Difficult Crop

I was told the other day that this was not a particularly exciting year for the NFL draft, which took place yesterday.  I asked why this was the case, and the answer was that the pool of players to choose from just didn’t seem so exciting.  I replied that perhaps a surprise would come from either the pool of first round draft picks, or perhaps someone picked much later on would have the best first season of all the young men entering the NFL.

Sometimes a particular year produces a bad crop.  The weather in the growing season may not have been conducive, or anything else could have affected the outcome of the quality of the grapes picked at harvest time.  When this happens, it can affect one region, or it can affect many regions.  The result could be a very limited yield and therefore very high prices on a small amount of wine, or it can result in wines of a lesser quality than normal.  Either way it can be disappointing, due to there being not much wine available that vintage (and consequently wines being far from affordable), or undesirable wine from our favorite regions.

We’re all well aware of the downside of a bad crop.  But what about the upside?  I think the upside is that there can be some surprises, a diamond in the rough, or perhaps an opportunity to look to other regions that may have had a better crop - perhaps places from which we don’t normally drink the wine, for no particular reason except that we’re so used to drinking those from our favorite regions, that we forget to look to other places.  Well, a bad crop in some regions might be the best excuse to drink wines from somewhere else.  We might even find some new favorites.

I’ve been hearing quite a bit about rough vintages lately, for a few reasons.  One reason is that in France, some bad weather brought about some lesser vintages and some very limited yields, even in places that normally have lovely and often predictable weather (e.g., Provence - the 2012 vintage was down about 14-20% across the region, which poses a problem for rosé consumption).

The other reason is - well, I’ve been asked for my ID enough times this year that I suppose I have nothing to be ashamed of, so it’s safe to tell you - I’m turning 30 this coming November, and I’m looking for as many 1983 bottles as I can find.  As you may know, 1983 wasn’t the best vintage, and aside from prices, 1983 bottles that are available and drinkable in 2013 are very difficult to find.  So far, I’ve found two, perhaps a third, but I’d like to find more than that.  I’ve been keeping my age a secret from just about everyone but the importance of finding 1983 bottles has trumped my vanity.  And while snooping around for the wines, I’ve realized just how difficult a vintage it was.  But what might happen is that I may find some bottles from regions I never really thought about, and those might make up some of my choices this November.  And that could be part of the upside of a difficult vintage in my birth year.

One thing is for certain - difficult crops make us appreciate a great vintage all the more.

But Since When Does Anyone Have a Clue About What They Want?

ne of my favorite parts of working in the wine industry is getting to hear about what people think of the wines - what they enjoy, what’s a mystery still, and what’s trendy.  Talking with store managers, restaurateurs, and people in the wholesale end of the industry fascinates me when we compare observations.  Pouring tastings that are attended by the public is often the most interesting for me.

I’m amazed when I hear things like, “that doesn’t taste like Pinot Noir, it’s so light,” “why is it red if it says Sancerre,” and “I don’t drink Chardonnay but I like Chablis.”  I know that not everyone has the time or inclination to learn more about wine, but I do try to take the time to understand things in other fields just so I know what I’m saying and how to form an opinion and preferences about it.  And it’s a good idea to take the time to learn more about what we think we like and dislike, and why.

My favorite line from Bruce Almighty is, “but since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?”

And it’s true.  Many of us, probably all of us actually, don’t really know what it is that we want, in many parts of our lives.  But isn’t it worth trying to find out?  Isn’t it worth knowing why we tend toward certain things and repel other things?

Just like people, wines are all individuals.  No two of them are the same.  As I’ve explained in prior posts, we see a great deal of variation in wines like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  A Pinot Noir can be so light and bright (Burgundian style) or it can be rich and deep and smoky (California style).  A Chardonnay can be crisp and lemony and almost tart, or it can be creamy, buttery, and reflect almost baked fruit characteristics.  Do you have a preference?  I know I have preferences!  But we need to keep on tasting in order to find out what we like best, before just saying outright, “I don’t like Chardonnay” or “I love Pinot Noir.”  What style do you like?

I did enjoy the movie Sideways, but I was pretty annoyed when I realized that people were going around saying they love Pinot Noir just because Sideways told them to do that.  (And for the record, most of the Pinot Noir shown in Sideways was not made in the traditional Burgundian style - I recently tasted Sea Smoke, which was shown in the movie, and I can assure you I prefer something Burgundian in the same price range.)  I can also assure you that another line from that movie caused the sales of Merlot to plummet, and undoubtedly the people who knocked Merlot after seeing the movie never actually tasted a good Pomerol or Saint-Emilion.

My point is, the best way to learn is to keep on tasting.  If it sounds like a fun learning experiment, it is!  It’s how I did most of my learning.  Yes, I’ve read up on lots of grapes, regions, production methods, etc., but tasting is how most learning is done, when it comes to wine.  And there’s no better way to find out what we like best.  That’s how we find out what we really want in a wine.  Pouring tastings are fun for me for that reason - I love it when someone tastes something they’ve never had before and realize that they connect well with it, they want to know more about it, and ultimately leave with a bottle of it.  

Not So Obvious

I’m the kind of person who appreciates certainty and security to an extent - but sometimes I need to change it up - that’s what keeps things exciting and entertaining and interesting.  What fun is there in the obvious?  Not much, I’m afraid.  But there are times for the expected, and times for the unexpected.

Madiran, made from Tannat, with duck

Recently I was pouring a tasting.  Usually I enjoy pouring tastings very much because I love having the opportunity to help people find the wines that are best suited to their preferences, and even help them branch out and find new things to enjoy, perhaps things they’ve never considered before.  I love getting to talk about wine with lots of people.  At a recent tasting, one of the featured wines was a Pinotage from South Africa.  I’ve never been a great lover of Pinotage, but this one was pretty easy on the smoky hickory notes and I felt would be a great wine in the summer when grilling meats.  A man who was tasting the wine (who was already getting on my nerves for a number of reasons) was on the fence about the Pinotage, and he asked me what it would pair with.  I thought for a moment, and said, “well, there’s barbecue...” and before I could say anything else, he retorted, “ASIDE FROM THE OBVIOUS?!”

For the record, I rarely consider food and wine pairings to be obvious.  And since he had never even heard of Pinotage, I doubt he knew it was “obvious” - one thing was obvious to me, however - this man was obnoxious and I pitied his wife for “obvious” reasons.

Maybe the idea of pairing a very rich smoky wine with barbecued meats seemed like a “common sense” sort of pairing, but to me, pairing is not obvious.  It will never be obvious.  Why?  Because sometimes there can be a marriage of aromas, flavors, and textures that we had never before considered, and yet after trying it, we wonder why we hadn’t thought of it before.  We hadn’t thought of it because it isn’t obvious.

While we can be reasonably certain that many white wines will pair nicely with fish, what about some reds?  One of my recent favorites is California Pinot Noir with salmon, but that’s because the salmon is crusted with almonds and herbs and drizzled with raspberry sauce.  (And a Cru Beaujolais seems to work quite nicely with grilled fish dishes as well - don’t even think about that Beaujolais Nouveau.  Try a Villages or Cru, and try it with a light grilled fish dish with fresh vegetables or tomatoes - it’s a fantastic pairing!)  And for years I had been choosing Syrah based wines to pair with duck, until one day at Gilt in Manhattan I tried a Barbaresco with the duck - wow!  And if you haven’t tried Madiran with duck, what are you waiting for?!

Petite Arvine and Erbaluce with 7 Fishes

This Easter (see my last post) we opted for a Viognier, Gigondas, and Saint-Joseph.  I happen to love Rhone wines with lamb for their earthiness, spice, and fruit, and there’s something about the texture of a Rhone wine that seems to bring lamb dishes over the top.  But for some people, it’s Bordeaux or bust, when it comes to lamb.  And for Thanksgiving, every year we have Riesling from Alsace and red Burgundy.  But I hear about so many other wines people choose - Chardonnay, Zinfandel, American Pinot Noir, even Chianti.  And every Christmas Eve we have Italian whites with the Feast of the Seven Fishes, and Italian reds with lasagne and roasted meats on Christmas Day.  I’ve picked Erbaluce di Caluso, Petite Arvine, Vermentino, Muller-Thurgau, Dolcetto, Montepulciano, and Nebbiolo in the past couple of years.  Everyone has something else they like to pair with Christmas dinner.

I ask you - while the selections may make perfect sense, what’s so obvious about it?  Nothing at all.

So, Mr. Know-It-All who attends a complimentary tasting, don’t go telling me that you don’t know the grape and that you didn’t know they produced wine in that region, and then go on to inform me that my suggested pairing is “obvious” - if it’s so obvious, why are you even asking?  I’ll be happy to help you - in fact, most of us in the industry are happy to help - that’s why we’re in the industry.  But in my opinion, if there’s anything about wine that’s obvious, it’s that nothing is obvious, and we can keep on learning, and keep on making it exciting.

Easter

Rhone wines

It wouldn’t be Easter Sunday without lamb for dinner, and for me, an ideal pairing with lamb is a good red from Rhone.  And I do love a good Rhone, be it red or white, so the wines chosen for Easter dinner were all from Rhone - a Viognier, a Gigondas, and a Saint-Joseph.

Appetizer - quiche

For the floral, exotic, aromatic Viognier, quite a beautiful wine, I created a fun appetizer that was very easy to make but the many flavors and textures coming together made it appear complex.  I opted for a quiche, which I made with brie, caramelized granny smith apples, fresh watercress, and almonds, with slices of crisp fresh granny smith, lemon zest, and a drizzle of local wildflower honey.  The pairing with the Viognier was perfect and that’s a dish and pairing I’d recreate in a heartbeat.

Lamb

The lamb was slow roasted with herbs and vegetables (carrots, onions, and zucchini), with haricot vert and my sister’s red potato dish.  Earthy and so flavorful, it was a perfect combination of dishes for a satisfying Easter dinner, and the fullness and earthiness was reflected in the Gigondas and Saint-Joseph.  There’s something about Rhone reds that I find very appealing - I think it’s the balance of fruit, spice, and so much expression of earth that makes the wines so wonderful.  (And one other thing I love about Rhone - the prices still seem to be within reach, generally speaking, making them usually more affordable than their counterparts in Bordeaux and Burgundy.)

Dessert

Dessert was something fun of course - I made molten chocolate cupcakes topped with melted chocolate and salted peanuts, with raspberry, and Mom made her homemade vanilla ice cream.  Needless to say, we were all quite full by the end of dinner!

Palm Sunday Brunch

Spring colors at the brunch table

Holy Week is such a special time - it’s all about celebrating rebirth and new life as we are reminded by the Resurrection.  Easter is the most obvious celebration of Holy Week, but this year I wanted to try my hand at some recipes I’ve been meaning to learn or test, and since Easter Sunday is already packed with traditional foods, I opted for Palm Sunday to test the recipes on the family.

Mimosas with Pisani Prosecco

What’s a Sunday brunch without mimosas?  I’m not one for mixing wines with other ingredients but in the case of mimosa and bellini, I say bring on the bubbles and create a bright, fun drink!  So mimosas it was, and for bubbles I chose Pisani Prosecco.

Brunch was eggs benedict with a light spring salad.  For me, the proper pairing with egg dishes due to the texture of egg is anything with bubbles - it leaves the palate feeling clean again.  A good quality Prosecco is perfect for mimosas and they worked beautifully with the eggs benedict.

Eggs benedict

I’m on a sort of quest to learn the five French “mother sauces” over the course of this year.  First I learned bechamel and have been using it, but now to put a perfect hollandaise sauce to good use, eggs benedict does the trick.  I had to learn to poach an egg properly and having heard some less than pleasant stories about how to poach the egg, I had a test run a few days before the brunch.  It’s not difficult at all!  I used some tips from Julia Child and some from other sources on the internet, and voila!  Delicious eggs benedict with just the flavors and textures I had hoped to achieve.  (I think the most important tips were water temperature, water to vinegar ratio, and poking the egg shell with the pin.)

Light salad

The eggs, buttered English muffins, crispy bacon, and rich hollandaise sauce needed a light side dish, so I chose frisee, Boston lettuce, shallots, and a basic lemon and local wildflower honey dressing with balsamic vinegar.  Together with the mimosas, they were perfect with the eggs benedict.

Light dessert

For a light dessert, I went with a mix of fresh raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, topped with a dollop of fresh whipped cream, a hint of unsweetened cocoa powder, and some orange zest.  Perfection.

Obviously we were quite satisfied after such a brunch, so a late dinner would be light.  I chose fresh salmon which I rubbed with olive oil and crusted with almond, thyme, and rosemary, with a raspberry sauce.  The side dish was wildflower honey braised endives.  To match the salmon and raspberry, I chose a California Pinot Noir (Hahn is one of the family favorites as a dependable West Coast Pinot).

Salmon and endives with Pinot Noir

I’m getting toward the end of Julia Child’s book, My Life in France.  I read last night in her book that when she and Simone Beck wrote their cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (aimed at teaching American cooks how to prepare traditional French dishes), at the time the book was in progress, American publishers were concerned that American cooks would not be interested in the book due to attention to detail deemed laborious.  They felt that Americans see French detail as tedious and unnecessary.  After having all of my poached eggs turn out perfectly by using a more detailed approach than most, and carefully executing the hollandaise sauce, I can honestly agree with Julia and “Simca” that the attention to detail is sometimes absolutely necessary.  Yes, at times I like winging it and experimenting, but with traditional dishes, a cook must respect the years others have put into perfecting the recipes.  And when the recipes turn out well, it’s so satisfying to know it was done correctly.

Easter dinner has been planned out and I’m looking forward to it - there will be some traditional dishes for the holiday, and some experimental dishes as well - so I’m excited to try those, as well as the wines that have been picked.  And what will the wines be?  Well, I need something to write about next week, but a hint - think Rhone!

Sibling Rivalry?

Siblings and best friends!  Absolutely no rivalry.

Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Edmund and Edgar, Kate and Bianca, Frasier and Niles, Snow Miser and Heat Miser, Ferris and Jeanie, Peyton and Eli, Venus and Serena - we hear about sibling rivalry all the time.

Sometimes siblings have a special bond and become best friends for life.  And sometimes there’s a rivalry.

Once upon a time in the Rhine area of Germany, there was a simple, humble grape called Gouais Blanc.  One day, Gouais Blanc met a mystery grape (the grape’s parents were Traminer and an unknown grape), and Gouais’ relationship with this mysterious grape produced a child called Elbling.  This was quite some time ago.  Elbling enjoyed popularity in Germany, particularly in the Mosel region, as a dry white wine with bright citrus characteristics and a simple approachable nature.

Some time later, Gouais Blanc and the mystery grape had another encounter.  This time their child was Riesling.  Beautiful, terroir-driven Riesling has enjoyed tremendous popularity since then, making lovely aromatic white wines in many parts of the world, particularly in Alsace and in Germany, where Elbling once ruled the vineyards.  Riesling, with its characteristics of citrus, honey, blossoms, orchard fruit, mineral, and petrol may seem sweet initially, but after it shows off its many facets, it cleans up with a racy acidity, making it well balanced and lovely and refreshing.

What happened to Elbling, you may ask - well, Elbling, over time, went from the most widely planted grape in Germany, to the 23rd most planted in Germany.  Talk about sibling rivalry!  In fact, I’ll bet most people have never even heard of poor Elbling, but everyone knows all about Riesling.  In fact, due to its fruity nature and often perceived sweetness, Riesling has helped many a novice transition into the wonderful world of wine appreciation.  Whether Riesling is your training wheels or your indulgence, we all know Riesling, and a great many of us love a good Riesling.  What about Elbling?

Elbling and Riesling - siblings

Elbling can still be made as a dry wine - in fact, almost 99% of all German Elbling is planted in Mosel, and some is used as an uncomplicated, bright, crisp white.  Elbling also grows quite successfully in Luxembourg.  And Elbling is known as a very good grape for making sparkling Sekt (Riesling can be used for Sekt as well).

Why did people forget about poor Elbling?  How did Riesling get so popular?  What’s with all this sibling rivalry?  Whenever we talk about Elbling, automatically we begin discussing its relationship to Riesling - why is that?  It seems “rivalry” can hardly describe how Riesling overtook Elbling over the years - there is no comparison between their degrees of success.  But let’s not forget that once upon a time, Elbling was an important grape in Germany.  To some, it’s still an important grape.

Perhaps someday Elbling will become more popular again - due to its refreshing nature as well as the fact that it’s less expensive than Riesling.  Perhaps Riesling will always be the more interesting and attractive of the two siblings.  Or perhaps wine drinkers can just appreciate the two for what they are, rather than compare them, just because they’re siblings.  No rivalry is necessary - just two grape siblings peacefully coexisting.

A Girl’s Best Friend

Some days I wish a genie would magically appear and offer to grant three wishes.  And if I really put some thought into it, I’d probably wish for some sensible, useful things.  But there are times when I realize I’d just wish for three different vintages of Sauternes.

See, I’ve heard that “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”  And that may be true.  But I’m one of the girls who, some time ago, voluntarily relinquished the diamond I used to wear on the ring finger of my left hand, and set myself free from rather an unhappy and unfulfilling situation.  Of course I love diamonds - who doesn’t?  But I’ve been known to say that I’d take a good Sauternes over diamonds any day.  Take it literally and it can sound quite crazy.  But think about the sensation brought on by a great Sauternes and pause for a moment.

I remember when I was first beginning to appreciate wine.  I’d wander around wine shops inquisitively and look at all the bottles, arranged according to either region, grape type, etc.  The ones that fascinated me most were the little bottles of gold.  They had an appearance like no other - golden wine, beautifully elegant labels, something different about them that made me wonder about them.

I’ve gotten to taste plenty of them since then.  One day not too long ago I was sitting in the office (that would be the wine office, not a law office), and we had just tasted through a bunch of wines, ending with a Sauternes.  As the small bottle remained on the table after all the others were put away, I stopped to think.  This was the only one that day that I chose not to spit into the bucket - no, I wanted it to stay with me.  This was why I had changed directions in my professional life, for wines like this.  A Sauternes with some time in the bottle was enough to remind me of that once again.

Last year, as I sat in Kevin Zraly’s class, he explained some facts and some of his opinions as well, and when he spoke about Sauternes, he told the class that Sauternes is “the nectar of the gods” - indeed.  Whether you sip it or pair it with a pan seared foie gras or a dessert, the appearance, aromas, flavors, and textures of a properly executed Sauternes make for quite an experience.  And it’s something I never tire of.  Whether you feel a diamond is forever, or a Sauternes is forever, or both - it’s undeniable that there’s a sort of “Midas touch” about Sauternes.