“When did salmon become so expensive,” I ask Aldo as I serve dinner.
“I think it’s another of those things related to global warming,” he says. “The sea cooks them before they can be caught. The fishers bring up nets full of baked and broiled fish.”
“Well,” I say, setting the platter on the table, “I had to sell some of my cufflinks to pay for this – it’s the Alaskan wild stuff. I had a cash problem, as happens, and when you look through your things for things to sell, it can be a real challenge – settling on something that offers just enough liquidity.”
“I feel so special.”
“And you are, Aldo.”
“Which cufflinks?”
“Vintage, platinum, somewhat bejeweled.”
“Those sound suspiciously like ones I gave you… It was Halloween, and I was feeling impish.”
“I was able to just get the salmon, the wax beans, the tarragon, the dessert. The few nickels left over will buy the morning paper.”
“The Times or the Journal?”
“The Post. They’re the only ones who really tell me what I need to know about Leona Helmsley’s dog.”
“Did you buy the wine tonight too?”
“Oh no, that was in the cellar.”
“You don’t have a cellar.”
“The wine refrigerator. I speak with an embracing fancifulness.”
“Yes,” said Aldo, fingering his wine glass, “you do.”
He said this with something less than indulgence. I decided, with dinner awaiting us, it was time to turn to the wine. The 2005 Macon Cruzille, “Magante,” from Alain and Julien Guillot. A full-flavored pinot noir, easy drinking with a happy little dash of pizazz. Ah: the refreshing little swim of wine on the tongue…
“I taste dried red cherries, eucalyptus, tobacco – any thoughts, Aldo?”
“You could have sold me back the cufflinks. Or I could have sold something of my own. That umbrella stand that belonged, allegedly, to a post-Impressionist.”
“Then you would have been paying for dinner, and what sort of host would I be?”
“I never understand why you have these so-called cash problems,” he said, swilling the wine in his mouth and nodding tacit agreement with my assessment of the wine. “Harmonious. Dry with a sweet undertone. Almost cola.”
“That doesn’t sound right, Aldo. Not cola…”
“We’ll leave it at sweet undertone, then.”
“And if you really want cufflinks, Aldo, I have those ones from Barneys, the little sapphire bursts…”
“Oh, from Barneys two owners ago.”
“You have such a memory, Aldo!”
“Yes, and I didn’t like them much. Why don’t we eat?”
Last updated: Monday, September 10, 2007
Tastings
Here are a few wines I’ve had recently, worth letting you in on …
Sextant
2007
12.8% alc.
Bourgogne
St. Aubin, France
This is an unusual pale-gold Burgundian chardonnay—something of a chameleon. After opening it, I encountered initial aromas of moss, bark and bay leaves. There were rear-palate flavors of clove, lemon, grapefruit, cinnamon and crisp apple. The wine’s high acidity gave it a long length. Later, however, the nose deepened, giving off whiffs of lilac. The flavors on the palate moved to the front and were less fruity, while leaving a creamier, sensual mouthfeel. As if Gigi grew into a fetching courtesan in a matter of hours. Importer: Savio Soares Selecions. $19.00
Andreas Baron Widman
Sudtiroler
Vernatsch
2008
12.5%
Alto Adige, Italy
Schiva. In the UK, it is Black Hamburg. The Germans call it trollinger. In Northern Italy’s South Tyrol, it is vernatsch. The vine thrives in the Tyrol with little attention. The grape is hardy, productive. Maybe that’s why the vine is popular in the flatter lands of the region. It serves as the base of many tourist wines, often blended with ligroin. But plant Schiava on the steep hillsides of the Alto Adige, prune the vine, ripen it and carefully vinify it, and a good producer can win some charm from this ordinary table grape. The 2008 vintage has a pale ruby core accompanied by pleasant aromas of tea, cranberry, orange peel and rose petals. The broad midpalate flavors of musk, dry leaves and cranberry (and a slight touch barnyard) were immediate with medium length. This medium-bodied, medium-concentrated wine had low firm tannins. Overall, the impression was of a lean, supple wine. You could drink it daily with most meals. In my house, it was a perfect accompaniment to sausages, polenta and stir-fried green beans with basil. Importer: Petit Pois Corp. $23.00.
Aziendo Agricola Bruna
u Baccan
Pigato
2007
13.5% alc.
Liguria, Italy
Ten years ago, you might find a bottle or two of a pigato from Liguria in New York. Now pigato is more prevalent here. This one is among the best. A well-structured tonic, it has a stylized peasant allure that speaks of the steep Ligurian seaside vineyards. (And who says you can’t have a stylish peasant?) In the glass, this wine sits pale gold with an appealing waxy floral aroma. The wine had a crispness that gave its medium intense flavors of ginger, pear, pine, herbs and white peaches a long length with a slight pear finish. As the wine opens, more tropical notes are revealed. Though not quite full-bodied, it had a nice rounded concentration of flavor. This is not the quaffer pigato your parents may have had at a bus stop in San Remo. And what did I eat with it? Pesto walnut pasta with yellow squash. Robert Chadderdon Selectons. $31.00.
3/1/10
No CommentsJura! Jura! Jura!
Domaine de la Tournelle
Ploussard de Montellier
2004
12.5% alc.
Arbois, France
Oh, Jura Jura Jura—what will it take for the world to appreciate your wines? The Jura is a prosaic frontier region nestled in France near the southwest border of Switzerland. It is picturesque with fruit orchards and pastures for animal grazing. You’d never really know the place unless you were a devotee of wine. No other real reason to go there. But it produces some of the most interesting and stylish wines in France, and for the quality at comparatively reasonable prices. Remarkably, even in New York, people tend to ignore these wines. I sometimes eat late at a popular downtown brasserie with a broad wine list, almost exclusively French, including two to four wines from the Jura. A waiter told me that, aside from some French tourists and the odd local customer, I was the only one he knew who actually ordered them.
The poulsard (or ploussard) from Dom. de la Tournelle is a wonderful, inexpensive pinot noir-like wine that’s quite versatile at the table. Poulsard is a large, thin-skinned grape and a specialty of the Jura. It’s grown on about 800 acres of clay and limestone at elevations slightly higher than those of the Côte d’Or. It is grown nowhere else, except Bugey, France. It produces typically an aromatic, light-colored, pale red wine. Dom. de la Tournelle’s Pascal and Evelyn Clairet, who founded the winery in 1991, grow poulsard in an eco-friendly manner on 15 acres of land. They hand-harvest the grapes, macerate them for at least a week, subject the juice to malolactic fermentation, bottle the wine without filtration or sulphur and mature it in large oak barrels for 8 to 18 months. The 2007 poulsard has a pale-salmon color flecked with copper. There were aromas of leaves, moss, earth, juniper and red fruits. This is a lean, harmonious wine with bright acidity, mildly gripping tannins, medium body and alcohol. There were lightly concentrated rear-palate flavors of tea, orange and juniper. I had this with unadorned baked bluefish and white carrots roasted in duck fat with Forelle pears. 1/27/10.
No CommentsThe Taste of Memory
Cà de Noci
“Sottobosco”
2007
12.5% alc
Reggio Emilia, Italy
I recently gave a dinner of pork loin braised in cream and sage. (Yes, it was delish.) I could have served my guest a big, bold, upfront-flavored red, her definite preference. As the host, perhaps I should have accommodated that preference. In the name of nice-persondom I definitely should have. Oh, but what the hell—I wasn’t put on this good earth to let people coast along happily on assumptions about what they like to drink. You’ve heard of the imp of the perverse? Uncork a wine bottle, and it’s in there. I knew my guest equated fizzy red wines with cheap Riunite from her hostel-living youth. Could I upend that taste—those memories shaped by both nostalgia and college-loan poverty—with this delicious Sottobosco?
Sottobosco, from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna, is a part of the natural wine movement in modern viticulture and vinification. Out of its five hectares of rocky limestone along the Crostolo River, the brothers Masini have produced a Lambrusco-styled wine from the family Cà de Noci (“Walnut Farm”) estate. This vino di tavola comes from the blending of Lambrusco Grasparossa (30%), Lambrusco di Montericco (30%), Malbo Gentile (20%) and Sgavetta (20%), all native grapes of the region. The grapes are hand-harvested and macerated for 10 days on their stems. The frizzante is produced from natural fermentation in the bottle. The sediment is caused by the wine’s lack of filtration.
I have had the 2007 Sottobosco several times and was looking forward to testing my guest’s impressions. Well, it was not smooth sledding. As I poured the wine, which fizzles with a purple froth, my guest observed, with more dubiousness than enthusiasm: “It looks like grape soda.” On the nose I detected aromas of prune, raisin, fig, fresh cherry, coffee and smoke. Her impression was that the nose was a no-go. On the palate, this wine, like many lambruscos, was exceptionally dry with firm dusky tannins and medium body and alcohol. The acidity was high, leaving the wine with layered flavors of dried strawberry, fig, star anise and tea, and a medium bitter orange peel and chalky finish. Our guest, though, didn’t find it enjoyable enough to alter her recollections of the Lambruscos she drank decades ago in Bologna, when she was a graduate student forced to put up with the dining company of two obnoxious boys from Oxford who regarded any American who didn’t share their tastes as a clod from across the pond.
The conversation never really moved beyond that. It has since occurred to me that perhaps my guest was suggesting, unconsciously or not, that I reminded her of the Oxonians, that she felt—is it possible?—vino-bullied. But that seems so unlikely!
Anyway: These unique everyday wines from Emilia Romagna make a superlative complement to fatty dishes, meats and pastas at reasonable prices. Importer: Louis/Dressner. $22.00. 12/3/09.
No Comments