The Feiring Line

L'episode Cuozzo--makes perfect sense

Included in astute Episode Cuozzo commentary were Eric Asimov, Jon Bonné  and  Talia Baiocchi--who I believe broke the story.  Analysis of this train wreck was so spot on I didn't think I could possibly have another thing to add. Really, I should  be telling you about the sad time the vines are having in Burgundy or about the wonderful wines of Jean -Yves Bizot--but I after going in search of gas in Beaune, cursing the provincial idea that the gas station at LeClerc only accepts European credit cards I realized I'm not finished with the subjet.

To begin with: most restaurant critics know little more than red, white and pink about wine.  They mostly avoid mention, usually a wise move because when they do opine, they can step into a smelly pile of it. And a pile is exactly what The Post's Cuozzo squished into with his inept spanking of Lee Campbell's list over at  Reynard's.

 Wine choice can well fall in neatly along the lines of  politics. Mostly, how one chooses wine has a lot to do with personality. Do you stay in your comfort zone or not? Are you adventurous or not? Will you eat local food? Are you curious? 

Anyone who has ever ventured out into a foreign country without enough facility in a language can attest to the unwarranted terror of being seen as stupid. Some get their courage up and start to speak, showing off lousy accents others buy what they need through their concierge. Perhaps they eat at McDonald's,  look for the comfort of  The Gap or Starbucks, even in Paris.  Perhaps theytravel only on tours. Many tourists go out of their way to stay familiar so they aren't confronted with their lack of sophistication, experience or knowledge.  

In this way, in Cuozzo's  article on Reynard's Cuozzo focused on the need for wine to be familiar, he never said good. But familiar. Recognizable. And that is the issue.

 Mr. Cuozzo  looked at a list, put together by a  talented sommelier who could have guided him to pleasure, yet he was pissed she spoke another language. She had the skills to communicate to him, he wasn't going to tolerate her accent. 

We must not forget the man writes for a tabloid-esque newspaper.  It's The Post for Godsake's. I had a harder time when the New Yorker didn't get its sherry right. I mean, they're supposed to know, or at least know when they don't know. The Post, afterall,  is most famous for Page 6,  not its news.  We are afterall, a  tribal bunch. Sometimes humans are  xenophobic. This gets demonstrated historically through serious issues like immigration to tamer ones  such as Picasso couldn't paint. The  Guggenheim was the toilet on 5th Avenue. Cuozzo felt stupid.

I have no idea if Cuozzo knows about food ot not but I would bet good money he has very little knowledge about wine, except that he likes big reds from obvious, pronouncable locales. But one thing he has spot on, knowledge of his audience and plays to their Archie Bunker stereotype (whether or not the stereotype is true.). He plays it safel, making sure he doesn't encourage them to go to the tabac, on an errand, in, God forbid,  a foreign language. 

 

(but really, the LeClerc in Beaune SHOULD accept global credit cards. I mean, I don't need them to write it in English, they don't even need to take my Amex, just take my damned credit blue.)  

 

Sweet Stuff (word proud, sherry poor)

The somewhat lukewarm New Yorker review of Francesca's located in the old Frankie's space on Clinton didn't bother me, but the writer's take on drinking there made me do a double take.

The most notable risk that Francesca takes is encouraging patrons to drink sherry with dinner instead of wine (one waitress joked, “It’s not your grandmother’s sherry,” as if that were a selling point). There’s nothing wrong with simplicity or grandmothers, of course, but suggesting that diners forego wine in favor of the sweet stuff bespeaks an eagerness bordering on impatience to show off what Francesca knows about Spain.

 From the look of it right now, Francesca's  does not have a destination-worthy selection of sherry, though they do have some very interesting looking sherry cocktails.  However, if  you go there for a copita check out the Byass ($8) and El Maestro ($11). (There had been better offerings over at The Beagle (closed for renovations) hope they keep up the good work when they reopen. $24 will get you a copita of La Bota 30 @ Tertulia, and I think Casa Mono might have some better options, at least by the bottle.)

But getting back to the  matter at hand, I wanted to call the writer up and just let her know that sweet sherries are the minority. "Really, you can be sure, no one was suggesting you drink a PX with your Fideuà."

But, such is the reality the makers of sherry have to deal with. I wanted to guide the writer to  Eric Asimov's tone poem to the wines of Jerez.  I wanted to point her to the writings of Peter Liem. And also wanted to tell her about my evening with the wonderful Jancis Robinson.  This past May, after tasting many saperavis with some Georgian friends at Jancis Robinson's home round table she graciously insisted we stay for dinner. When she insists, if you're smart, you obey. We did.

But first Jancis had a big problem to solve. She knew the Australian riesling wasn't going to work for me. "What am I going to give you to drink." (It sounded more like , what the hell am I going to give you!) 

No problem there: she played sure-footed sommelier as she said, "This is the only thing I can think of."  She then disappeared and emerged with  what could have been my personal bottle of Gonzalez Byass Palmas fino, but it was not too be. The other's loved it too.

How wonderfully thoughtful, and I hope to one day return the favor. I might have polished off the 500ml myself, enjoying everything as a pairing. Herring and fino?  Excellent.  (by the way, the herring rivaled Russ & Daughters.)

But meanwhile, over at The New Yorker, there's no range of sherries, there is only the equivalent of  Harvey's Bristol Cream, a syrupy, one note aberration.  I could cut the publication some slack, blame the gaffe on a summer intern  syndrome, but even if it was the fault of a  sub-drinking age word-picker, the assumption flags the issue at hand: most people don't know shit about sherry.

 Now, it's fine if the writer doesn't like sherry, but that she doesn't know there's a wide rainbow of ocean-air-like sherries under the categories of  Fino, Manzanilla, Amontillado, Oloroso and Palo Cortado, was not due diligence, even though it is the tragedy of sherry. But the good news it is finally starting to reclaim its reputation, because we live in the age of the oxidative wine revolution.  Maybe one day, she'll learn what she missed: the angular, salty, nutty, umami side of the Palomino grape.

 I shouldn't be too harsh, though.  After all, if  I were  given an assignment to write about baseball, I too could make this kind of mistake, afterall, aren't the Dodgers a New York team? But you know, the chances that I'll ever cover baseball......

 

how to tell a wine fake?

 

When I heard that the FBI busted Rudy Kurniawan, at one time touted as the most important and flashiest of the Burgundy collectors is accused of--manufacturing faux bottles of expensive wine, I thought back to when a friend of mine was busted by, yes, the FBI, for child porn. My friend's wife was on the can with they rushed through the door, and opened the door on her telling her to wipe and get out. My friend was a film buff, of all kinds of vintage film. He was a big Elvis collector too. A nightmare. Yes. And totally insane and wrong. But yes, I thought of that with Rudy, though in this case, after a four year investigation and some pretty damning photographs, this is a different story.                                           

  I met Rudy for the first time at the 2004 Domaine Romanée Conti event at Daniel Bouloud. He was swinging a magnum of La Tache 1999.  Nowhere near ready to drink, I suppose it was the real deal and not a confabulation. Back then he was young and shiny and sitting right next to Robert M. Parker, Jr., who introduced him to me as a great guy.

 The last time I saw Rudy, he was a guest at a dinner party thrown for me in Los Angeles this past August. Shy and nervous. He was wearing his boots and t-shirt, and little new 'hipster' cap, he barely talked to me, but he did bring the Salon. 

One thing Rudy was, besides the flash and the sometime arrogant, was kind and generous, at least by reputation, even though he had plenty of people drinking swill,  thinking it was delicious. This only gives credence to the whole Robin Goldstein concept that people can't tell the difference between cheap and expensive, (a different story however between esque and real.) But when fancy labels are involved, egos occlude intelligence, just look at the lines for Louis Vuitton on Les Champs-Élysées or Galleries Lafayettes in Paris.   

As someone who used to work on psych units, I've had my share of sociopaths, but aren't they usually super smart? If Rudy wasn't framed, which does seem unlikely, and he really was a one-man counterfeit factory (unlike Madoff, he did act alone), still spoofing the wines, points to a case study that begs to be written.

In 2008 when writing for an LA based magazine on  wine fakes, I interviewed Mr. K. on the Ponsot affair. (He provided a lot of faux Ponsot for sale, the beginning of this debacle.)

  Below is the email he sent along, exactly as he wrote it from his hotmail account.

Hi alice,

 Could the mistake have been avoided? There's always "what if?". I could have asked Laurent but I did not know him then and my past requests for help with the wineries had been met with only mixed success. So I tasted the wines with many experienced and respected collectors as well as winemakers and the man who is in my opinion the best Burgundy critic and taster, Allen Meadows. All of us thought the wines were exceptional and that they were what they claimed to be.  I apologize for my ignorance, but I consider myself a collector and a drinker, not a wine historian. I had asked a couple people who know a lot more than I do about Burgundy, if the wines were plausible. The discrepancy even escaped those people.

 

That said, since the incident I have been scrutinizing my cellar even more closely and have much more actively requested assistance from friends at wineries. With their help, we can maximize the chances of weeding out the bad bottles and I will destroy those. Also, a while back I started to deface the labels of the old and rare wine I drank so the empties could not be used to create fakes.

My passion for old and rare wines remains as strong as ever and I am thankful to Laurent. 

Sincerely,

 Rudy Kurniawan 

 

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Natural wine movement, just noise?

That was a tweet I responded to the other day, but I needed more than 140k.

Natural wine bars existed in France since 1982, in the past five years wine bars and wine -oriented restaurants who focus on them in that city exploded to over 160 in Paris. There's at least one in virtually every appellation in that country, from hill top remote towns like Valvigneres to Toulouse and even to Beaune.They've blossomed like dandelions in Brussels, the UK, the US and Scandinavia. As wines, they've spread to Austria, never left the country of Georgia, and finally has gone wild in Italy. Israel is sadly slow on the uptake. But Australia and  the United States have a new generation of winemakers side-stepping school and making wines in the old fashioned way.

When I published The Battle for Wine and Love in 2007, there were maybe three wine makers who made wines I would happily drink on the west coast. Today I might be able to say I can count them on three hands. In a few years, that will pop. 

The formation of groups where winemakers can exchange tastes and ideas has helped. Austria's got one, Spain has one, France, one + numerous tasting events (La Remise, Haute les Vins, La Dive, ViniCircus---a score more.) Italy's natural wine groups are fractional, now there are about  3 -4 splinters. As a result where five years ago in Italy there were a few handful of natural wines, today there are a good 100 + producers, new producers mixed in with the older traditionalists. Carso, up north, is crawling with them. Mt. Etna in Sicily is vino naturale  a- go- go and even more shocking, there are natural Chianti's and Brunellos and Barolos. Rome has a natural wine bar, (no broken knee caps yet) and there's an Italian natural wine guide.

 Wine importers trawl the international wine shows ( mostly occur in France and Italy)  for new finds. Good luck to them. Competition is fierce. New York City has more than five  importers specializing in them. California has about five as well. Okay, so Napa is slow to embrace the wines on their restaurants list, understandably, but affirmative in Sonoma, Bay Area and LA, there's natural in Las Vegas, a wine bar in Kentucky and natural wine in  the Carolinas. Speaking about Kentucky, one reader of this blog, who happened upon The Battle in a used book store is now a faithful follower of Chambers Street. He just got a passport and is thinking about going on Europe Natural this summer.

The powerful ambassadorial wine tasting, The Renaissance des Appellations travels globally. Yes, that one is for Biodynamic wines but there's plenty of overlap in the natural wine world. The Italian organization,  Vin Natur is one organization alone that has 142 producers in 9 different countries, held a tasting and conference in Zurich this Fall. There, Terje Meling, head of the Norwegian monopoly, considered the largest buyers of natural wine worldwide, presented his deadpan rationale for their buying practice. Customer demand.  Beyond that? The 'natural wine' world has reintroduced a variety of kinds of wines to the public. No longer only red, white and rosé, there is orange as well. Barrique has given way to anfora and old wood and concrete. Red wines can be delicate or medium weight. Maybe it's circumstantial but I do accredit the wine geek pushing the wine envelope with embracing variety, and this whether natural yeast or not, is a very good thing for everyone.

In short, evidence of growth is circumstantial, and I hope it always stays that way. But it is there. These wines are not for everyone for sure, but there is still a very strong demand that exceedssupply. So, is it just noise? 

And is it a movement?

Where there is growth, where there is pooling of talent and pooling of ideas, where there is cross pollination, and deep kissing on the dance floors, where there are wild packed tastings in limestone caves and in conference centers where there are  groups that form and exchange information, wines,  fun and drama, there is life. Here exists a strong and often fanatic community of the makers and the drinkers. This movement is about as much white noise as the anti-war movement in 1970. And mostly people are knocking them back with gusto and little ceremony.

A writer recently  wrote, "To call the “natural wine category” a “phenomenon” is an exaggeration. If it is a phenomenon, then it is a very small one and certainly not “the most powerful movement rocking today’s wine market.” It represents a tiny fraction of the global wine market in terms of both value and volume. 

Well, then I say, this is a phenomenon because this is a desire that is people driven, not market. The winemakers are growing, the drinkers are growing, hell, I can't get the wines I want anymore. The competition is cut throat and if I dont' act quick, the stores run out of them. I hear the same complaint from Pascaline Lepeltier up at the restaurant Rouge Tomate in New York City. 

 

Big Wine and the conventional wine world might be slightly threatened  but not desperate. That might change if ever ingredients will be required on a wine label. I imagine their lobby $ will be too strong, the ingredient list, while nice, won't ever happen. But one can see it on negative tweets and attacks on natural wine.  I do find it amusing to see the use of the world nature/natural catch fire on the Lallemand catalog. 

* Yeasts selected from nature. The word occurs 9 times on that one page. There are yeasts pointed to the natural and organic community. Prediction?  This will step up

I would imagine that their yeast etc sales are not impacted. Their money is safe. Natural wine folk tend to make very little wine, and losing their market share, no big deal. But what happens when natural gets industrialized in the way organic food is now?  What happens when the demand for these kinds of wines hits the supermarket? What happens when Whole Foods bends to their customers demands to get real with their wine program, and presents wines from the bottom up that are natural or natural enough? That's when the impact will happen. And it will. But the companies will adapt. They'll find some way to make money when the yeast and sulfur sales decline.

This is not a fad. Or at least no more a fad than heirloom tomatoes and good taste is  a fad. Now, bad taste? That can be a fad. Just look at fashion from the 80s, or hot pants.

No matter what you call minimal intervention wines, it's all about returning to a more sensible time in wine making when an ego stayed out of the winemaking and stayed in the farming and what was in the glass dazzled.

But take a look at that above graf. Is it inflammatory? To some people it is. And that brings up the vitriolic axe that even my fellow wine writers need to grind. I understand the threat from Big Wine (wineries + chemical farming/oeno companies) but I can't understand those who need to attack a group of winemakers who dare to go natural and those people who seek them out. The name calling and bickering is as bad as it ever was in the sandbox at the erobertparker.com board. The point is to keep focused on the wines and not the debate, because how can you possibly debate something that is delicious and is not overly processed. I fail to see the argument.

So, long term ramifications? When people wise up to the ingredients inside a wine other than grapes, demand will accelerate. Big companies like Gallo, Boisset, and who knows, probably even Yellow Tail will have their "natural" wine line extension so they don't lose the supermarket sales. More wine makers who are happy with small scale production will see if they make the wine they actually want to drink, there are customers waiting to drink with them. And happily, more and more farmers will be going organic, biodynamic and the real love of farming will come back to the vigneron. Who knows, we might even get a real word in this country for one person who makes the wine tends the vine.

So, noise? I'm not a betting woman, but I might make an exception here. You in?

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By the way, on another wine note. Had the  NV Bereche et Fils Extra Brut Reserve, it was just gorgeous.  (also at Chambers) 

Wine and Austin Whole Foods

If you're looking for the previous post in this space, I removed it. While there's another post  in the future (on the more general topic of where Whole Foods stands in relation to wine) my original structure and words terribly muddied my message, so much so that people I thought I had praised, viewed themselves as bashed. Not pretty. Nothing could have been further from my truth. I don't mind when my blog gets me in trouble because of something I believe in, but it's another matter entirely when I get into hot water unintentionally. And and so with the benefit of a few days and enriched clarity, here is the post as it should have been written.

I was thrilled that the Texas Wine & Food foundation brought me down and that  Devon Broglie and his staff at the wine department of Whole Foods said, "We'll take her!" 

Having a backer like Whole Foods has always been a dream for me. There were a fair number of visitors. Conversations were intense. The public was open and curious.  In the middle of the tasting, Devon and I shared a few sips (Pinon Vouvray, Silex 2009, Coquelet 2010) where he  he fessed up, "I'm on the twenty- year plan here."

He  knows that change happens at a slower pace than certain impatient red heads would like. But still without the twenty-year plan, what they have right now in Austin is already commendable.  People cramming their wine bar at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon. All over the wine department, shoppers were drinking and sampling wines at different stations. Those who came over to the Naked Wine stand almost always left with a bottle of wine (Wine of the day, hands down; $23 for the Montesecondo Chianti Classico 2007.). However, my moles nationwide, from other Whole Foods have told me that they fear Whole Foods when it comes to wine is headed to more industrial instead of natural, and if this is true, I beseech the company to utilize their talent within their ranks, such as Melanie Mann in New York and Devon in Austin. Whole Foods should become a leader here, and maybe with the proper coaxing, we'll see it to fruition.

And there you have it. The Texans have a lot to teach this little old Northerner, and I hope they'll find I'm a willing and eager student.  So, to Devon from Whole Foods and Marshall Jones at the Foundation here's a big hug your way, with deep gratitude.--Alice

 

2011 Burgundy, what's in a vintage?

Driving through Burgundy from Auxerre to Morey St. Denis the vines look tired, as if wiped out from a fever. I fe;t like patting them on their heads and saying, "Poor babies." They had a hard time since their stap started to flow. Hot, dry, cold wet, humid, hail, hot, wet, cold, hot. They didn't know which end to move first. And critics have expected the worst.

I'm here (apologies to JS)  harrassing winemakers,  trying to get to the bottom of their problem child, Aligoté, I've had a chance to taste several of the new vintages. Like last night I hung with Philippe Pacalet going through about a bakers dozen. The vintage is well and a live, good concentration and life.  Driving south on the what used to be RN74, I realized the only responsible speculation a journalist can have is about the amount of work required in the vintage. Was it handed to them like a baby in velvet knickers on  a velvet pillow or did they have to work like donkeys in Fes up to the last minute.

In 2011 it was the donkey year.

They fretted, worried and worked their ass off. They couldn't second guess, they had to live day to day and then pick really well. As in any challenging vintage the result is in the ingenuity, skill and compassion of the vigneron. 

There will be plenty of good wines in 2011, in Burgundy.  Check back in a year and a 1/2 to see if I'm right. 

 

(non-Aligoté wine of the night, Domaine Alain Jenniard Chambolle Musigny 2009 12 euro a glass, drunk at La Gourmandin on Place Carnot. Happy to have drunk it, sweet place, but...)

Brushstroke, Bouley's new babe

 I loved the look of the long gone restaurant Danube in Tribeca, it always made me want to show cleavage and risk high heels. But even though the interiors of Brushstroke , David Bouley's new kid is more Ikea than Klimpt, because of  Chef Yamada's precise food attack I'm hooked.   

While the New York Magazine review confused me, and I was left thinking that what Adam really craved was sushi instead of  kaiseki fashioned cuisine, there was one little morsel that was one of the most exciting tastes I've had in ages: fresh hearts of palm in a basil miso sauce. When even one bite in a restaurant causes a swoon, that is a restaurant worth risking all. This was a clean tasting hearts of palm pesto with such picquantry I had to resist the urge  to stuff  my mouth, ala potato chips. Of course the texture was different, almost like al dente artichoke heart but the impulse was to stuff my mouth, artlessly,  just can't stop eatin fastly and furiously. Of course, highly unacceptable, I  slowed down and toyed,  coaxed and savored, then cleaned the bowl with my finger.

That was one lovely treat for the taste buds. Other memorables was the new tasting use of green tea (think texture) in the cocktails, thanks to mixologist Gen Yamatoto. 

 
I also admit I'm a sucker for the use of lilac to decorate the plate.

 Young sommelier baby-faced Seju Yang, (pinched from 15east)put together a well thought through list peppered with the bulk in the $100-$300 range but was kind to the under $120 as well, and was thinking that it might be cool to return and try the J. Roty Marsannay (2002) for $75. I was tempted by the wine but I gave my self over to the sake. 

I admit, I sometimes get annoyed by the increasing volume and richness of the stuff, as if it is headed after the tropical chardonnay drinker. I know little about sake  making technology but I'm eager to taste natural yeasted stuff, or at least sake that takes the foot off of the aromatic yeast pedal. And that is exactly why I loved when he indulged me with a side by side tasting of Chikurin Junmai Ginjo sake; same producer, one organic, (Ecocert) and the other conventional.

Both Seju and I agreed that the organic sake was far more complex and interesting while the other was common.

 

 

 

Brushstroke, 30 Hudson Street (Duane Street). Dinner every night except Sundays, with menus starting at $85. (212) 791-3771.

 

 

 

Drinking on 53rd Street

The first time I met Jancis Robinson, years ago I was so star-struck she must have thought a cat had ripped out my tongue. This time, a few weeks back, I had a serious heart-to heart-with self and thus overcame the shyness, had a terrific time. What a great woman and talent, but you knew that. Really. We met at The Modern. My Lustau oloroso secco  (was drecco, pretty lousy sherry selections)  $12, or was it $11? Jancis' Vilmart coup was $28,delicious but too high for me. I was pretty discouraged by the wines by the glass choices. In fact stumped. I mean, there's always something good to drink @ Danny's restaurants, right? 

 I returned  to the restaurant on 53rd Street with a friend who wanted to get a light dinner and I had a deeper look at the  list. It's a thick one,  filled with what Talia Baiocchi who pens a great critic of wine list column over at Eater would say, repleat with 'WTF' or rather, What the F*cks.

In this case we're talking mostly a 3-4+ times retail markup, I usually walk out of a resto at 3. 

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Looking for something drinkable at a gentle prices, I passed Burgundy where there was barely anything to drink under $1000. I inched  towards a $36 Breuer Charms, just an easy riesling and knew it would be decent, but wanted something drier and more angular. The sommelier (not Belinda) came over and when he heard my lament that there were no white Juras, which he immediately thought I meant Vin Jaune (not through the meal, thank you.)  suggested chenin. Good move. His first suggestion was Baumard, good price @ the mid -$40s, but I really don't like the wines at all. Here there were two dry listed and one sweet. Next. In fact the central white Loire list was skippable. Plenty of Huet, in a library collection at breathtaking prices, but no dry wines offered. Then he suggested the Domaine du Collier Saumur 2005. I am sure this esoteric chenin is not a big seller, but I love the wine and given how odd most of the list is, I wondered how it snuck in. Most probably when Stéphane Colling was the wine director? Mine for $115. Really only twice today's retail price but four times its original. By percentage, a bargain, but, doesn't she want to move it? It was buried. It was too high. It will be there for a long time.

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Hearing I wanted to stay low he said, "Oh, you want a value wine," in other words, you are cheap.

So, he sent me to the Hidden Gems. Here is where I'd expect to find trousseau, mondeuse, gamay from the northern Rhone, esoteric wines with take a chance prices. Not so here. The Albrecht Cremant Rosé which retails at $14 a bottle (here for $50) is hardly a gem, exposed or hidden. Same thing with Bouchard Bourgogne for $50, or Momo from NZ @$40 or Hugels no matter how cheap. These are wines I'm delighted to find at the New Hampshire State wine store or in a Maine supermarket where the drinking is difficult, but I was at The Modern--a class act. So, why don't the wines reflect the Danny credo? 

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And then there was the 1/2 bottle list.

Rubicon @ $160? Foradori Granato @ $80? (A great wine but the price? The 750 ml retail is $40.) And the kicker.....Masciarelli Montepulciano @ $20. Yes, Masciarelli.  

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I had the feeling that unlike any 11 Mad, Gram or USC --where the pages are filled with lovely selections at any price--the message seemed to be if you're trying not to bet the dacha on wine, screw you, you can have the Olive Garden choices. (to note: our Charms was perfectly acceptable at $36).

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Had my friend wanted red, we could have had some 2006 Trenel  for $44, but on second thought, I don't like the wines at all, they have a decidedly commercial taste.  If I had $, the second deal were the underpriced Bartolo Mascarellos,  under twice retail. Bargain! (more holdouts from Stéphane Colling days?)  And yes, the Collier. Now that I take a closer look, they have La Caravelle for $85 and that's a nice price!  

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Here's the way my psychology works.  I would have paid more money for a wine but I had lost faith, so I wasn't going to budge. I didn't feel that this was a wine director who loved wine or loved the customer. When I've done lists, (or what I see on lists I love) I take  the opposite position;  if you're going to drink crap (Hello Ms. Margherita PG or Yellow Label) or overblown fancy Napa labels or Guigal you'll pay dearly for it. But if you want a wine because you love it, not because of its status, and it really is a hidden gem, I'm going to make it a little easy for you.

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I was deeply confused here. But if I were going to go back and if you were and want to take the shorthand approach, here are my suggestions. After all, the list is 49 pages long, there had to be some things to drink.

White Burgundy:  I like Jean Michel Giboulot (spelled Giboulet here)  a lot and was surprised to see him on the list, but $165 for the La Combe d’Eve 2006 so close to the Haute Cote seemed steep. But should be lovely. Otherwise, the J. M Caunous-Hudelot Folatieres also at $165.  the '99 Pernot was a nice surprise (leftover from Mr. Colling?) but wonder if it might be past it's prime, especially for $260. But on the other hand, could be brilliant. 

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Alsace: Remy Gresser, is no one I know, but I'd take a chance on the  2009 pinot, Brandhoff @ $52 and the riesling Duttenhoff @ 48.

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For cabernet franc, the 2008 Breton Les Galichets @ $65 or the 2007 Joguet Cuvée Terroir @$48.

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For a red splurge the Jasmin 2001 & 2004 for $135 and $140 respectively.

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Domestic? If you love Moraga and Beaux Freres + culties, you'll be happy from the States, but otherwise you might want that $18 bottle of Lioco Indica carignan for $52.

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Italy? There's only one winemaker in Italy here I'd drink and it happens to be a favorite and a bargain. My splurge goes to  those Mascarellos.

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So you won't go thirsty, but it might be a bumpy road to get there. 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Pity Poor Albariño

If there's justice, which is dubious, one day Albariño will have its soul and nature returned to it, and will cease to be this plump mouthed injectable creation it has become.

A similar body-snatching happened with Beaujolais when wine writers (many who should know better) started to perpetuate the myth that the grapes natural characteristics included  banana aromatics. So, many will be just as gullible to continue to propel this fallacy into the future unless we all stomp our feet and say, no no no!

Here's the bit of a press release that put me in a holiday snit.

"Albariño has a unique flavor and a natural acidity (SO MUCH THAT MOST IMPLEMENT ACID REDUCTION)  with a clean finish. The wine is often described as expressive, with peach and apricot notes, or crisp and refreshing, with intense fruit flavors, such as green apples and lemon zest. Albariño complements a variety of party favorites, such as bruschetta, baked brie (WHEN IS THE LAST TIME  YOU HAD A BAKED BRIE?), soups and chowders, ham, fruit cake, (FRUIT CAKE?? SWEETS? WHAT? THIS IS SOMEONE'S IDEA OF A BAD JOKE FOR WINE/FOOD PAIRINGS?) tarts and apple crisp.

About Albariño from Spain
Albariño (al-ba-ree-nyo) is a white grape varietal grown in the D.O. (Denomination of Origin) of Rías Baixas, located in Galicia on Spain's Northwest coast. Accounting for 90 percent of all plantings in Rías Baixas, Albariño wine has been likened to a Riesling for its minerality and bracing acidity; to a Viognier, because of its fleshiness (FLESHY? HOW MUCH GUM ARABIC IS GOING INTO YOUR ALBARINO?)and peach/apricot character.

 

What do I think Albarino is? High acid, lemon pith and peel and some orange, some times some green almond and sometimes a touch of cream. The nose is compelling, I stretch up on my toes for some descriptors, but the best I can do is spring right before zero summer. 

Here are two renegades who do the wines justice. 

BENITOS SANTOS (between $12-$18)

 2008 Albarino Sair: lemon, acid, profound nose, wool and honey perfume. 

2006 Albarino Pago de Bemil: round, deep, honey, acidity out of yummy control, salty. 

2007 Albarino Pago de Xoan: more acid freaky stuff with wool and lemon, a little closed but still sings.

 *PEDRALONGA  (between $30-$80)

2007 Albarno Barrica-acid sneaks up on you and wraps around the estony meyer lemon. 

2005 Vendetta: You might faint at the sight of the bottle price but these Vendettas are serious business and almost like a vendetta against the crap albarinos out there as if to say, fuck you guys. This is important. Listen up. The honey suckle here is what gets me. 

2006 Vendetta: I have a slight preference for the 06, seems to have more depth with a touch of hazel nut, lower aromatics yet increased layers of complexity.