(Have to interrupt the Dive report (check back by the end of the weekend) to have a Boston moment.)
Forget the Boston Wine Expo. Head to Boston to pinch some wine at the Cheese Cask
I used to live there and I'm still quite fond of the Wine Cask, the store in Somerville on the Cambridge border.
The store has an annual sale of unmovables. If they were in NYC, they'd be scarfed up in a flash.
Here are my highlights.
*2004 Cascina Tavjin Ruché for $15 a bottle.
*2004 Breuer Montosa (Riesling) for $30,
*2003 Breuer Spatburgunder for $15!!
***(and what is the real shocker) 2002 (was a really, truly, deeply, lovely vintage) the Dom. de Belliviere Le Rouge Gorge for...$15.
What is the matter with Boston? Boston is the city I cut my wine teeth on. Granted I honed and shaped those teeth in NYC, but don't they know what's good up there anymore?
Poignant are the comments on the flyer. I can hear the frustration ( I assume this is Steve Mosher writing) between the lines. For example, next to the Pineau d'Aunis he writes: Poor Pineau d'Aunis. This delicious red grape variety hit the U.S. market when everyone wanted Pinot Noir. Better luck next time.
Oh! The pain!.
Oddly enough he was selling a pinot that was well priced but from Germany. I tasted that wine and it is really good pinot with a German point of view from a hot year (THE year to buy German pinot, so why is it still hanging on?) On that pinot he said, "Tasted it, loved it, purchased it." The unsaid is ...you idiots! Why don't you buy it?
Next to that lovely ruché? He must have loved it when he bought it but now he writes: "...an inky, purple red wine, can now go back to where it belongs, the the few growers of it in Piemont who think much more of it than the American wine drinker.
You can just hear the writer smash beer bottles with anguish in the background.
I don't blame him. Boston is stuck. Every year there's an influx of 18-22 year olds who have to rediscover everything. How can it be any different?
When I left Boston in 1988 I had the feeling that I had to return to New York City or explode.
Now that I think of it, I might have imploded before I exploded as I was starving. I weighed a mere 90 pounds.
Part of the answer to why I felt impoverished on a sensual level is embedded in the reason why these poor wines languish.
Anyway, if you're in the hood, you should stop by and clean up.
....
407 Washington Street, Somerville 617 623 8656
