients, you don't need much.

Okra is at the markets now, and you should try this - it's delicious and quite healthy:

Wash the okra and trim the stem so that a centimeter or less remains. Put some music on - I think that Coltrane Live in Stockholm works well here, but you can go with Giant Steps too. You can use good canned tomatoes, but 'tis tomato season. I like to use fresh plum tomatoes, but last weekend I used a smaller variety of the same shape called Juliettes. Use good tomatoes - that's what's most important. Chop the tomatoes coarsely. Use a mortar and pestle to make a paste of a very large clove of garlic. In a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat, using olive oil or neutral oil to your taste, cook the tomatoes until they begin to break down a little, stirring a lot, maybe 5 minutes. Add the garlic paste and some salt. Stir some more.

Add the okra and stir to coat them with the tomato sauce. Here I like to add a fresh jalapeno pepper that I've poked with a fork so that its flavors will easily seep out into the sauce. Stir some more, turn down the heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer, stirring a few times, until the okra are as tender as you want them to be. You will have something that looks like this (although you can stop the simmer 8 minutes earlier and have firmer okra, also amazing):

You can do anything with this. Eat it as a side dish, put it on rice, put it between your knees (a prize to whoever gets that film reference). For me, it has become breakfast.

Fry an egg and put it right on top. A hunk of baguette too.

I especially like it when the egg is all broken up and merges with the somewhat gooey okra and tomato. You know what - this dish isn't for you. Just forget about the whole thing.

Now, drinking wine on a weekend morning is a bad thing to do, because it's the morning time and we shouldn't drink in the morning. So I really cannot recommend a wine to pair with this because as I've explained already, it's breakfast and we don't drink wine on an August Saturday morning with okra stew and fried egg. But if, however, you were to ask me from a theoretical perspective, what wine it is that I would recommend to the type of scallywag who actually would drink wine in this situation... I would say that a good Fino, perhaps the basic Emilio Hidalgo Fino ($14 for a 750, imported by Winebow) is a great match. This is purely hypothetical, of course.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Good Things to Eat While Traveling - Vera in Chicago.

Date: Thu, Aug 2, 2012 Wine Tasting

I was in Chicago recently and my pal Peter told me to try a Spanish place called Vera. Wow, glad that I did. There is an exciting Sherry list, the food is very good, and the staff are genuinely friendly and welcoming. The whole vibe is right - this place is a gem, and if you are in Chicago I highly recommend that you try it.

Okay, take a look at this Sherry list. One thing I noticed immediately is that they are pouring Bodegas Tradición by the glass! How could I resist beginning with a glass of the Palo Cortado, a wonderful wine that needs several days open before it really shows what it has to offer. The wine was absolutely singing, and the bartender told me that he opened the bottle several days previously - nice. By the way, Quade the bartender - he was warm, friendly, he had no ironic facial hair, nor did he interrupt a candle-making project in order to talk to me. He was a nice guy, relaxed, eager to make me feel welcome. I was very much aware that I was not in a Brooklyn restaurant...

I ate pinchos (skewers) of beef tongue with the Bodegas Tradición Palo Cortado and this was a very delicious thing, one of the better pairings I've had lately. This is chunks of tongue, crisp on the outside and melt-in-you mouth tender on the inside, its richness was tempered by a bright salsa verde. This is a great dish, one that demands to be eaten at every visit.

Pinchos of octopus with olive oil and pimentón were tender, delicately smoky, and delicious. I'd like to eat them again, and this time with a great Manzanilla or Fino, maybe one that is on its way to becoming Amontillado, like Emilio Hidalgo La Panesa, or Equipo Navazos La Bota No 30. If I could suggest one thing for the Vera list, it would be to add more Fino and Manzanilla, but that's picking nits - there is plenty to drink already.

Yellow squash with hazelnuts, mint, and Romesco sauce, along with two Amontillados - Bodegas Tradición and the VORS El Maestro Sierra. Not bad, not bad at all. I also ate a delicious plate of Manilla clams with house-made chorizo along with two young Olorosos - Gutierrez Colosía Sangre y Trabajader and El Maestro Sierra.

Liz Mendez owns Vera with her husband Mark Mendez. They've been in the business for a long time and if my visit is any indication, they know how to take care of you. People of all types are eating at Vera - it's not a geeky Sherry bar, and there are plenty of things to drink if you don't want Sherry. But explain to me please why it is that you wouldn't want Sherry?

Vera - 1023 West Lake Street in the happening West Loop neighborhood.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

A lesson in Burgundy terroir, as great a pairing as I've had all year, and the best wine I've ever had.

Date: Sat, Jul 28, 2012 Wine Tasting

There was a dinner I enjoyed not long ago with a few of the guys from my Burgundy Wine Club. One of our group, a brain surgeon who lives in Rhode Island, came to NYC specifically to enjoy this dinner with us and he brought a slew of absolute gems from his cellar to share. I'm talking about well preserved white Burgundy from the late 1980's. And not just any old Burgundy, great terroirs were represented. Drinking them together was really a breathtaking experience and offered several profound lessons.

We were lucky to be able to bring these wines to one of the hidden gems of Brooklyn dining, my friend Albano's restaurant called Aliseo in Prospect Heights. I've known Albano for 10 years now, I see him at the market early on Saturday mornings, I've eaten his food many times. There is no need to order anything in this situation, and that's my favorite way to do things. I said "Albano, there will be 4 of us and we will be drinking some very special old wines. We are in your hands." He said "Okay."

Let me start the rest of the story by talking about terroir. We began with two bottles of Meursault by François Jobard, the 1986 and 1988 Meursault 1er Cru Genevrières. I don't know a whole lot here, but I know that François Jobard made great wines back then. I've very much enjoyed the few bottles I've had from this period. There is a certain style to the wines, austere, old school, perhaps a little rustic. And Genevrières is a great vineyard, with Charmes it's considered to be right below Perrières in potential. The 1986 showed some botrytis and it took an hour or more for it to harmonize. The 1988, however, that wine was gorgeous from the moment we opened it until it was gone perhaps two hours later. So very mineral. Yes, there were hazelnuts and other things too, but they blended seamlessly and were secondary to the floor they danced upon - the stone. A balanced and complex wine that made all of us very happy - "this is all you can hope you when you drink old Meursault," some one said. It was without question one of the best Meursaults I have ever had.

That wine could be the centerpiece of an evening for me and I would be thrilled. The thing is, after the Meursaults we drank 1989 Dauvissat Les Clos. It was utterly glorious wine. Strikingly fresh, vivid and harmoniously expressive, such focused aromas and flavors, such complexity and detail, and it grew and improved in the glass over a few hours. Without question the best Chablis I've ever had. And it made the Meursault seem a lot less grand. I commented on this and someone said something like "It's true, and that's the difference in terroir - Les Clos is a true Grand Cru."

Had the evening ended there it would have been memorable. But it didn't. We then drank a wine that I am convinced is the best wine I've ever had.

Perhaps I've experienced equal pleasure while drinking other wines. But I've never had a wine as good as this one. 1989 Marquis de Laguiche Drouhin Montrachet. I've never had a Montrachet before. Okay, I had a taste from a barrel in 2008 while visiting the cellars of Lucien Le Moine. but that just doesn't count. It's a big thing to say - "the best wine I've ever had." But it's true, and I knew it almost immediately. I've never smelled or tasted a wine that is so pungent and also so perfectly detailed, controlled, and complete. It glowed with energy and permeated every crevice in my nose, mouth, and throat. Some one used the word "spherical" and that's absolutely true. The wine was a perfect circle, a perfect thing, and it actually moved me to shed a tear or two, but don't worry, none of the guys at the table saw this.

So, among the best Meursaults that I've had, the best Chablis that I've had, and then the best wine that I've ever had. Nice. And the thing is, the Montrachet made the Les Clos seem less grand. And 1989 Dauvissat Les Clos is a very grand wine. But this is Montrachet we're talking about. One of the very finest vineyards on the planet. I've read that a lot of the Montrachet out there does not justify the very high prices, that a great bottle of Batard, Chevaliers, or Merusault Perrières can be more thrilling than a sub-par Montrachet. I've also heard that a great Montrachet is among the ultimate experiences in wine. This bottle was great, and I've never had a better wine.

Another thing: Albano served crudo of scallops when we drank the Dauvissat Les Clos. In Albano's dish the scallops were coarsely sliced, drizzled with a fruity olive oil, topped with cracked pink peppercorns, and served with braised leeks. Olive oil, pink peppercorns and Les Clos? On paper this might not be the ideal pairing, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. It was honestly the best pairing I've had all year. One of the rare cases in which the wine and food elevated each other in true synergy, and it was astoundingly delicious.

Last thing: I remember maybe 5 years ago reading something on a blog in which the writer asked "Can a person be a credible wine critic if they have never tasted the world's best wines? Can a person critique Burgundy if one has never tasted La Tâche?" I used to think that the answer to that question is "yes." I can drink a Simon Bize Savigny-Les-Beaune Aux Vergelesses, for example, and I might be able to compare it to other wines from Savigny. Or to other red Burgundy wines that I have drunk. I might be able to tell you whether or not I liked it, and why. Maybe there is some value in that. But if I haven't experienced the heights that Burgundy can achieve, I cannot truly place the Bize wine in the proper context. I'm not saying that I don't trust myself or know what I like, and so on. But I drank a great Montrachet - I have some understanding of what white Burgundy can be now. It expands context in a vast way for me and changes my understanding of other wines.

I'm telling you...this one was a night to remember.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Macharnudo Alto - Exploring the Terroir Stamp of a Vineyard in Sherry.

Date: Sun, Jul 22, 2012 Wine Tasting

When I think of terroir, I invariably think within the Burgundian model where each vineyard produces wines that are different from those of its neighboring vineyards. I'm willing to bet that most of us think of terroir in approximately those terms. There are several places in the wine world that do not adhere to this model, though, and the Sherry Triangle is one of them.

When I think of terroir in Sherry I think of the white chalky soils called albariza, I think of the peculiar and wonderful smell and taste of flor, I think of the salty air in Sanlucar's Manzanillas and of the yeasty tang of Jerez's Finos. I think of intense heat and winds. Especially now that I have visited the region, I think of the beautiful old buildings, or bodegas, where barrels of wine age in elaborate soleras. Each bodega is unique in terms of airflow, temperature, humidity, and many other variables, and I've heard people say that the Bodega itself is a unique terroir. I do not for a moment doubt the truth in this idea.

Where is the vineyard in all of this? There is little or no emphasis placed on the vineyard in Sherry. This was not always the case, and Peter Liem, America's foremost Sherry expert, has often spoken about how the best vineyards in the area have long been recognized as such, and how they once played a prominent role in the understanding of Sherry wines. As I am sure he will discuss in his forthcoming book called Sherry, Manzanilla and Montilla, a collective decision was made a long time ago in the region to focus on producing high quantities of decent wine for the mass market, as opposed to making wines of the highest quality. Even today, although we are in the middle of a huge resurgence of interest in Sherry wines, much of what is available is mass market wine that is decent but not special. The market still has a long and winding road to recovery.

Is there a terroir stamp of the vineyard in the Sherry region? As Peter would say, there is little empirical evidence for this. Almost no one in the region is making single vineyard wines, and comparing vineyards is therefore almost impossible. "Since no one has cared for 60 years, Miraflores for example has not been vinified and aged in solera in the same place as Macharnudo Alto," Peter said. "It would take quite a while to do this, even if the investment were made."

Although there is no way to compare vineyard terroirs right now, it is possible to very deeply explore at least one vineyard, the site called Macharnudo Alto. Macharnudo Alto is a parcel within Marcharnudo, one of the four great pagos of the region. A pago is something like a vineyard district - an area containing several named parcels. I recently had the great pleasure to attend a dinner featuring a slew of wines made from Macharnudo Alto. Peter Liem conceived of this dinner and put it on with the support of Rosemary Gray of RS Productions NYC.

Peter explained the idea behind the dinner:

I have been wanting to do a specific sherry tasting for over a year now, involving an in-depth examination of the vineyard of Macharnudo Alto. Macharnudo is one of the four great pagos, or vineyard districts, that lie to the north and west of Jerez, and while it is composed of many individual vineyard sites, the most celebrated is that of Macharnudo Alto, which is the highest in altitude and the one considered to have the purest albariza soils.

We are fortunate in that not only is Macharnudo Alto one of the great historical sites of the sherry region, it also belongs, in part, to one of the greatest sherry bodegas currently in existence, Valdespino, who has been making single-vineyard sherries from Macharnudo Alto since at least the middle of the nineteenth century. The result is an array of wines that offer a multi-faceted expression of a legendary terroir...

The Macharnudo pago is perhaps 800 hectares, the Marcharnudo Alto parcel much smaller than that, and of that Valdespino owns 56 hectares. From these vines come excellent wines that you really should get to know if you are interested in Sherry (if you haven't tried them already). I'm talking about Inocente, the very fine Fino, Tio Diego, the unique and wonderful Amontillado, Viejo CP, the great Palo Cortado, and finally Cardenal, the rare and regal very old Palo Cortado that is surely one of the finest wines in all of the region. On a recent hot and muggy night a group of Sherry lovers congregated at Terroir TriBeCa to drink these and other wines from Macharnudo Alto, and although I cannot say that I came from this with a clear understanding of the terroir of Macharnudo Alto as it relates to other parcels in Jerez, I can tell you that the wines are reliably excellent. Here are some notes and thoughts:

Valdespino Fino Inocente. We drank two versions of this great wine; one recent bottling from October of 2011, and one that was bottled in January of 2006 and aged in a cellar since then. That's right, aged Inocente. Well made biologically-aged wines are capable of improving in the cellar and drinking these two wines next to one another was a startling experience. I very much like the young wine and would happily drink it at any hour of the day, but the version that spent 6.5 years in bottle...that wine was amazing. This is not the first time I've had this experience, and it reminds me to put bottles of this great wine in the cellar. What's odd about the wine with some bottle age is that it seems to follow an aging curve that is the inverse of what we see in most wines. The older wine shows a more prominent fruit character! Who can explain these things. Anyway, Inocente is a fabulous wine and I am excited to hear that Valdespino's new importer Polaner will offer 750 ml bottles in addition to the 375's that we've seen here. Inocente out of a 750 is a very delicious thing.

Equipo Navazos La Bota de Fino Macharnudo Alto Nº 15, Nº 18, and Nº 27. These wines are created by selecting from barrels in the Inocente solera at Valdespino. Although the idea is to make a different wine each time, these wines are similar in that they tend to be richer and fuller in body than Inocente.

I like each of them, but on this night Nº 18 was the one I preferred. It had an energy and a linear focus that I enjoyed. You can almost see this when comparing the appearance of the three wines in the above photo. I must say that of all of the Equipo Navazos wines that I have tasted, this series is the one that I am least enamored of and I think it's because I cannot help myself but to compare them with Inocente as I drink them.

Amontillado Tio Diego. Tio Diego is unique as an Amontillado because it is so recently removed from flor. It is essentially a biologically aged wine that has spent only 5 or 6 years aging oxidatively. I always thought that Tio Diego is a continuation of the Inocente solera, that Tio Diego is what happens to the wines in the solera level of Inocente if they continue to age for a few years. But on this night I learned something new about this lovely wine. Tio Diego is its own solera, and Inocente does not feed it. The young wines that replenish the youngest barrels in the Inocente solera - they are the same young wines that replenish the youngest barrels in the Tio Diego solera. But after that they follow their on course. In any case, Tio Diego is a delicious Amontillado, one in which the lactic and tangy echo of flor is still quite evident. It is a wine that like all of the brown Sherries I know, shows best a few days after opening.
Palo Cortado Viejo C.P. This Palo Cortado solera is fed with barrels from the Inocente and Tio Diego soleras, barrels that the cellar master deems unusual in some way, not well-suited for making Fino or Amontillado. I tasted a version of this wine at the bodega from a barrel but had never had this wine from a bottle with a meal. It showed beautifully, I think more perfectly than any other on this evening. I loved the orange oil I was getting on the nose and the compelling depth and complexity of the palate. It was incredibly delicious with a well-prepared plate of thinly sliced roast pork and rosemary. C.P. stands for Calle Ponce, by the way, the name of a street where the Valdespino bodega that houses this solera was once located.

Palo Cortado Cardenal VORS. The wines here average 60-70 years of age at bottling and the Viejo C.P. solera feeds this solera. I find it hard to describe the aromas and flavors of Cardenal. It is so intense and complex and it develops over many days after the bottle is open. It is a combination of great richness and complexity from the concentrated old wines, and also of great finesse and detail, characteristics that just might be the best way to think of the terroir stamp of Macharnudo Alto.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Emmanuel Houillon / Pierre Overnoy Dinner.

Date: Thu, Jul 19, 2012 Wine Tasting

Dinner at Boulud Sud with the Arbois wines of Emmanuel Houillon / Pierre Overnoy.
2010 and 2009 Poulsard.

The two vintages are quite different in character and this shows clearly in color. The 2010 was like drinking liquid roses.

Both Chardonnays were excellent. The 2010 is as mineral of a wine as I can remember drinking.

Proud roast chickens and their mushroom and herb friends.

Chicken, morels, spinach, sauce au vin jaune with tarragon. An embarrassment of riches.

Savagnin Vieux, an ouillé, or topped-up Savagnin.

Overnoy Vin Jaune. Are you kidding me?

And that wasn't the end.

A wonderful evening in every way, and an amazing act of generosity. Thank you!

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Levi Dalton's Latest Podcast is up - our Conversation.

Date: Tue, Jul 17, 2012 Wine Tasting

Whoa! Levi Dalton's podcast series continues and today's installment features our conversation. We talk about blogging and what motivates me, and all sorts of things. If nothing else, this offers proof that I am in fact a person who is capable of speaking.

Thank you Levi for including me in this ambitious and interesting project.


Here's how you can listen to the interview:

The I'll Drink to That website (for a few days).

The ITunes site, along with Levi's whole podcast series.

Read Full Wine Blog Post

Tasting Note Sources

Date: Mon, Jul 16, 2012 Wine Tasting

Here are the sources of the tasting notes I reproduced on Friday:

1) Richard Jennings describing 1996 Chapoutier St Joseph Blanc Les Granits. All of Jennings' notes are in a style that is not my personal favorite, but this one with its meniscus measurement strikes me as particularly strange. By the way, I say "personal favorite" for a reason. Richard Jennings is by far the favorite author of the CellarTracker community, where as of today 1,407 members have tagged him as a favorite author. Second favorite is Eric LeVine, the founder of the site, with 1,142. Third is Keith Levenberg with 603. CellarTracker is the most widely used cellar management and tasting note board on the internet (all statistics made up, yet true). Clearly Jennings' notes speak to many people.

2) Alder Yarrow of Vinography describing 2010 Fred Loimer "Seeberg Erste Lage Reserve" Riesling, Langenlois, Kamptal. The "electric cool aid explosion" and the "jet boat ride" got me. Nothing wrong with that though, as it comes across as genuine to me, and you could argue, quite descriptive.

3) This is me getting all exuberant and emotive after drinking Selosse Substance for the first time. An over-the-top tasting note for an over-the-top wine. I liked the note at the time but I think it's clear now that it has not aged well. Reading it out of context it can come off as downright strange.

4) Frederic Koeppel of Bigger Than Your Head describing 2009 Michel Lafarge Volnay Vendanges Sélectionées. I quite like this note, as for me it captures the feeling of drinking good red Burgundy. What I found odd is how the soulful character of the note juxtaposes with the scientific-sounding (and in my opinion, more misleading than helpful) recommendation on a drinking window: "now through 2018 to '20."

5) Robert Parker describing 2006 Ausone ($1,495!), via Sherry-Lehmann's website. I am not a subscriber to the Wine Advocate so I had to get this note from a retailer's reprint. Okay, this is a Parker note and it's bombastic, as I'm sure the wine is. But I was struck by this part: "...but what makes it so special is its precision, focus, and almost ethereal lightness despite substantial flavor intensity and depth. It is a ballerina with density and power." Sounds like something that Asimov or any of the "Post-Parker generation" of influential wine writers would say about a red wine they appreciate. Is this Parker imitating that new type of compliment for red wine, or has he always said such things about the big reds that he loves?
---
Anyway, thanks for indulging me in this exercise. As is evidenced in the comments to the previous post, tasting notes for some reason provoke a lot of outrage in people. I think that there's no point in hating the note, it's a part of selling wine and that's that. Everyone who writes about wine is responsible for some strange notes. But tasting notes should be useful other than as shelf talkers with point scores attached. I think the trick is to not expect too much. After all, how can a few sentences describe a full sensory experience? Keep it simple - find a voice(s) that you relate to most of the time, and trust yourself as much as you trust that voice.

Read Full Wine Blog Post