We were in Chicago for the holidays, and like everyone else in the country moved around huddled in a clump as a cold front settled in. The sky was blue only for a few hours in any given day. The rest of the time gray clouds tossed down snow, sleet or rain in sloppy indifference. Naturally we longed for warmth. We burned a synthetic log in the fireplace and admired the neat regularity of its flames. We thought of Miami, which also suffered from a cold snap. Then we went to dinner at two restaurants that welcomed us in with warmth and bustle—places that reminded Aldo of Dickens’ old Mr. Fezziwig, the kind soul who never stinted on hospitality at Christmas.
I don’t know why Aldo gets so worked up about Mr. Fezziwig. Sometimes he cries at Martha Stewart’s holiday shows.
Avec and the Publican are both owned by local celebrity chef Paul Kahan, with Koren Grievesonheading the kitchen at the first and Brian Huston at the second. Avec, which is on the same block as Kahan’s flagship establishment, Blackbird, is a handsome oblong room in blonde wood that, on a winter’s night, looked as if it should be filled with good-looking Swedes eating medallions of reindeer. For all I know that is who was eating there that night. The menu, described asMediterranean wine cuisine, is strong on meat, which is not a problem with us. Aldo’s father, before becoming independently wealthy due to the lottery, was a butcher. And the food is conceived more along the idea of tapas, small plates brought out as soon as they’re ready in the kitchen. We liked everything we ordered: chorizo-stuffed dates, fennel-and-pork sausage and an exceptional salad of prosciutto with roast quince. With it we had a bottle of Luis Cañas rioja that was perhaps too even a match for so much deep-flavored pork: Wine and food faced off and fenced, blade to blade—which is not the way these things should go.
Our server looked like Sally Hawkins from the movie Happy-Go-Lucky, which was a plus.
There was some frustration about the food arriving “family style.” It’s probably an efficient and economic way to run a kitchen, but the phrase “family style” always makes me shy nervously, like a horse reluctant to be saddled. You can’t really relax and be yourself as you’re forced to tuck into a quick succession of plates, and it’s hard to gauge how much food will make sense for the group’s appetite.
To me “family style” means my grandfather is still at the head of the table, throwing boiled potatoes at anyone who doesn’t listen to his very long list of enemies of the state who should be deprived of cooked meals.
But the experience was strongy good—very positive. We would go to Avec again.
The Publican? Mmm. The emphasis is, again, on meat—the menu doesn’t neglect fish, no, but the enormous portraits of Botero-scaled pigs tend to draw the unconscious to the wonderfully rich lineup derived from four-legged wildlife, especially pork. We ordered pork belly (excellent—pink and moist), beef and oyster pie, pork-and-duck rillette, with sides of brussels sprouts and escarole. Food was, again, served family-style, which means you can wind up glutted on meat if you don’t order carefully. But all that we ate was robust and unstintingly rich—Aldo, frankly, was in heaven, although my own tastes meant that we ruled out tripe and boudin noir.
We drank a tempranillo reserva, El Retiro 2005. It was fruit-forward but, beyond that, not terribly interesting. However, I appreciated the wine stewardess bringing me samples of several wines so that I could taste before ordering a fresh bottle for the table.
Unlike the much more intimate Avec, though, the atmosphere at the Publican didn’t really agree with us: It’s designed as a beer hall, a cavernous space with most diners seated at long communal tables. There are also some booths, which may very well be comfortable, but looked oddly like stalls, and so made the diners in my mind resemble cattle at the trough. I’m not sure this setup would work in Manhattan, where people are almost maniacal about turf—especially in restaurants. I think Midwesterners, in general, are less worried about sharing open space: Chicago itself, after all, feels like a great level plain across which the towering buildings give each other breathing room. In fact, Aldo says the city makes him oddly vertiginous. He says he’s not used to seeing so much sky between such tall buildings.
By the way: Here’s a question someone from the Windy City can answer. What and where is Chicago’s best wine store? We haven’t solved that yet. Thanks.
If Parker has few challengers, it’s because few wine experts have his strength and focus in words. Historians have said that one of Ulysees S. Grant’s great strengths was the ability to communicate, in the confined space of a dashed-off telegraph, directives to his commanders on the field (in the Memoirs, too, his style has a remarkable directness and clarity). The capsule mini-reviews in Wine Bargains, a large survey of bottles costing less than $25, are the work of an orderly mind and a lawerly one (that was Parker’s training before the legendary trip to Paris that revealed to him his onephilic gift). Wine writers such as Alice Freiring may offer headier sentiments, as she does on her entertaining blog, where she opens by saying she wants the Trotskys, the Philip Roths, the Chaucers and the Edith Whartons of wines. You might wonder why anyone would want a wine to match the death- and sex-obsessed turbulance of a Philip Roth, but hers is an understandable approach, a desire to summon the romantic mystery that makes wine such a rich experience. (She christened her book with the jokingly provocative title: The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World From Parkerization. ) But this won’t necessarily make you a kingpin. Wine is not bottled and sold and shipped because the muses are stirring the breezes. Parker is much more to the point, brusquer and also less deep—if anything, he is wine’s Daniel Plainview, the oil-drilling antihero of There Will Be Blood.
Parker himself wrote only a few of the chapters in this book, which allots no formal ratings and notes up to three dollar-signs to indicate the expense of the bottle. But if you read through his entries you see how he is dedicated to utility and lack of nonsense, and how his firm sense of cadence marches you through his clauses and sentences:
“This is a heady, succulent red.”
“It is full-bodied, pure, and deep.”
“A display of oak along with good stuffing, attractive berry fruit, a hint of wet stones, and a spicy finish.”
“A superb, full-bodied red with terrific precision, definition, and concentration.”
“This is a serious Cotes du Rhone, sexy, round, and medium to full bodied.”
All very concrete. Parker doesn’t search for metaphors or allusions, partly because he does not allow himself the space, but mostly (one suspects) because he sees no need to think of wine this way—apart from, say, powerful or perhaps sexy. You sometimes get the sense that somewhere in his mind is the image of an old movie poster of Ava Gardner—but then, that would be falling into the sort of thinking that Parker avoids. He leaves it to the drinker and the poet-drinkers to attempt anything more imaginative.
Note: According to the latest census data, Chardonnay Place is home to more wine experts per capita than any other community in the United States.
“Ech!” Stephanie turns her head away from the Riedel glass in disgust, her pink mouth pursed in a moue.
She faces so abruptly into the wind it nearly dips a strand of her carefully streaked hair in the glass.
“What’s the matter?” Glenn shouts over the engine, offering to take the glass from her.
“Not until you’ve got this thing on the ground. Both hands on the controls.”
“I wasn’t going to drink it midair.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t going to drink it—”
“This is terrible!”
What is this? The nose is all wet wool and manure and—not that she would admit this, but she thinks it—a faint aroma of women’s talcom powder. Combined with the thundering propellers of the helicopter and the veritiginous perspective of trees and fields and roads, the effect is somehow sickening. This was Glenn’s choice, this bottle. One of his rich friends made it—today, everyone is a garagiste—and as usual Stephanie wishes she hadn’t left the decision to him. Love of her life and all that, bank roll of her life and all that, but he has a way of subscribing to newspaper wine clubs without telling her. With all that money, too, and the manly accessories—helicopter, sports cars, and now a lovely little diamond of a vineyard.
But that had been her doing. Chardonnay Place was her idea, and buying Chardonnay House— Glenn has poked her.
“Town’s pretty!”
She looks out, following his pointed finger to look at the picturesque town below. She nods. The sort of place she dreamed of as a little Midwestern girl living in a—in interviews she always says it’s a simple white clapboard, no bigger than a one-room schoolhouse, neat as a pin despite the family’s relative poverty, but in her own mind and looking down on the truly tidy prosperity of Chardonnay Place, she knows it was something less than even that—
The home wine made of bananas, of weeds, of vegetables, carrot greens—undrinkable vintages bottled in Mason jars and gulped down by her parents with a vulgar satisfaction, huge quantities, with barbeque, potato chips, pretzels, de-thawed frozen garlic bread. The awful laughter, the suffocating sense that her parents might have well sent her off to be boarded in a saloon. She wanted them in AA, but she was ashamed to think of them confessing to groups of townfolk what they drank, their veggie vintages.
And now, flying over Chardonnay Place and swooping down toward the landing site of her new home—the sunlight sparkling on her ring finger, a diamond the size of a grape—it occurs to her—
But she’s distracted:
She glimpses their new home, Chardonnay House, a gorgeous American chateau on a soft low hill surrounded by elms and cypress. And she will be its chateleine and wine master. She can see herself with her hair upswept and her body draped in a black Donna Karan gown and a sparkling glass in her hand; and the guests, all wine-lovers like herself—the dream toward which she has been moving with the steady churning progress of a steamship on the sea of fate, working toward since she tasted that Chateau Rayas 1978—in bed with the man before, before, before Glenn—and a delicious flicker of ambition—
Now she knows that nose, and why it sickens her. It’s like her parents’ homemade wine.
How has it followed her here, all the way to Chardonnay Place?
“I have to get rid of this shit!”
“Stephanie, no!”
But she has already flung out the bottle and she briefly sees it turning over and over in the air, like a tossed coin trying to reach an important decision. The white-yellow wine sprinkles a rotating arc in the air, turning and turning.
“Stephanie, that could hit someone!”
“It won’t!”
“You can’t just go throwing—!”
But Stephanie has thrown so many things, many more than Glenn knows, certainly more than the press.
They are coming in for the landing. The leaves in the trees whoosh and sough in greeting.
But toward town, Zachary Potter feels a wet trickle on the front of his sky blue shirt, then on his U.S. Mail badge. A few drops also land on his mustache and drip into his mouth as he looks up at the helicopter retreating to a point near Chardonnay House.
“The new owners,” he says to himself. That millionaire, the one who made all his money off that little gizmo, and his wife, the fashion model turned wine consultant—He’s seen their pictures in the magazines he delivers, especially the pictures of her—bringing grape vines to war-torn countries in need of new industry, whirling in and out of parties, always with her hair done up with grape leaves like something of the ancient times—
Blach! Neither snow or sleet and so forth, but he has just tasted the worst sauvignon blanc in his entire life. He spits.
Overall, the French weather has been ideal: a severe winter followed by dry summer. Robinson quotes wine consultant Eric Boissenot’s assessment: “Magnificent with very, very healthy grapes. July was good and August was great.”
You have done your duty, vines of France, and done it well. Thanks! Rest up, for who knows what 2010 will bring?
The common grape of the evening was frappato di Vittoria. To the uninitiated it may sound like a drink Starbucks created in honor of the British monarch, but it’s Sicilian — a minor Italian grape that originated in the commune of Vittoria in the province of Ragusa in southeastern Italy. It produces fresh, fruity wines intended to be drunk young, and is used to add fruit and freshness when blended with the more potent, versatile nero d’avola. Frappato di Vittoria is typically light-colored, cherry-scented, with high acidity.
We had hoped our guests would arrive all at once, in a sort of Magi-like flurry of excitement, but Neil came first, followed by two new acquaintances of ours, Brad and Dave. I already had arranged the five bottles of the evening at the end of the dining table, but we got started with a cocktail of Carpano Antica Formula, an Italian vermouth. It’s a delicious drink, by the way, with the deep flavor of bitters and an intense, lingering syrupyness. Keep it chilled—it’s better on ice—for when you’re alone playing Peggy Lee, and that fact is so depressing you need a cocktail.
Dinner, which was prepared by Aldo, was a pheasant cacciatore, a rich braised stew—the recipe came from a British Columbian cookbook, Heidi Noble’s Menus From an Orchard Table—served with a salad (peashoots, arugula, parsley) from New York’s Union Square greenmarket and lentils with mint (courtesy of a Patricia Wells recipe). Aldo had never prepared pheasant before, largely because he always associated it with the poor stupid pheasants that got shot and killed by the hunters in Bambi. (How many people don’t eat rabbit because of Thumper?)
On to the wines, ranging in price from about $22 to $39. The first three are pure frappatos and the last two blends:
COS Frappato 2007. Aldo and I both enjoyed this one immediately. It was lean, light and taut, with a subtle note of strawberry, it seemed like an excellent choice to help digest a gamey meal. It had superb structure. Our guests, though, were disappointed by the lack of obvious fruit flavor. Brad said he and Dave typically preferred bigger, more fruit-forward reds — not surprising. These guys come from the Pacific Coast with its powerful Oregon and Washington red wines. Aldo and Billy wondered whether they might be all headed for a rumble, but decided it wouldn’t be worth the risk of knocking over the glasses.
Valle dell’Acate 2008. “A world of difference,” said Neil with satisfaction when he tasted this wine. He liked its bigger body, its bolder fruit flavors. That became a self-mocking refrain for the evening—you’d exclaim, “A world of difference!” with just about every wine, anecdote or opinion. Neil also admitted more than once that he was still in love with the vermouth: It’s a drink that can have you smacking your lips for hours. (Note: A wine tasting shouldn’t have more than one dedicated cocktail drinker participating.) Brad and Dave agreed. Billy wasn’t sure he didn’t prefer the firm, lean COS, but in the Valle he found its hints of fennel and anise attractive.
Occhipinti Il Frappato 2007. Isn’t the name adorable? “Occhipinti” makes me think of a family of baby octupi waving from beneath the sea. Adorable name or no, in many ways this seemed to be met with the least enthusiasm overall. It had less fruit than the Valle dell’Acate, along with a smokiness and a taste of flint — a more complex wine, more bracing, with more acidity. Brad thought the wine a little “edgy.” Neil said he wouldn’t recommend it at all. “A world of difference!” In other words, in the wrong direction.
Occhipinti SP68. The name comes from a highway near the Occhipinti vineyard, which happens to belong to the niece of the man who produces the COS frappato. Our guests almost sighed with relief: blended with nero d’avola, this wine gave them real pleasure. On the nose, we detected rose petals and coffee. On the palate, said Dave, “the edge is gone.” Billy remarked none of these wines had edge. “Are you referring to tannins or acid, by the way?” That Billy can be a bit of a whippersnapper, can’t he? Overall the wine was heavier, more aromatic, with a lusher mouthfeel. Aldo still felt No. 1, the uncle’s frappato, was being underrated by the group. At the same time, he (happily) was distracted by the scene of the guests devouring the pheasant and walnut-mint lentil salad. Like all amateur cooks, Aldo sits in dread, wondering if the guests will push away their plates or simply stand up, stride to the window and fling the food down onto the street.
COS Cerasuola di Vittoria. The hit of the evening. The nose was a little funky, which was a surprise, but then came the velvety tannins and a soft, rich palate of dark fruit and autumnal flavors—blackberry, current, leaves, nutmeg. Billy confided to Aldo that he too preferred the first COS. Aldo, now that the apricot tart had been served and the dinner seemed to be a success, reflected that the COS frappato was like a peasant woman with a black shawl over her head and sensible black shoes. Sturdy but light, to the point, with no voluptuousness but the pleasure nonetheless of sun and air and soil.
By now, all five bottles were empty.
