Hungary’s Finest

If you like dessert wines you really, really ought to try a Tokaji (pronounced “tok-eye”), such a prized export of Hungary it’s mentioned in their national anthem. When I saw a bottle in Whole Foods recently I spent a few moments contemplating the price tag, remembered how much the experience of tasting it was like a smiley exhale after an orgasm, and put the bottle in my basket. Sadly I can’t seem to find the one I bought on wine-searcher.com but others are also good. Describing it in mere tasting notes won’t do it much justice but here’s a go at it that might inspire you to try some:

1993 Hilltop Neszmély 5 Puttonyos Tokaji Aszú, Hungary
* “Puttonyos” is a measurement of how sweet the Tokaji is, usually 3 to 6.
Appearance: Caramel/ maple color with amber ring fading to gold on the rim; clear.
Nose: Raisins, apricot, honey, orange marmelade, pecan pie, pineapple, molasses, limestone, sweet florals like white rose and orange blossom.
Palate: Apple cider, orange marmelade, ripe pineapple, raisins, pecan pie, molasses, apricot nectar, pear nectar, dates.
Structure: Sweet, high acid, medium + to high alcohol, full-bodied, high intensity, no tannins, endless finish, high complexity, well balanced.
EXCELLENT example of the wine. Great with many desserts or just by itself.

The Underworld in a Bottle

So many new bottles clambering for attention, all shiny in the cellar rack compared to the dusty veterans on either side, which to choose? Tonight, WE try the lamb-beef burgers on English muffins with cheddar and caper remoulade, now and forever christened at our home as “Patrickburgers”. By the way, mah boys are oh-for-two with shopping for cornichons. No matter how many ways one explains “just get sweet gherkins” you’re not going to get what you need. Next time, I get the tiny pickles.

Rather than try these with Food & Wine’s suggested Brooklyn Brewery Brown Ale pairing I went with the familiar, this time the Malbec I snagged this weekend, a 2005 Don Nicanor Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. This is a fine example of how dark, deep and earthy this varietal can get . . . like getting a shovel and tromping into a dark, rich, moist forest, digging about 6 feet down and breathing in your surroundings (or drinking it). It’s almost vampiric. Or like what the Headless Horseman might have with a book by the fire under his big gnarly black tree on a Friday evening. If he had a head of course. Or a comfy study with a fireplace.

So Don Nicanor gives us a dark ruby, almost violet, velvety, opaque red wine with a ruby rim that stains the glass. The nose consists of earthy notes of dirt, leather, wood and bark, combined with dark berries (blackberry) in the back. When we take a sip of this deep pit we find tar, smoke, burned blackberries, French Roast coffee grounds, and gamey meat. Alcohol was the biggest impression here (missed the %, sorry), acidity was high, the wine was full-bodied, moderately intense on the nose and a little more on the palate, with well-integrated but firm tannins, medium oak and a long finish. Probably would have been outstanding in a few years, for now it was harsh but flavorful.

Went great with the burgers!

Wine Library

At last my friend Corwin and I had a mutually available Saturday to visit the Wine Library in Springfield, NJ. If you’ve never been to Wine Library I INSIST that you take a couple hours to go — it’s not a wine store, it’s an experience. Friends had recommended it to me for years but I never made the schlep until now, and I wish I had gone sooner! Right inside the door we must have been obvious “virgins” because a customer with a cart stopped to ask us if we’d ever been there before, ebulliently rhapsodizing about the store’s features, inventory and staff in response to our sheepish “No”s. I thanked him and added, “Man, if the staff is HALF as helpful as you are we’re never leaving!” There are two floors: tall, dark wood shelves of more affordable wines below, rare and pricier bottles above. The walls are lined with sparkling wines and liquors. There is a wine-accompaniment grocery section on the other side of the entrance as well. If you are overwhelmed you can ask any of the army of experts employed there (if they haven’t offered their assistance first), or if you’re seeking something specific in the oceans of labels you can type your search in their website at one of the terminals in the store to see if it’s in stock. Comprehensive and diverse don’t automatically mean stuffy: none of the Wine Library staff members that I encountered were wine snobs — they just want you to find what you like and like what you buy. The checkout girl and I got into a conversation about how remarkable it is that I got my boots at Victoria’s Secret, it’s just that casual. Everyone in that store customer & clerk alike have one thing in common: they like wine.

Corwin asked if I had received my certification exam results in the mail yet and I managed to evade the question for a few rows until he finally pressed for at least a pass/fail. Yes, I passed, yes I did about as well as I expected to on the written. Then he pointed at me and asked what I got on the tasting exam. When I bashfully told him it was a perfect score he laughed and said “I KNEW IT!” Quite a compliment, particularly from someone I respect as being very knowledgeable and talented in the realm of wine & spirits.

So I did go a little crazy (come on, you knew I would) fulfilling my mission of getting some wines I haven’t tried before or haven’t tried enough, or had in class and must have again. Here’s what I went home with:
2005 Warnke Cellars Merlot, Napa Valley, CA (had to grab for a friend with the same name)
2007 Château Ducasse Bordeaux (white), France, unfiltered
2006 Hogue Gewürtztraminer, Columbia Valley, WA
2006 J Vineyards Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, CA
2006 Christophe Buisson Pinot Noir, Bourgogne, France
2005 Don Nicanor Malbec (Bodegas Nieto Senetiner), Mendoza, Argentina
2006 Wallace Shiraz/Grenache, Barossa Valley, Australia
2002 Château Belle Vue, Haut-Médoc, Bordeaux, France
2005 Pecchenino San Luigi Dolcetto di Dogliani, Italy
2006 Freja Cellars Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, OR (since I got this test question wrong and will live to facepalm myself forever, I figured I should try some)
2007 Francis Ford Copolla Diamond Collection Yellow Label Sauvignon Blanc, Geyserville, Napa Valley, CA
2006 Francis Ford Copolla Diamond Collection Ivory Label Cabernet Sauvignon, Geyserville, Napa Valley, CA

Also, if you have never watched Gary Vaynerchuk on Wine Library TV, I HIGHLY recommend it — he is hilarious, and has an extremely articulate palate.

GOOD NEWS!

I am very, very excited to share that rather than getting 13 questions wrong on the academic portion I got 14 wrong, which is fine because I know what I should have chosen as answers, but I also got 100% on the blind tasting portion.

SQUEEEEEE!

(No, I can’t tell you what the wines were.)

To Europe and back in a few hours

In the spirit of my friend I enjoyed last evening with, I’m listening to Daft Punk’s “Around the World” while blogging today. Hard not to dance to Daft Punk.

Now that I’m back from wine school she wanted to hear all about it, having recently developed a curiosity for this previously unfamiliar spirit, so we aimed for places with a decent wine list and caught one of the last showings of “Bottle Shock” left in the city. Dinner was Italian at Osso Buco in the NYU area where we gobbled pasta between words washed down with a pretty good house Chianti. I arrived early so at the bar I asked for a Frizzante (Prosecco, orange liquor and cranberry juice) but the barmaid was unfamiliar and I couldn’t recall one of the ingredients, so she recommended something tasty made with Prosecco and wild strawberry liqueur (with real wild strawberries steeped inside!). The pink bubbly cocktail with tiny strawberries bobbing at the top of the flute looked pretty girly (the Frizzante probably would have too) but it was deeeeeelicious — I ordered one for my friend and she seemed to like it. Light, off-dry and unique. Regrettably our waiter was just a little too friendly and chatty and not so fast with the service so we were late for the movie but I was able to recap what we missed quickly.

You can’t watch a movie about chocolate and not crave chocolate afterwards; similarly you can’t watch a movie about wine and not want to hit a wine bar after. In the Village my current favorite is Solex, a trendy-looking wine bar we happened upon on my birthday earlier in the year that turned out to be as much substance as form, and a short schlep from the movie theater. I was particularly pleased to see that their wine list had changed from some obscure and expensive “meh”-tasting New World wines to a textbook variety of French ones. If there were any place in the city to introduce someone with a novice palate to classic varietals in a classic style, this would be the spot. Our flight:

My friend’s first glass: 2004 Barth Rene Riesling “Rebgarten”, Alsace
Nose: stone, plastic, lemon, lime
Palate: tropicals, citrus, mineral

My first glass: 2007 Château Belingard, Bergerac, Bordeaux
Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Muscadelle
Nose: cat pee, lemon, gooseberry, chalk, limestone, watercress, celery, mild white floral
Palate: grapefruit, lemon, lime, gooseberry, chalk, limestone, watercress, celery

Our second glass: 2006 René Lequin-Colin Pinot Noir, Bourgogne
Nose: barn, soil, cherry, cassis, gravel
Palate: cherry, raspberry, strawberry, dirt, barn.
High acid, heavy tannins, high alcohol, medium finish . . . probably could have used some more time.

For dessert (mind you by now we are not jotting down notes on a piece of scrap paper from my purse quite as well as at the first glass):
For my friend: 2005 Domaine de Durban Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, Rhône
For myself: Fladgate 10 year Tawny Port

I’d say the evening was a success — my friend seemed to like the wines she tried and we had a great time. And that is the point.

La Vita Dolce ed Amara

Last night I had the pleasure of reuniting with two of my friends from wine school, Catherine & Corwin.  The original plan (well, of course the original plan included MANY possibilities but the wine-bar-savvy Corwin narrowed it down with surgical precision) was to visit a French wine bar called Le Bateau Ivre (named after a Rimbaud poem) known for a prolific by-the-glass menu of over 250 choices, but they were closed for a private function. The backup plan was delightful — Accademia di Vino, an Italian restaurant, enoteca and wine bar. The atmosphere, service, food and wine were all splendid and we had a great time catching up since last seeing each other a month ago, and what was particularly enjoyable was drinking and talking wine with people who speak the same language about it. So what did we drink? Hold on, I’ll tell you!

 

We started with some Northern Italian cheeses and cold meats, paired with the Cataratto “Salina” C. Hauner Eolian Island Sicilia 2005 for Catherine, the Spumante Rosato Vanzini Brut Lombardia NV for Corwin, and the Prosecco De Faveri Rotonda Veneto 2006 for me. For dinner my friends shared a sausage and broccoli rabe (exemplary of Italy’s more bitter flavor profiles) pizza and I ordered the Bavette Cacio e Pepe with virgin olive oil, cracked black pepper and pecorino Romano, the latter of which was a pleasantly simple pasta dish that would have paired very well with my ‘06 Barbera D’Alba from Guidobono but the chemesthesis from the cracked black pepper brought out too much of the alcohol sensation in the wine. I wish I had jotted down the wines my friends had had (psst, if you guys are reading this, comment it below!) — they were delicious. I’d share tasting notes but the aromas of the fabulous food all around us made isolating my nose and palate for the wines very difficult. A restaurant is a wonderful place to enjoy wines with food and friends but not ideal for professional tasting analysis.

So dessert! My favorite part. We had the pleasure of meeting an old friend of Catherine’s who joined us for a snack. Corwin enjoyed the Semi Freddo Affogato with Kahlua poured over it and another wine I can’t recall, and I savored a honey panna cotta with cantelope balls paired perfectly with a Moscato d’Asti. I believe Catherine sipped a glass of the Spumante Rosato Vanzini Brut Lombardia NV but I could be wrong.

After hugs and farewells Corwin and I decided to go to a nearby cigar club called Club Macanudo, Corwin having just discovered that after wine, beer, tea, tequila, and coffee my other connoisseurship is cigars. Yes, I have my own humidor and accessories. The space in Club Macanudo is a warm, sophistocated, Old New York cigar lounge with leather seats, throw pillows and wood panel walls, where relaxed conversation floats about the air mingling with rich cigar smoke and music from a live bossa nova band. Far from being finished with wine pairings for the night, we both enjoyed glasses of port with our cigars (which I will find out brand names for), mine being the Taylor Fladgate 10 yr Tawny and my companion’s choice being a Dow’s ruby. Perfect.  Think I have a new smoking buddy!

The “B W” words

Boxed Wine.  Yes, you can go ahead and say it.  Say it with me now:  “Boxed wine.”  If anyone out there is scoffing at this post already without keeping an open mind I want you to say this in the mirror:  “I am a wine snob.”

Ok, now that we have that out of the way.

I am a beach comber.  I live a few miles from Sandy Hook beach in Gateway National Park and 200 feet from a “take a pensive walk with the dog” beach adjacent to a marina down the block, and as much time as I spend on the beach I can never get enough.  One of my favorite things to do while sitting on my beach chair in the sand worshipping the sun, besides reading books and writing, is drinking wine.  Trouble is you cannot and should not bring glass to a beach.  Bringing wine in a thermos has always been problematic because it leaks and occasionally one cannot avoid the “thermos bouquet” of plastic or dishwashing detergent residue in the container.  So what do you do?

While in a local wine shop this weekend I noticed while walking by the “Varietal” section (a.k.a. where your Kendall Jacksons and Turning Leafs are found) individual cardboard can-shaped boxed wines under the brand name Vendange. These handy 500 ml “Tetra Pak” containers have a plastic screw cap, are lightweight, recyclable, lined, portable, shatterproof and come in several varietals of “Destination Wines” such as Pinot Grigio, Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, White Zinfandel, and Shiraz. I tried the California Pinot Grigio with no expectations one way or the other and was pretty impressed! Mind you sticking my nose in the tiny opening was not feasible for getting a full appreciation of the aromas, but I could get a couple whiffs and it tasted good enough. Light bodied, crisp, flavors of lime, lemon pith, grapefruit rind, pear and apple, moderately high acidity, moderate finish, and only 12.5% alcohol. My only complaint is that it did not stay cold for more than half an hour or so in the sun. I plan to try the Cab next time.

Hopefully the image of wine in a box will change as the quality and variety of wines produced in this packaging improve.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some pretty awful boxed wine in my life, but this is not your parents’ barbeque wine.  Traditions change — even some highly reputable wineries in France are turning to Stelvin closures these days (more commonly known as screw caps), though like box wine it is not necessarily intended for long-term aging or at least has not been tested with long-term aging.

So don’t be a wine snob.  Try new things and keep an open mind.  There are wines for every purpose!

Morticia’s Actual Cellar

. . . is my basement.  By far it is not an ideal storage area for my little collection since temperature is often a challenge but it’s the best I have.  For our wedding we received a great refrigerated Cuisinart Wine Cellar (gee, guess who had put THAT on the registry) but it only holds 6 bottles which leaves another 70 or so in the rack downstairs. My husband suggested that we invest in a larger, temperature controlled storage option but they can be very expensive. The test: tasting one of the more delicate wines in the basement rack that has been there for many years and see how it’s fared the warmth. At least we have total control over the humidity down there.

Tonight’s guinea pig was a Laurel Lake Vineyards 2003 Pinot Noir Reserve from North Fork, Long Island, NY. Visually this was no youngin’, with wide rim variations from garnet in the center to rust to orange to salmon to amber on the edge. Clear and day bright. The nose was nowhere to be found for a moment, but after letting it get comfortable in the glass for a minute or two it smelled clean with assertive maraschino cherries, pomegranate, red plum, some dried cherries, walnut, pecan pie, mulling spices and spiced apple. The palate was a little shyer, only telling me red cherry, red plum, spiced apple, and cherry pie. Enjoyable but I can’t help but wonder if maybe it is just on a quiet year in the process. Good thing I have a second bottle to open later! My only complaint about this wine was that the 12.5% alcohol felt more like 14.5% to me. Otherwise it was dry, the acidity was high, no significant oak, medium intensity nose & palate, medium bodied, mellow/gentle tannins, medium finish and medium complexity. I liked it. This might be tough to pair right now because most of the foods I’m thinking of that could pair with a Pinot Noir would overstep the soft-spoken nature of this particular Pinot. Maybe we’ll see what the other bottle says in a year or two. Or more likely it was best when I bought. That’s the exciting part of aging wine — we’ll see what happens!

A note on aging to those who don’t normally do it deliberately: the wine needs to have certain structural elements such as higher acidity, some tannins, residual sugar (for sweets), a degree of complexity, etc. otherwise they may not stand up to the changes age affects on a wine. These are not absolutes but certainly important factors. One consistent thing all of my teachers at the CIA imparted upon us was that wine is a living thing. Once the wine goes into a bottle and is corked up, it becomes an individual with its own lifespan and uniqueness. It continues to evolve forever. The world inside that bottle is a living environment. Without the backbone & complexity to grow into something interesting that wine won’t necessarily stop changing, it just may morph into something not so good. But ideally wherever you store your wine you want to make sure there is a little humidity but not too much (so the corks don’t get moldy or dry out), temperature regulated to about 55 to 65 degrees, as little light as possible, and as little vibration as possible. If all you have is a closet in your apartment, use that.  Now remember, a hearty Cabernet Sauvignon will not show the same way in 5 yrs as a Pinot Noir or a Pinot Gris/Grigio.  5 years is NOT a long time.  When you want to talk about truly mature wine we can look back to 1969 or 1933 or something . . . although older wines become increasingly harder to find since much of the wine we drink today is meant to be drunk today, or people just don’t have the patience. 

So maybe we could still use a real-deal wine storage cabinet but so far it seems that I’m not cooking or oxidizing my wine. Guess I’ll just have to try more and see!