mondosapore

Modern wine tasting and other deplorable activities

Someone reminded yesterday of a wonderful critique of the modern system of wine tasting and evaluation.  I hadn't read it for a long time, and it was refreshing to check it out again today.  It is Joe Dressner's astute take on the whole analytical approach to wine evaluation. He published it in 2005, and I must quote a passage that struck me as especially good:

How boring the world of Points/Tasting notes has become! I even see my friends, people I like, writing endless tasting notes with endless useless fruit/wood/earth analogies that are of no possible use to anyone. Yes, they drop off the points, but they are still using the same methodology. Furthermore, modern oenology has learned how to manipulate wine to create manufactured aromas and flavors that fit into the "tasting palates" artificial construct.

Has anyone besides me noticed that the methodology Joe criticizes is exactly parallel to the New Criticism in literature? This misguided movement sprang up in the 1940s as an effort to be less subjective and impressionistic in evaluating a poem or novel or, I suppose, the copy on a box of Rice Krispies.  The injunction was to consider only what is in the text, as if the sacred Text in question had been dropped from above by Neoplatonic angels.  Forbidden was consideration of cultural, personal, economic, political, etc., etc., factors which may have contributed to the conception and development of the text. 

Fake scientism.  In litteras, in vino. 

Let's leave all that behind. Please.




Allegedly Joe Dressner

The end-of-the-month what-have-we-learned blues wrapup

Another month shuffles, like Fred Thompson, off into its deserved oblivion.  I see no overarching theme.  I sense nothing momentous in the Zeitgeist except the possible implosion of the Clintons and the deepening irrelevance of the Bushes.  And the oft-heralded Decline of the American Empire.  It might be for real this time.

Nothing much of deep moment in the world of our favorite juice.  "Business sucks," etc., etc.

So I offer a series of random thoughts, quips, japes, apercus and whatnot.

Presidential politics

Obama vs. McCain -- two roses.

Clinton vs. Romney -- two dung heaps.

Blogger down!

My good friend and pre-eminent Italian wine blogger, Giampiero Nadali, is leaving the hospital after suffering a severe attack of angina.  Giampi is 47, the age I was when I suffered the Big One.  And lo! I lived to sin again.

I hope he recovers fast, gets more exercise, eats less Camembert, and keeps on tasting and writing.

Recession-proof Italian wine?

Alfonso Cevola told me that December ended up strong where he works -- Italian wine ended on the up side in sales volume and value as wines of other provenance fell off.  Like everyone, Alfonso has expressed caution if not outright pessimism about the year ahead.  Even so, retail trends and research predictions indicate a better-than-average ride for vino italiano in America.

Picturesque interlude

But not all Italian wine will prosper

Even big spenders cut back in a recession.  I hear that the Brunello tasting on Tuesday drew a large and enthusiastic crowd.  (I didn't go because I actually had things to do.)  Brunello is lovely stuff, cheaper than Barolo and supertuscans, and drinkable at more dining occasions.  Rounder and, in my opinion, more balanced than most Chiantis, too. 

People are still saying they're fascinated with the South and its local grapes.  The price points are usually very attractive as well.

Meanwhile, out west

I feel like a matchmaker.  Thanks to the Six Degrees phenomenon, I have managed to get two San Diegans together to talk about wine and the universe and so on.  Jeremy Parzen and Robin Stark, both recently featured on these hallowed virtual pages, are having lunch today.  Truly a meeting of the adorable and the adorable.

What's with Stumbleupon?

Lately I've had hundreds of visitors a day come via Stumbleupon.  What was posted as being so all-fired compelling?  Why do they come?  I hope it's for something besides that old Liev Schreiber picture -- nice if it were because of a wine article, though I doubt it.

Yeah, I'm scraping the bottom of the topic barrel today.  I should quit procrastinating and pack for today's flight to Nice and thence to northern Italy, from Piemonte all the way over to the Slovenian border in Friuli.  A tour of select wee vineyards in several regions.  May the Blackberry work as advertised and promised by Verizon.

Oh, one more mildly amusing thing...

Sasa tasting dinner at etcetera etcetera

Enough political tomfoolery.  Back to what matters.  Wine. 

Terry Hughes l'opinionista shot his week's wad on this post, now has only the time and energy to report the facts, ma'am, just the facts.  Well, OK, some 'tude will show forth.  Don't it always.

Tony Sasa, a sort of promotional/sales agent for a group of wineries in various parts of Italy as well as proprietor of an enoteca in Florence, hosted a private tasting dinner at etcetera etcetera last night.  Funny how things go full circle; two years ago this month, at the very same restaurant, I first met Tony, enologo Paolo Caciorgna and producer Andrea Mantengoli of La Serena, an estate in Montalcino.  I had met Giorgio Boeri, a Barbera d'Asti producer, at Vinitaly.    He was there last night, energetically pouring and explaining his wines to anyone who spoke a little Italian.

I'm not sure where the energy came from.  These folks were plumb tuckered out, having just come from the West Coast, where they did tasting dinners in Seattle, LA, Dallas, and then they had just flown in from Boston -- I may be omitting something else -- and have DC and Baltimore still to go.  All in about a week.  A most un-Italian pace.

Before I go a little into the wines and producers, let me tell you I was fairly surprised by the types of people who forked over the bread to attend the event.  For one thing, they skewed quite young, 20s and 30s, not so much the typical 40s to 60s.  And there was a rather high proportion of women -- women who came with gal pals not boyfriends or husbands.  OK, there were all types in this gathering of 40-something people.  It's the distribution of them that was surprising to me.  I think it augurs well for the long-term interest in and consumption of Italian wine.

Johnny, we hardly knew ye

Now that John Edwards is set to withdraw his bid for presidential candidacy, I get I'm gonna take his fight song and make it my new personal theme song. 

Download 02_white_america.mp3

Ooooh.  So much rage.

On a brighter note, Giuliani's out.  America's Mayor will now finally just be Mr. Judith Nathan.  I assume his prostate surgery has had no effect on bliss.

The John Edwards fight song

Another public service.  My boy John needs to couch his populist message in more modern terms that even the young people can relate to:

Download john_edwards_fight_song.mp3

By the way, I'm delighted with the Kennedy family's embrace of Obama.  A kick in the teeth for Hillary.  I'll vote for any Democrat over any Republican (even Johnny Mac!), but I'd rather it be, in descending levels of ardor:

1. John Edwards (never happen)

2. Barack Obama (what would the Founding Fathers have made of a name like that?)

3. Hillary Clinton (my friend the black female judge was a classmate of Hillary's in law school and detested her even then)

Theme song

No new photo yet.  Still in committee.

I have selected a theme song.  It is not goliardic.

Download radiohead_creep.mp3

Best quip of the week

"la grenouille is the kind of place where dick cheney would go if he lived in manhattan." -- Robin Stark

Funny as well as beautiful, that girl.

Tasting dinner reminder

Small producers' tasting dinner with my pals Tony Sasa and Paolo Caciorgna, among others:

Tuesday evening, January 29, at etcetera etcetera, $125/person.  There are still one or two places available. 

Follow this recent link for all the details.

By the way, there's a great deal of helicopter traffic over Manhattan today.  Police and such, making a circuit in their flying patrol cars.  They usually do that when either there's an alleged terrorist threat or bigwigs are in town.  I guess Tony and Paolo are even more important than I thought.
 

Húgues the Memorious: Wine, Depression, Introspection, Awareness

In vino veritas. 

For centuries there have been two literary visions of the wine drinker.  One has been the roisterer.  The miles gloriosus, the goliard of gaudeamus igitur fame, Falstaff and Rabelais' Pantagruel, J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man, the bon vivant man about town and so forth.  The merry aspect of wine-bibbing, which of course met with stern rebukes and moralistic censure in the 19th century and that artistic extension of Victorianism into the mid-20th, post-Hayes code (1934) Hollywood.

Then there's the contemplative wine drinker of literature.  The introspective, melancholy drinker whose mind may, in its self-devouring solitude, turn to thoughts of vice and murder.  Think of all those Poe narrators, of Baudelaire, not to mention the real-life boozers like Burns, Byron and Coleridge (also a junkie).  More recent examples are Hemingway, Fitzgerald, John Berryman, Anne Sexton (lots of suicides here, read A. Alvarez for more), Cheever, etc., etc.  The drunken author long ago became an institution in American literary folkways, it was and remains almost a basic job requirement.  I won't even get into the British subspecies with the likes of Dylan Thomas, Brendan Behan, Malcolm Lowry and the rest, the many rest. 

Without boring you with quotations and citations -- many of which are practically part of our folklore -- I have given you the briefest of justifications for taking on this subject, albeit from my own point of view. 
For I have suffered from a lifetime of thwarted literary ambitions (deservedly thwarted for the most part), periodic depressions, and a habit of introspection that may or may not be a genetic disposition.  And, yes, out of this miasma of disappointment, delusion and bitterness has come, at intervals, huge waves of awareness.  Not all of it welcome, believe me.  In vino veritas.

We aren't talking any cool Hellenic ratiocination here.  We're talking about a Plotinian spiritual union with the universe.  The indifferent heart of the universe.

"Don't weep for me.  I'm already dead."

Picture this

Since I'm in a reflective, sort of navel-gazing mood this evening -- and there's nothing on TV -- I'd like to ask you about the picture of me that is at the top left-hand side of the site. 

Jeremy Parzen told me recently that the picture I have up there now doesn't look like me.  It was taken just a year and a half ago, but I have, as he so kindly pointed out, gained weight since then.  For later, archival interest here is the pic in question:

Damn it, I think this is one of the few pictures ever taken that didn't make me look like a "cross-eyed epileptic like the whole Bradshaw family", as my aunt and I used to say.  Taken at Fattoria Le Fonti in Chianti, August 2006.

Some alternatives, dubious at best:

Clearly a phone pic.  Central Park, July 2006.   Moderately geeky.
(Note to Italians: this word is pronounced 'ghik,' not  'gik'.)










One of many Beauty and the Beast shots.  Here with Egle Armani in New York last April.










Age is the star of this one.  Polignano a Mare, Puglia, June 2007.

I must love this public self-humiliation, eh?








Pergamum, Turkey, 2006.  Searching the Wine Horizon. 

Eat your heart out, John Barrymore.









Vote! 

Vote for the picture you want to see at the top of this site! 

Be sure to write a brief essay stating which photo you'd choose and at least 3 reasons why this was your choice.  (The teacher and copywriter in me die hard.)

About blogging wine reviews: A question

In general, which do you prefer -- the long detailed ones you see on many many sites or the quick summaries with or without a score, such as you see on, for example, Jancis Robinson's?

Your chance to chime in, kids.

Eating around Manhattan

I try to stay productively occupied during the day, which isn't so easy since I last worked at a paying day job in late 2006, when I put teaching behind me before it killed me.  (That was a three-and-a-half year period of being abused, if not by crazy-bitch administrators then by thuggish adolescents.  To say it was traumatic to this old geezer is an understatement.)

Lately I seemed to have dined out a lot, and I'm not quite sure why.  Things are just happening.  You'd think I had nothing better to do, that I lived a life of sybaritic self-indulgence.  Hmm...

In the past week or so I have been to Crispo, a place on West 14th Street.  It got a Zagat rating of 23.  More like a 16, it seemed to me.  Eh.  Crummy wine list too. 

Went to Boqueria, where the tapas were delicious, although, as I've noted, the Spanish wines were pretty underwhelming.  The waitresses were great, knew their wines pretty well, and one told me about her cocaine addiction.  Her name wasn't Jane, though.

Yesterday I ate out not once but three times, technically.  I met Robin Stark, who is a wine maven from San Diego, for lunch at etcetera etcetera.  I just had an antipasto of prosciutto with bacon-wrapped figs and melon, which was worthy of Italy itself.  No wine for me.  I had walked there at high speed from the East Side and I felt all pure and everything.

Robin's bat mitzvah picture:  "Today I am a woman."  Not crazy about the Randi Weingarten blouse thing.

I did this and that in the afternoon, walked over to Cornelia Street where Ken, Peter and I were going to celebrate Ken's birthday at Po.  I was early, went into the very cute and appealing Cornelia Street Cafe (see cute and appealing pic below) for a glass of wine, quickly realized I'd be plastered on a glass if I didn't get something to eat, so ordered a tasty plate of country pate with cornichons.  Very nice pairing with the simple Cotes du Rhone I'd ordered.  Their wines-by-the-glass are generally good but there isn't a big selection.  Oh, and I did once see Seymour Philip Hoffman there!  That was right before his Truman Capote film was released.

Caution: too many adverbs in the following paragraph.  Obviously.

I'd never been to Po befo', but it was surprisingly moderate in price.  The wine list was good -- all Italian, very reasonably priced -- and the food was simple but extremely well-prepared.  It's obviously a frequent gathering place for a lot of loud suits from downtown, and unlike some of the ultra-high-end joints around town (like Per Se) it was packed even on a Wednesday night.  It was one of the first outposts in the Mario Batali empire, although he sold it some years ago.  The restaurant seems to be doing fine without him.

By the way, Robin told me that she'd been to Per Se the night before; very few tables were occupied -- the place was practically empty.  So even at that temple of gastronomy economic sanity is thrusting its brutish way in.

Tonight I go out again (not again!?) with my sister-in-law from Las Vegas.  I have to choose a good but moderate-priced place by our parochial standards.  I could spend all day deciding among them.  Not a bad problem to have.  Note to visitors: such places are never in Midtown. 

A word about Rioja

A word is all it is, really.  I am hardly knowledgeable about Spanish wines.  I haven't drunk much Rioja in years.  But...

Last night at Boqueria my friend and I were quite disappointed by the two Riojas we had.  One was a blend with Cabernet Sauvignon in the mix, the other was composed of nothing but "national" varieties.  They weren't terribly different from one another or indeed any of the thousands of international-style wines we wine geeks like to tear down. 

My memory of Riojan reds is of complex, earthy aromas and flavors, slightly pale colors, long long finishes that evoked Bordeaux -- not surprising since so many Bordelais escaped to Rioja after the phylloxera disaster in the late 19th century.  The wines spent ages in barrel and in bottle before release.

Last night even a wine of the 1999 vintage didn't seem to have aged or gained any nuance.  It could have been a year or two old.  No depth, no interest.  A Parker-pleaser to be sure.

My dinner companion did order a rose' by Lopez Heredia, one of his favorite Spanish wineries.  That wine exhibited some of the traits that I prized in the reds.  Slightly oxidized, a little mushroomy even in a way that makes you think of a Jacques Puffeney Arbois or, yes, a Sherry.  Interesting, able to evolve in the glass, complex perfume, good to drink and savor.

Modern Spanish whites are zingy and fresh, well-priced too.  Albarino, for example, is just one of several excellent grapes.  But are the reds making a disastrous detour?

I know nothing

Spent a lovely evening at Boqueria, a tapas and wine bar on 19th Street, in the no-woman's land between the NYU Disney version of the Village and Chelsea.  (The place was lovely with well-selected vinos and a charming, knowledgeable staff.  Good grub too.)  The person I spent the time with is one who makes like  a Yitzik mit a Shmitzik and objected to my "outing" him on this blog. [censoredcensoredcensoredcensored].  [Sigh.] 

BTW, this person told me I have a Following.  Do I?  Do I really? 

Enough wine?

No, of course not -- there is never enough wine.  Not in general drinking terms.

But a comment in Tom Wark's bloggerview of Jeff Lefevere has caused me some introspective glooming.  Jeff complimented mondosapore, adding about yours truly, "He doesn’t write about wine that much, at least not for being a wine blog, but the guy’s personality sparkles in his writing."  Thanks for the sparkling part -- I don't think anyone ever described my personality as "sparkling" before, which makes the compliment all the more treasured.  Even so, the first part of the sentence gave me pause and got me to a-ponderin'.  (Still in the Fred Thompson mode, cain't he'p m'se'f.)

I don't write about wine all that much?  Really?  Well, I don't do many reviews any more -- doing reviews of individual wines don't (oops, doesn't) fascinate me so much.  So many people write those things and that's good for them and for most of us.  It's needed.

But for me trends, meeting wine people, exploring new wine areas and trying new grape varieties -- these  things interest me greatly.    As I wrote last week, I went to the Vias tasting not to taste but to meet up with the likes of Alice Feiring, Alfonso Cevola and Jeremy Parzen.   This week, among other things, I'm meeting Jeremy for a drink and to talk about the wine biz; I'm meeting someone to talk about a very interesting vermentino rosso from the area near Lucca, Tuscany; going to a tasting at a small "hand-sell" importer's; and more.  Whether or not I write much about these encounters, I don't know; sometimes there aren't really enough hours in the day.  And sometimes you don't want to repeat your own Revealed Truths any more.

You tell me, though...should there be fewer rants about shithead politicians and another such nonsense?  Less about my groupie?  Should I stick to vino e basta? 

Inquiring minds really do want to know.  But tell me in a constructive way.

Small producers' tasting dinner, January 29

My good friend Tony Sasa will be hosting a tasting dinner and seminar next Tuesday (29 January) at etcetera etcetera in the Theatre District.

Tony Sasa (standing) and enologo Paolo Caciorgna

The dinner will feature the wines of Fattoria Le Fonti of Chianti, La Serena of Brunello, Schiavenza (Barolo in the old, classic style), Boeri (Barbera d'Asti zone), and others.  It will be an opportunity to taste, and order, some excellent wines that are sometimes hard to find in the United States.

That is the place and similar occasion when I met Tony, Paolo Caciorgna, Andrea Mantengoli and Lorenzo Bernini two years ago.  For me it was a great, even life-changing event; it made me realize that wine was going to be my life in some way or other.

If you would like to attend, there are still a few seats available.  The cost per person is $125.  To reserve, email kenknyc@gmail.com.

More about the area round Blackjack Vineyards

David Gough, whose gift of wine I wrote about the other day, sent me this bit of information about the Harcourt, Victoria area.  I thought it was interesting and wanted to pass it along to you.

Glad you enjoyed the wine, Terry.

Harcourt is situated in an area with a rainfall of about 20 inches per year and is at the foothill of a granite outcrop where the soil tends to be rather gravely and probably a little acid.  Historically it is noted as an apple growing area.  In fact my father was an orchardist and like many farmers was poorer when he stopped farming than when he started.  Australia does produce some very good reds but the tendency is to export the cheap and nasty ones, primarily to Britain where I am sure it compliments the food adequately

Zing!  Take that, you Pommy bastards.

The definition of dickhead

Excuse the naughty language, but this NYT story on Fred Thompson, would-be ayatollah of everything, got me going.  What a know-nothing asshole.  He plays well in Shitville, South Carolina.  But otherwise?  Give me a break.

Allow me to quote from Michael Powell's sly article:

Fred, as he is addressed here, is a well-known type, the courthouse Yoda dispensing wisdom on life and public affairs. He has thought about it all, he says, most times long before anyone else. “People haven’t been thinking about China,” Mr. Thompson says. He pauses. “Trust me, I have.”

They eat it up at Giant Burger. “How’d he do?” asked Arlie Merideth, tugging on his “Retired U.S. Army” cap and staring into a reporter’s eyes. “I say he was positively Reaganesque. You don’t want to disagree, do you?”

The reporter sees no percentage in doing that.

"Positively Reaganesque"?  You mean Mr. Springtime in America?  Mr. Supplyside till you have a financial crisis Ronnie?  I weep for the world; we have such a dumb electorate and candidates to match.  Don't know about youse, but I sure as hell feel like Sisyphus, pushing the boulder of American stupidity up the same hill time after time.  We seem to learn nothing, like very slow and spoiled children.

Sorry, Jeff, this isn't about wine but fuck it.  Sometimes you just have to vent.

Well, gosh, thanks for the props

It's just after washing up in the kitchen, as this vestigial roomlet is called in NYC, and I get this email from constant commenter (flashback!) Marco, who sends me a link from the latest Tom Wark Bloggerview of Jeff from goodgrape.com. 

Shoot, man...thank you.  Since no one is ever going to nominate me for the best wine blog of any category, I have to say that testimonials like yours are manna for me. 

Pace, amore e il Soul Traiiiiiiiinnnn...

Blackjack Block 6 Shiraz 2003

On the occasion of my 60th birthday we went to Turkey.  (See links here, here, here and here.)  We were knocked out by the country's beauty and the hospitality of the people.  We also met David and Florence, a tremendously intelligent and interesting couple from Melbourne, Australia. 

The usual perps with David and Florence.  Ephesus

David and Florence visited New York last fall and we had a great time with them. 

We had a great time this week, thanks to their giving us a bottle brought all the way from Harcourt, Victoria, in the Bendigo Geographical Indication, very close to Dave's hometown.

This summary from the OCW briefly characterizes the region:

[Bendigo is a] historic (see gold rushes), temperate Australian region notable for full-bodied but smooth red wines. Lack of water for irrigation (a potential problem with dry summers and periodic drought) limits expansion in an otherwise excellent region.

The wine they gave us was the Blackjack Vineyards Block 6 Shiraz (2003).  It was very different from the stereotype of unsubtle fruit bombs, sweet on the finish, which has come to typify Australian reds in the past several years.

The Block 6 cru, which we drank with our steaks, was Rhone-like in its earthiness, with notes of tar, cherries and bramble-fruits, mint or eucalyptus, and a pleasingly "winey" scent that lingers in the empty bottle three days after opening.  As the winery's own web site says, Block 6 is adjacent to our original shiraz plantings but produces quite a different style of wine - more savoury than sweet, and aptly described by some critics as being much more Rhone-like.

"Rhone-like" may encompass 14.5% alcohol, as is claimed on the label.  The wine was big but didn't seem quite this powerful.  It certainly was perfect with our various cuts of beef -- three for three people.

Further, fermentation took place in traditional open fermenters, with hand-plunging of the cap ensuring complete but gentle extraction of colour and flavour. The wine was matured in American oak barriques, about 30 per cent new, for 22 months.

I'm not one of those who screams and yells about new American oak on principle.  When it's handled well -- as it is here -- then I'm happy to drink the wine it kissed.  This was a lovely bottle, and it makes me feel horrid for being beastly about Australian Shiraz.  Live and learn.  Teach this old dog new tricks, especially if you give him a wine treat like this.

Thanks, Florence and Dave. Hurry back to our fair city, please. Bring Blackjack.

Blackjack Vineyards wines are imported to the USA by Conquest Beverage of Houston.
I was unable to find a US price.  The 2005 vintage sells for $35 Australian on the winery's web site.