March 2005
March 31
Pavin and Riley Merlot 2002 Columbia Valley is a friendly enough bottle, though there’s a whiff of volatile acidity to it. In the mouth, the VA is even more present. The wine is rich but over-extracted, like so many of the latest “things” from Australia. VA is such a funny element; a little bit is uplifting but this much just seems stingy. The fruit appears puffed out and enervated, and the finish is a bit pruney.
This is a nice wine but the level of volatile acidity is bothersome. I’ll admit I’m overly sensitive to VA and overly focused upon it when I find it.
March 30
Alice Adams was the film in which Kate Hepburn won her first Oscar. It’s a frightening tale of a poor girl trying to measure up to Fred MacMurray’s handsome rich guy. It’s painful to watch and her portrayal is as harrowing as Nick Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.
But this was Hollywood in 1935 and it has a happy, completely wrong ending. Were it not for that, it would be so completely frank and audacious an exposure of class struggle that the right wing radio talkers would rise up against it. But the rich guy is nice and all’s well if it ends well.
Once upon a time, poverty was in the movies, or at least rich movie stars tried to portray it. John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre begins with the homeless and the impoverished. Hollywood and even TV no longer cares. Reality TV? That would be a thought.
March 29
By the way, do you know the film? It’s based upon the remarkably preserved testimony from that trial. Unlike the other Joan d’Arc films, it doesn’t add polemic, except that a sort of circus of entertainers (think FOX TV) is added to the sacrificial finish.
I’m not religious, but I was raised religious. Joan’s piety is deeply moving to me because she won’t save her own skin; ultimately, she won’t deny her own visions, though she has undercut herself by confessing to save herself for a time.
Why is this in a discussion about wine? I guess that the issue to me is that we cannot have the same experience. The only outcome that seems supportable is that I respect your version of things, no matter how crazy; and that I stick to my version, no matter how much it seems at odds with the reality everyone else is talking about. I don’t want to make too much out of this, but I like wine because it allows me to do just that.
“His ways are not our ways.” Jean d’Arc (1928)
March 28
I’m not sure why I’m so convinced there is a correlate to this wine, but the wine is transparent in a way that few New World wines can achieve. Most are slathered with new oak and extracted as if through a coffee filter. They bring to mind a million other wonderful, extracted wines, but their complexity derives from the confusion that comes out of this comparison to so many other wines.
The 1860 Shiraz is not comparable in any meaning way. It is simply itself.
When you watch The Passion of Joan of Arc, you could see a single frame and know the film from which that frame was clipped. Here too comparison is useless.
March 27
So I take the half-empty bottle of wine home and leave it for three days. It gets better but it never changes from its fundamental position as a wine of ample fruit but brilliant balance. Something about it is too easy to drink and hard to contemplate. Was it Cocteau who said that beauty is invisible?
Compare this to Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc, one of my favorite films. A wild comparison, I know, but hear me out. The film is blatantly, un-cinematically, obvious. Everything is telegraphed in advance. By means of explanation, let me note that it’s on TCM tonight and I’m watching it for the, I don’t know, twentieth time?
There are so many close-ups in this movie that you begin to feel like the fly that keeps crawling across Joan’s face.
March 26
I have finally opened my bottle of Chateau Tahblik’s 1860 Vines Shiraz; I brought it back from Australia with me. It’s from a small parcel of vines planted in 1860 and still producing. Initially, the wine has some mint, some chocolate and lots of seductive and ample fruit. My friends all like it, but I have the feeling that it doesn’t excite them the way I think it should.
It’s one of those wines that are far too well-made to stick out. In an Aussie Shiraz, that is high praise indeed.
March 25
So now I have this rich but dry sake in front of me, something on the order of eighteen percent alcohol (non-junmai) and only a touch of sweetness. It works with the goose liver. It’s as some of my friends have argued with me in the past; alcohol is needed for something as fatty as foie gras. I’ve always insisted that alcohol is useless, it’s the sugar that matters.
It turns out we’re all correct, at least based upon this combo.
March 24
There’s a seared foie gras that’s delicious. It is very seared and very gras, as in rich and fat. Otoyokama and foie gras; let’s see how the two go together.
It’s a pleasing combination that undercuts my argument about Sauternes versus Eiswein, at least when it comes to foie gras. I have always argued that the alcohol level of Sauternes was immaterial to its appropriateness with foie gras. It was the sweetness than mattered.
March 23
I love this guy’s wine list. It’s a hoot, a great read and
it’s filled with wonderful wines and absurdly low prices.
One of his other restaurants is just next door. See-saw’s
food is first-rate and the sake list has far more than the usual suspects,
and that always makes me happy. See-saw has sakes I’ve never seen before,
but it also has Otoyokama, which is superb whether you’re
drinking the ginjo or dainginjo versions.
March 22
It’s time to eat and several of us insist upon going to Kezmariz. That sounds great to me, but I’m a bigger fan of the sister restaurant, Cowboy Ciao. That was Peter Kesperski’s first joint and my friend Barb Werley took me there some years ago.
I was blown away by the wine list and delighted with the food. A couple of years later, in 2003, we gave Cowboy Ciao the America’s Best Wine List Award for Innovative Wine List. As I told Peter tonight, it was either that or an award for Least Readable Wine List. Or most material to read. Or something like that.
March 21
I finally find the ice. I fill up and head back to the room. I place the key inside the door lock. Red light. I try again. And again. More red lights.
I’m across the street and on the third floor so I find the house phone and ask, “Could you send someone over to let me in my room, please?” “No,” replies the perky clerk, “I’m the only one here.” Grr. When will hoteliers understand that service is more important than looks?
March 20
The rooms are nice. The look is reasonably cool and there are a few computers in the lobby for geeks like me who can’t understand why a hotel doesn’t have wi-fi access throughout the hotel.
So I’m checking in after midnight because my flight was stupid late. I call down to get some ice. I’m given directions to another building and a few floors down. I can’t understand why there wouldn’t be more ice machines.
March 19
The cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale have more fantastic
resorts than any other city in America, and perhaps in the world. So
why have I found myself at the James? It’s the
hip new hotel address in Scottsdale but I can’t figure out why.
It’s a Holiday Inn that’s been stripped down to the cement and
then covered with bright, groovy paint. The lobby wall acts as the screen for
black and white versions of James Bond films. It’s like a W, only W lite.
March 18
My friend Joe Spellman decreed that it was one of favorite wines of all time. However that was before he tasted it. I’m not sure if it was up to his standards but perhaps he’ll let me know. The 1991’s are considered powerful and poised wines, and this was every bit of that remarkable description.
March 17
I had to open (I had to!) a bottle of 1991 Gentaz Dervieux Cote Rotie Cote Brune. It started out with a reduced touch of rubber and then smelled of iron and earth, black fruit skins and pepper, the fruit was lush and textured and the finish compellingly focused and sculpted.
March 16
The awards program was kind to many of my dearest colleagues and I had a small reason to celebrate too. Fred Dame was called Mentor of the Year. Nunzio Alioto was named Sommelier of the Year. That makes me very happy. My friends Alpana Singh, Fred Dexheimer, and Evan Goldstein all were honored as well.
March 15
I think that's a fascinating and accurate portrayal of some of those discussions. It's also a contentious matter that would surely have offended some of the Europeans, had it been brought forward there, but it would be great to engage them on it.
March 14
My friend Jay Youmans held that the philosophical differences were more
than European/American. “Often during the competition,” Jay
notes, “there were debates among the judges concerning
the relative quality of specific wines, when, in fact, these
debates really concerned wine style.”
March 13
Speaking of rude behavior, I found it necessary to state as much at
the forum for all the sommeliers to speak together about
the place of the sommelier and of wine competitions, such as Starwine.
I tried to couch it as best I could, using the word “tyranny” instead
of arrogance, but there it was. I didn’t make many friends this
trip.
March 12
This is appalling arrogance. In each of these European cases, the sommelier
judgment was wrong; they provided rude service and they were misinformed
as to the food and wine synergy in play.
March 11
March 10
If I may simplify the argument, it appears to go something like this:
French guy – the role of the sommelier is to provide impeccable service and to know the wines and the cuisine intimately, so that the customer’s experience can be the best possible one. In that way, the customer will choose to return to this
This guy – the role of the sommelier is to provide respectful and kind service and to know the wines and the cuisine well, so that the customer can find the wine and beverages that will most please them. In that way the customer’s experience can be happy and they will be inclined to return and spend more money.
March 9
There are other language barriers. We do not think of wine service and sommeliers in the same manner as Europeans. At least, as far as the Master Sommeliers are concerned, there is a strong difference under-pinning our conversations about the role of servers in a restaurant.
March 8
So my panel and I speak English, though they speak Italian and French
to each other. It’s a far better situation for me, as I can sometimes
understand them but don’t have to respond in my idiot-slow French
or Italian.
March 7
Lots of European sommeliers are attending this three
day tasting event, and it’s a great privilege to be able to meet
legends such as Paul Brunet of Auberge de l’Ill, one of the great
sommeliers of
As with other multi-national gatherings, language presents more than one barrier. The common language seems to be French, and my French is appalling. In fact, I know precisely what motivates the much vilified Europeans from speaking English to American tourists, the constant complaint of so many returning Americans. Who wants to speak a language badly? It’s embarrassing and frustrating, and most people (this barely literate French reader as well) would prefer to remain silent and retain their right to seem intelligent, if taciturn.
March 6
And I don’t have a chance to dine in any of the restaurants anyway.
I’m at Starwine and we’re dining in banquetland.
Our only foray is to
March 5
Apparently so. That doesn’t say much about the pricing here. It doesn’t say much for an asinine system that requires restaurants to pay inflated retail prices. It’s ridiculous.
Wine commerce here is deformed. Wine commerce in America is deformed.
March 4
Why, I ask? The answer to this question is just as uniform. And it seems less rehearsed. They think for a moment, and then many of them say, “You can take your own wine into a restaurant?”
Hmm. And that’s good? I mean, the fact that you’re excited about it. That’s good?
March 3
Philly is re-emerging. You know it was once the capitol
of the
The restaurant scene is good but still a little deformed. Everyone here tells me (seriously, everyone I talk to says the same thing) that the restaurant scene is GREAT.
March 2
They can’t understand why I like a 15% alcohol Cabernet
from
But it’s powerful and rich, extracted without over-extraction, it’s more of a tightrope walk than any of these insipid wines they seem to prefer.
I’m trying to avoid an international incident.
March 1
The Europeans on my panel praise a light, insipid Zinfandel
from
I like those wines, but I’m not about to hand one of them a gold medal. I mean, they’re good and correct but good and correct is pretty common. Why would you give it a gold medal?
