The Feiring Line

Salon 403. January 10th

Lelaine Lau has resurrected the idea of the salon, a concept I'm all for. In her words:

403 is a cultural salon in New York City which seeks to encourage  discussion, the exchange of ideas, and action through presentations on the arts, culture and humanitarian concerns. 

The next one has......me.

It would be ultra swell to see you on  January 9th, when I'll preview the new book, and we'll all engage in the raging debate, vibrant discussion, rollicking questions and answers, concerning 'natural wine.' 

Wine is generously provided by Jenny & Francois and Jose Pastor. 

 

Boxing Day Wine of the Year

Snow. Last week was the Solstice, it passed through my life without a mention, without a ritual, without walking in the night until the dawn, without hiding from the skunks threatening perfume, without a wet gust of wind or a winter fly.

I've been cleaning.  Besides coming across a crazy letter to me  from Dr. Nina Simone (1986

which I am contemplating trying to sell on ebay, I unearthed a postcard from a gallery I visited in Paris, 2004. It was pretty cold and I was on my way to my annual Loire-a-thon when I found myself mesmerized by the work of Fernando X. Gonzalez.

I fell in love with that particular show. The way sometimes you fall in love with a boy, a man, a wine, yes, I admit I've had all of those. I fell in love with his images, his paintings, his drawings, brutal and romantic, delicate and coarse. They were not terribly expensive, but beyond my reach. His work seems like the back story of the snow, mountains barely visible, a waking dream. An Argentine working in Paris. Maybe one day, I'll have my own little piece instead of stealing images, like cyber sex, I imagine, no replacement for the real thing. 

 

(snatched from 'lil Gidding. T.S. Eliot)

....In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing

The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell

Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time

But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow

Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom

Of snow, a bloom more sudden

Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,

Not in the scheme of generation.

Where is the summer, the unimaginable

Zero summer?

 

If you came this way,

Taking the route you would be likely to take

From the place you would be likely to come from,

If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges

White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.

It would be the same at the end of the journey,

If you came at night like a broken king,

If you came by day not knowing what you came for,

It would be the same, when you leave the rough road

And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade

And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for

Is only a shell, a husk of meaning

From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled

If at all.

++

(Is it time for some La Bota 18 yet?)

Yes.

 

 

Which brings me to the pickle of the ASF wine of the year.

The big pickle. 

You see, almost every year has brought me to gamay, once a burgundy snuck in because it was delicious and $15. The ASF wine of the year is the one I find myself constantly drinking, in truth, the wine of my life is probably Clos Roche Blanche gamay. This year it could have been the '08 Foillard. But....the wine that has taken me by the hands and spun me around the most, made me try to catch my breath was..

 

   

The Aux Fourneaux vineyard is  largish and often overlooked, probably because half of it is lowly village wine while the other is 1er cru.  The block lies east of the village towards to main road, south of Pernand and just east of Les Lavières. 

Oh, I know, you think I'm being boring, because how often can I talk about this wine, I did recently blog it after all. But you see to me, the wine of the year is the one that sticks and inspires. Usually I pick a new vintage (and I'll buy this wine in every vintage) but this year demanded the extra-ordinary, I needed help. This 2006 is a vintage that has pleased me so much, this  domaine is one that almost never fails to disappoint. I think I paid $32 for it, but can't be sure. It is out of my usual budget, but there are sometimes you'll pay for pleasure.

Maybe it was the company, Jeremy and Anthony, but I don't think so. However, I was sure happy they were there to share it, as if I didn't believe my own reaction. As if, as if, as if I needed them to weigh in, as if you're not sure, did you really see that shooting star?

 I put my nose in the glass and after so many wine disappointments, I sank into its pillow of relief, I was so tired of being bored. The wine brought to mind clover can when the bees are in the height of zero summer, and a romp in the hay is in a distinct possibility.

Happy New Year to you all.

Champagne for Bjork's New Year, 2011

The wind almost blew me off my bike, yet I arrived without incident. After locking my vehicle to the two-wheeled vehicle parking space in front of Astor Wines. I walked into the store, frozen, but came to life quickly because there is something magical about a wine store filled with people looking for help and it brings out the therapist in me. Though I was a miserable salesperson on the wholesale side, it turns out that I am brilliant on the floor where the extrovert in me sneaks out like Persephone from the other side. 

I sauntered down Astor's Champagne aisle to see what they had these days.

I had been feeling out of touch and wanted to see if what I thought was true: that one cannot get a decent bottle under $30.

True.

There is no wonder I am recommending sparklers from the Jura instead. Meanwhile, the champagne season is upon us and people will be wanting recommendations. So, while making notes what was available, I saw a slim, fashiony man in a short snorkel coat, fingering the Moet.

"Can I help you?" I asked him.

He was hesitant, and in a lovely Italian accent, tried to dismiss me. I insisted with uncharacteristic bravado, as if I was playing some grand role,  "I hope you don't mind but I really would love to help you choose a wonderful bottle and I know this area well." 

We perused the options in the under $41 category. Personally I would go for the Boulard Rosé ($39), which is wild and strawberry with a brilliant touch of volatility. Or the La Caravelle Blanc de Blancs ($36.), which I had the pleasure to have only once, last year in Louisiana, but was impressed with its clarity as well as nice squeeze of citrus. Either one, great deals. But I could see, he needed a box. There are sometimes that you need a box. 

I directed him to the Roederer Brut Premier-NV @ $41. Sold. I saved him from a fate of Moet, and all was good in the world. And while another five dollars would get him the glorious B&B of  Lassaigne, which can be found with its box, but they had none, sometimes you need a box.

Then he had a real question for me. "Do you know Bjork?"

Well, yes, not personally, but I live in the world and I often see her standing on Houston with mult-shopping bags of clothes hailing a cab.

"I'll be at her house on New Years Eve and do you have any suggestions? I was thinking of Dom Perignon."

Oh dear. First I had to steer him away from Moet, now I had to deal with the whammy of the 'DP' status. So I said, let's see if they have the 1996. That is the only vintage you should get.

They didn't.

Safe.

Then I said, you know how Hermes is really about quality but LVMH is all about image?  For all I knew, Arnault was his employer, but he understood. I followed up with , "Bjork is an organic kind of girl, if she or you ever saw the Moet vineyards, you'd swear you'd never buy another bottle."

Okay, he said. And we were off.

His budget was $200.  I thought of a magnum, but I didn't like the options at Astor. (Had we been at Chambers Street he could have purchased a magnum of the Gautherot-Vouette et Sorbée NV (2007) Blanc d'argile for $175. )

Astor still has a good champagne lineup but it has never reached the greatness when Jeff Connell, now departed for parts north, was its prince. On Thurday, @ Astor, there was one wine to go for; and it had to be Selosse.

Not Substance because the Substance can be awfully slutty, but the Initiale? Now that is cut from stone. $129. (He could have also gone for the Paillard 1996 @ $199, great vintage, lovely wine, not that I had it recently, but let's just say I wouldn't kick it out of bed.)The thought process clicked in motion. "I thought rich, exuberant, flashy, but an element of eccentricity but not over the top, I didn't want to risk it, but the wine had to have lots of  beauty and a story.

Never the less, I think the Bjork sensibility and the Selosse is a match made in heaven. 

I adore doing this kind of wine matchmaking, something like I did for the Plumber.  for one, I'm usually right. For two, I don't get blamed if the couple breaks up.

On this Christmas that fell on the day after the foggy moon, spend cleaning the bookshelves and the corners of my curly brain, I'll never know what the outspoken star thought of her bubbly, and that makes me sad. So if you happen to be at Bjork's this New Years, will you be my spy and let me know? 

 

 

The Cook, the Thief the Suckling Tapes and Me (a picaresque wandering)

Readers of this blog can rightly assume that I'm no fan of the Suckling Tapes. I've heard others pose the theory that watching the high-gloss productions have the compelling magnetism of a train wreck. Yet, I've not been able to make it through the end of any. 

In one disturbing episode he, Jay McInerny and David Sokolin tasted and scored a mashup of 1982 Bordeaux. None of these men gave context. There were no stories behind the chateau or the vintage, all they proffered were boring, (very) tasting notes and numbers.  

Directed towards Suckling's target customer? Of course.

Directed to the collector who cares soley for status and not taste? It would appear.

 God knows, there are enough of those types around, who view their 1982 Latour as their new Breitling,  or their new piece of arm-candy. Yes, good luck to him. 

While I turned the tapes off,  I found myself thinking about how years back when I sat in the Angelika watching  The Cook the Thief His Wife And Her Lover, I had to leave.

 Not during this scene, but during the end of this: 

 

 Tell me, is this the scene where Michael is being force fed pages of his books? ( or that's what I thought.  At the time, I was so troubled, I ran away from the wet sounds of Michael's strangulation,  forced to eat the words from the volumes he so loved. My fantasy may have been worse than Greenaway's reality.) But I do know, that in this scene, Helen Mirren's character said, "What good are these books? You can't eat them."

Here was disrespect for man, words and literature. Here was a scene sobereft of humanity, much in the same way  those Tapes  respected neither word nor story. Where the Greenaway film was complex and layered, the Tapes had an obscene reductionism. The number was the  parameter, not the taste. I felt I was  being smothered by points.

I have no trouble with someone marketing themselves or making money, I  do question Suckling's judgment for  using  social media. The crowd just doesn't seem to be his audience. He was slammed immediately for shamelessness, ego. He was cited for being as out of step with current wine trends and assuming a 'natural wine' was no longer for Birkenstock wearing hippies. People in 17th century France were guillotined for similar points of view. Social Media can also be brutal with its rapid lifecycle from Hero to Haman. 

While Suckling innocently sauntered into a world he didn't belong, none are immune to the lifecycle and pettiness of Blogging and Tweeting where wings of both angels and dragonflies can be ripped off from the the scapulae. Applause is as common as jeers. Sometimes the bullies swarm;  mean boys and girls drive their peers to thoughts of suicide. It's easy to see how the young and the weak, or merely the weak, can be provoked to self-destruct. I am not immune.

A good and famous friend once counseled me that I should never read what is written about me. He was right and I imagine Mr. Suckling will not read the Heimoff Blog. But what happens when the hate gets posted on Twitter or even in your mail box? 

Over the past few days I have had pieces of hate arrive  through email, through Twitter and to my face. I did not have the option of not reading. But it sure made me think hard about human nature and how modern technology is helping to feed the baser emotions. 

How people see themselves as opposed to the reality is the stuff of both depression and therapy. I have no idea how Suckling views himself, perhaps a rock star, perhaps a wine 'expert.'  While people view me as some sort of natural wine something (fill in the blank: diva, princess, high priestess) those are media's terms for me, not mine.  

Creating a sentence and not an image or even a wine message is what gets me up in the morning.  Unfortunately, no therapist to date has been able to wean my ego away from its obsession of  syntax; not color, structure and aroma. True,  wine is the majority subject and it fascinates me and I do love writing about it as cultural, philosophical and political metaphor, and the ones that I love, sure do taste good to me. So I fold these two obsessions into this complex tango.

 I use is my tools and platforms  to support my stories and the little guy, the under dog, the person and the wines and stories that I think need to be told. Vin nature is one of them, I am not a one trick pony and my stories don't come with a number.

This weekend,  Leonard Bernstein's picture arrived in the New York Times. 

 

I tore it out and pegged it with a slender needle to my book shelves, above my computer. Lenny is speaking to me.

Look at his focus. The coaxing look in his eye, the tension across the shoulder, the grip on his baton, the curl in his pinkie; every bit of his energy is going into the orchestra to squeeze out the sound he wants. Everything. There is no room for hatred, there is no room for anything but the music, there's no room for the audience. He is there with his art and with the art. That is it. That is beauty. That is brilliance. In that moment there is no room for pettiness. There is wisdom in this image. I will try to listen.

 

 

 

 

Suckling vs. Sadat X (the F****d Up Factor)

 Deep Throat called me, breathed heavilly into my phone and said, Alice, babe, you know what  you should do?"

I couldn't resist. He/She was really correct. 

I have found the James Suckling video's, (where he goes on a points rampage, sizing all wines up by numbers, saying tea, sweet jam and cigar box) too disturbing to watch. In what I had seen the  ego and status driven episodes were a compression of vapid, superficial culture.

 But when my Deep Throat,  suggests I have to watch the segment  where James enters a shop off of an LA highway, where the owner gives him a Zaccagnini, well, out of respect for our friendship, I do.

I personally have not had this Contadina Zaccagnini, a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, (not a vino nobile)  in over a decade.I have nothing invested in the wine nor do I have an opinion. (Not exactly true, but I won't comment on its flavor.)

I suggest you watch them both; in Jame's video, if you manage to get  through the  1st quarter of the tape, you'll arrive to the handing off of the  Contadina Zaccagnini.

http://www.jamessuckling.com/retail-tasting-2020-wine-company.html

(The previous wine JS described as having an oily in the texture? I would have tossed that one, but James  rated it a 90+. Even if a wine had olive oil floating on top, it shouldn't taste oily.)

Now, the second wine? THE montepulciano...the Zaccagnini  "I'm  90 on this, great buy."

(what is the difference between a 90 point $18 dollar bottle of wine and a 90 points bottle @ $350?)

Now,  there's  Sadat X,  "A nice good smooth wine with an oak stick." --love that stick.

Who will you believe for that fucked up factor?  5+.  

 

   

 

 

Reprise Modern Love

Some stories have to be written. For some reason, this was one of them.

When the Toast is...

 

Closing Doors: DL Cerney

The building is being sold and all of the dudes and dudettes are crying. Me too. Linda, amazing artist and writer and clothing visionary who talks about her perfect man by his neck and arm length (her husband Duane as it turns out)...closing their doors in November the latest. So, the sale is on. This is only the second sale in history for them! Their stuff never goes on sale. The mens stuff--classic 30s,40s,50s.  She's got plenty of celeb clients (she had me take them off the site the last time I slipped), artists, designers, writers...and wine and food writers, some who are related to Jancis Robinson. Anyway, this is the shop for Bettie Page/Doris Day James Dean/ early Marlon/Kerouac ....style.

 3 E. 7th St., New York, NY 10003 
nr. Third Ave.  
212-673-7033 

25$-50% off.

(old videos but the clothes are classics)

 

In this series of videos' Linda talks about some new finds at her store: Feiring favorite? The Emotional Coat

 

  

 

Laura Maniec, MS Opens a Bottle

At a special little tasting/dinnerLaura skillfully opens a 1947 Liger-Belair Clos Vougeot.

 

   

The Case for My Father

 

Just because I didn't want it to disappear, as I might never have another piece of fiction published in my life, so, this excerpt from my novel (in-progress) appeared in 11/09 in Brooklyn Rail. 

 

 

Kidnapped to Gurney's Inn

She does spa, I do not. I suspected trouble when my friend ordered me to  pack my bag for a girl-trip.

 Now, mention spa and she looks as pithed as a frog. She's a girlie-girl, she loves being indulged and just couldn't understand  that at the mention spa I go claustrophobic.

I've had some experiences in the past; Wilbur Hot Springs in the days when it was very hippie--and communal. All I did was soak in the water, easy.

There was a massage at Meadowbrook Inn in Napa. The gentleman was so violent, I thought he was working out his hatred of mothers on my gluteals.  I broke out in full body hives four days later--were these events related?

The only spa sleep-over was at Kripalu, due to a friend's request. Krip has a no alcohol policy, so  I snuck in a flask, I felt like I was getting away with murder.  We booked dinners where not only could we talk (they have a no speaking dining rule) but drink. We wended through the hospital like hall, past the walking wounded to our cell-like rooms. Come mornings, we ran to Lenox  as fast as possible for the caffeine fix, the sneaks we were!  So much for yoga.

Yet this particular time, at the beginning of December, I was as drained as week old juiced lemon. I had just handed my book draft in and my brain was sitting in one corner while my body was sitting in its Aeron. I admitted I was in need of a break. She was being kind.   I was being given a gift, yet it felt more like a trip to the acupuncturist.

"Gurney's!" she said, so thrilled.

I did a little research. Barely anything written about family run Grande Dame on Montauk. There are Montes in chef coat, and Montes running the Spa and Montes in charge of the dining room and marketing. This is not just family run, this is dynasty and in America, rare.

But Gurney's fame is the spa, Long Island's only destination full-service spa, and one dedicated to Thalasso therapy.

Their Olympic sized indoor salt water pool was a huge selling point to me. The reviews on the treatments were glowing, but the ones on the rooms were tired. 

After first determining that they would allow me to bring my own wine, (very kind of them, after all, I'm a fuss pot) I gave over to fate, packed a bathing suit, scouted out an escape plan, chose a Clos Roilette VV (2007) and a Monte d'all 'Ora  valpolicella. Two bottles of wine when one might be corked was not enough, but never the less, headed for the LIRR, determined to do it with a smile. 

Once the train passed Babylon, I was confronted with memories of college years at Stony Brook, the searching the feeling of being a misfit.  "I hate Long Island," I sighed.

I didn't mean this as an sort of criticism, just a statement of my history with that lobster claw protrusion off of Manhattan.

"Are you going to be negative about this? If so, go home. Please!" my friend had already had it with me, a little over an hour into the ride.

There goes that friendship, I worried. She  just could not understand my reaction. Her context? Fun in Hamptons and melting at  Spa runs in her blood.  We lived in different realities. I feared the sun. I never had a good Hampton moment. Holing up in a house in Walton, staying out til dawn and watching the planets rise and set, now, that I understood.

I assured her I was going to behave. 

 "Is this really torture for you?" she asked, stupified.

I peeled a tangerine and gave her half.

Medicine was ministered upon arrival a latte (decent) and a gorgeous linzer cookie. I was surprised by a level of authenticity about Gurney's,  both, low-key and luxe. There was no artifice, there was no struggle to sing outside of their range. Even the European toy train decorated for Christmas in the courtyard seemed to make sense.

We scored one of the redone beach cottages. Quite new and fresh. Business -ready. Wifi everywhere. Those Yelpers, they know nothing, I thought.

I didn't need anything more but a corkscrew (which was in the kitchen).

There we were, winter outside, right on the bleached dunes (negative -ions! my friend reminded me.) a deck, the cadence of the ocean. My book in  the hands of the editor.

Things were looking  up. My attitude started to turn positive.  All of those negative ions?

A massage was pre-destined. ('I'm not a spa girl,' I admitted. The masseuse broke out in laughter. Glad I could amuse her, but I also had the revelation that something was very off in my upbringing, neither Red-Diaper baby nor Spa-baby, but I had been caught in the netherworld of unfrill.) 

I warmed up to the pedicure which,  looking out to that clichéd beach at sunset, breathtaking. I never knew there were so many services one could do to feet in the name of 'treatment.' Soaking, oiling, massaging, oiling again, clipping, wrapping, heating, painting, spraying. The care given to my feet was biblical.

Then we had the vitamin C facial. With my face swaddled  like a mummy, I could almost believe when the wraps came off I was beautiful and reborn. If only. Being a solitary sort, I was the most happy doing things under my own steam. Lapping in the extraordinary salt water pool, lapping on the beach, spotting the deserted Madoff house, a wounded sea gull, a lonely happy birthday mylar balloon bobbing on the water. But all around us were happy spa people and trend alert: two sweet-sixteen weekends. Instead of parties, parents are sending their teens to Gurney's for the weekend for spa-ing? In the morning, a group of them ran into the water (!) that's a little bit too much Thalasso for me. 

At night, the local catch was a surprisingly delicious  local flounder, doubled over, thick and as juicy as halibit. The dining room smelled like the fish places in Freeport, iced butter co-mingled with sea air, one of the few happy, transportational flights of the past. 

I'm still not sure if that kind of pampering suits me. The 1947 Liger-Belair   

(extreme roasted red pepper/tabasco, touch of smoked marshmallow, tannins worn down, acid perks it all up, and its structure stays fragile-and firm, works well with pizza potate and better with ricotta and blueberry honey) 

is more my speed, or maybe a fierce fat-burning pilates class, or super-sized white truffle, perhaps it's the way I was brought up, but the idea of a stranger  catering to my body for money merely for relaxation feels discordant. But I will tell you this:  my feet sure look good,  my skin glowed and I started to think kindly about their $100 a night winter rates as a getaway, if only to swim in that pool and write looking out at the ocean, the body that I usually only see when I fly over it on the way to Europe.

I had arrived with that escape plan, a lists of restaurants, coffee zones and even vintage stores. But just like being in the mountains when the outside world seems an imposition, we hunkered in. Neither one of us had any inclination of leaving until we had to catch the train. Me? Grateful and way more kindly to Long Island and spa-girl and I still friends.

The only glitch? Corked bottle of Valpolicella! So forseeble, so avoidable  and I only had myself to blame.