The Feiring Line

What to Drink With Ramps

This past week I rented    

 

to do   

 

So I could have 

 

Somewhere around the turn of the century, I was in the forest looking for peace. An owl overhead   hunted a rodent. He whooshed and swooped, and pointed the way to a carpet of smooth leaves peeking out of the rotted leaves on the woodsy floor.  

 The next year, I was armed with knowledge that I wasn't going to kill myself if I ate what I picked. So, I counted the days and finally, I dug, I washed, I ate.

Thus was born a spring-time obsession.

 On that first forage, and first sautée, my first pick was a Robert Michel St. Joseph. Spot on. It was so good I thought I must be a professional or something like that.  The  best pairing I ever had with the royal blades was probably a Chave St. Jo. In subsequent years, there have been a variety of wines, (as expected, the beaujolais is a no go in this case.)  And also in the end, white or red, I  like red.

I look for wines that are firmy, earthy, spicy,  edgy. Pass the acid please. 

You've got to find something to lean up against the ramps, not play patty cake with it. But lean. Trust game.  Something with a good foundation that won't let you down. B

I haven't tried vin jaune or a good old oxidized savagnin, and you know what? I think that would be just the ticket.

This year if you're forgaging or just looking to choose a bottle to go with your potato and ramp creation, my favorite , and don't forget the cheese, why don't you try:

Raphael Bereche, NC Champagne Brut Reserve (better pre-meal than with) 

Franck Balthazar Cornas 2008  (Syrah with ramps remains a favorite)

La Clarine Farm  Sierra Foothills Home Vineyard 2010 (This worked brilliantly) 

 

And for bonus points, why don't you try: 

Carballo La Palma Listan Blanco 2008 $18. Just enough VA to pull it together for some strange fruit. 

  

Alice's Ramp and Potato Gratin

½ pound ramps
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces Gruyère or extra-sharp Cheddar, grated
¼ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
2 pounds red-skinned potatoes (or potato of choice) of similar size
2 cups half-and-half
3 sprigs of thyme
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Optional: red pepper flakes.

(Note: You can never use too many ramps or too much cheese in this dish. Adjust up or down depending on taste.)

1. Sauté ramps in olive oil until wilted, with a dash of pepper flakes if you like a kick. Combine the cheeses and reserve a cup for the topping.

2. Wash the potatoes, peel if you like (I don't) and slice them into very thin rounds, using a mandoline or a sharp knife.

3. Oil a 9-by-12-inch heavy, shallow baking dish, preferably earthenware or cast enamel.

4. In a small saucepan, bring the half-and-half to a simmer with thyme and add, generously, salt and pepper. Remove the thyme and set the mixture aside.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

6. Arrange about one-fourth of the potatoes in a layer on the bottom of the dish. Season as you go. Evenly layer in about one-third of the ramps, sprinkling cheese and a few spoons of half-and-half; repeat twice, finishing with a layer of potatoes. Pour the rest of the half-and-half over the potato mixture, allowing the liquid to hit just below the top layer of potatoes. Top off with the remaining cheese. Cover with foil and bake until the potatoes feel tender, about one hour.

7. Raise the oven temperature to 425 degrees, remove the foil and bake until the top begins to brown, about 10 minutes.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

This came in the mail today. A nomination is always lovely. Winning is the icing. And delighted to be cited along with colleagues Alder and Bert. 

Necro Wine Dinner @ Five Points c/ The Wine Shep + part #2

Even though I've had some old wines, a 29 Pommery and 1937 Hospices de Beaune Cluvee Blondeau, I just don't get to do this very often. That's why Twitter can bring out the beast in me. I hate that green beast showing its face,  but when I see what other colleagues, like Mike Steinberger get to drink, damn, it sneaks out. And so why am I so blessed that for some reason Mike Martin decided to take me under his protective wing, I have no idea, but I bow to him. Drinking older wine is essential to put wine today in perspective. 

Older wine of some sort is open to almost everyone. It takes patience, foresight and self-control. Buy cases of muscadet, beaujolais, cornas, chinon, buy the best bourgogne rouge you can buy, and lay it down, trying one every year, other year, to watch it's progression. Or just plunk a few away, and keep your hands off of them for eight years at least. It will be revelational.

So, the wines; In a perfect world, I'd have these just with some food on the table, some cheese, so I could focus on each wine, when I'm socializing, and eating delicious food, I take nasty notes. 

82 Lanson Brut •Magnum --more pleasant than I'd have expected, not too complex, rounded, weak finish.

'21 Ch. Rauzan-Gassie-- tomato dust

'37 C. Vienot Charmes Chambertin- now we're talking, I'd bet my DuBouef samples that there's syrah in there.

'49 Seguin-Manuel Beaune "Clos de Mouches"- powdery, old lady, intriguing. Then it became chunky, muscular, whisper. Really liked this.

'57 Jadot Corton Charlemagne: Impressive. Intense. Salty. Caramel. Fresh. Lemon. Zing. 

'62 Laville Haut Brion Blanc: Corked

'67 Domaine de Chevalier Rouge: Boring. 

'78 Confuron-Cotetidot Vosne Romanee, Les Suchots:  Yes! Loved this. I wrote hearts all over my page and then wrote STEMS!! I know that note is totally useless but the wine seemed authentic, had some rose petal and ink and exoticness.

'89 D'Angerville Volnay "Clos de Ducs": Not half bad. Funky. Firm. Cranberry. Flat finish.

'90 Leroy Meursault "Les Charmes": sorry.  delicate yet four-square.

'03 Rouget Vosne Romanee "Cros Parantoux": I kept on thinking confabulation, california. 

'53 Ch. Doisy-Daene: no comment. 

The actual dinner was amazing. Marc's food at Five Points has never been better. If you haven't been, go. The food has an immediacy that I find lacking in so much of food these days. And as far as ettiquette, two people cancelled ten minutes before the dinner was to start. I don't get this. How can you do this when you know two people couldn't come because you had their seats, and those who were there would have to cover your costs?

I don't get it. As it turns out two people did not mind getting invites ten minutes after Mike's show started, so it worked out. But folk, it's just not right. Here's the drill. Cancel if you must but say, I'm sending a check.

Okay, lecture over. Many thanks to Mike, the angel, and for his amazing generosity. Old wines are a crap shoot: they can be spoof with other crap, they can be failing, they can be ghosts, they can be brilliant. But wine is history, even if it is tampered with, and there's so much to learn in an old bottle. 

Necro Wine Dinner @ Five Points c/ The Wine Shep + part #1

In the fall a shepherd fell from the twitter world and landed on me.

I'm not sure why, but he had heard my oh-poor-me,  I don't get to drink enough old wine. So, like the tooth fairy, he started to call up from time to time, he was packing a bottle of 1957 Liger-Belair,  This was Michael Martin, aka The Wine Shepherd, aka Wine Saint. 

He says he totes and shleps because it's better to share old wine than not share. Agreed.

 Wine is much better when it debated and discussed,  sips are turned into paragraphs and smiles. Tastes are better when witnessed. They last longer. After all if a tree falls and there's no one to hear it...?  Then he comes up with a big fat idea. Twelve is enough, twelve people twelve wines. His solution?

'82 Lanson Brut •Magnum

'21 Ch. Rauzan-Gassies
'37 C. Vienot Charmes Chambertin
'49 Seguin-Manuel Beaune "Clos de Mouches"
'57 Jadot Corton Charlemagne
'62 Laville Haut Brion Blanc
'67 Domaine de Chevalier Rouge
'78 Confuron-Cotetidot Vosne Romanee "Les Suchots"
'89 D'Angerville Volnay "Clos de Ducs"
'90 Leroy Meursault "Les Charmes"
'03 Rouget Vosne Romanee "Cros Parantoux"
'53 Ch. Doisy-Daene

 From the 20's, one wine from each decade. A trip in the tube of history.

I'm in. Blessed by the Shep.

I call up Five Points on Jones Street and ask to reserve their back room for a dinner party. If we don't do this in my apartment, the back room will be perfect!

Vicky and Marc and Lee and i  work out the menu. I say paté.  Marc insists on lardo and rillettes. Buratta and ramp. Sheepmilk ravioli and nettles. Minestrone to appease me and roasted lemon chicken, cheese and some sweet thing for dessert he tells me we'll love. I've no doubt.

TBC.............. 

Seder Wines

Wish me luck.

and

 

 

Part of the Problem With the World Natural (wine)

Is our goverment's use of the word. 

Here is the pertinent section from the regulations. As you can see, natural for them is a totally different beast. Actually, highly unnatural. 

++

Natural wine. The product of the juice or must of sound, ripe grapes or other sound, ripe fruit (including berries) made with any cellar treatment authorized by subparts F and L of this part and containing not more than 21 percent by weight (21 degrees Brix dealcoholized wine) of total solids.

(a) Natural wine production. Water may be used to flush equipment during the crushing process or to facilitate fermentation but the density of the juice may not be reduced below 22 degrees Brix. However, if the juice is already less than 23 degrees Brix, the use of water to flush equipment or facilitate fermentation is limited to a juice density reduction of no more than one degree Brix. At the start of fermentation no material may be added except water, sugar, concentrated fruit juice from the same kind of fruit, malo-lactic bacteria, yeast or yeast cultures grown in juice of the same kind of fruit, and yeast foods, sterilizing agents, precipitating agents or other approved fermentation adjuncts. Water may be used to rehydrate yeast to a maximum to two gallons of water for each pound of yeast; however, except for an operation involving the preparation of a yeast culture starter and must mixture for later use in initiating fermentation, the maximum volume increase of the juice after the addition of rehydrated yeast is limited to 0.5 percent. After fermentation natural wines may be blended with each other only if produced from the same kind of fruit.

Finding Soul in the Big (Cognac) House

Just north of Bordeaux, forty-five minutes from the Atlantic, in Cognac, I found the July light, exquisitely blinding. As I drove through the countryside, the rays ricocheted off bleached soil chunked with terroir affirming chalk. Celadon green ugni blanc, folle blanche and colombard, grapes destined for the area’s eponymous spirit hung next to the bowed canary colored sunflowers, adjacent toast-tinted wheat fields. And that white soil. And that sun.  Going to any other place with this kind of landscape I’d be looking for a wine of terroir, but fate had something else in mind for this region.

Cognac’s story started with those vine loving Romans who planted grapes in the third century. From the 12th to the 16th century salt was the main industry and the work intensive farming of vines took a back seat. When the salt trade dwindled, the Dutch persuaded the winemakers not to compete with their wine famous neighbor, Bordeaux and to distill its grapes. Was Cognac’s fate decided because it was caught between a salt and a merlot? Looking at that soil and looking at the weather, was it just a matter of luck that Bordeaux got the fine wine side of the coin while those magnificent soils of Cognac went to the distillery? 

Grapes here are picked at eight degrees potential alcohol, acidic and unripe, and then distilled. Count five months and then the samples arrive. The big noses try to decide which ones they want. Distillation commences twice in copper pot stills and finished by March 31st. Two years later, aged in oak barrels, it can be Cognac, though no great house would dare do this to such neonatal fire water.

 To be honest, I came down here in the summer of 2010 to pen a story for a fancy magazine on a fancy bottle. This whole thing gave me a strong case of the shakes because I am known for championing the David’s not the Goliaths. I like to write about the peasants, not about royalty. I had no choice. A writer must live and I was determined to get over myself and find the story with soul within. I had a hunch my quest would be found in a particular nose, the prodigious  one that belonged to Yann Fillioux, seventh generation of blenders linked to one large and distinguished house. So that’s what I was thinking as I sat on leather psychiatrist couches in the reception when I was ushered into Fillioux’s office.

Whoa! I could have moved right into his romantic Belle Époque confection of a space, which I imagined was designed by a top Parisian hire. Intense sky blue woodword were lined with white shelves and hundreds and hundreds of apothecary vials of spirit, in a color field of hues, ranging from the clear unaged distillate to the darkened amber of a spirit with age, some reaching back to the last century.  Fillioux took his own seat and motioned to me to take mine. I mumbled something about how gorgeous the room was, and he said almost as a rebuke,  “This is a working laboratory.” 
 “Right,” I thought. Were was the mess? Where was the lived-in-ness about it all. Save for an old-fashioned ink blotter and the crystal Baccarat decanter fancy cognac, his desk was bare. He was lying to me unless he was   Virgo.

Yet, he insisted. “This is where we do all the tastings. It is important to taste at the same time of day in the same place.”

Okay. I believed him. Definitely a Virgo. How else could he keep his aromas and tastes straight? After all he has to sample 1000 new spirits a season to decide which ones would make up his blends that thrive on consistency. He has to keep all of those vials on the shelves straight in his mind. 
Tall, with a shock of silver hair, he is more modest than I could have imagined for a man who has created a cognac that sells for $2800 or so. He says he owes his knowledge and talent to his uncle Maurice’s (6th generation family nose) whose tutelage he benefited from over a decade. “Just like a perfumer it takes ten years to develop your sense of smell and taste, you have to have a library of scents up here,” he said, tapping his forehead.

Fillioux confided that he, like me, detests the smell of new oak, and considers it a crime to use it, especially for old stocks.  In the warehouse right across the canal, there were no new barrels, most ancient and I lingered greedily (oh I didn’t hint too much) over one dated 1949. In a generous act, a large hammer delivers blows to it. One powerful bang on each side of bung, and it sighed its release. A petite glass vial is lowered as if drawing well water. Out came the 60 -year -old spirit. In the glass its smell was  piercing, the taste, lingering. Sweetened with age, the power of butter, the grip of youth. 

I asked him what he looks for when he makes a blend, either for one that goes into that Baccarat decanter or a $35 bottle.

“Consistency and elegance,” he said.

For a moment, I wanted to say, sure. Right.  Marketing speak. Of course elegance! But I was deeply grateful that he didn’t go on about the complexity, the fabric, the aromas. Thank you M. Fillioux for not guiding me through the experience as others would have. My experience of that blend, the one who’s story I had come for,  was quite finessed; layers of citrus and orange, more orange peel, twisted and released, hazel nuts pan toasted in brown butter, and orange oil. There was the structure that marks a great cognac.  There was walnut skin tannin and ash, perfect for cigars- and then it just melts into that that brown butter and that thing called rancio, an elusive term that just signifies age, gorgeous, seductive age. 

Fillioux might have said his mission was blending for consistency and elegance, but what got  him out of bed every morning was more animalistic, it was heritage. 

 “At five years of age, all of the cognacs are still aging,” he said. “But at five years, like children, they can start to tell us something. We can tell immediately if a sample is worthy, if there is potential. When you find one with potential you put it aside and you wait. When you have forty on a table and one is exceptional, that is an emotional experience. I am choosing spirits that will last long after I die.”

 

(Why are these badges here? I've entered this piece in their competition.)

Regarding Additions in Burgundy

You might start to yawn before you even start to read this. Because we're talking about the meaning of sugar and acid in Burgundy otherwise known as the meaning of  Is.

 A few weeks back there was that balance in pinot noir presentation in San Francisco. I wasn't there, but I watched the lively streaming of it. Towards the end,  while addressing what one can or cannot do to a pinot, Peay Vineyards winemaker Vanessa Wong stated that Burgundians are allowed to both acidify and chaptalize in the same vintage. 

What followed was a Twitfest on both sides of the pond to unearth to truth; because I was not the only who for years cited that in Burgundy one can do one or the other but NEVER in the same vintage.  

Now, the reason for adding of sugar is prolong fermentation and boost alcohol level. Adding of acid could be needed if you require a more stable wine, which would indicate the winemaker might have chaptalize quite heavily.

 Thor Ivorson was the first to remind me of a Burgundy case in 1998 concerning André Porcheret, then the winemaker for the Hospices de Beaune. It seems as if he added both to at least  one of his 1997s.

His argument, subsequently validated in court, was that the law does not prevent you adding sugar to one product (the must) and acidity to another (the wine). Turns out after he left, he gave this interview which indicates he added acid, sugar and tannins as a matter of course. (By the way, his is the style of winemaking Marcel Lapierre rebelled against; pick under-ripe and then add sugar, sulfur and then acid if needed. Also, you will get the rationale for both sugar and acid.) 

The court upheld that must and wine are two different products, so Porcheret was within his legal rights. Whether or not you want to drink those wines is another issue, whether or not this is in the spirit of the law, is another issue. But legal. In which case, if you're sitting for the MS exam, and this comes up, how do you handle it?

 Vanessa's statement had made me realize I needed to better investigate what I always saw as truth on limiting additions in Burgundy. I was sure when I got into my inquiry I would find an overturning of that court ruling or better language making the practice more difficult. Turns out the rules are more complicated.

Ah, it does come down to a Clintonian what Is is.

Still, the EU had reformed the laws, had they changed the wording?  I received this from Denis de Froidmont, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural development

I confirm that acidification and enrichment of the same products are mutually exclusive processes according to the European Union legislation. (see annex XVa, point C.7.of Regulation 1234/2007)

But, I emailed him, just to clarify, does that mean they are two different products? While I waited I further fired away questions.

I asked Eric Texier, who lives in southern Burgundy his answer was. 

"But it was definitely accepted that must is a product and wine another one. So officially it is allowed to do one of the operations BEFORE fermentation and the other AFTER. Nice, no?"

I asked Jasper Morris. He cited the Porcheret case and said yes, it is legal. And then just to make sure I wasn't missing something I asked Ms. Jancis Robinson who replied archly. 

"Yes indeed! I am told that some less reputable producers add sugar to one cuve and acid to another and then blend them." 

When I later pressed her about any changes in the EU since then, and are the chapt and acid peeps protected by the law, the ever the pragmatist Ms. Robinson (when is the UK going to make her a Dame? Really, what are they waiting for?) said "I believe so – or at least not-one has been prosecuted for what I described."

Finally, today, the official word from Denis, once again, came in the e-mail. "Yes, indeed. Must is a different product than wine." 

So there you have it; the great myth that one cannot add both sugar and acid in the same vintage for the same destined wines in France, or in the EU for that matter is a myth. 

Thanks to Ms. Wong for instigating the investigation and if anyone has any other take on it, or can lead me to a specific overturning of that Porcheret case, I'd love to hear it.