Augieland

Thanksgiving Wine

Wine with Thanksgiving dinner seems well discussed these days. Personally, for an all around suggestion when asked I tend to recommend Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Salmon Run Riesling.

There are three levels to the classic Thanksgiving dinner as far as a see it. The first are the immutable dishes that absolutely must be included no matter what else you do: roasted turkey, gravy, horrible canned cranberry jelly (other versions are great but nothing has the insane acidity combined with sweetness of the can-shaped blob), stuffing (which varies regionally), and fluffy white mashed potatoes. In the second level are the standards that round out this meal and are interchangeable but will appear in variations: sweet potatoes (roasted with glaze or mashed and topped with marshmallow), green beans (almandine, baked with onion crisps, steamed), creamed pearl onions, green salad, and way too many other ingredients and preparations to go on listing. The third level is one I heartily endorse as long as it does not attempt to replace any of the core five components; it is comprised of the foodie items. Here is where truffle whipped potatoes will show, great in addition to mashed but not a good substitute. Orange-glazed grilled acorn squash can sit right next to sweet potato purée or replace it, but must sit proudly next to the simple, straightforward traditional roast turkey dinner. In my opinion, you can fancy yourself a foodie all you like and try new things with your family and strive to impress, but to impress me make a better turkey than I have ever had; perfect the flavors, don’t replace them.

Over the years I have tried many wine parings to this traditional meal. I have had the very American and egocentric “if I like drinking it, I will like food with it” dinner in which mostly Bordeaux was served. We did the all rosé dinner and the champagne/rosé champagne dinner. I’ve been to the “only vitis grape indigenous to America is Zinfandel” dinner (really indigenous to Croatia by the way), and have tried the always-a-failure “Beaujolais Nouveau with turkey” dinner. In the long run, I have come to feel that the best parings are aromatic whites: they handle the tartness of cranberries, the richness of mashed potatoes, draw out the subtlety of well roasted turkey and stuffing, and stand the best chance of pairing with the thousands of other dishes that will appear over the years.

Having been through all the Alsatian versions, the German versions, the Austrians and the Americans, I have a couple of standbys: Austrian Grüner Veltliner is quite good; in France go with Pinot Gris or Blanc; and in Germany go with the earliest of the Rieslings, Kabinette or Spatlese. As far as America goes, I wanted it to be the home of the perfect wine for the American holiday but had found most of the aromatic whites of America to be overwrought and/or cloying. Then I tried Salmon Run and the other Rieslings of the Finger Lakes region.

Salmon Run is the second label of Dr. Konstantin Frank, the man credited with bringing viticulture to the Finger Lakes. His is a fascinating story well worth learning, but has little to do with pairing wine to turkey. His wine though is my favorite for gifting, bringing, suggesting, and drinking (at least till the crowd forces the move to red) for Thanksgiving dinner.

Autumnal by nature, dry Riesling is pretty well suited to the Thanksgiving meal. Salmon Run benefits from being local – American if that’s you, and New York for me. I have sampled the current vintages over the last five years and have found them, in spite of vintage variation, to be light, minerally and steely, with driving acids enough to contrast well while having enough autumnal fruit and spices on the nose to compliment. And best of all, since a reasonable amount of any one wine for my family gatherings is at least a case, it is very fairly priced ($12.99 on the website).

Start the way I did, add one bottle to that collection of under twenties we all end up mixing into a case with bright ideas like California Sangiovese and see how it suits you.

Chanterelle, 483 comingilillian stars

Be your guest at a sake and food dinner at Chanterelle in two hours? Of course I was the right guy to call when whoever it was dropped out, and of course I went.

In 1993-94 I would come into New York to work for free every day at a business in the Tribeca Film Center. These were the days when all of Tribeca smelled like roasted peanuts two or three days a week because Bazzini was a peanut roaster, not a gourmet store and condo complex. The Tribeca Grill was there and getting some attention, but the best meal and the best room were pretty much accepted as being at Chanterelle which had already been there for like ten years.

Needless to say, with my budding young food obsessions I always wanted to eat in the subtle, classy room I saw through the white curtains walking to and from the errands interns are sent on. I was assured by those who could and did go that the husband and wife team behind Chanterelle, David and Karen Waltuck, were not only drawing seasoned vets of the greater West side of the triangle below Canal but that people from as far as the Upper East Side were coming down for the food, which they explained as significant to the kid still commuting from Jersey City.

I finally did have a meal at Chanterelle at some point and remember little more than awe, making this opportunity to get back there much appreciated. What hasn’t changed is that the room is still best described as tasteful, and Karen Waltuck still cheerily makes you feel at home in the front of the house while David does the cooking. What is either new or I wasn’t food fluent enough to take notice of back then is the presence of sake.

Sake is something I wish I knew more about. I have learned the fundamentals along the way – sake is brewed and is rice-based; the rice for sake is polished prior to brewing; and the more starch that is removed in the process, the more the resulting brew becomes subtle and nuanced. The levels of starch removal I have learned, in order of least to most, are Jumnmai-shu, Ginjo-shu, and Daiginjo-shu. I am aware that there are unfiltered varieties (when I have had them I seem to prefer unfiltered) and brews made from different types of rice. There are sweet sakes and dry ones, and no good sake is consumed hot. I know that with the average Japanese meal in New York I seem to prefer Ginjo sake. But that’s the extent of my knowledge at this point (mostly learned at Decibel around the same time I was working in The Tribeca Film Center).

Learning food and wine always requires learning a new language, even if it is just the words in English that pertain to the particular process. The thing about sake is it requires you to learn a new alphabet. This combined with the fact that most of the restaurants in New York with a good collection of sake and a knowledgeable sake-geek have loud, uncomfortable bars that specialize in mixology and not always food means there has been little opportunity for me to go beyond a beginner’s level of knowledge.

Most of the learning I do about booze happens at a comfortable bar with a genial and knowledgeable professional pouring and teaching. The good news is Chanterelle definitely has the guy to fit the bill in the personage of Roger Dagorn, though sadly Chanterelle is a bar-less restaurant. As I understand it it was Roger’s passion for sake that brought the brewers of these samplings to Chanterelle for this dinner and somewhere between him and Chef Waltuck this menu was planned. Here is how it went:

Amuses Bouches: a fried oyster resting on diced cucumber topped with salmon roe and a pinwheel of prosciutto and fig, paired with Ohyama Tokubetsu Janmai ‘Nigori’(an unfiltered and unpasteurized sake that looked and tasted somewhat milky with floral notes of lilac). The sake was quite light in comparison to the crust of the oyster and the sweetness of the figs.

Chesapeake Bay Crabmeat “Ravioli” with Golden Beets, Avocado & Almond Oil: sweet crabmeat sandwiched between thin crunchy slices of golden beet, served with bibb lettuce and avocado, paired with Ichinokura Junmai ‘Himezen’ which involved aromas of orange blossoms, strawberries and pear nectar while tasting like the white (pineapple) Haribo Gold gummy bears. The pairing ended up a study in the lighter aspects of sweetness – the beets, the crab, and the sake itself – with the avocado offering weight to draw out each component’s individuality along the sweet spectrum.

Beef Carpaccio with Marinated Mushrooms: thinly shaved beef laid on a plate and ringed with brilliantly peppery arugula drizzled with a sweet miso dressing was served alongside Ohyama Junmai Ginjo ‘Ginsuika’ which had a saline and bitter vegetal palate and aromas of raw pine-nuts and toasted nori. In my mind the reason to learn about sake is that the wine world does not necessarily cover all vegetables and fishes, so it was interesting to see it paired here with beef. The miso definitely lent a familiarity of palate between the French and Japanese but beyond that the sharper notes of the sake were enveloped in the beef.

Ragout of Chanterelles with Fried Quail Eggs: pan-roasted chanterelles in a brown jus with a sunny-side-up quail’s egg, matching Otokoyama Junmai Daiginjo, with rosehips and white pepper on the nose and a boozy palate of jicama. The dish was salty, earthy and rich and the sake acted as another ingredient, adding roses to the earthiness and pepper to the salt while thinning the yolk’s lavishness.

Grilled Arctic Char with Grapefruit Butter: a grilled fillet of char on cabbage slaw with snap peas, orange zest and grapefruit butter, served along with Tsukasabotan Junmai Ginjo ‘Nama’ Sake which possessed a lactic richness and plum and balsa wood scents. Probably the finest pairing of the night, these were just in perfect accord. Like the greatest of wines, I find finer sake becomes more a familiar myriad of flavors without any one exact discernable unique note. This was the first sake of the night to smell and taste primarily like good sake, the fish’s skin had an awesome wood-grilled flavor to its grill marks that was almost plasticy, like a fugu tail but more subtle. Although maybe not the sake or course of the evening, this was definitely the pairing.

Spiced New Zealand Snapper on Vegetables Escabeche: a fillet of the fish with its skin seared crisp rested atop pickled vegetables and a similarly seared cauliflower floret and was served with Wakatake ‘Onikoroshi’ Junmai Daiginjo. The best word I have to describe this sake is pleasant; it conjured the image of sweet water as I have heard the term used to describe potable water in an unknown land, with a wispy aroma of perfume on the breeze. The dish, which I enjoyed, is remembered simply as nice which it was, it just didn’t speak to me like the drink did in this pairing.

Fricassee of Lobster with Lemongrass and Lime Leaves: lobster meat in a small cast-iron pot with a buttery sauce and citrus aromas was served alongside Tsukasabotan Junmai Daiginjo ‘Shizuku’ with a driving heat of alcohol behind its eucalyptus notes and an aroma of sweet flowers. I understand the motivation to serve this dish this way, but the result sadly was chewy lobster tail. The claws, however, went well and the butteriness of the sauce tempered the sake’s boozy heat.

Seared Duck Breast with Sweet Ginger Sauce: simply roasted duck breast with bok choi, chiffonade of scallions, and a chewy beggar’s purse resting on silver leaf was served with Kaika Junmai Daiginjo ‘Tobindori’ Shizuku with an herbal anise nose and a salty palate. This was the only mis-pairing of the night: as much sense as it made in theory, the scallions pulled an unpleasant acerbicness out of the sake making the great thought an unpleasant match.

Roasted Pears with Fresh Ricotta Crème and Honey Citrus Caramel Sauce: sweet more from roasted sugars than added sugars, it went along with Otokoyama Junmai Genshu ‘Fukkoshu’ Sweet Sake which smelled of banana bread, dried fruits, toasted fish skin and yeast, and was all pear juice on the palate. With this one we learned that most sakes are cut with water to bring their alcohol down. While this one wasn’t, due to its sweetness it was not as noticeably boozy as a couple of its predecessors.

In a perfect world, Chanterelle would have a bar I could wander into during the quieter before/after service hours and drink sake by the glass, trying to suck as much of Roger’s expertise from his brain as possible. That not being an option, I think this dinner was an acceptable substitute. During each course Roger stopped by our tables, often to introduce the person responsible for brewing the accompanying sake. He explained what made each sake unique, as well as his thoughts behind the pairing, and was very available for question answering.

As I understand it this was the seventh or eighth of these sake-centric dinners which are held annually at Chanterelle and a perfect night, as I learned a thing or two about sake and its process and enjoyed some inspired pairings. Until the Waltucks see their way clear to adding a bar, I can’t imagine a better venue for experiencing fine sake and fine food. Great food and great drink should not be separate, and need not be. These are well crafted drinks that paired well with well-crafted food, and in the crossing of traditionally staid lines I got to come to a better appreciation of both.

At this point Chanterelle is an august place doing an excellent job oft overlooked by me for the newer kids on the block. I was very glad to have this opportunity to be reminded of the brilliance that exists in the composed, sure confidence of a place that has proven itself and continues to by taking advantage of its position to explore things as unique as the pairing of pretty traditional French fare and the finest of Japanese sakes.

In response to Keith

I've noticed that you tend to hit different vendors in the greenmarket for different items, this one for tomatoes that one for meat etc… Besides the obvious that the guys with meat usually don't sell vegetables how do you know which farmer has the best tomatoes or mushrooms vs. the 5 or 10 others who sell similar items or which butcher to buy your steak or bacon from?

I don’t play favorites. I believe the tendency toward routine breeds apathy. Just like with restaurants, I do my best to immediately try the new guy, compare him to the existing guys, and categorize him compared to the competition. In my experience, people settle once they are established so sometimes the new guy has a welcome refreshing, enthusiastic approach, and sometimes he just gets it wrong, meaning sometimes the old standbys rest easy and sometimes they are rocked and left behind.

There are some guys with obvious specialties – Tim Stark for tomatoes, Keith Stewart for garlic, and so on. But I have a theory that since the chefs of NYC use these guys the best stuff goes to them, and we may find better by turning our back on fame. That being said, when I planned an heirloom tomato salad for the first course at my wedding I introduced a Jersey caterer to Tim so I would know I had the best (or very close to it) on the table, and no fall goes by without Keith’s garlic in our house.

So where does that leave us? We are left milling about the market touching produce; make a habit of touching produce and you will know all you need to know about who has the best what. The best indicator of freshness and ripeness for most all fruits and vegetables is water. Water will tell you all. Pick up the worst tomato at the Greenmarket and the best at Whole Foods, and for the same size the one at the market will be far heavier. Heavier because picked ripe it is juicier, and shorter travel means less time for that moisture to evaporate.

Sure, tomatoes (my whole reason for supporting a Greenmarket system in general, if there is a bigger disparity in the food world than that between the glory of farm stand/home grown tomatoes and the patheticness of every other version (be it organic or not) I have not come across it my general searching) are an easy one to pick. If the fruit is heavy, the skin is tight, the flesh is resilient when you press it with the pad of your thumb, and if the stem pulls or twists away pretty easily, you have a good candidate for purchasing. So now just walk around, see who has the best price and meets these requirements.

For other fruit I will simply say traditional farming breeds much more unique-looking specimens than the industrial monoculture people for some reason call conventional today. I find it reassuring to embrace odd-shaped fruit – the tomato that looks like it grew around a rock or the apple that looks like 1/8 of it was not exposed to the sun and as a result is shorter. When I find parts where animals have been at them I like to take a glass half full approach: cut the parts out, and be thankful that something else found my food appealing enough to eat.

For lettuces, corn, herbs and the like, look at the cut end. Is it moist? If so, it has recently been cut (soon after cutting the moisture will retract into the heart of the vegetable, and no spraying with water will fake this). Then break it. Great produce is so full of moisture even lettuce leaves will snap at the rib rather than bend. Don’t be afraid to tear a leaf from a head of lettuce and taste it, if they don’t have some out for tasting. Just do it because you want to buy, not eat.

Nothing is sillier than habits like peeling back the husk on corn. Unless you hit the exact quadrant that happens to have a worm, you won’t have learned that, so now all you’ve done is make sure there is corn inside, and since the habit for shopping means you must observe at least two ears, the farmer is left with one that has been passed on by someone who knows so little about quality that they thought they could learn something in this manner in the first place.

As far as Union Square goes, there is also the benefit of competition/knowledge of consumer to help cover your bases. Some serious chefs, as well as some people that seriously care about land stewardship, shop at that market, so if a stand isn’t good, it won’t last there. But get there early, for some reason these attentive choosers are also early risers.

So now that we know what to look for and that even if we miss the best possible offering we are pretty safe, what else can we do? Talk to the farmers, talk to each egg person, I once bought a dozen eggs because a little girl helping her parents told me the names of the chickens that laid them. I am sure it was just fun and tales being told, but I like to encourage closeness, with my farmers and by a strange urban extension my food.

I can’t stress price enough. Being at a farmers market is not a license to steal. Food should be fairly priced, and when asked any small farmer will give you a story that in the long run has him about ten thousand dollars a year in the red once he pays his organic dues. Look around the market, see what people are charging for ramps, and buy from the guy with cheaper ones. But know Organic certification does cost more, and promises more at this point.

Which of the neighborhood wine shops do you recommend? I like astor for the huge selection and great prices for everyday bottles but cant pass up stopping in Union Square Wines for those new tasting machines on my way home from work.

Wine is fun; I often wander into wine stores, ask a guy to recommend some juice, get him to tell me all he can about it, take it home and drink it. It is great if I love it. If I don’t, I must consider if it is what he said it would be, and if it is I am still positive on the shop and will just steer things better to my preference next time I’m in. In this way, I find I get the most exposure to what’s going on in the wine world.

Once I have taken someone’s suggestion and decided if they are operating at a good level of information (the web and Oxford Guide to Wine are good tools), taste, and unique approach (a test both Astor and USQ pass), I look at price. In today’s age this is as easy as putting the name and vintage into winezap.com or winesearcher.com and seeing how they stack up (Union Square only beats Sokolin and Park Ave in this game, their prices are pretty lousy, cool kegerator or not).

I am quickly becoming a fan of Bottlerocket, west of Fifth Avenue on 19th Street. They have a unique approach, an intimate feel, a good selection, they seem to see the value in developing regulars, and are always in the fair range when I double-check them on price, plus who doesn’t love a wine shop with a bottle of Ripple at the register?

So I guess in most choices I am happy to pay up for quality, authenticity and uniqueness, but only to a fair price, and the way to know where this is to be found is to spend your afternoons meeting purveyors and sampling their wares. Often when I do it leaves me with a very good feeling of appreciation for my neighborhood, and that is always nice.

I hope you find this helpful, never forget Lucy’s Greenmarket Report, an effort all of us in the vicinity of The USQ Green Market should be grateful for.

The Wine Workshop Marcassin Tasting

Helen Turley exists in a weird space in winemaking. She is definitely one of the most influential winemakers in the world, while being the closest thing we have to a traditionalist winemaker in America. She practices classic Burgundian winemaking, encouraging her varietals to be as much as they can be within the terroir of California through torturous practices.  Helen gets every bit of character a grape has to offer and jams all of it into the glass. In the vineyard she limits fruit per vine, plants very densely and lets the fruit get as mature as nature will allow. In the winery she uses natural yeast, new oak, and leaves the juice on the lees after fermentation. The results are wines uniquely stamped to the places they are made while clearly guided by the hand of a person with conviction.

Wednesday night I went to The Wine Workshop tasting of Marcassin wines at the Algonquin hotel and had the opportunity to taste six of her chardonnays from four vineyards, and six pinot noirs from three vineyards. As a result of Helen’s fame and respect, her wines trade at a rather dear price for those of us not on her mailing list (the waiting list for the mailing list is about 5,000 people long, I have been on it for two years and at the time I signed on it was estimated at a 5 years wait) although, to her credit, the prices offered those on the list have always seemed quite fair. So scarcity and price make the opportunity to taste Marcassin wines both vertically and horizontally a seldom occasion.

The reason to jump at such an opportunity when it arises is because these are California wines born of the California earth, and the ripeness achievable buries nuance as such, so they tend to seem uniform to a palate that is drawn to the more obvious subtleties (sic) of the colder parts of the world. While drinking any one of them it is easy to see that, although these are big, boozy, and extracted, they are affected by the place they came from. Tasting one next to another, varying touches can show through the heavy-handed flavor California naturally imparts on its wines and the uniqueness that makes these each special can shine; by sampling vineyard next to vineyard and vintage next to vintage you can see the terroir show through. We had:

Marcassin Chardonnay Three Sisters Vineyards ’01
Nose: butterscotch, ginger, cantaloupe,
Palate: viscous, boozy, rich, long finish, pineapple becoming melon, with citrus notes

Marcassin Chardonnay Upper Barn Alexander Mountain Estate ’01
Nose: tarragon, skunk, ginger, honey, white stones, popcorn
Palate: big, long finish with ginger, stones, glass, and spice cabinet

Marcassin Chardonnay Marcassin Vineyard ’01
Nose: tuille cookies, ginger snaps
Palate: ginger, corn bread, more focused acidity

Marcassin Chardonnay Marcassin Vineyard ’99
Nose: honeysuckle, ginger, tuille cookies, chalk, butter, cashews
Palate: balance and integration fruit to booze to acidity, citrus, guava, and herbs

Marcassin Chardonnay Marcassin Vineyard ’97
Nose: roasted cashews, petrol, apricot kernel, wheat
Palate: tart with orange notes, hugely mouth filling with a long lingering finish

Marcassin Chardonnay Lorenzo Vineyard ’95
Nose: oxidized, butter, honey, marmalade, and peaches
Palate: this wine was clearly not what was intended; it had butter notes and diesel notes but it seemed to be completely botrytiscized. I don’t know whether or not Helen encourages or discourages botrytis in the vineyard (based on all her other practices, I would assume it is allowed to some degree) but the nose on this wine was incredibly like a ’75 d’Yquem. Nothing like the other Lorenzo chards I have had in the past, but hard to call it bad.

Marcassin Pinot Noir Blue Slide Ridge ’01
Nose: slate, smoke, cinnamon, burning brush
Palate: sweet-woody tannins, black cherry fruit

Marcassin Pinot Noir Three Sisters Vineyards ‘01
Nose: boozy, touch of barnyard, blueberry, anise, cut grass
Palate: raspberries

Marcassin Pinot Noir Blue Slide Ridge ‘00
Nose: guava, slate, chrome, chilies, barnyard, cloves
Palate: boozy, sweet fruit, linear tannin, tart acidity, red apples, herbs, ponzu

Marcassin Pinot Noir Marcassin Vineyard ‘00
Nose: funky, raspberries, wood, hung meat, clay, pretzels
Palate: boozy, red apples, juicy red fruit, sweet tannin

Marcassin Pinot Noir Blue Slide Ridge ‘99
Nose: herbs, capsicum, slate, banana
Palate: boozy, raspberries, crushed fruit red apples, sweet tannins

Marcassin Pinot Noir Blue Slide Ridge 98
Nose: boozy, funk, cinnamon, toffee, stones
Palate: boozy, raspberries, black cherry, red apples, sweet tannins

Would you use any of these words to describe a Burgundy? Some. Do you have to describe these wines as Burgandian? Yes, because what they are doing in Burgundy is creating the greatest wine each piece of property will support, and as a result make some of the most pleasing wines out there, as does Helen. If there was some amazing year in which somehow Burgundy got California’s weather they would make the same wine Helen does, they recently came close look at ’02. To argue that hers merit less respect because making them seems easier in her chosen terroir ignores the gallons and gallons of insipid juice with no other character than being Californian all around her. It’s like discounting Madonna’s hugely successful and long career because she is sexy.

Wine Workshop Penfold's Grange Hermitage at Public

“Penfold’s Grange is generally recognized as Australia’s finest red wine…” or at least that’s what the label on the ’83 says. Is smugness forgivable if it is actually based in reality? In a world divided into people who love big extracted hedonistic wines and those that love terroir-driven complexity few people who have tried Grange would disagree that this is a great wine.

The Wine Workshop had a tasting of sixteen vintages of Grange at Public Wednesday night and Bear and I went. Now in theory this should be horrible for me: Grange is one of the examples the boring mass-produced wines of the world are poorly emulating, and Public is a restaurant born of a design team with a chef as an afterthought. In reality, Grange is a great wine well worth emulation and, whether or not he was designed into the place Chef Brad Farmerie is turning out some very tasty and creative food at Public.

Grange is Bear’s favorite wine and time and again he has proven to me that, at least in the ’76 and ’86 vintages, it is undeniably fantastic juice; Public, as well as being a favorite brunch stop (get the yogurt eggs, and a bloody Caesar), knocked my socks off at a StarChefs Event at which Brad served Kangaroo on falafel. The draw of these two things combined was overwhelming, so down we sat in the private space, surrounded by bottles of wine, with about eighteen other hedonists.
Dinner was:

Cured wild boar, Woodside Edith goat’s cheese, Australian salt cured olives, and caper berries

Vintages: 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995 the cure on the boar was noticeably sweet before the wine, but turned more savory, tasting of herbs and juniper after. The cheese was simple, soft, fatty, and mild as far as goat’s milk cheeses go. The olives were meaty and the caper berries were salty and bright. Together these were well chosen flavors for these younger, bolder wines. When doing a vertical of wine it is not always the greatest wine that is the favorite, often it is just the one that shows as unique, which in some cases may be symptomatic of flaws or simply born of a lack of balance. There is also the fact that sometimes one bottle is just better or worse than its siblings. The ’96 was my favorite of this flight. While the ’98 showed chocolate, curry, and cinnamon; the ’97 kirsch, nori and herbs; the ’95 tart raspberries and toro with a decidedly linear acidity, in addition to that great crushed blackberries on leather and tobacco flavor of great Aussie Shiraz; the ’96 showed clove, charcoal and soy, with more definite tannic structure setting it apart.

Grilled Australian lamb fillets on coriander falafel, green pepper relish and lemon tahini sauce

Vintages: 1994, 1992, 1990 apparently lamb pinch-hits for kangaroo in this dish in the off-season. Except for this substitution this was the same dish I had fallen in love with at the StarChefs event and was just as good with its big, bold, assertive flavors, standing toe to toe with this big bold assertive wine. The relish was sweet and sour with notes of curry, the falafel crunch green and light and permeated with the fresh soapy flavors of coriander. The tahini was bright and smooth and the lamb was tender and juicy. In this flight, the ’92 was most pleasing, with cinnamon and fish protein notes. It was so heady it could have been vodka. The 90’s uniqueness was in its steak-juice bloodiness and ’94 showed more eucalyptus (pretty normal for grange) than any of the rest.

Mini duck burgers on miso buns with licorice pickled onions and cassava chips.

Vintages: 1988, 1986, 1983 the little slider was juicy, rare and suffused with cinnamon. The buns were nicely sweet, the licorice onions were interesting, and the cassava chips were so light and flaky you could taste the oil they were cooked in. I found the cinnamon overpowering and the catsup too sweet for the dish but not for the wine. The ’86 was showing mushrooms and minerals while the ’88 had an interesting funk of a rabbit hutch as opposed to a barnyard but the lavender notes and sweet tannins of the ’83 made it stand out of this group. On the whole I found this flight to be at an awkward phase where the balance was off in the direction of alcohol.

Roast New Zealand venison loin, parmesan dumplings, oyster mushrooms and salsa verde.

Vintages: 1982, 1981, 1980 seriously perfect pairings of gamey/earthy, salty/tangy, rich/ light, herbaceous/sanguine, spicy/bright there were flavors all across the spectrum, each pulling something from the wines. The ’82 was my vote for wine of the night: deeply rooted to the ground with notes of barnyard, cherries, celery, red apples and mushrooms, with crazy juicy fruit and sweet tannins on the palate. The ’80 showed mushrooms and anchovies and, sadly, the ’81 was bad, not corked but tainted by pervasive mold (I assume from the cask).

British & Irish Cheeses with mustard fruit and oatcakes

Vintages: 1977, 1976, 1971 Cheeses that ranged in degrees of salt and richness within the world of cheddar flavors. I believe the fruit was kumquat, and the oatcakes were wonderfully soft. The ’77 showed forest notes from mushrooms to detritus as well as river bank notes, the ’76 was gorgeous sweet black tea, cassis and oozy black fruit, but the ’71 was the one drinking best in this group (big cherry notes, perfectly integrated wood, kirsch, and cassis).

With the exception of the ’81, all these bottles were perfect and the food was remarkable. It is hard to imagine a better wine dinner – we got to compare great wine after great wine all teamed with food clearly made by a person familiar with the wines and their capabilities. As good as great wine and food are alone, properly paired they are each better. It’s surprising more people aren’t paying as much attention to understanding this as Chef Farmerie and the Wine Workshop obviously are.

Wine Workshop Vega-Sicilia "Unico" at Jovia

Sixteen vintages of Vega Sicilia served in a private room of Jovia, Josh DeChellis' new restaurant, sounds genius doesn't it? Vega Sicilia is one of the world's most respected (and expensive) wines and DeChellis is the chef of the well respected Sumile who has joined with the owners of Zoe (also well respected) to open Jovia. This dinner brought together very fine pedigrees that promised brilliance.

My past tasting of Vega Sicilia is limited. Going into this tasting I was far more familiar with its legend as "one of the world's greatest wines" and process (very long cask aging followed by even longer bottle aging before release) and grapes (cabernet sauvignon, merlot and tempernillo) and somewhat dubious accolades like "holds its own with the greats of France." The wines were provided by The Wine Workshop part of Acker Merrall, a very reliable local wine retailer and auctioneer, and they all were from the same collection that appeared to be, as represented, a well kept one.

DeChillis has impressed me at food events and at his restaurant Sumile with his Japanese-French fusion cuisine. At Jovia I have been told he is doing New American with Italian influences and receiving good mention as a result. As this menu bore out, though, the intention for this dinner seemed instead to be a nod to the Nuevo Cucina of Spain, as would seem to be a fitting compliment to Spain's most respected wine.

Dinner was:

Octopus cured olives, paprika pickles, potatoes

Vintages: 1994, 1990, 1981: The '94 was bold, spicy and alive. The '81 was best associated with the dish. The wines from the '90's were cocktail wines, good alone but big for the dish. The octopus suffered from poor execution, the chew was too chewy and the crisp was not crispy enough. The flavors were kind of flat, as if a hotel had prepared it for a wedding.

Tagliatelle porcini, ramps, Berkshire sugo

Vintages: 1975, 1973, 1970: The strong one in this grouping was the '70. Very Burgundian in comparison to the others, it had notes of barnyard to go with the earthy, woody aromas, notes of cherries to go with the cassis, and generally was well balanced and harmonious between the lush fruits of the hot-weather cab and the acidity of the tempernillo. The tagliatelle had a nice bite but was otherwise unremarkable, as if we were at an awards ceremony.

Poached duck foie gras mousse

Vintages: 1969, 1968, 1966: The '69 was the strong one in this group, showing much as the '70 had. The '68, which gets huge accolades in wine press, was flat and the '66 was faulty in some way, not corked but smelling of old leather boots from a musty cellar. This dish seemed as if it's recipe had been pulled from a cookbook about the "new food." The duck had had any game it brought to the game leeched out of it by poaching, there were slightly sweet dense pared little turnips and a green cooked well past recognition (which may have been bok choi) and the mousse was actually an espuma, light and airy and very ill-conceived as a pairing to this wine in these vintages, as if someone fresh out of the CIA was doing their first fund-raiser.

Violent hills lamb spring's first vegetables

Vintages: 1965, 1962, 1960: All in all my favorite flight of the evening. These wines were dignified old ladies. They are no doubt starting a decline from where the '69 and '70 are right now, but at the moment they benefit from the subtleties of fading fruit, tannin, acid and wood notes, clearly sophisticated and classy. The lamb was sliced, filled with pepper and herbs, and reformed with caul fat, served on beans and a potato puree. It somehow tasted just as Tetra-min goldfish food smells. The jus that accompanied it had been cooked to the plate rim, I assume by some heat device as if it had waited for the weekend warrior server to get back to the kitchen after the first round of tables were served at a political event.

Torta la serena truffled toast, extramadura Spain

Vintages: 1957, 1955, 1953, 1951: These wines were respectively horrible, horrible, ok in comparison, and dead. The '51 was just shot, the ruby color of the other 15 was gone and the wine was simply lost. It is hard to fairly judge the '53 in comparison. It was nowhere near as bad as the '57 and '55 but it was if the wines wanted to upset us. This dish was just crazy. A fondue of sorts made with an insanely strong Spanish bleu cheese that completely blew out the canned truffle bits that although visible were otherwise undetectable, poured over a piece of toasted-to-the-point-of-dryness cinnamon raisin bread. It was generally agreed that had anyone actually enjoyed the wines in this flight it would have ended the minute this was tasted. The "torta" may have stood next to a few ports and sauternes, but not many.

The only critique I have ever had of Josh is in the drinks served to accompany his food, and that goes on. In this case, I suspect the actual execution of these dishes was left to someone who was operating under the belief that the night was about wine and no one would care how the food went out. In general, what I enjoy most about chef Dechillis' food is his light hand and subtlety, but tonight subtle crossed the line to flavorless (with the exception of dessert).

The wine was of good manifest, and provided by a quite reputable dealer. I don't think the bottles were in any way faulty. It is worth mentioning that the tasting was held while a huge storm front moved through the area, so if you are someone that has observed certain wines and food showing as flat during severe swings in barometric pressure you can easily blame that for the lackluster showing which I am tempted to do, having enjoyed Vega in the past and definitely considering myself among Josh's fandom.

Based on this tasting sampling sixteen of the twenty most highly praised vintages, I think I see where the praise stems from. Vega Sicilia Unico tastes like great Bordeaux, just like it. Back before people used centrifuges, artificial yeasts, and micro-oxygenatation to insure their wines always tasted like '82s, whether the weather was right or not, I am sure this was a good thing to know about, especially in vintages like '68.

It seems that Unico is still very traditionally made, using varying lengths of time in barrel and bottle to insure it is always going to be the best it can be, while the Bordelais it emulates have happily applied new technologies to cut these corners. Sadly, what we are left with is a more expensive version of a readily available commodity. Sure, the '94 was deep, complex and involving, with a bright future, but so is a '96 Mouton and it is only $220 or so a bottle as opposed to $300. I would love to reward Vega for doing things traditionally, but their tradition is that of being the best Spanish copy of Bordeaux. Even though they have been doing it for one hundred years, I would rather drink something entirely born of Spain, and when I want Bordeaux I'll drink it.

this wine is 1893er than any other i've had

When we opened it it tasted like Riesling, surprisingly like Riesling for something 117 years old. A little muted, but definitely Riesling. Spicy, with caramel notes, it was good; not the best Riesling I'd ever had but definitely far more whole than I had expected.

Our common experience with very old wine told us that it would not last long out of the bottle so we began to drink, not in a rush but definitely not as slowly as it turned out we should have. It probably took about ½ an hour for the six of us, Pichon, Ringwald, Helmet, Mispooz, Wife and I to finish the 750 ml bottle. And the truth is, as Pichon and I looked at each other across the last wee ounces, we realized rather than die a fast death it had opened. The caramels were now brulee, the spices were now anise and cinnamon, there were tropical fruit notes.

No wines last longer than those with residual sugar and good acidity. This was however an Auslese, so at the beginnings of the scale as far as these components go. Basically, if I ever have the chance to drink another 117 year old German white again I may decant it and then start, knowing I may need to shift gears in the middle to finish in 20 minutes or delay over 2 hours. As for old reds, I'm still going to consider it a pressure situation.

We chose this wine looking for a unique experience, and that we had. To be honest, in the end the juice was far better than I thought it would be which was a very pleasant surprise. If you have the chance definitely go for it, but take your sweet time.

Corkage

Corkage is a thing my opinions are very varied on, so I have been saving writing it up. But I'm seeing a new trend in NY restaurants at the moment that I see as so absurd I feel it needs addressing. Places that do not offer wine are charging for corkage which is ridiculous and, if we are learning anything from the saga of the East Village's European Union opening, probably criminal.

In a nutshell, corkage is the fee restaurants charge to serve you your own wine. The fee is justified as covering the costs of glassware and the staff to support the service of wine and the charge is understandable, because places make money on their wine and a certain amount of any restaurant with a liquor license's business model would be a certain amount of earnings from beverage service.

The few, simple guidelines I believe apply to bringing your own wine to a restaurant, are:

1. The wine should be something the restaurant does not offer. If they sell what you want there, you should buy it from them.
2. The wine should be unique from their offerings. Don't bring Ornellia to a place that sells Sassicaia. Even though they are indeed different, they are not unique enough to justify supplying your own.
3. Your wine should be significantly better than what they are offering. Or at least as good. The chef should not be expected to make food that will go well with a wine not on par with the caliber his place offers.
4. The most that any place should charge for corkage is the cost of the cheapest bottle of wine on their list. Half of that would be fairer, since they are losing no product in the exchange.
5. It is their place and thusly their policy is to be followed, no reason to argue. If you are bringing wine to a restaurant, you should call ahead of time and find out their corkage policy, not show up with wine in a scuba bag and argue about the house's rules.

Now, being a guy without a lot of depth in his wine cellar, at this point I am not faced with wanting to have so and so cook for me while I drink my prized bottle of such and such, which is the occasion I can imagine my wanting to bring a bottle to a place for.

At this point, I mostly still consider the wine program an intricate part of a restaurant's philosophy and judge their choices in offerings, as well as pricing and service, to be telling as to where their really heart lies.

As for this new, recurring practice of places charging a corkage fee while awaiting their liquor license -- screw that and screw them. When going to a new place, call and ask if they have a liquor license. If the don't, ask if they allow you to BYOW (no longer a safe assumption). If the answer is no, and then yes, ask if they have a corkage policy. If they charge you for serving you your wine when they have not gone through the costs of putting together a wine list, paying someone to maintain it, applying for and securing the proper licenses, and insuring the place against possible liquor-inspired law suits, they don't have the right to expect profit from the sale. If things are as they should be and there is no charge for corkage, buy their most expensive bottle of water and help keep them going on the right track.

Beware of ’98 Beaucastel, or be careful what you wish for

Very early on, my father gave me the advice that if I was going to be a wine drinker it was important to learn about wine. The basic idea was that people who haven't learned about wine would always need to depend on others for guidance to safely find good wine. Of course if everyone agrees that a wine is good, and as a brand it becomes well respected, its price will rise out of sync with lesser known brands, and there can be real value in what less dependable makers are capable of in particular vintages. So, by learning the fundamentals of wine, you would be able to drink better, more economically, than the large group of people who need to pay for concurrence.

This went well for me for a long time; while friends were spending $40 for fruity California monsters I was able to find very similar wines capable of playing the same parts from places like Washington and, to some extent, Australia at a significant discount; an ability that has proven very helpful now that any Napa cab, good or bad, trades in the hundreds.

In most cases, since I was drinking current vintage wines and not looking for genius potential I was quite capable of finding wines actually drinking better in their youth than most of the more famous wines people were spending large sums of money on. Of course the pitfall of studying wine becomes apparent when you have your first great one. For me it was the '98 Beaucastel.

One evening when Bubby had returned from France with some cheeses that are very hard to find here in America (insert the FDA sucks comment here), Urchin brought over a '98 Beaucastel to enjoy them with. At this exact moment, what was a mildly distracting interest in wine turned into an obsession.  I had had good Burgundy before, I had tasted most of the first growths and super seconds, there are stories of bottles of d'Yquem disappearing from my dad's cellar in my youth, but on this fateful night I saw for the first time potential greatness and it was not cheap.

You see, every great I had had up to that point was something someone else had acquired and shared with me once it was accepted as great, so I never thought to get involved in the process. Here, though, was a wine with many things to offer and a promising future I felt I could see. It seemed to be wonderful, with huge potential ahead. I immediately bought a case and put it in the cellar and, starting in '08, I plan to drink a bottle a year each January (this is the month we had the first) because I want to see how it evolves. And now I search the wine world incessantly for more of these wines.

The '98 Beaucastel was dangerous because it took away my myth that all expensive wine was overvalued. Turns out some things are worth more money and, with a strong foundation in basic wine knowledge (thanks dad), you can start seeing potential in different places. Plus, there is the fact that a big part of learning what Pinot Noir is capable of is having a properly aged DRC from a great vintage (insert gloat about the '39 DRC RC here). My path of seeking out more of these special wines all starts with Urchin's Beaucastel. That one bottle has now cost me in wines, books, and storage, but mostly it has made me embrace the passage of time, something I never did before. Beware the great ones!

The Perfect cocktail

When tasting wine, whether at an organized event, a wine dinner, or just with a group of friends in a wine club format, I find it's good to have a warm up drink. The wines at the beginning of a tasting never get a fair shake compared to those tasted when your palate hit its stride, say by taste three or so. This has led me on a quest for the perfect warm up drink, which I think I have found.

The Perfect is equal parts sweet and dry vermouth (white and red) on the rocks with a lemon twist. The base of vermouth is wine, so it seems to jibe with an evening of wine while remaining different enough as to not pre-flavor drastically. All together, this drink is in the upper 30's proof area so it won't skew you like a cocktail. It has many flavors of citrus and spices and walks a good path along the worlds of flavors. Mostly, though, it is cold, refreshing, and tastes good, while still being a cocktail.

I use the Perfect as my palate warm up/refresher anytime I am walking into a wine tasting after say 3 pm when the day has crushed my palate. I suggest you try it as well.