Wine ~ Wein ~ Vino ~ Vin

a quick view from vienna ~

2011-05-05T10:31:00.002-04:00

So what song to sing about 2-10?

I had a fortaste at Prowein in Düsseldorf a month ago, and saw that the issue separating the men from the boys was one of how one managed to manage the acidity in these wines.

some bottlings were harsh and shrill, some clumsily flat—guess why—and I found a few exquisite examples where the lower yields of the vintage had imbued the rieslings or the grüne veltliner with extra concentration and material.

so I came to Vienna prepared for an acid-bath—and in many cases this was true, but I learned nearly fifteen years ago that not every vintage in Austria is equally good for all grape varieties, nor does it show the same characteristics. The big surprise at the ÖGZ tasting was the quality and depth and downright flavourful generosity of the Weissburgunders. This grape has been given a bad reputation by those fellows in Alsace/Elsaß who allow it to run wild and overproduce. The Austrians—along with their colleagues in the Pfalz—have managed to work in the vineyards in such a way that we enjoy a wine that reminds one of great white Burgundy without the oak.

And, goodness-gracious-me! The Schilcher has been tamed—not in every instance, nor in one special case, but we had a couple of these that earned a solid four-glass rating, where the edges of the West Styrian specialty showed lively, but neither raspy nor raw.

There were many occasions when the known greats performed as expected—it's been fairly consistent that the wines of Willi Bründlmayer and Fred Loimer will impress us, but when a bottle from Dürnberg—also poured with label concealed—holds its own among the aforementioned, that catches our attention.

The widest gulf in quality that one might complain about is evident in the category of sparkling wine. The best—Bründlmayer, Schloss Gobelsburg, Malat—are very fine, also by international standards, but there follows a bit of a plunge into the depths shortly thereafter...

Clear above all is that in 2010 the successful grower was he or she who knew how to follow up their conscientious work in the vineyard with the utmost facility in matters of cellar-technique.

~ Littoral ~

2011-03-08T17:55:00.004-05:00

everything that’s washed ashore

becomes fit fodder, just fine to build

the frozen flame

the retroflective face

when passions run deeper than grace

sometimes a tale told

in the dawn tide of a single truth

or such a torrent down

in a single tear

when wanting runs hotter than fear

everything that’s lost before

like past prescriptions newly filled

a test of will

but habit is denser

so fine a new foil still can fail the fencer

sometimes elemental powers

prescribe a pace in the force of nature

not fail to notice

bow down a greeting

and none of this escapes our meeting

every single sometimes lovely thing

become, remain—drop from decay

into the final frame

to blossom now with multifoliate blame

stride forth from shadow, animate in flame

eine kleine Übersetzung aus dem Knulp...

2011-01-11T07:46:00.007-05:00

a little translation from Hesse's Knulp...

Es sitzt ein müder Wandrer
In einer Restauration,
Das ist gewiß kein andrer
Als der verlorne Sohn

here sits a weary wanderer
in the inn with a beer and a bun
who can it be? that's it—that's he!
that sumbitch Prodigal Son...

Greet the Grape— Zweigelt !!

2011-01-10T10:10:00.007-05:00

...so a little over a year ago I was sitting relatively pretty in Weiden am See, on the banks of the Neusiedlersee in Burgenland. I had been invited to take part in a jury-tasting of new red-wine releases by the Österreichische Gastronomie Zeitung (Austrian Gourmet Digest, sortof) along with a wide range of wine people from various disciplines—other tasters from France, Belgium, England, Sweden and Bavaria—plus a couple Austrian wine-journalists.

Most of the wines came from the 2007 vintage—good material. The variety most often abused by the winemaker was St. Laurent, and the murder-weapon was usually François Frères mi-toast. Out of perhaps one hundred Blaufänkisch, ten were ethereally impressive, twenty were excellent, and maybe seventy a bit too ambitiously elaborated.
There were one-hundred thirty-five Zweigelts, and I would happily have drunk one-hundred twenty of them.

The experience made clearer to me that which I had long believed: there is no other grape-crossing which produces such consistently reliable and oftentimes delicious wine as does the Zweigelt. Not even Scheurebe offers serious competition, and Pinotage comes nowhere close.
A crossing is not a hybrid. Crossings result from the uniting of two vitis vinifera subspecies. Pinotage is a crossing of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut, for example. Popular hybrids include Seyval Blanc and Chambourcin—matings between vinifera and American vines.

Zweigelt is a crossing of Blaufränkisch with Sankt Laurent. It was created in 1922 by Dr Friedrich Zweigelt. He named it Rotburger because of its birthplace in Klosterneuburg, but due to occasional confusion with the Riesling/Trollinger cross RotbErger, Austrian wine pioneer Lenz Moser brought the current name into official use long about 1975. We will not go into Dr Zweigelt’s motives or his politics, but he was looking for prolific grape-bearing, good deep colour, and resistance to disease.

Zweigelt is relatively hardy when it comes to frost, drought, and to various ailments of the vine. In crossing Blauf and SL, Dr Z came up with a grape that tastes like neither.

Zweigelt is wonderfully versatile in its applications. It flourishes as monovarietal, but also blends beautifully with Blaufränkisch—as well as with French varieties Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon—and of course the two Bordeaux brothers together.

While occasionally profound, Zweigelt is so frequently delicious, and handles such a wide range of culinary demands, that one is amazed at its versatility. Try it with highfalutin’ Mexican cuisine, molé or adobo—take it to tandoori, pair it with panang—Zweigelt paints the very picture of panache…

Saufgelage ~ another hard night at the favourite industry hangout ~ !

2010-11-22T18:42:00.010-05:00

…specifically the one ‘cross 10^th Ave from the old railroad trestle at the corner of 24^th…. Where the jukebox played Schweizer Volkrock all evening while we drank some very fine Austrians—

Quintet of rather unusual suspects: Me and Millman, Ellisa and Cynthia—plus Allison Lee, with whom I used to share an elevator on 8^th Ave during my VOS days ~

On this occasion, Allison the Instigator, so would if we could call her Alligator for short, but she’s not short, more like 5’10” so I guess we can’t…

One of the things I like best about working with Austrian wines is that the people involved typically work and play well with each other. Always happy to see Carlo or Monika or Jonathan or Allison, who works with Daniel Hubbard at Domaine Select…

On this occasion 4 courses and 8 bottles, one cork-stinker—sorry Mr Glatzer—but truthfully even for us pros, 9 would’ve been too many…

—not quite Noah boarding the Arque,

but still I set up the animals two-by-two. Firstoff:

2008 Lackner-Tinnacher Gelber Muskateller—heavenly aromas, lovely vibrant acids, one of the finest in Steiermark—the only uncertainty might be, what does one drink with it? GM experiments in the past have favoured just the slightest of flavours—but we drank it by itself, which is a more reliable decision.

2008 Wimmer-Czerny Roter Veltliner—we put this alongside the GM, because RV has comparatively little in the way of aromaticity—but we dug deeply into it when the fondue arrived. Texture, texture, texture… great flavour and great match with molten gruyère and emmenthaler (nb I have been to Emmenthal...)

then came 2 Grüne Veltliner from opposite ends of the spectrum:

2007 Emmerich Knoll GV Federspiel, which Cynthia Sexton brought, an aromatic and lively interpretation of the GV, somewhat on the citric side of the colour-scheme—second course was a little mason-jar of chicken-liver paté, quickly the victim of a feeding frenzy—went five-ways handily, and whetted appetites in a tantalising fashion.

2006 Gritsch Mauritiushof GV Singerriedel Smaragd, a heavyweight with plenty of punch, firmly nestled into the tropical spectrum of grüner veltliner aroma and flavour, glorious minerality typical to the site, and well balanced even with 14.5% you-know-what. This with the steak tartare was a heavenly combination—nice as well with crepinette de porc and ris de veau…

followed by 2 more Heavyweights from the teeming metropolis of Spitz an der Donau:

2002 Hirtzberger Riesling Singerriedel Smaragd, a bottle that Frau Irmgard H. gave me some years ago. Whereas their 02er Hochrain Smaragd was pristine and bright a year ago, Singerriedel showed about as much botrytis as could be safely packed into a dry riesling. Beautiful light-orange colour, apricot and citrus-zest nose, apple and pineapple cream on the palate. Intense minerality against still-zingy acids. Most of the diners headed for red wine dishes for their main courses—I ordered the pork garlic sausage with Yukon golds and leeks, so got to drink a substantial quantity of it…

2007 Karl Lagler Tausendeimerberg Neuburger Smaragd, out of a rather slatey site; like the first two bottles it came with Allison. I find fascinating that not-so-aromatic wines like Neub and RV don’t come across as deficient when tasted alongside fragrant bottles of RR and GV. Lovely texture, nutty flavours almond and pistaschio, a bit of bosc pear, acids well folded into layers of fruit, very handsome.

‘twas not really intended to be White Night, just sortof

turned out that way—but good to have a couple Rotweine from Burgenland, from opposite sides of the lake:

2007 Hans & Anita Nittnaus Heideboden, Zweig/Blauf/Merlot cuvée, just like satin—fruit sashaying backandforth from blueberry to sourcherry, very polished thanks to the international partner in the blend, ripe tannins and plenty of gitupngo. And I have to say that chef Ralf Kuettel has really got the hang of the hangar steak.

2006 Rosi Schuster Blaufränkish Reserve, the last bottle in my basement, and the end of the line for this cuvée from Hannes—sweet core of fruit, black-cherry and blackberry; expansive material, very little wood from 2^nd fill barriques; pretty depth and nice minerality heading down the dolce vita.

…after the crowd thinned out I realised a personal ambition and got the three ladies to read

the opening of Act IV Scene I from the Scottish Play—

Allison was a good sport about it, and the other two know me

well enough to be prepared for all sorts of foolishness…

—and at this point, I shall turn into the spirit and soul of discretion, and allow the remainder of the evening to remain at our table… will only say that Bob Millman

gave a very good account of himself as sitdown-comic—

or was it Standup-Philosopher?

¡ Verkorkt ! Bouchonné ~ !

2010-11-07T11:56:00.006-05:00

bottle of Beaujolais Villages, intended for showing to retail buyers,
vivid stinker, and spoiled on the palate as well...

started to pour it out,
poured it in the lentil stew instead, along with half as much water—
almost immediately aromas of fresh and lovely gamay fruit
came wafting out of the pot.
no trace of corkiness in the dish.

yes, the cork-taint TCA does make itself scarce under fire.

and do try this at home.

letter to the manager, Tabard Inn, Washington DC

2010-10-27T19:39:00.005-04:00

Dear Mr Cohen,

with regret I need to mention that an otherwise fine dinner in your restaurant was marred by an unsavory experience with your sommelier Paul Michel.

Saturday night last, a glass of Dolcetto di Dogliani I ordered and consumed turned out to leave a substantial, most unsightly deposit in the glass.

Your server was great, she offered me another glass of wine, or a dessert—both of which I declined.

Sommelier had introduced himself earlier, warned me that the Dolcetto was tannic.

Dolcetto can certainly be tannic, but the tannins are customarily the riper and softer sort, rather than astringent like Nebbiolo.

When I pointed out to him the latticework of solids adorning the side of my glass, he actually waved me off—a physical gesture—

saying that the wine was unfiltered.

I didn't bother to inform him that I sell wine in Manhattan to earn my living,

and that I know what unfiltered means, and how unfiltered wines behave.

I wasn't working, and my date was not a wine-person; she didn't need to listen to a lecture.

the amount of solids which had precipitated out of this wine led me to consider that perhaps the wine had suffered from too great a temperature fluctuation at some point,

—Mr Michel was not willing to listen to this.

the likelihood, now that I consider carefully, is that this came from a bottle that had been open for a few days, perhaps put under refrigeration to retard spoilage

and I had been poured the last glass out of the bottle.

so, two issues here:

has your staff been trained to take care with unfiltered bottlings?

of greater concern is Mr Michel's dismissive attitude, and unwillingness to engage.

I understand that he cherishes career aspirations that do not involve pouring wine at the Tabard Inn, but when he is on duty in your restaurant,

where I have been dining almost always with great pleasure since 1981, he needs to respond adequately to the concerns of a guest.

This foolish behaviour reflects poorly not only upon your restaurant, but on the wine profession as a whole—and this profession I care about greatly.

I attempted first to the address the issue on a collegial level with Mr Michel directly, in a tone that was no way unfriendly.

since the world is growing ever smaller, it was not difficult to leave him a message via Facebook, intending a couple words of advice for a younger colleague:

"even if the Dolcetto was unfiltered

why did the sludge have to end up in my glass?

to which he replied,

"please do not email me

Paul"

first dismissive then defensive. Perhaps he is having a bad week—I have no history with him.

I rather imagine this is not the face you wish to put on your restaurant.

best regards,

James Wright

...::::::::::::::::::::::::..

james wright

auslese@verizon.net

+1.646.413.5392

http://wine-wein-vino-vin.blogspot.com/

headnote—quick take on GV

2010-10-19T10:03:00.003-04:00

there are some Grüner Veltliner we love, some we admire, and some which inspire the uttermost respect.
Others we hang out with simply because of the variety's almost sluttish willingness to widely and wildly embrace quite a variety of table-companions...

Greet the Grape ~ Grüner Veltliner

2010-10-08T11:06:00.019-04:00

…although a respected colleague labels her litre wine Grooner, pronouncing the actual first syllable of Grüner Veltliner is a bit more involved—the vowel is halfway between oo and sometimes-y—the groove that you hit, and the grin that you grin where the wine goes in.

that’s what the titties on top of the ü are about… The German language has more vowels than does the American or even the British. Let’s try this: gewurztraminer has no ü in French, but Gewürztraminer does in German. So try, perhaps, saying Grüner with a French u… as in Muscadet sur lie…

but surely that’s the only tedious thing about this remarkable grape—also known as Weissgipfler because of the white tipping on the leaves. Either way, it’s just as much the national treasure of Austria as poor Mister Mozart—and much more so than Familie Trapp, or the Spanische Hofreitschule…

at the basic level when GV comes out of the spigot in a tavern in Grinzing (Vienna 19) it’s sort of like pinot grigio with an imagination. At the exalted heights of Högl or the unrelated Pichlers, it can scare the hell out of a great white burgundy—my wine-snob friends in Los Angeles will not allow me to bring Bründlmayer or Gritsch to dinner when we are drinking their Ramonet or Coche-Dury.

one thing that various members of the GV tribe have in common is their aromaticity and spice—the simpler versions attract attention by means of a peppery snap, while the more luxuriant expressions trade this for an entire orchard of tropical fruit-tones and a vibrant acidity that is not so obvious as that of the noble Riesling. My take on the vintage variability of some of these wines is that the skin phenolics are greatly influenced by exposure to sunlight, so each year is bound to be different, depending on sunshine and leaf-work done by the Winzer. GV prefers warm autumns so it may ripen patiently and evenly, but is happy growing in many different kinds of soil.

it’s an interesting grape variety at nearly every point in the spectrum. Litre GV is so charming and resilient that one can even drink a good one after the great Smaragd-level wines from the Wachau. Federspiel and comparably-weighted wines from the Traisen, Kamp and Krems are among the most versatile bottles that will ever sit on your dinner-table. But cheap GV will give you a belly-ache like no other wine. Promise. The Austrian word for heartburn is Sodbrennen.

we Americans associate GV primarily with the famous wine-growing districts of Lower Austria—Wachau, Kremstal, Traisental, Kamptal—but there’s so much of it in the Weinviertel that a good chunk of real estate carries the subtag “Veltlinerland.” And we have known for a long time that Traminer was one of the parents of this remarkable critter, but only recently has the other been discovered—a hitherto unknown variety in St Georgen, in the Leithagebirge on the west side of the Neusiedlersee in Burgenland. Where GV is widely planted. (NB. Roland Velich’s rare Moric GV from this district changes spots for stripes with a new vintage: sometimes it comes across like Château Laville Haut-Brion, in other vintages more Cortoncharliesque...)

as far as food-matching goes, there’s not all that much that GV can’t handle. Sauvignon blanc is better with tomatoes. I like guzzling litre GV with a gyro—between what the fruit does with the tzatziki sauce and how the acid digs its talons into the mystery-meat... And then I recently drank an extraordinary half-bottle of Schloss Gobelsburg’s 2008 Ried Lamm in the restaurant Rote Bar at Hotel Sacher in Vienna after the Staatsoper performance of Tannhäuser early last month. It paired most handsomely alongside an Almo-Ochsen Tartare served with mustard-grape ice-cream, but then equally well with Beuscherl—a rather gratifyingly hearty concoction made from a calf’s pulmonary apparatus and ticker simmered in Riesling. Visitors to Vienna should not miss the GV selection at the Asian restaurant Kim Kocht out by the other opera house on the Gürtel, where Sohyi Kim’s remarkable, sometimes fiery cookery provides the variety with some very interesting challenges.

Foto: © ÖWM/ Faber

~ reflections approaching a signpost birthday...

2010-09-28T20:08:00.011-04:00

one of the most important things which has smoothed my way through life—aside from having inherited my father's teeth and my mother's

liver—

is that while frequently in the company of those who need to

be Right, my need has been rather to be Heard...

photo: self-portrait—Auf der Brücke, KZ Dachau

Greet the Grape ~ Neuburger

2010-09-22T06:21:00.011-04:00

...there are many unique autochthonous grape varieties growing in Austria, some several of which produce memorably flavorful wines. And among these varieties, many turn out to be spontaneous crossings of two previously established types—and certainly Mr Roter Veltliner wasn’t always all too concerned about whom he woke up next to in the morning…

Neuburger—literally, the “new citizen”—is one of these extraordinary products of ampelographic promiscuity—Roter Veltliner mating with Señora Sylvaner (as ‘posed to Zierfandler, which is what that old goat Roter did with Madame Traminer…)

legend has it that a floating bundle of grape-cuttings was fished out of the Danube some hundred-plus years ago, planted out of curiosity, and turned out to produce a hardy vine that needed so little moisture that, as Josef Högl puts it, “sometimes the dew is enough.”

he holds his liquor well, does this son of the river—Karl Lagler in Spitz, among others, bottles a Neuburger that does not lack for agility at 14% alcohol and even a touch more… Nikolaihof picks it earlier, gets it into the bottle a little lighter with a handsomely polished texture—quite a lovely wine.

once upon a time, Schildknecht and I were entertained there by the eternally gracious Christine Saahs, where we tasted all manner of wondrous Rieslings and GVs, both ancient and youthful. And we were invited to take any bottles from our tasting down to dinner, which we did. It was springtime, and so Spargelzeit, the asparagus season so beloved in Austria and Germany. And at the end of our dinner, surveying the wreckage of a groaning board, the mighty Rieslings and Grüne Veltliner—the Steiner Hund, the Im Weingebirge—stood yet half-full upon the table—but the Neuburger bottle was empty…

one thing that Wachauer Neub is not, however, is particularly aromatic. Mainly about texture and tongue—

elsewhere the wines turn out lighter and spicier, as proven by Karl Alphart, in the Thermenregion south of Vienna. His Neuburger “Hausberg”—out of deep brown soils with a bit of limestone—not only comes in at a modest 12.5%, but also shows aromatix that neither mom nor dad could’ve called their own. Lightly spiced and elegantly tropical, Hausberg finishes with a wave rather than a wallop.

Foto: © ÖWM/ Faber

while Thomas Mann was having a difficult evening, James was enjoying himself in the morning—...

2010-08-01T11:14:00.018-04:00

————Zitat des Tages

——————Thomas Mann, im Tagebuch am 27.11.36
hinsichtlich einer Rundfunksendung der Venusbergmusik aus Tannhäuser:

"Die Romantik ist eine unsaubere Welt. Ich will nicht mehr viel davon wissen."

~

a memorable bit of Outdoor Beethoven—

2010-06-25T05:52:00.006-04:00

having recently come back from a short week in Berlin, I got into a little discussion about Beethoven and other symphonists—along with the great conductors—on one of the wine boards.
Something that's worth recycling:

Berlin, Germany—9 November 2000

the country had seen in prior weeks an ugly spate of Turk-beatings and gay-bashings—a nasty trend toward skinhead violence. So the city of Berlin laid-on an official demonstration against Facism.

in the early dark I found myself among 200,000 other individuals gathered in Boulevard Unter den Linden, clear and cool.

Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Jewish Council, delivered a stirring address—blew a lot of lazy people's shit away, actually—
in memory of the Kristallnacht Pogrom of 9 November 1938.
Dr. Spiegel went on to point out—and people did not stop talking about this for a good while—that if one were truly opposed to violence against minorities, whether distinguished by colour, nation, sexuality or religious heritage, it became incumbent upon the individual to speak up and object whenever—at the dinner table or in the bar—jokes or stories were told making fun of this or that group, because in these seemingly innocent anecdotes lay the potential seeds of violence and murder.

nearly a quarter of a million people shoulder-to-shoulder while a great orator laid it on real thick...

and when the shouting died down at the end of Spiegel's address, there, on the bandstand in front of the Brandenburg Gate—
the Stadtskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim on the podium.
—the four strokes of doom that open Beethoven's middle symphony.
this, ladies and gentlemen, was electric.
and in the finale, the excitement grew to nearly overwhelming.
Whoever coined the phraselet "to beat the band" must've had Barenboim in mind...

a quick word from across the water ~

2010-03-01T07:33:00.016-05:00

I see some folks in the course of my travels who ask me why Austrian wines are comparatively expensive, and I tell them that most of the cheap stuff is actually disposed-of either in the village, or beyond that border most immediately to the west. Thanks to contributions from two Facebook friends, I have an example to show:

Falstaff Mario Scheuermann berichtet, wie peinlich österreichische Weine im deutschen Diskonter angepriesen werden. Ein Zweigelt, angeblich Reserve mit klingenden Beinamen wie "Swinging Mountain", "Pride auf Austria" und "really red". Ah geh! Um 1,49 Euro.

according to Falstaff magazine, (Hamburg-based) wine-critic Mario Scheuermann reports, how embarrassingly Austrian wines are promoted by German discount-stores (say, like Target or Wal-Mart). For 1,49€ (a little over two dollars) one can buy a Zweigelt—supposedly "Reserve"—with a sonorous (English language) nom-de-guerre like: Swinging Mountain, Pride of Austria or really red—

...ah gitaway!!!

winely reflections from boa-constrictor brunch ~

2010-02-28T09:24:00.018-05:00

...this is of course none other than the famous illustration from Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry’s great novel, Le Petit Prince, which depicts un serpent boa, qui avalit un fauve—I beg permission for fair use—

and not hard to figure out, boa-brunch is when you cannot eat a thing for the rest of the day, and for me yesterday it was dim sum that done the deed.

but was interested to note, that along with the stuffed eggplant, the shu-mai, the crystal shrimp dumplings, the sesame-fried wontons—the better companion was not the grüner veltliner 08 Höhlgraben from Gerald Malat—but rather a riesling Smaragd—Josef Högl Vision 06, left over from visiting Tom McKnew and Dean Gold and Tony Quinn in DC on Wednesday.

—imagine that—we all know grüner is best with everything, and high-octane riesling Smaragd from ripe vintages proves too often problematic in the dining department—but on this occasion I was amazed at how, though the GV cleaned up quite nicely after each mouthfull, this big middle-linebacker of a riesling had the knack to fit and insinuate the corners and billows of its sweet, savoury and tart flavours into those of what for suburban NJ was really pretty respectable dim sum.

...depicted below, also © M de St.-Exupéry his heirs and assigns, what the serpent boa looks like (and feels like) after said brunch...

STERN magazine article about wine glasses...

2009-12-21T10:06:00.008-05:00

—just did the following translation of stern magazine's article about the great wineglass taste-off for the folks at Zalto...

Clink! Georg Riedel can convince his customers. Bowing ever so slightly, he looks his guest straight in the eye, smiles revealing a couple of teeth, and touches his glass to the other. Cheers—Clink!

Change of scene: your own kitchen. Crick! Dry and harsh. This is the sound one fears. Another glass for the dustbin, the bowl twisted off the stem whilst drying. Usually one’s own fault, for not paying attention. Or do we blame the glass? Too fine, too fragile? And in the end is it worth it, the purchase and the price? Is it not just our imagination, that the flavour is better?

Georg Riedel creates wine glasses, perhaps the best of all. His work has been so successful that one either knows—or else at least has heard—that wine tastes better out of expensive glasses than it does out of the normal sort—say, the ones from IKEA. Riedel understands the customer’s anxiety over breakage, as he does their fear of being taken in by an expensive illusion. But he can answer those questions handily—he’s well-rehearsed.

To begin with, he eagerly demonstrates the resiliency of his glasses—he pours Burgundy into balloons—you could say they’re evocative of Brigitte Nielsen, long legged and voluminous. Scarcely have you picked up your stem to toast, he’s brought his glass against yours. Clink? That’s an understatement for these Burgundy-bells. GONNNNGG! is more like it… and not just GONNNNGG, but then the sound reverberates! And the glasses? They remain intact.

Okay, point made. Good first impression.
Now for the aromas and the flavour:
Riedel pours Champagne into a slender Champagne flute and pours the rest of the bottle—Brigitte is still there—into the emptied Burgundy-balloons. Compare them, please—Hmmm… smells like two different wines, tastes like different wines. Just a sec, says the guest, there must be a bit of Burgundy left in that glass from the previous flight...

Patience, says Mr Riedel. He pours the contents of the champagne glass into the burgundy-balloon. Swirls the wine about. Pours half of it back into the champagne glass. Let’s compare them again. Still smells, still tastes like two distinct wines. And that’s not the worst of it: The Champagne tastes better out of the Burgundy glass. The guest asks, And that’s going to spell the end for the Champagne flute? Riedel answers, Yes.

We found this rather impressive, so stern set to work, to carefully and systematically investigate the wineglass question. We invited the ten most important glass-works to a blind tasting, and asked them to send what they considered to be their best glasses for three wines—Riesling, Burgundy and Bordeaux. Hundreds of cartons had to be received and stored, 600 delicate glasses must be individually unpacked and unwrapped, then rinsed by hand, dried by hand and placed at the ready—and then after the tasting once again washed, dried, wrapped, packed and sent back to the glassworks. An endless amount of work, that was.

Work, that is, in service of you, the reader. Who can now feel sure of the answer to the following question: If the finer glasses are adequately sturdy, and can influence the flavour of a wine to such a degree, then is it worth the expense to buy them? And which ones to buy? Are all glasses created equal? Is hand-blown better than factory-made? And more importantly, can the untrained palate of the consumer distinguish the difference? This is a lot of money—a glass can cost as much as 55€.

All the major glassworks participated. They provided the jury of professionals and flew their directors in at their own expense, from Stockholm (Orrefors), Vienna (Lobmeyer and Zalto), and Munich (Riedel and Zwiesel). These glassworks specialists were complemented by ten experienced sommeliers to form the professional jury. Additionally, to represent the reader, stern invited 20 participants from magazine’s series Wine School—these individuals made up the consumer panel. The juries tasted separately from one another overseen by an eminent judge, a wine enthusiast who took a day’s holiday to participate.

In order to eliminate any influence of the glass’s physical form, making certain that only nose and mouth informed their opinion, the forty jurors wore blindfolds. And gloves, which made it difficult for the glassworks’ directors to recognise their own handiwork by the feel of its stem. In each flight the panellists had ten glasses in front of them, filled with the same wine. For white wine, it was a Riesling, 2005 Geheimrat J Spätlese Trocken from the estate of Geheimrat J. Wegeler. For the category of lighter aromatic red wines, the tasters were given a 2007 Spätburgunder Blauschiefer from the estate Mayer-Näkel in the Ahr valley. And for the group of full-bodied red wines, a 1997 Château de Pez, Crus Bourgeois from St.-Estephe was poured.

The jury considered which glass presented the wine best and most faithfully to its type—in the nose, on the tongue and on the palate. Additionally, they evaluated the glasses according to which felt the most agreeable in the hand, which was the best-balanced, and which provided the most effective contact with the taster’s lip. So that the tasters could find the stems without mishap, the glasses were served on a slotted cardboard surface, each one securely placed.

For each style of wine, each juror awarded twelve points in the category Aroma and Taste: five points for the winning glass, three for second place, and two to the third. For balance, manageability and mouth-feel, two points were given.

First conclusion:
The wines tasted markedly different out of different glasses. The choice of glass significantly determines how the wine presents itself. For the consumer panel as well, these differences were clearly perceptible. It’s confirmed: if you drink a fine wine out of a clunky glass—or out of a plastic cup—you waste much of the pleasure. But beware of assuming the opposite: Plonk that costs 2 Euros per bottle will not taste better out of a hand-blown glass; rather to the contrary, any weakness and flaw of a mass-produced wine comes to the fore.

Second conclusion:
There’s no such thing as the all-purpose glass. Certainly there are glasses that do well with several different styles of wine, which do offer a sort of lowest common denominator: glasses that combine a medium sized bowl with a tall tulip-shape and a relatively small opening.

And how about the ideal glass?
● no patterns and no colour
● large volume, to facilitate swirling
● light weight
● fine balance
● long stem
● thin walls
● no lip

Third conclusion:
Wine tastes better out of hand-blown glasses than it does out of machine made glasses. The professional jury inclined to make an exception for machine-made Bordeaux glasses, which they preferred to hand-blown examples. According to their evaluation, these felt better in the hand, more comfortable on the lip and imparted a more elegant tone to the wine. And even though the consumer panel gave first place in every category to a hand-blown glass, they gave good marks to the machine-made examples in the subsequent places. This jury preferred the heavier and sturdier glasses—particularly light and elegant stems were scored more reticently.

When one tallies up the points from professionals and consumers, Zalto, Zwiesel and Orrefors take the top spots. In one instance Stölzle worked its way into third place. Except for the glass from Stölzle (5,50€) these glasses are hand-made, delicate and relatively expensive (at 30€ or more). And if one considers the relationship of price to achievement, Stölzle comes out ahead. With noteworthy scores in every category, priced under seven Euros, they are the most affordable, followed by Leonardo and Riedel. Here hand-blown glasses—except for the comparitively inexpensive entry from Zalto—bring up the rear.

And not every grape variety needs its own glass, but every type of wine does—Burgundy, Bordeaux, white wine. The investment in glasses is worth it, more so as the price-difference even among hand-blown glasses is considerable. After the tasting, the chiefs of the glassworks returned home in a very reflective mood. And they’re seeing the results here in this issue for the first time, just like the reader.

But immediately after the tasting, one thing had become clear to market leader Georg Riedel: The competition is most certainly hot on our heels!

~ Foiled Again ~

2009-11-30T17:26:00.028-05:00

...and another lovely evening at Seasonal Restaurant in W58 St...

I shall just say here at the outset that Seasonal is a delightful restaurant, one of my favourites—but also a good customer of mine, and even though this weblog is several stages removed from any official journalistic responsibility, I shall infer that such accountability does in fact exist, and state the fact at the outset that I do sell them a number of items: liquid, containing alcohol, coming from Burgenland and Niederösterreich...

chefs Wolfgang Ban and Eduard Frauneder—from Donnerskirchen in Burgenland and Vienna, respectively, have created a little oasis of civility and sophisticated flavour around the corner from Carnegie Hall—importing to NYC what strikes me when I'm over there as best about contemporary Austrian cuisine: it can become rather adventurous at times, without every losing sight of its national heritage—

and you would never know from the intro, but this is actually heading toward a couple tasting notes...

I showed up for dinner with three Austrian wine professionals, and two bottles clad in tin-foil.

...and after fifteen minutes of the wines loosening themselves up in the glasses, the Austrian wine pros were actually ready to believe me when I told them that the first of the two heady reds came from California, and the second from Bordeaux. What a scoundrel ~!

— it was a pair of ten-year-olds from south of Vienna in Burgenland that I had hauled out of my cellar and concealed in Stanniol...

1999 Paul Achs ‘Ungerberg’

1999 Kollwentz ‘Steinzeiler’

These are both examples of the potentially excellent indigenous variety Blaufränkisch—the Achs, from Neusiedlersee, having been blended with Syrah & Merlot, and the Kollwentz—other side of the lake, Neusiedlersee-Hügelland—with Zweigelt and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The two bottles were both in perfect shape, and had done diligent duty during their days and nights of aging in my basement.

Achs showed aromatic notes of dried fruit, cocoa, raspberries and blackberries—had soaked up any oak, and made quite a satisfyingly rounded impression, beautifully layered with ripe tannins and full body. Excellent with a hunk of beef.

Kollwentz, in comparison, seemed a bit younger, a bit of black cherry and less blackberryish—and truly bordelaise in style. It hadn’t lost all of its edges, showed a magnificently complex bouquet, great depth of aromatics, a little more demanding on the palate, but very fine, and likely to live a little longer—

—although given the proclivities of the Austrians to drink their wines young, one might have a hard time finding any supplies of either wine in Austria now.

I laughed neither long nor loud, and so the colleagues were all good sports about being victimised by my little joke—or as one says in Austrian,“led behind the light...”

Leoš Janáček——Z mertvého domu ~

2009-11-26T18:00:00.038-05:00

How is it I’ve been going to the opera since 1972—and eagerly attending Jenufa, Katja Kabanova, Füchslein and Makropolous at every opportunity since ’76—and only day before yesterday stumble into the House of the Dead?

and is there another composer who sounds quite like Janáček? Is he like a hard night in a halfway house on the road to ruin from Moussourgsky to Bartok, perhaps? His music lacks neither root nor branch, but remains unique and satisfying. Even that old warhorse Sinfonietta sounds forever fresh, and his Glagolitic Mass is a sinful feast for the ears—although I couldn’t bring myself to hear it done with electric organ at beloved Carnegie Hall when it was recently performed there…

Introverted barbarity and extraverted barbarity—they find their way to unholy union in Janáček’s operatic setting of Dostoyevsky’s novel From the House of the Dead. This is quite a remarkable work, convincingly demonstrating among other things that the Romantic idiom had not been totally exhausted by Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, and still had some wind left in the late 1920s. The introverted Dostoyevsky and the extraverted composer leave nearly no variety of anguish in the garderobe as they command the stage for some ninety minutes with a work where very little action takes place—apart from a couple very appealing pantomimes, beautifully rendered in this production.

Like most any opera that wasn’t written by DaPonte and Mozart, dramatic motion is a problem in LJ’s works. Whatever the faults of Patrice Chéreau’s centennial production of Wagner’s Ring cycle—and they were legion, although that production was much more effective as a television show than it was as live theatre in the cramped and moody Haus up on the hill in Bayreuth; only the magical hand of Maestro Boulez saved him from utter embarrassment at the time—he does an excellent job with this opera. His vision of prison life is very animated and expressive, didn’t leave out the buggery or the tenderness. Took a dramatic opportunity to drop a ton of rubbish onto the stage to punctuate the first act, then put the players to work picking it all up to begin the second. I’ve noticed this trend for the past ten years in European opera houses, directors putting some sort of motion on stage in order for it to seem like something is actually happening in an opera—notably street-theater jongleurs and acrobats in Die Tote Stadt at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and a Daniel Barenboim reading of Die Meistersinger with rollerblades at Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

Wonderful job by Essa-Pekka Salonen, managing myriad conflicting bursts of momentum, allowing the ecstatic orgiastic orchestral couplings to erupt in wave upon wave without ever badgering the singers. William White tragic and stentorian as Gorianchikov, while Peter Mattei held attention quite well as Shishkov—all in all an excellent vocal crew, the one female voice a bit of a shock...

Almost frenetic and kaleidoscopic juxtaposition of instrumental figuration, wholetone and bitonal moments contrasted against ineluctible modality, sonorities falling out of a yawning gap between twittering flutes and a sustained note on the contrabassoon... Agitated broken rhythms, patterns and reiteration—lots of noise out of the kitchen—chains and hammers; layered instruments combined in choirs commenting one upon the other... and then there was the choral writing, haunting and menacing. Instrumental melodies grounded in oblique unanticipated intervals, and LJ’s characterismic vocal melodies closer to the Moravian speech. The connexion between language and melody was a special theme for Janáček, and I felt scandalised back in March when the Staatsoper in Vienna felt obliged to sing Jenufa in Max Brod’s contemporaneous German translation, instead of the original Czech.

The Metropolitan Opera orchestra has to be one of the very best. Here, there, anywhere—in the pit or on stage. In the past year I’ve heard them play under Levine, Ozawa, Barenboim and now Salonen— although I would rather hear Levine conducting Boston in a concert hall, it’s truly remarkable how they can play so convincingly well being led in so many different directions. In fact I believe Pierre Boulez gets his paws on them later this season at Carnegie Hall, and that is sure to be a treat.

I am beginning to have a better opinion in general of the Met than the one I have held for the last decade or so. And I shall try to see this again before it closes.

Facing the Facts on Furmint

2009-11-10T16:11:00.003-05:00

A trip on the track of the old grape variety Furmint can really wear out the wikipedias these days—where once upon a time various libraries would be consulted, dusty tomes wiped sneezily off, and faxes fired away in the directions of Klosterneuburg and Geisenheim and Montpellier and Davis, beseeching council and elucidation, one now just employs search engines in any familiar language to be rewarded with a dazzling array of conflicting information, along with attractive images that are (we hope) in the Public Domain.

This much we suspect: it could derive the name from its wheaten color—the French word froment offers an alternative to blé. Or perhaps the name comes from the Italian city Formia, or might have been blessed by the Venetian princess Formentini in the 17th century. Or perhaps the great poet Goethe is correct, and Furmint originated in Croatia.
Two known facts are:
1. Acidity
2. Alcohol
—facts that become factors facing the intrepid vintner who wishes to tame this tiger into something fit for other than long-living and multifaceted desserts.

Mr F is not too choosy so far as the dirt in which he stands, and bears abundant fruit, although not with any regular pattern. He rises early, but shines only late—for example, in Hungary most frequently picked at the end of October—a well-bred resistance to gray rot makes this possible, though he is occasionally irritated by oïdium...
Furmint has provided the backbone of the great Tokaji Aszu of Hungary since time immemorial, blended with the Hárslevelű and a number of other only slightly more pronouncable possibilities.

Since 1987, Furmint’s cultivation for dry wine has been permitted in Rust, but the name doesn’t currently appear on Wein Burgenland’s page of white varieties.

As a dry wine, we find that Furmint offers distinct varieties of expression: two recent visits to the newly anointed Michelin One-StarSeäsonal in W. 58th St. spelled the end for bottles of Heidi Schröck’s very tasty and tightly focused 07er Furmint—once where it served as an attractive companion to several successive courses, and the second visit when it prepared the palates of Winemongers James and Stephan for delights to follow, along with those of friendly competitor Carlo Huber and ÖWM-boss Willi Klinger.

But it still remains somewhat of a specialty: in addition to the aforementioned Heidi and fellow Ruster Michael Wenzel, a recent quick read through the Falstaff Weinguide turned up only two more rating-worthy Furmints out of 48 growers in Neusiedlersee Hügelland.

Wenzel, in particular, seems to explore the aromatic possibilities of the variety to the utmost, while keeping alcohol in check and balancing acid with texture rather handily.

And then there are the sweet expressions of Furmint—one in particular needs little introduction, or does it? The Ausbruch of the Free City of Rust: it's not about varietal character, but rather the blessing of the botrytis mold which affects the grapes with nearly yearly regularity. There are many inventive cuvées made, but one of the most traditional combines Furmint with the Gelber Muskateller.

And herewith, a catalog of Furmint's many aliases—not every one merits its own picture on the post-office wall, but some will be known to you ~:~

Allgemeiner, Alte Sestrebe, Arany Furmint, Beregi Furmint, Bieli Moslavac, Biharboros, Bihari Boros, Bihari Boros, Budai Goher, Cimigera, Csapfner, Csillagviraga Furmint, Damzemy, Demjen, Domjen, Edelweißer Tokayer, Edler weißer Furmint, Féher Furmint, Formint, Formont, Fourminte, Furmint bianco, Furmint de Minis, Furmint Féher, Furmint Szagos, Furmint Valtozo, Gelber Moster, Gemeiner, Görgeny, Görin, Goher Féher, Gorin, Grasa de Kotnar, Holyagos Furmint, Jardanszki Furmint, Keknyelü, Keresztesevelu Furmint, Kiraly Furmint, Krhkopetec, Ligetes Furmint, Luttenberger, Madarkas Furmint, Mainak, Maljak, Malmsey, Malnik, Malvasia verde, Malvoisie verte, malzak, Mehlweiss, Moscavac bijeli, Moslavac, Moslavac bijeli, Moslavac zuti, Moslavina, Mosler, Mosler gelb, Mosler gelber, Moslertraube, Moslovac, Moslovez, Nemes Furmint, Poam Grasa, Poma Grasa, Poshipon, Pošip, Pošipbijeli, Pošipveliki, Pošip Vrgonski, Posipel, Posipon, Pospisel, Rongyos Furmint, Salver, Sari Furmint, Sauvignon Vert, Schimiger, Schmiger, Seestock, Seeweinrebe, Shipo, Shipon, Shiponski, Sipelj, Šipon , Som, Som shipo, Somszölö, Szala, Szalai, Szalai janos, Szalay Göreny, Szegszolo, Szegzölö, Szigethy Szöllö, Szigeti, Toca, Toca Tokai, Tokai Krupnyi, Tokaiskii, Tokaisky, Tokaijer, Tokay, Tokayer, Ungarische, Weisslabler, Weisslauber, Zapfete, Zapfner and Zilavka

the end of an era ... ~

2009-10-31T16:41:00.012-04:00

an overdue tasting note from July ~

and my very last bottle of 90s-era Koehler-Ruprecht Rieslings from the fabled vineyard Kallstadter Saumagen in the Pfalz—

~ this one the 1996 Spätlese Halbtrocken,

Cynthia Sexton over to my suburban burrow for dinner one Saturday evening, and a dish of scallops sautéed in butter and freshly ground coriander, garnished with carrot and spring-onion shreds marinated all day in saké vinegar...

The riesling perfectly mature, though would’ve had plenty of life ahead—

very little in the way of noticeable petrol—the creamy texture that always comes with Bernd Philippi’s rieslings which ferment on their own yeasts till the cows come home in ancient barrels, some very innocent green apple and quince remaining, ginger and ginger-snap—and perhaps the wine’s only concession to its age was that it offered an impression just a little bit drier than halbtrocken might indicate. 11,5% alcohol, beautifully balanced and still slightly citric— heavenly with the scallops.

Kallstadter Saumagen, named after a local delicacy, is a bowl-shaped heat-trap in limestone north of Bad-Durkheim. And all said, this has been my favourite German estate for nearly as long as I can remember.

Doris Lessing does too have a sense of humour... ~

2009-10-18T19:35:00.010-04:00

so I just re-read her space fiction masterwork, Canopus in Argos Archives—

felt as before, that of the five novels, Shikasta is the most brilliant and Marriages the most magical,

but I found something fun in the Sentimental Agents, that I had not noticed before—and that was this:

in the large scheme of things over the series of novels, two long-lived galactic empires interact, Canopus and Sirius.

many diverse planets in each empire, but as we all know,

Sirius is the dog-star.

the Sirian planet that invades the unhappy and out-of-luck Volyen Empire is called Motz.

this was the name of Thomas Mann’s dog.

~ a—muse—ing ~

2009-10-15T09:45:00.001-04:00

there are bad operas

and good van halen songs

Jury Duty ~ Hang ‘em High~!

2009-09-28T06:54:00.010-04:00

so all flurry and fluster, getting back in the salad—I mean the saddle—

just returned from a week in Austria, where Helmut Knall of the Viennese publication Wine Times and Walter Tucek from the Österreichische Gastronomie Zeitung had invited me to sit on the jury blind-tasting the current release of red wines—

apart from too little time in Vienna (the tasting took place down on the Neusidlersee, at a resort hotel in Weiden am See)
this was very instructive and otherwise useful. Our jury was nine members from seven countries—in addition to three Austrians and me from the USA, we had an MW from England, an oenologue from Bordeaux, a journalist from Brussels, a Bavarian sommelier, and the buyer for the Swedish state monopoly. Good group, worked well together.

tasted nearly 300 wines in 4 days, all red mostly 07. The Zweigelts were mostly delicious and easy, the Blaufs took a bit of work, but showed great potential. St Laurent suffered from oak more often than not, as did the very modern Pinot Noirs. Cuvées were very successful, and there were a couple good cab/merlot concoctions. Out of 10 Syrahs, 10 were awful. Go fig.

scoring fairly severe all the way 'round. 20 points system, all blind. One (very expensive) wine that I sell barely got away with 16.5 from me, as I found out. That was funny. I gave out one 18 in four days, and plenty of 17 and 17.5—although I am not a scorer at heart. At least it was a departure from the foolish american 100 point system.

and how do you get through seventy heavy red wines in a day? well, a long lunch-break helps, and beer is very important as a restorative to the palate.

overall impression, they have made extraordinary progress there in the last seven years.

dined very well a couple times—I went out to Krems my first day for lunch with Fritz Miesbauer, and a long ramble through the vineyards at Stift Goettweig.
very good dinner with the Neumayer brothers at Restaurant Vincent in Vienna—the bigger 08s from this Trainsental estate have settled very nicely, their Weißburgunder vom Stein suffered horrible quantity losses from hail, but is clean as a whistle—a magnificent wine.

one problem Austria seems to be solving very well in the kitchen—unlike Germany who has not—is how do you allow your cuisine to develop with fashion, yet remain true to its origins.
and the local cuisine bourgeoise is something that I love very much. Lunch with Mister Miesbauer at Gasthaus Schickh in the town of Klein Wien included venison lungs with chanterelles and fresh greens—and a luncheon at Vargas in Gols provided me with my first taste of eel-liver (lots of garlic, smeared on bread)

great dinner with Roland Velich, his wife Dagmar, and Hannes Schuster at Gut Purbach on the west side of the lake. Here the cuisine was every bit as modern as one might wish, while in no way as international as one has come to fear.

although Austrian beer is almost invariably disappointing, my second-favourite fleatrap in Vienna is right down the street from the Siebenstern Brauerei, a brew-pub proving a welcome exception to this tiresome rule.

It was Kurbissaison, so pumpkin soup was everywhere and mostly delicious—especially at Gasthaus zur Witwe Bolte in the VIIth District in Vienna.

In Burgenland they'd already begun the harvest—I xchanged textmessages with Kracher but he was kneedeep in Zweigelt and couldn't tear away for an evening—and the jury paid a couple unnanounced calls on growers that were—in my opinion—better left alone. Gernot Heinrich gave us 45 minutes, which I thought was extraordinarily generous, Claus Preisinger showed us around for a quarter of an hour, and John Nittnaus told us not to bother to get out of the car... (Good for him~!)

nothing much doing in Vienna for music—Guys and Dolls at the Volksoper, but not on the right night. good Croatian restaurant, Konoba in the Lerchenfelderstraße, drinking Grasevina and Plavac my last evening...

other than a little anxiety over a tight connection at Heathrow (very careful about the connex that Expedia sells you in Europe—Heathrow and DeGaulle can prove quite miresome and tiresome) it was an easy trip and a pack of good lessons.

can rarely get enough of Vienna and environs these days...

an important visit in Vienna

2009-09-25T12:34:00.009-04:00

this is the Holocaust Memorial, in the Judenplatz.

in memory of some 65,000 Austrian Jews murdered by the National Socialist regime.

a very moving piece of architecture, depicts a library turned inside-out, with the spines of the volumes facing inward—no titles, just a compelling evocation: “the people of the book”

Songs of Innocence and Experience

2009-09-09T19:52:00.018-04:00

Actually, my title for this photograph is ‘Unschuld,’

which is the German word for innocence.

I shot it at least a dozen years ago in one of Rainer Lingenfelder's vineyards in the Pfalz.

Weingut Lingenfelder has resurfaced in the market, and is now working with Martin Scott. Rainer has been around a couple times in the past few months, and I've had the good fortune to spend a couple hours with him—and the even better fortune to be given a couple bottles that he'd carried from the estate in Grosskarlbach. Which is smaller than Kleinkarlbach, which I have always found amusing.

once upon a time I played a favourite trick on the lusty crew of degenerates I ran with in Los Angeles. We drank a couple magnums of 1979 Veuve Clicquot rosé, and then a mag of 66 La Tache (thank you Phil Ramey)—but in between, I served a bottle of 88 Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet Ruchottes Rouge. Well, you know and I know that Ramonet didn't make one—what I'd refilled the Ruchottes bottle with was a similar vintage of Rainer's very expressive Spätburgunder. And actually had these not-inexperienced wine-snoots thinking that they were drinking a rare 1er Cru red Chassagne.

but that was then, this is now:
two bottles from Lingenfelder:

2007 Pinot Gris Großkarlbacher Osterberg Spätlese (06-08)
I was on a plane to Paris that eve, so the bottle went home with Ellisa—surfaced out of her fridge some months later, accompanying her lobster salad with sweet corn, lemon and thyme.

Herr Grauburgunder wore the French alias on his sleeve, a very German wine—there could've been no way to confuse this with an Alsace PG—certainly, 12.5 alcohol, but a really nice and complementary bit of residual sugar, I would guess just over the halbtrocken hurdle.

but most importantly, the Osterberg showed a beautiful almost weightless/chiffon-esque rather startlingly light texture. grace and delicacy. which did not prevent it from digging in to the lobster—and the residual sugar provided a very nice lift into the finish aromatics—oddly enough, Ellisa liked it better with the salad, on account of the r-s—whereas most frequently r-s strikes most tasters as better on its own... pretty hazelnut and butterscotch tones, no preponderant minerality, but a wonderful mouthcoating texture—I liked it both ways, but thenagain, I'm easy.

the other bottle was actually a 375ml,

2003 Großkarlbacher Burgweg Auslese (20-04)

in keeping with the vintage, nicely ripe, but without significant (any, actually) botrytis.

had we been paying attention, we would have shared this bottle among two people, but it ultimately got split four ways one night at my place,

and given a hell of an assignment to cope with, foodwise:

portabellos stuffed with reduced and pureed mission figs, prosciutto and gorgonzola+black pepper

and the wine spoke fresh pear paired with poached pear—an aromatic evocation of innocence itself:

pairs of pears, not to mention the challenging cheesepairing implied out of the blue.

lovely texture, not heavy, not overly sweet—around 12% alcohol, perhaps 11.5—pretty mineral underlay, the wine showing the staying power of youth, no whiff of the petrol pump as yet—a very discreetly persistent acidity rounding it all out, glistening bright. long life ahead of it.

...only thing wrong was the bottle was too small. not enough wine in it ~

~ gained in the translation?

2009-08-28T08:12:00.018-04:00

I just reread Erich Maria Remarque’s great novel ‘Im Westen nichts Neues’

the vigilant observer will catch the anachronistic and east-for-west image, but, you get the idea...

couple of thoughts—I can never read it without being moved—

but I consider how many individuals hate this book because they were made to read it in school.

another thought is, though the title translates as ‘in the west, nothing new’—

I find the English paraphrase ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ to be much more evocative.

the very best example of ‘gained in the translation’ has to be Marc Blitzstein’s rewriting of Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Die Moritat von Mackie Messer’ into the American hit ‘Mack the Knife’...

among classics of WW1 literature, Remarque’s novel is first fiddle of the quartet that includes Ernest Hemmingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms,’ e.e. cummings’s ‘The Enormous Room,’ and John Dos Passos’s ‘Three Soldiers.’

the imagery and content guaranteed this work its pride of place among the very first books that the Nazis burned when they took power in 1933.

and along with this reading comes the occasional cynical thought—what do you do, if your first novel is one of the monuments of Western literature, and then you’ve got to live forty years longer...? certainly EMR produced a couple other fine novels, and many decent ones during the composition of which it must have become clear to him that he was neither Thomas Mann nor Herman Hesse, but this début was rather an impossible act to follow ~

off the top of my little pointed head ~

2009-08-25T09:24:00.002-04:00

in an email exchange with a good friend:

the most difficult task that desire must perform is betimes to submit itself to the discipline of patience.

~ You've had Pig ~ !

2009-08-16T16:51:00.012-04:00

So here is an excellent example of my occasional failure to pay attention.

I took this photo of myself some sixteen months ago, in the Hauptbahnhof in Düsseldorf. I was waiting to board the Super Chief to Berlin, and was taken with my reflection in the windowglass of a train which came in on the track before mine was due.

...caught up in this auto-erotic reverie, I neglected to notice that my train for Berlin had snuck in to the station on the track behind me, until I heard the last call announcement over the loudspeaker. Whereupon I lept aboard.

and as I collected myself pulling out of the station, I had stuffed the Motorola Razor used to take the pic in my pocket, had my twosuiter and my shopping bag—

but my shoulderbag was nowhere to be seen.

I had left it on the platform. Swore. German or English? don't remember. Yes I do. "Fuck!"

Took stock quickly, acted immediately—

got off the Super Chief at Düsseldorf International Airport, five minutes down the track.

changed platforms, got on the Regionalbahn headed back into Düsseldorf.

didn't even bother to revisit my previous platform, just swept down stairs in a flurry—

marched up to Lost and Found

asked for a black Tumi shoulder bag.

gratefully received same from the attendant on duty, who said

"Sie haben Schwein gehabt!!" (you've had pig!)

which means, yabastid you been lucky this time...

cost me 2€ for a windowseat reservation on the subsequent train...

good Viertel of Künstler Riesling, as the clouds and the landscape rollled by.

quick transplant from Facebook...

2009-07-29T06:23:00.018-04:00

German Spätburgunder is fascinating, in that, at its best, it is simultaneously unburgundian while remaining solidly Olde Worlde.

try Künstler, Münzberg, Lingenfelder, Meyer-Näkel, Fürst Löwenstein, Bernhard Huber, August Kessler—these should get you started...

—here, shown riding NJ Transit, is Rainer Lingenfelder, looking even more like Thomas Mann than he did this time last year... ~

...what in a name is ~

2009-07-28T10:06:00.011-04:00

this entirely superb 1955 recording has been pretty well stuck in my CD player most of the summer—

Dexter Gordon is most dextrously accompanied by Kenny Drew on piano, Leroy Vinnegar playing double-bass, with Larry Marable on drums.

Vinnegar figured among the prominent bassists on the west-coast scene in his day, developed his own distinct style of slapping the doghouse—

but the kicker is, this Bethlehem Archives CD release was remastered by a chap named Rick Essig.

Essig is the German word for vinegar.

ach du lieber ~

¡!¡ lost and found in the translation ~

2009-07-17T08:17:00.045-04:00

... this handsome image was newly captured by my friend and foreign correspondent Aaron Sing Fox, who covers Brooklyn, Italia, and The Mysterious East, during his recent visit to Tibet.

no further explanation necessary ~

...but it starts me musing about other instances in my own experience where the language shows itself off in fine form:

once upon a time in a retail wine shop, I was stacking boxes of Cava, that Spanish sparkling stuff which provides good and inexpensive bubbles to the Thirsty.

on the box was printed in Spanish something like ‘Vidrio Con Cuidado’

in English, directly translated as ‘Glass, With Care’

in French, ‘Manutentioner Avec Soin ’ which means “handle with care—”

but then, in German, ‘Bitte Nicht Werfen’ = “please don't throw...” (!)

but das allerbeste example of an observation gaining in the translation had to be printed in the introduction of a Zen-on edition from Japan of Georg Phillip Telemann’s sonatas for the recorder, or Blockflöte, which I encountered in a music-shop in Boston back in the 1970s...

and I quote:

“...a recorder is like unto a flute, except that it has no tampons.”

boys' night out ~

2009-06-30T20:33:00.004-04:00

so Lauber Imports wine guru Steve Miller found himself a temporary bachelor recently, wife and little one off for a couple weeks, and we found time to meet for dinner.

this happened at Cyril Renaud’s new eatery Bar Breton on Broadway.

Cyril’s Fleur de Sel was a favourite of mine for as many years as I’ve been around town, and I was quite sad to see it go... so I was eager to try the new place.

—less elegant, less detailed, less intricacy of preparation—same excellent standard.

emphasis on Galettes, ours was a deelish concoction of smoked salmon with leek and a horseradish sour-cream that was almost Bavarian. After which my pork belly was excellent, nicely rounded with wildish mushrooms and their broth—but which demanded that I abandon the mustard that I’d demanded to go with my frites which I’d requested instead of purée. Steve said that his roasted half-chicken could not have been done better, and the succesful execution of a simple concept was quite rewarding. A lemon and sugar crèpe shared for dessert was beautifully balanced and showed all the right moves.

the wine was astonishingly delicious, and cost less than $30 on the wine list.

2007 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet.

just perfect, that’s all. Body, fruit, acid—a nice bit of mineral. Succulent and savoury.

a few nice things like that on Cyril’s list, along with some quirky negoce burgs...

* Prussian Humour—Three-Star Style *

2009-06-29T13:56:00.032-04:00

No less an authority on military matters than

Generaloberst Heinz Guderian informs us—

in his operator’s manual to Dr Ferdinand Porsche’s

new heavy tank ‘Tiger,’

~ that the reason the Thirty Years War lasted for thirty years...

was that it took a soldier

27 distinct steps to load the

goddamned arquebus before he could shoot anybody...

~ as duties and ditties have permitted, I found an idle moment to translate and list the procedures involved:

1. hold the gun at an angle in front of you, barrel pointing up

2. with the butt in front of your left foot

3. take the cartridge out of the ammunition pouch

4. cartridge into the barrel

5. take out the ramrod

6. hold ramrod ready in front of you

7. ram cartridge home, 1-2-3

8. remove bullet-clip from ammunition pouch

9. hold clip in your mouth

10. bite one bullet off of the clip

11. bullet down the barrel

12. ramrod ready

13. tamp the bullet home, 1-2-3

14. take the feather from your hat

15. cradle the gun in front of you

16. wipe out the touchhole with the feather

17. put the feather back in your hat

18. take out your powderhorn

19. pour powder into the pan

20. replace the powderhorn

21. make a ferocious face

22. cock the serpentine

23. lay barrel upon gun-rest

24. aim well

25. ignite match in the doghead

26. Lord help!

27. FIRE!!!

a few favourites from the Terry Theise tasting...

2009-06-28T08:44:00.020-04:00

~ last week at the Tribeca Grill in Manhattan...

1. Although I work for a competing importer, Terry and I have been friends for twenty years now. Perhaps not the closest, but that's because we're two different types of frustrated guitarist. He's done more than any other single person to help the cause of first Germany and after that Austria in America—and then for an encore puts grower champagne on the map. Any questions?

2. Michael Skurnik has always been very generous about allowing me to visit his presentations. I stringently avoid doing any business—ie. chasing resto and retail buyers who've been ducking me—and just taste the wines, collect information, greet growers who are friends of mine and sometimes show a colleague around the room.

3. thanks to Jonathan Schwartz for the engraved invite.

4. I concentrated on Germany, having had a heaping helping of Austria at Prowein in Düsseldorf back in March

~ so, the wines that I liked particularly well:

Burrweiler Schlossgarten Muskateller Spätlese Trocken, Minges 08

a tensile brilliance to go with the piquant aromaticity.

Silvaner Halbtrocken Litre bottle, Gysler 08

since I sell litres, I like to taste litres. this one had terrific body, and even more pizzazz than their Scheurebe

Mandelring Scheurebe Spätlese, Müller Catoir 08

luxuriant without being too chewy, great balance and focus. I liked it better until I saw the price.

Nearly everything from Kruger Rumpf. especially the Grosses Gewächs Scharlachberg—as the name indicates, from a red-soil site. his litre Riesling was deelish.

Helmut Dönnhoff tells me once that he considers Spätlese to be the intrinsic express of German riesling. and he proves it repeatedly year after year. I usually like the Kupfergrube the best, but this year loved the Norheimer Kirschheck, and think that Oberhäuser Brücke is the one for the long haul.

Niersteiner Paterberg Spätlese, Strub 08

Not a glamour-site, but this wine is holyshitt delicious.

Kaseler Nies'chen Kabinett, Karlsmühle 08

blazingly brilliant, one of the best in show.

Everything from Spreitzer, from the litre trocken to the Spätlese 303, special mention for the Rosengarten Erstes Gewächs 08 and the Jesuitengarten Spätlese.

Selbach-Oster: I thought that the Spätlese Anrecht was particularly fine, though all the wines had a very pleasing density and persistent focus. Rotlay was also rather well detailed, no surprise, but certainly had no lack of flesh on the finely wrought frame. Is there any doubt that Johannes Selbach is one of the best and most consistent growers in Germany?

I very much liked the Roter Veltliner from Ecker—one Austrian I did visit and carefully taste.

Bert Salomon was more of a social call, his estate is a favourite, and there’s no finer gentleman to be found in my experience—but his GV Von Stein Reserve was quite a mouthfull of spiceful fruit and stone—fine, strong and rich all the way down the gullet.

short conversation with Bruce Sanderson later that evening in the kitchen of Die Blaue Gans—Kurt Gutenbrunner's party for the Austrian Trade Comission ran from the stove on one end and spilled onto the sidewalk on the other— confirming my suspicions that 08 in Germany is

Exactly What the Doktor Ordered.

or as Goldtröpchen—er, Goldilocks—said, "just right"

a new turn on an old tune ~

2009-06-03T06:39:00.009-04:00

occurs to me the other day, thinking about life and love, legend and lethargy—

I was an ugly duckling

who grew up

into a really ugly duck ~

Weingut Moric

2009-05-31T11:59:00.017-04:00

here's my translation of Austrian journalist Christian Seiler's interview with Roland Velich of the Moric Wine Estate...

—a very interesting grower working in Mittelburgenland, with whom I've become associated through my involvement with Winemonger Imports.

I want to create something unique and original…

Winegrower Roland Velich talks about the most recent international success of his red wines, the background to his discovery of Blaufränkisch as a great grape-variety, the blessings (and the hardships) of stubborn determination, and the reasons why he is reluctant to put his wines in blind tastings.

~~~~~

Christian Seiler: Robert Parker’s “Wine Advocate,” the most influential wine-publication in the world, has just published its scores of Austrian wines. Your wines did magnificently well. The Moric Blaufränkisch Neckenmarkter Alte Reben 2006 was awarded 95 points, thereby attaining a standard heretofore unachieved by any Austrian red. Were you surprised?

Roland Velich: Well, in any case, quite glad of it. Not totally surprised, though, because David Schildknecht, who evaluates Austrian wines for Robert Parker, had scored our wines very favourably in the past couple years. And he had already drawn attention to the excellent quality of the 2006 vintage: he said that it was “at least” as good as 2004—so although not entirely surprised, I was most certainly wonderfully pleased.

In recent years you have consistently withdrawn from any critique by the Austrian wine-press—for this reason some people might be surprised at your delight over the Parker points.

I had invited quite a few Austrian journalists to visit me in my cellar and observe the different forms of vinification that we use, to find out what’s going on. Nobody came. David Schildknecht undertook the long journey from the East Coast of the USA to Burgenland, and devoted several hours to tasting my wines. He tasted intensively, referred frequently between wines and made his notes. As a result of this he was well prepared to write quite perceptively about Moric, because he understood it so well.

So with this you intend to criticise the fashion for blind tastings currently prevalent in Austria, where the tasters sample a great number of wines without knowing their origin. Isn’t that a good way to prevent yourself from being inordinately influenced by the image or the mystique of a wine?

Not at all. In blind tastings as a rule one tends to prefer wines of the currently fashionable style, which means alcohol content, intensity from new oak and the degree to which it has been toasted—so that one is distracted by opulence, weight and power. Finesse doesn’t stand a chance in blind tastings.

How is that?

The palate is simply not intended to try 30-50 samples within a couple of hours. And wine isn’t made to be experienced in this fashion. The very nature of wine invites one to spend time with it, and to appreciate over time the pleasure of its various qualities and characteristics.

Plainly speaking, wines that don’t follow the current fashion score poorly in blind tastings?

Clearly so. Elegant and finely-tuned wines—which are designed to develop over time, first in the barrel and then in the bottle—are very difficult to evaluate when you taste them young. They don’t reveal themselves. And they don’t stand a chance alongside the heavyweights. For this reason I’ve stopped showing my wines in Austrian tastings.

The style of your wines, as you describe them, presents quite a departure from the currently favoured model of Austrian red wine. You are pursuing the goals of expressing minerality and terroir, while your most successful colleagues are producing fruity, powerful and oak-influenced wines. Why did you decide to swim against the mainstream?

For me that’s got a lot to do with the concept “Tradition.” Burgenland is an age-old wine region. And for example, the vineyards of Neckenmarkt, in the southern foothills of the Ödenburger Mountains, have always fascinated me. I’ve always engaged myself with differing soils types, but primarily with the ancient grape variety Blaufränkisch.

Why exactly Blaufränkisch?

Because so far as quality is concerned, the variety is fairly durable. Even when it’s made in style that’s totally modern, or even sloppily vinified, it yields interesting results. So I got it into my head to find out what happens when I allow Blaufränkisch grapes to ferment into wine under the best possible conditions. I wanted to know: what are the expressive capabilities of this variety? What happens when I don’t distort the wine by means of technology?

How did you get the idea, that in fact the Blaufränkisch possessed the potential to yield great wine?

Initially in a purely theoretical fashion. Burgenland is situated at the northwestern gateway to the Pannonian world, where the climate is rather somewhat cooler. The nights in September are no longer so oppressively hot, and since the Blaufränkisch is picked in October, frequently toward the end of October, the grapes have time in the cool nights to develop very refined aromas. That fits quite well with my idea of making wines that are not so powerful and opulent as in the southern regions of Europe, or in the New World, where the heat supresses most any sense of delicacy.

Despite this, it wasn’t obvious to concentrate on Blaufränkisch and to develop an entirely new style for this variety…

No, not at all. But here comes the practical part: I had always tasted old Blaufränkisch wines, which reminded me of entirely different regions: of wines from Piedmont, of Pinot Noir from Burgundy—possibly also of the Syrah from the northern Rhône. I was struck by flashes of similarity.

And these were?

Partly the fruit, partly the structure, partly the spice. There are places in Burgenland which provide a spice similar to that of Northern Rhône Syrah, particularly when the Blaufränkisch has the chance to develop for years in the bottle.

You mean the top wines?

No, it works with simply made wines as well. In grapes from certain vineyards in Lutzmannsburg, a tannin structure develops in this fashion that is similar to Nebbiolo from Piedmont.

You have, then, utilised a deep knowledge about international wines to divine the potential of Blaufränkisch

Of course. I am a wine grower, body and soul. My enthusiasm for wines didn’t stop at the borders of Burgenland, or even Austria. It was clear to me that I wanted to know more about the so-called great wines. How do the vineyards look? How are the soils composed? How are the grapes harvested? How do the people work in the cellar? What, all things considered, distinguishes a great wine?

You acquired this knowledge with the intention of making a great wine yourself someday?

I just took notes, and made comparisons. What is it that makes La Tâche so special? Why does it stand apart from all other wines?

And the answer?

That it’s not the opulence, not the power—but rather the eloquence of a special perfume, which makes a wine from a particular region or site so incomparable. The French call this “goût de terroir”: the flavour that a small patch of ground calls forth in combination with a grape. That’s the special thing—the encounter with nature. It’s the art of allowing something to develop naturally, something that no technical wizardry can possibly fabricate.

Where have you experienced this “goût de terroir” the most intensely?

Interestingly enough, in the borderlands of winemaking, at the extremes of where grapes can be grown. The places where the vines have a tougher time of it, where they are challenged by climatic conditions during the course of a year. That’s exactly what puts a vine in the position of producing something totally great.

And why is that?

Because the plants must root themselves deeper, and the day-to-night differences in temperature are substantial. We find this in Burgundy, in Chablis, in the Riesling-growing parts of Germany, in Austria with Riesling and Grüner Veltliner, and—as I see it, particularly with Blaufränkisch in Burgenland.

So you just put two and two together?

It wasn’t quite that simple. It was more of an experiment. I wanted first-off to understand what is possible, naturally inspired by the thought that a fine and elegant wine should be the result, a wine that doesn’t grab attention by means of opulence, but rather from the lasting impression of terroir in its character. For this reason I came simultaneously to two places, to Lutzmannsburg and Neckenmarkt, to vineyards some ten kilometers apart, in order to see what the detailed combinations of soil, grape variety and microclimate might be capable of producing.

You say that great wines bring the flavour of their place of origin to the fore. Can Blaufränkisch do that?

I believe that with Moric we’ve provided the evidence of this.

And how is that evidence demonstrated?

Our wines, which come from various vineyard sites, but made by a single hand, exhibit totally different flavour-profiles. One notices this not only in sites that are a few kilometers apart from one another in Neckenmarkt and Lutzmannsburg, but also in the individual vinification of grapes from gneiss, loam, limestone or slate soils in Neckenmarkt. This provides me with the evidence that Blaufränkisch can do what a great variety has got to do.

At the time you began to devote yourself to Blaufränkisch, who shared your assessment of the variety?

Let’s just say that there were more skeptics than there were believers.

And as your first wine from the vintage 2001 came on the market?

The reaction was relatively unanimous: we’ve got something lean and wispy, it’s got relatively little alcohol and relatively little new wood. No new super-Burgenländer. Of no great interest.

So the skeptics saw their views confirmed.

Yes, but there were of course individuals who considered the experiment to be a success, like the wine merchant Oskar Ammann in Nenzing. There were a few others, and that was also extremely important for me.

For economic reasons.

Exactly. I was fortunate in that I already had many contacts—international ones as well.

Since you together with your brother Heinz had already made white wines, including the very successful chardonnay “Tiglat,” considered to be one of the best whites in Austria.

Yes. With “Tiglat” we managed to make a variety—not native to Austria—speak with our voice. With the Blaufränkisch I wanted rather to give an indigenous grape an unmistakeable and distinctive status. I wanted to create an original.

How does your winemaking philosophy translate itself into practice? How does one “allow a wine to express itself,” as you are fond of saying?

First we looked for old vines, which perhaps don’t yield as bountiful a harvest as the younger ones, but offer significantly more flavour. The stalks were a little weaker, the bunches looser, with smaller berries. That’s the first resource. Then it became a matter of harvesting perfect quality. That meant, most frequently, reducing the yield, and—most importantly—stringent selection at harvest. Then we brought the grapes into the cellar, where we tried to do what earlier generations had always done.

Namely?

We let the grapes begin fermenting on the skins in wooden vats, with only a little extraction made by means of punchdown, so that the tannins couldn’t get the upper hand. We attempted to take the raw material to the next part of the process in the best possible condition, without changing the character of this material at all… Because when you cut the bunch from the vine, that’s when the quality of the wine is determined. You can only try to optimise this in the cellar—you can add no quality to the wine. You can only express what’s already there.

You speak about the traditional methods of vinification. Whose tradition? Cellar technique in Burgenland, or in other wine regions?

Naturally, it’s a synthesis, because that’s the story of winemaking tradition in Burgenland. The winemakers certainly had no three-week maceration time seventy or thirty years ago… and they hadn’t reduced their yields, simply because they couldn’t afford to do so. The old winemakers valued abundant harvests more than they did a bunch of grapes in perfect balance and ripeness. Refinement, depth and elegance aren’t really part of our tradition here.

So, no tradition?

Let’s call it a re-acquaintance with a grape variety, with old growing-regions and old vines, but also with the determination to perfect the product contrary to tradition, for the high-end sector. Not to render the wine more impressive, but to enhance its delicacy of expression.

And how do you define delicacy?

Balance between alcohol, tannin and acids. The tactile style and the feel of the wine. Wine should ultimately be able to quench thirst, and do this without needing a litre of water alongside to wash it down. This brings me back to Burgundy—a classically made red Burgundy is never heavy or cumbersome. Never.

Back to delicacy…

Delicacy has much to do with aesthetics. One’s senses and perceptions must be educated, like in music or visual art. One requires a certain education of the palate, in order to appreciate the delicacy that is there to be appreciated. That is crucial.

Back when you launched Moric, there were very few purely varietal Blaufränkisch at the top-end. Today that’s different. The upper echelons of the Parker ratings are almost exclusively populated by Blaufränkisch. Have you changed the Burgenländer winemaking landscape?

Let’s just say this: never before in the history of winemaking in Burgenland did we have so many wines from hundred-percent Blaufränkisch grapes in the upper-quality range—whose expression is based in elegance, expression and character of origin, that are fermented with natural yeast in large wooden barrels—as we do today.

You put that very diplomatically. Now name some names.

I had, of course, a few colleagues, who have always had a good hand with Blaufränkisch. Uwe Schiefer from Eisenberg, for example, who was perhaps convinced by my work to apply himself more intensely… And that goes in the other direction as well: Uwe’s 1997 Rheiburg is an unbelievable wine, which still today tastes youthful and shows what exactly what grew on the vine. And of course there are other examples—wines from a few Mittelburgenland producers, the ones from the Krutzler family, from Ernst Triebaumer, old bottlings from the Schuster family in Zagersdorf, which demonstrate how great the potential of this variety is.

So you related to these experiences, without feeling obliged to recreate them personally.

That’s correct. I can build upon the experience of the old masters. They help me to refine my own philosophy, in that I can compare and correlate my results with theirs.

And did you know, tasting the first Moric vintage, that you’d hit paydirt?

Honestly, yes. 2001 was not a great vintage, and I had a few start-up difficulties to deal with. But this wine already showed evidence that was very encouraging. Then came 2002, a magnificent vintage—not too hot, but rather with cool periods, which is ideal for Blaufränkisch. The grape material was better than I could hope for, and in the meantime we had added wooden vats for the open maceration, and we could work like I’d always dreamed of doing.

The 2001 Moric received a rather cool reception from the pundits—did that change with 2002?

The reactions were, very good but not exceptional. That’s totally ridiculous, when one drinks the wine today. There’s a cloud of perfume that climbs out of the glass. So much intensity, finesse, velvety elegance. I’m always impressed myself, again and again.

What happened during the maturation in the bottle?

It wasn’t just that the tannins mellowed and the acids worked themselves into balance, but the aromas just exploded. That is exactly what I had always wished for.

In the current Parker reviews your Grüner Veltliner from St. Georgen got rated on the same rung of the ladder as the best Wachauer and Kamptaler GVs. What’s this with Grüner Veltliner from Burgenland?

I’m always inspired by the idea of creating something original, and incidentally, Grüner Veltliner is in fact the most widely planted grape variety in Burgenland. So I said to myself, it must be possible to make a Grüner Veltliner that doesn’t emulate the style of Lower Austria, but strives in the sprit of originality to strike a path appropriate to Burgenland. We have different soils, different microclimates, and I wanted to let the wine ferment not in the usual steel tank, but in a large wooden barrel—these were experiments that we undertook, just as with Blaufränkisch, to let the wine express itself.

And how was it received?

My English importer said, “Don’t force me to sell this as Grüner Veltliner?”

Why?

He wasn’t alone. The people said, “this wine is quite good, but it’s not GV as we understand it.” So I had achieved my aim. I had created something original.

What’s your next step? Riesling from Rust?

No, we’re working together with Hannes Schuster to preserve an ancient winegrowing district in the neighbourhood of St Margarethen, in Zagersdorf. Fossil grape-seeds provide evidence that people have been making wine there for 3000 years. 20 years ago there were 120 hectares under vines, today only 30, thanks to the government’s unfortunate land-clearing subsidy. It’s a crying shame, when old grapevines get hacked out like this—they can’t be replaced within a person’s life-span. So we’ve leased three hectares and are launching our new brand M. Jagini red wine.

From Blaufränkisch?

Of course. An absolutely unmistakeable type of Blaufränkisch.

And now you’re producing wines from several different areas. Will you build your own winery/tasting room?

Yes, without a doubt. I won’t remain the amateur without an address for very much longer.

m’aidez~!

2009-05-31T11:56:00.008-04:00

the merry month of may is gone

with nary a song to hang my handle on...

too much actually paid writing work, and related foolishness...

I met a chap in the wine industry at a dinner, who said that he followed my weblog, and it was one of the nicest things I'd heard all week...

Röslein auf der Heide...

2009-04-27T20:28:00.030-04:00

~ so there are temptations which exist for us who love music and wine and good food more than most monkeyshines, where at some point the one takes precedence over the other. Bob Millman got a culinary invite he couldn’t turn down, and went off to Chicago for the weekend, leaving me with two tickets to hear René Pape sing Lieder at Carnegie Hall, his NYC recital début, accompanied by pianist Brian Zeger, in a programme of Schubert, Wolf and Schumann, whose song-cycle Dichterliebe constituted the second half of the programme.

I had heard Pape a year ago at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, playing Second Bass to James Morris in a wonderful and slightly twisty production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger with Barenboim at bat, a splendid evening by any and all accounts. What a voice! Dramatic presence, focus—and even a bit of stagecraft—

so was very happy for the chance to see the man wearing tails standing in the bentside of a glittering Steinway on the stage of Carnegie Hall.

the programme opened with a group of Schubert songs: Aufenthalt, Ständchen and poor sad Atlas—then took a slight leap forward in time to Hugo Wolf’s setting of poems by Michaelangelo Buonarotti—yes, that Michaelangelo—before settling back in to a larger group of Schubert Lieder to round out the first half.

And what a wonderful warm and lovely voice! This big and that deep, one didn’t always demand that it be agile, that it got allowed time to let sound and sentiment develop... Pitch flawless, phrasing exemplary, diction impeccable. An intelligent interpreter, without any of the pieces being overladen by the artist.

During the first batch of Schubert I wondered about the accompaniment—thought it perhaps a bit rough and over-pedaled, but then I looked down and Mr Zeger’s foot was not resting on the aforementioned accelerator—thought about it and thought about it, and realised that since Pape is a basso, the songs would’ve been transposed down a fourth or so—which meant that the octave-doublings in the Schubert accompaniments were positively growling out of the piano. The Wolf songs were written for the bass voice, and so found themselves at home in a more measured patch of ivory and ebony.

Schubert’s accompaniments are like a phantom orchestra being expressed through the piano. If he had been a rock keyboard player, he would’ve been Garth Hudson. Both Wolf and Schumann are thinking of the piano more in terms of it being a piano, and it seemed that Zeger’s style favoured this sort of writing, which meant that the Schumann profited most of all from excellent ensemble work—

a digression... my favourite Schubert song, Heidenröslein, to a poem by Goethe, was not my favourite performance, and it had to do with the piano playing, which I didn’t find sufficiently crisp and animated. So I dug into Youtube this morning, and listened through Bostridge and Schwarzkopf and a couple more—and found Fritz Wunderlich to be totally sublime, so far as the singing went, but the combination of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore remains the best, and it’s because of Moore. Please, do not underestimate the importance of the accompanist in these pieces. They are ensemble works, and the guy sitting down is much more than half as important as the guy standing up.

...highlights of the recital were the Schumann cycle, and Schubert’s Lachen und Weinen.

Excellent evening, two encores including one pop-hit and numerous bows before we found our way to a late snack and a bottle of Wieninger Gemischter Satz 07 at Seasonal...

I was very well pleased with René Pape in tails—am tempted to go to Die Walküre at the Met tomorrow night and see how he does wearing a bear-skin...

~ a fun footnote to former foolishness...

2009-04-24T15:56:00.027-04:00

...so spent a couple weeks in Europe last month, most of it in Austria traveling around the wine counties, seeing people I work with as well as friends from previous incarnations.

one very pleasant meeting from among the latter was a carefully timed luncheon with Paul Achs—who had a small window between flying in from London and flying out to Düsseldorf to collect me at the Hauptbahnhof in his hometown of Gols and drive ten minutes through the vineyards to Podersdorf, where we spent and hour and a half together having lunch at restaurant zur Dankbarkeit, talking about nearly everything but business before I got dropped off again at ÖBB.

In addition to being a winegrower himself, proprietor Josef Lentsch has quite a cellarful of the Burgenland’s best bottles belowdecks: ‘a wide range, from Achs to Velich,’ as he puts it. And what did the sommelier haul out of the Schatzkammer for us on this occasion? It was a 1994 Pannobile white from Paul Achs, which was then made from a cuvée of Weißburgunder and Chardonnay—with I think I correctly remember 20% Welschriesling—

this to wash down a delicious Neusiedlerseezander—a local walleye that had himself just gotten hauled out of the neighbouring lake. Paul opted for the Wels, a catfish summoned from the same depth (that’s a joke—the Neusiedlersee is very very shallow) and put before the chef. I’d had the Wels on my previous visit to Dankbarkeit—a delicious fish indeed, with a slightly firmer flesh than the flaky fellow on my platter.

another joke is that since I come from Virginia, I can just translate my West Virginia jokes into German, and they automatically become Burgenland jokes...

the 94er Pannobile white showed nice and nutty aromas, something like those pinot blancs one sometimes finds in Burgundy, which age quite durably and show a sort of creamy flavour and pleasing texture, delicious and satisfying without ever quite aspiring to greatness...

and the punchline of this here excercise? I mentioned to Paul that I’d just had lunch at Chanterelle in New York with Bob Millman. I had first heard of Paul Achs when Chanterelle sommelier Roger Dagorn warbled his name into my ear some six years ago, and lost no time in getting his wines into the market and onto the winelist. I was able to connect once when Paul visited NYC and together go to Chanterelle for lunch, along with Bob, plus on that occasion Jodi Stern.

but no sooner had I uttered the name ‘Chanterelle’ than Achs responded, ‘aah... seafood sausage...’

* see below posted 17 March

Paris Match

2009-04-10T07:04:00.035-04:00

~ last month three days in Paris, first time in a couple years, including first day of spring and sunshine, entirely agreeable.

hiked up the hill and climbed the steps to la Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, looking up and looking down.

tried something new at the dinner-table,

first time for this fool: red wine with oysters.

’twas in Huîtrière Wepler, Place de Clichy in Montmartre— the oysters were large Fines de Claire from Marrennes-Oléron, and the red was a half-bottle of 2006 Léon Beyer Pinot Noir, from the town of Eguisheim in Alsace.

and the result?

well, the Beyer tasted entirely innocent of any oak-treatment, was light and bright, leapt sprightly out of the glass, not much in the way of tannins to speak of, succulent fruit...

and the six fresh specimens of Crassostrea gigas showed themselves as generous of flavour and texture as one could ever hope.

and the combination?

not hard to imagine, once you work your mind around the idea: Splendid, just splendid. And why? Monsieur pinot noir loves minerality—even when it’s not his own. The Beyer displayed no prominent mineral highlights, and so greedily amalgamated any inorganic nuance brought into its proximity by the bivalve into the bigger picture.

~ on dirait, peut-être, quelque chose d’huître ~

chewing on chanters with mugsy and the millman

2009-03-17T21:03:00.053-04:00

~ how we celebrated Friday the Thirstteenth ~

about as lovely as a lazy lunch can be...

me and Bob Millman at Chanterelle—two wines times three hours equals six courses—

while time hung suspended outside the elegantly understated room in Harrison Street.

creative and engaging cookery—

'twas the perfect place to showcase a couple special bottles whose number was up:

2001 Randersackerer Marsberg Riesling Spätlese Trocken, Schmitts Kinder

1993 Musigny Vieilles Vignes, Comte Georges de Vogüé

devilled quail eggs
poached Blue Island oysters with spinach in curry cream
seafood sausage
sweetbreads with carmelised leek and orange, framed in bok choy, with a little potato gratin as an afterthink
cheese
kumquat mascarpone torte with mandarin sorbet

the quail eggs were pretty and dainty...

the oysters were ideally prepared, perfectly poached, and the only problem was that there were five of them and two of us...
Bob being the instigator of this particular foolishness—as well as age-before-beauty—earned him title to the odd bivalve.

the elegant choice of two butters—du maison, with- and without sea-salt—was welcome, and the service was attentive and unobtrusive.

* I don't think I've ever dined or lunched at Chanterelle without ordering the seafood sausage *
...the importance of detail in unfussy fine cooking—the impact of the pignole tucked away among the various textures within the skin...
...the soft depth and slight tang of the sauce—

Bob had the forethought to phone ahead and order sweetbreads off the dinner menu—an excellent anticipation.
...thoughts about the remarkable versatility of bok choy—
sweetbreads with just the right relationship of crunch to chew within the various morsels...

the cheeses were all American but spoke French well enough to be described as bien-affinés... Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Wisconsin was particularly satisfying

the mascarpone was nicely balanced in sweetness and texture, while the coffee was delicious and scalding hot.

wines?

... the Bocksbeutel looked great, sitting pertly perched on the tablecloth in this swish French joint. Franconia is not known for great riesling. It's not even known much for riesling at all, except for schwarzriesling, and that is pinot meunier... I visited at Schimitt's Kinder for the first time several years ago as a stopoff between my plane landing in Munich and my destination in the Pfalz. And I was immediately taken with the quality of the riesling, particularly from the Marsberg, a limestony site on the Main river. On this occasion the Randersackerer sacked every Rander in its path, all the way from the first thirst to the last swipe of the sausage sauce on sourdough. It had grown a nice medium gold colour, bright acid into a tart finish, nice pearsy apple aromas and flavours that grew increasingly citric as the afternoon went on. The texture showed itself only a touch sharp at the first pass, but then grew increasingly rich and creamy—and in company of the brown sauce around the seafood sausage, the fruit took on an enhanced sweetness, even as some of the 13.5% alcohol showed as well.

This is very fine riesling. Is it as great as a Spätlese from a top address in the Rheingau or Mosel? Not really, no. But it had a nice heft and a rustic charm to it that was quite pleasing.

and our other bottle was a Côte de Nuits red Burgundy that's pretty hard to beat. Big wine. “Enough tannin for nebbiolo,” Bob said early-on. If I wished to be a great compiler of tasting notes, I could follow Bob around and write down everything he says like a modern-day Boswell.

Great producer in a big vintage. Yes, the 1955 was better. So was the 1962. Did it matter? No. This was one of two bottles I bought across the street at Tribeca Wine Merchants, some five years ago. I drank one as soon as possible with Peter Ross and his wife and my friend Laila—which was mostly protesting we were drinking it, only showing its true colours toward the very end.

Five years later, we have achieved the point where both of us were happy enough with the aroma for nearly ten minutes before we took the next step the first sip—big wine. Lovely texture, more satin than velvet, with just a bit of grit, loads of grip, beginning to show flattering secondaries, and having a long life ahead of it. Very deep in the nose, penetrating and inviting serious fruit, griottes and plums and dried blackberries, without much in the way yet of sauvage or du gibier... length and persistance a-plenty. What it did with the orange in the sweetbreads was remarkable, although perhaps something from Gevrey-Chambertin does that better...

and an email from Bob adds the following:

“...I can say that you did a fine job of describing the food and the wine. The remarkable aspect of Chanterelle is its undemonstrative committment to excellence. No ego-centric displays of attention grabbing virtuosity. In this sense Chanterelle reminds me of Lutece. Fine ingredients, perfect executions, flavors and textures that make sense, a calm, relaxing, spirit lifting environment, a peacefulness that is difficult to find in this city. A restaurant for adults who have some serious experience with food and wine going back to the 1980s. I liked the Musigny more than I expected to. It is a wine which needs 15-20 years in the bottle to shed its haughty demeanor. I would like to revisit the 1999 in 5 years”

and what do we talk about on such an elegantly misspent afternoon? what is on our minds and moves ‘round the brains of two such hardened aesthetes?

wer liebt nicht Wein, Weib und Gesang

der bleibt ein Narr, sein Leben lang ~

~ a little ittybitty silly hint for all you culture-vultures about Slumdog Millionaire...

2009-03-14T17:14:00.014-04:00

I noticed while watching Slumdog Millionaire something that I liked very much, which I have yet to see reported:

during one of the scenes where the children were stealing anything not nailed-down, the two are boosting purses from a grandstand where people are watching the performance of an opera.

this opera the folks are watching is none other than Christoph Willibald Glück’s delightful little diversion written during an otherwise mostly dead-zone between Händel and Mozart, Orfeo ed Euridyce.

the theme of this opera concerns itself with a fellow journeying into the infernal regions to rescue his beloved from hell—fitting rather intentionally I suspect with the theme of the movie...

~ owed to the internet ~

2009-03-08T21:17:00.011-04:00

facebook is the perfect ploy
to turn a tool into a toy

...strange breadfellows: austr(al)ia ~ part II

2009-03-08T11:16:00.070-04:00

...six merry fellows well-met by mag-light by moonlight: Mike Robertson, Ben Bohen and instigator Seth Datz—the latter of these along with fellow attendee Aaron Sing Fox being a veteran of Sergeant James’s German Army—plus the out-going (reasonably outgoing but still reserved) beverage director from Restaurant Wallsé, Eric Larkee, and myself.

High Table was convened at half-eight on a Thirstday, first Thursday in the mostly miserable month of March, which had no-question-about-it come roaring in...

Scene of the deed was Grand Sichuan St Mark’s Place—these restaurants are very wine-industry-friendly, and we are welcome with bottles.

This evening provided me with a good reason to raid my dwindling cellar, and put an appropriate end to a couple wines that had been aching to get out of the basement for some time now.

one of the most pleasing aspects of the dinner for me was the discovery that although the food could be quite fiery, never did it lack for delicacy, nor treat a wine harshly just because it could.

first-up was a bottle of fizz that Seth brought, the Chartogne-Taillet Brut Rosé. Going around six ways, it was empty before any food was down, so didn’t have the chance to display what I consider to be rosé Champagne's remarkable affinity for duck—be it either of the Pekingese or Tea-smoke persuasion. this bottle showed a lovely balance of flowers and spice, very strawberry and directly fruitish, satisfyingly long and elegant—truly delightful.

second came a magnum of 2005 Rudi Pichler Wösendorfer Hochrain Grüner Veltliner Smaragd. This bottle had been a hand-carried present from Mr Pichler couple of years ago—my first encounter with the wine had been in Rudi’s new tasting room where he made me and Peter Liem and David Schildknecht try it out of what seemed five different types of glass—and I had thought it to be one of the best GVs of that year.

here Herr Hochrain got fed first some soup-dumplings, then fresh & crunchy peashoots and a blazingly spicy whole fish in bean sauce. The less said about the salt and pepper shrimp which arrived between wearing neither salt nor pepper, the better—ah well...

with this it must be dutifully reported that Seth Datz did a terrific job of managing the menu throughout the bacchanal, never once losing perspective, continually ensuring that the dishes which arrived on the table related well to the previous platters, as well as to the wines.

Hochrain Smaragd presented a very compelling balancing-act between assertive and transparent—an extrarordinarily weightless sense of equilibrium in a rather substantial package. This GV unloaded the best out of the orchard upon nose and palate—plums playing with peaches from the furthermost reaches of scent and of savour to favour the flavour—and a mineral persistence which left a length based not upon weight. Some of its concentration and poise could presumably be put down to the fact that yields in this vineyard were likely reduced owing to Pichler’s predisposition to avoid working with botrytis berries. Most excellent and very well matched to the provender.

third was my second GV, which faced an impossible task: following the Wachauer Smaragd from Rudi Pichler.

my years in the music business taught me two Important Things: never play on the bill after a band that’s got two drummers, and, never sit down at the piano after Oscar Peterson.

2007 Moric Grüner Veltliner Sankt Georgen had spent sixty minutes in a decanter by the time we got to it—lovely medium gold colour. Somebody thought it was dessert from the look of it, but no... This Burgenländer was ultimately judged by all to be quite succesful in itself, a relatively subtle excursion into an idiom where little subtlety rules: GV in oak. Well proportioned, quite creamy and understatedly burgundian in a limestony way, with the wood well on its way to becoming integrated. I’d finished a bottle on the second day with some rather spicy steak tartar at Trestle a couple months before and thought that a better match. Perhaps I am too sparing in my praise because I sell this one, but I was struck by the fact that not even the really mygoodness hot whole fish could knock a hole in it.

~ and then we were on to the reds ~

Aaron brought a burgundy, 2004 Dupont-Tisserandot Gevrey-Chambertin. I offered comic relief guessing where it had come from, mentioning every different estate in order in the portfolio that Aaron sells, but I started in the Côte Chalonnaise headed north, and gave myself up for a fool long before I got this far up the Soixante-Quatorze...

With the tea-smoked duck, this may have been the best food match of the evening, although the Wachauer also proved adept in a couple combinations. Didier Chevillon has a lot of AC Gevrey planted, and has been known to invoke the attentions of the cooper in order to hook into the American market and its pinot profile, but in this vintage of lesser material, he exhibited good sense and restraint, and bottled a very excellent and elegant wine. Chinese broccoli with shredded duck was a faintly remembered afterthought...

Seth’s second bottle was the 05 Châteaunuf-du-Pape from Domaine Marcoux. With this we made the clubhouse-turn from fish through fowl play into flesh. A fleshy wine, quite expressive. Gorgeous mouthfull of ripe and beautifully coherent grenache, soft and ripe tannins with a lingering spice.

Speaking of lingering spice, at this point we started in on the cumin beef, which was excellent, and a couple pork platters, one of them featuring flashingly bright sichuan peppercorns.

—and by this point, it’s a bit of a task remembering

which plate arrived in which order,

but I seem to recall that we were pleased...

next red wine arrived to table in the august form of 04 Torbreck Run Rig. I am more of a Factor/Struie fan myself, but their big brother lived up to its reputation. Dan Fredman had given me this bottle left over from a VOS tasting back a couple of years ago... No hulking monolith, but rather an exquisitely concentrated mouthful of shiraz—whatever amount of new oak had been deftly folded into the fruit, miles long and appropriately persistent. Didn’t get knocked off its perch by the peppercorns, which pleased me to no end. Dave Powell is a great winemaker. Even if he did show up once to pour at Zachy’s wearing flipflops and shorts...

last red wine was a 2004 Mara Zinfandel from Napa. I am such a passionate partisan of Sonoma Zin that I consider myself too prejudiced to comment appropriately—there was a late-arriving braised beef with chili sauce hit the table, which it did nicely with, but beyond that I shall leave it to the other chaps to comment, once they read this here literary masturpiece...

and the very last wine was a bottle I should’ve drunk five years ago, but I never had the right number of suitable miscreants gathered together in the right place before now... 1991 Philippi Spätburgunder Rosé Eiswein, 500ml. This from the Kallstadter master of Koehler-Ruprecht in the Pfalz, it fermented for a year on its own yeast in a second-hand Château d’Yquem barrel. As a young wine it offered the impression of strawberries floating in a bucketful of Bâtard-Montrachet. Now the berries have evolved to orange-rind, and the wine remains vivid and arresting, if not so generous as before.

~ a well-wasted evening and a great feed ~

General consensus held that Hochrain Grüner Veltliner Smaragd magnum was the best in show. I loved the Chartogne-Taillet, and liked the Marcoux very well. Run Rig performed exactly as advertised, made it abundantly clear what all the fuss was about...

I reported the evening’s proceedings via smoke signal to Pichler, whose characteristically dry wit led him to respond: “happy to hear about the Hochrain and ‘Best in Show,’ but I must carefully explain this metaphorical use of the term to my Labrador retriever Pinot Noir, so that he doesn’t lap up all of my Hochrain in order to eliminate the competition.”

return turn turn...

2009-02-25T20:50:00.014-05:00

...well the Biodynamic Tasting, ‘Return to Terroir’ at the Metropolitan Pavillion in NYC was quite a lovely show the other day—among the great highlights was nearly everything from Alsace, especially Josmeyer and Tempé, and—big surprise—the In Weingebirge Grüner Veltliner 06 Smaragd and Steiner Hund Riesling 04 from Nikolaihof. The Wittmann rieslings from Rheinhessen made quite an impression, especially the 07 Grosses Gewächs Morstein and its brother Auslese—which was rather tasting like a detonated pineapple. Much has been made of riesling’s affinity for slate, but the laconic gentleman from Westhofen proves easily that limestone can provide special interest as well.

I was particularly fond of the pinot noirs from Robert Sinskey in Napa—beautifully expressive and nicely balanced. Rob’s 1988 pinot noir was one of the first Carneros wines that I truly loved. And Peter Weygandt was in attendance pouring some magical ancient-vines grenache from Domaine les Aphillantes on the Côtes-du-Rhône.

...but I will admit that the highlight for me was the awful photo (see above) I took of two people who must be the hardest working couple in the wine business, Juliette Pope and Ralf Kuettel. Juliette runs the wine programme at Gramercy Tavern, while her husband Ralf is proprietor of the Swiss-accented fine-wine-oriented dining establishment Trestle on Tenth.

...I had an unhappy fantasy—that the only time the two of them see one other is at trade tastings ~

a week on the wine list ~

2009-02-22T10:05:00.006-05:00

under renovation...

how wonderful life is, and how small the world...

2009-02-11T12:55:00.013-05:00

~ so was up early today working on the new Winemonger Imports catalog,

and was taking a break long about 8AM to go to the gym.

and as I was collecting my gym-gear and finding car-keys and the like, a song went through my head, “Lily, Rosemarie and the Jack of Hearts” from Bob Dylan’s very fine mid 70s album “Blood on the Tracks”—

and my thoughts hung upon one line from this song, “the hanging-judge was sober, he hadn‘t had a drink...” for no particular reason

then half an hour later I am in the gym and riding the stationary bicycle, which has recently been blessed with a TV monitor.

I do not watch television as a rule. My own television was made in 1979, and spends the entire year when it’s not football season unplugged down in the basement. Its days are numbered, I understand—

but if it is there attached to the stationary bike in the perspiration emporium, I will watch it. sometimes Sopranos, sometimes Star Trek, or History Channel or M*A*S*H...

this morning it was a re-run of the adventure/drama show JAG which got me through my half-hour of huffing and puffing.

the villain, a disaffected psycopath who is all set to blow everybody to h-e-doublehockeysticks, is wearing a t-shirt that says

Hanging Judge

go fig...

~ just found a damn good poem whilst writing wine-catalog copy...

2009-01-31T15:20:00.005-05:00

changeons en notre miel leurs plus antiques fleurs;
pour peindre notre idée, impruntons leurs couleurs;
allumons nos flambeaux à leurs feux poétiques;
sur ses pensers nouveaux faisons des vers antiques

André Chénier ~
L'Invention

~ Austr(al)ia 2001 ~ Strange Breadfellows ~

2009-01-30T09:00:00.053-05:00

Hirtzberger:

Singerriedel Smaragd

Torbreck:

The Factor

Riesling and Shiraz,
the ends of the earth...

Ms Sexton and myself titillating our tongues and topping-up our tummies at Trestle on Tenth ~

indulging in Ralf Kuettel's Metzgete menu, where he serves up one little bit at a time the complete pig (or the whole hog, if you'd rather) from just this side the tip of the tusk to a point equally distant from the tassel on the tail—excepting only the oink...

we started off with a bottle of 99er Spätburgunder Sekt from Reichsrat von Buhl in Deidesheim (Pfalz) promptly sent back as corked—replaced by a splendid example of this German sparkler; I think perhaps as close to 0° Brut as it could likely get, and like any living creature subject to a bit of bottle variation. I'd been in for lunch a couple weeks previously with sommelier Eric Larkee from Wallsé, when we'd had a bottle that was not quite as nice as the one Cynthia and I ended up drinking, but not a candidate for rejection. Lovely vibrant acidity and cherries-in-cream aromas, just barely a hint of colour...

von Buhl makes excellent sekt, and the idiom in itself deserves better attention than it gets from the American consumer... And like this Spätburgunder, there are many engaging manifestations of pinot noir coming from Germany these days.

Anyway, I'd brought two bottles, thinking that we'd start with the Wachauer before moving on down to Barossa—but Ralf emerged from the scullery and greeted us, saying that he'd saved his friends the last two portions of the special—so the Riesling was promoted to main-course—promising a greater affinity with the Swiss butcher's bash to come—while the Shiraz got saved for the cheesery which concluded the un-distilled events of the evening.

I've been known to admit how I tend to prefer German Riesling to the Austrian incarnation, but I will allow that this bottle was truly exceptional. It had been given to me by Madame Irmgard herself, on one of my visits to that teeming metropolis called Spitz an der Donau. At seven years old, it didn't show the fusel aromas that an older German will, and there was little riesling-specific patina, but the way that the minerality of this great site had integrated with the very eloquent and elegant fruit profile made for quite a memorable experience. Every layer of the sumptuous texture was informed by the paragneis and glimmerschiefer in which the vines root themselves.

In fact, one of my favourite tricks is to feed an Austrian wine grower German riesling. One of the last good sports to fall victim to this was Dr. Bertold Salomon—himself an excellent example of Austr(al)ia—and it was just a coincidence that I'd had him and his wife Gertrud sitting at the same table where I sat with Cynthia, when I made them drink a brilliant bottle of 13-year old Karthäuserhof Riesling Halbtrocken some eighteen months ago...

This Singerriedel 2001 showed enough elegance to make me rethink my prejudices, even as several years ago their 1998 Hochrain Smaragd had shown very well in the august company of a Koehler-Ruprecht Auslese Trocken and a Domaine Weinbach Schlossberg l'Inedit...

and the trip from Mitteleuropa to Down-Under was totally disorienting. Disoccidenting as well—it wasn't until the Factor had some tête de moin to grab onto that it began to make the kind of sense one would want. Not a typical hulking Barossa Shiraz, but rather a wine that's always had an elegant expression about it, this one was celebrating the sweet and sour, the resinous aromatics and tongue-tinging display of viscous fruit and soft tannin that makes so many of Dave Powell's wines special—the Factor had "aged" (is seven years really aging?) nicely, softened without yet showing secondary aromas, sort of articulated itself in waves as it developed in the glass, a little bit of hide-n-seek, but mostly seek. Especially in the proximity of cheese...

and as we were reaching the Ardbeg/Glenfarclas portion of the programme, we happened to notice that on the upper tier of the dining room there was a crowd of riesling fanatics chewing their way through quite a number of bottles—including the Crush Crew plus Charlie Woods—and they gave us a little glass of the utterly sublime 2007 Auslese S Trocken from the Karthäuserof, which helped to pull the place into perspective...

and no sooner do I look online this morning at the Vienna newsrag Die Presse, when I see an article about Kremstal vintner Bert Salomon, his second, Australian winery and its syrah—and so, so— so small is yes the world...

Brunello di Montalcino in NYC

2009-01-28T21:21:00.031-05:00

~ so off on the train into town to the Benvenuto Brunello Show at the Hilton this evening, in the stimulating and engaging company of Ellisa Cooper—in the course of which playing with her theory about the potential relationship between aesthetic standards as evinced by the beauty of a grower's label and the quality of what he's put in the bottle...

and these Italian wine-events are always such boy-fashion-shows that I was planning to wear something really splendid, and shine up my best shoes, but the weather was so godawful bad that I opted instead for anti-fashion.

I wore a cheap Ralph Lauren sportjacket (in fact, the one in my mugshot which Aaron Sing Fox took in Alsace) that I like so well that I took the $1000 Loro Piana I bought just after it back to Brooks Brothers because the two looked too much alike. Underneath this sportjacket I wore an Einstürzende Neubauten t-shirt, image above.

Two fellows at the tasting recognised the image and commented that I was wearing an Einstürzende Neubauten t-shirt (they're an industrial noise band from Berlin), and one of them could even pronounce Einstürzende Neubauten correctly. The German word for surprise is Überraschung...

The Brunellos performed mostly as advertised—rather tidily-fashioned for the most part—I think we tasted ten wines before we finally struck feet...

the best Rosso di Montalcino was the 07 Uccelliera—gorgeous depth, length and character of flavours. Their 04 Brunello di Montalcino was one of my two favourites, along with that of Poggio Antico—whose 03 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva was perhaps the finest thing I tasted all evening long. Both 04 Brunello and 07 Rosso from Villa I Cipressi were also quite toothsome and stylish.

A great glass at Gramercy...

2009-01-18T21:07:00.013-05:00

...so into the bar at Gramercy Tavern on a Saturday afternoon, drinkingtons with Ellisa Cooper:

we fell-to fizz first, as befit the occasion—

me: Domaine Carneros Brut 2005

she: Montlouis Brut from Chidaine

we then united on the Touraine Grolleau/Côt Rosé from François Pinon, a handsome faceful of peppered strawberries, CS and CF doing nice things together.

and as our nibbles arrived we both ordered glasses of something exceptionally delicious, which was:

06er Tagelsteiner Rotgipfler from Stadlmann in the Thermenregion, Austria: fresh spicy nose, followed by ohmygoodness what an extraordinarily generous flavour profile—combinations of apple and pear, canteloupe and mango put cleverly together on a skeleton of citrus... nicely sculpted minerality in a beautifully ripe and rich wine. Just totally delicious.

comes from a wine-district south of Vienna called Thermenregion, the place where the warm springs are... once was famous for a wine called Gumpoldskirchner. Gumpoldskirchen was united with Bad Vöslau in 1985 to form this Anbaugebiet.

Rotgipfler is a spontaneous crossing of Traminer with Roter Veltliner, and its name refers to the occasional red-bronze tipping on the leaves.

I had the pleasure of meeting Johann Stadlmann a couple years ago at Prowein in Düsseldorf; quality driven, certainly mindful of his chance to put this place and its oddball varieties on the world wine-map...

by the way, in a city of outstanding by-the-glass lists, Juliette Pope's selection at Gramercy is a highlight.

early dinns on a monday afternoon...

2008-12-30T21:44:00.032-05:00

~ and so I haled Millman out of his urban burrow just about teatime, and we took off on the E is for Ethnic Eats train to the gustatory otherwhere of Jackson Heights...

—our destination was a Thai establishment on Roosevelt Boulevard called Zabb, which Bob had suggested—himself having been there once with Josh Raynolds, my once-upon-a-time successor in the Schildknecht Department of the Washington DC wine world...

~ this being the borough of Queens, we came armed with the following:
1. a bottle of Pierre Peters Brut which came out of Geri Tashjean's bathtub on West 26th street.
2. a bottle of Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben 2001 that I’d had dwelling in my basement for a number of years—
3. a bottle of Josef Högl Ried Schön GV Federspiel 06—I never go noplace without at least one screwcap anymore...
4. oldfashioned INAO glasses, which I still love.

~ and Zabb Queens proved downright zizzling...

1. we started with Tom Kha Kai—which was as beautifully balanced as I’ve ever had this soup, both very succulent and a bit on the spicy side, with the flavours flowing seamlessly into one another.

2. then followed a noodle dish with bits of pork and crab, finished with nuts and lime, harmless and pleasant. By this time we were enjoying the champagne more than somewhat.

3. third in the batting order came grilled squids with green chillies served over iceberg lettuce. It’s very gratifying to note how well the fresh crunch of iceberg fits into the Thai concept of flavour and texture. And, Yummm! This dish was as hot as ever I might’ve liked it to be, and afforded me the opportunity to illustrate to Bob that the only sure cure for a nearly terminal party inside your mouth is salt. Ask for the salt-shaker, throw a pinch of it in your trap, and be amazed at how steadily the discomfort recedes.

4. next on the list was duck Panang. With very crisp haricot-vert-ish greenbeans atop, just the right tinge of basil, and not too much heat. The duck skin retained its identity rather crisply amid the bath of sauce, with just a slight bit of fat underneath. Said sauce was wonderfully rich, possessed a presence on the palate which had nothing to do with weight, and everything with balance.

This dish was the point where we turned the corner from Champagne into the Kamptal, and were rudely awakened by the realisation that although some grüne veltliners go well with some spicy dishes, the younger ones are much better suited, providing refreshment-value as well as complementary flavours. Which dictated a detour in the direction of the Wachau... As insurance against the ever-present threat of a corker I had brought a younger screwcapped GV—a Federspiel 06 from Josef Högl in Spitz, a really vivid and frisky potation which I had sold loads of to Cookshop where it got poured by the glass until they just ran out of it—which showed significantly better than the older and grander Bründlmayer in this culinary context.

5. then came the crispy fish in the house sauce, which was more sweet and sour than it was anything else, with some fresh veg on top, nicely balanced and beautifully textured.

~ and very interesting to note the progression orchestrated from tingling to total fire receding to the calmer sweet panang to the sweeter and sour fish... my training in Ethnomusicology would lead me to describe it as a melodic arch-form...

6. an innocuous pumpkin custard concoction rounded it all out... or rather, preceded presentation of the modest bill, its approval and payment.

Dessert was indeed sort of an afterthought, but alltogether it gets me after thinking that the wonderful thing about Thai cookery is that it manages to be very aggressive and very delicate at the same time—like a mid-seventies reviewer once described The Who: chamber-music in the middle of a commando-raid...

the Bründlmayer GV Old Vines showed rather elegant and stately after it got rescued from the fiery chapters of the Thai spicebook which made it seem old and tired, and taken home to a more suburban setting. Lovely middle gold—and it's always interesting the way old grüne veltliners don’t show secondaries anything like the rieslings do. This is a wine that even young is not dominated by the trademark “Pfefferl” snap, so that the reminiscences of mature white burgundy weren't too far off base. Hazelnut and fig on parity with pear, and a bit of alcohol... The minerality shone on through to the better end, and the bottle held up well on the second day.

~ but the highlight of the show was the Pierre Peters NV Mesnil Grand Cru, disgorgement date 01 2007—rich and succulent, approaching a generosity of texture that usually either means pinot noir or residual sugar, but this wine was innocent of one and not guilty of the other: brioche and blossom, hay and honey... so much fruit that you had to chomp down to get the chalk... and both of us were please to note that it was capable of assimilating a rather extravagant number of Scoville units relatively unscathed.

Champagne has been a prominent food-wine on my table dating at the very least back to 1990, but it still presents me with new possibilities on a regular basis.

~ an interesting remark made by the old fantastical duke of the dark corners...

2008-12-28T20:16:00.014-05:00

was just reading Stan Gébler Davies’s 1975 biography of James Joyce...

he quotes psychologist Carl Jung’s following observation about Molly Bloom’s soliloquy at the conclusion of Ulysses:

“The 40 pages of non-stop run in the end is a string of veritable psychological peaches. I suppose the devil’s grandmother knows so much about the real psychology of a woman. I didn’t.”

~ Riesling Roundup ~

2008-12-02T10:02:00.025-05:00

... so I headed off yesterday afternoon into town to an event bearing the enticing name “Riesling Fellowship”... which came off rather nicely up in the lovely and expensive ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. There was a little bit of navigation necessary to find one’s way through the pleasing array of complementary and contrasting flavours, but this posed no great inconvenience...

?¿? do you know the old song, “I went to the animal fair, the birds and the beasts were there...”

such was in fact the case, and not only did I find riesling’s two best American friends Sanderson and Schildkecht in attendance, but there were a number of top German growers on display: Johannes Selbach, Armin Diel, Fritz Hasselbach and Nik Weis. Between the two of them, Diel and Hasselbach have lost about thirtyfive kilos, and both are looking very good indeed. The idiomatic German word for losing weight means “de-bacon-ing”...

Almost all of the retail crowd were where they belonged in a touchy December—in their stores and not at this event—and many restaurant buyers were also not to be seen. My colleagues Evan Spingarn, Steve Miller, Victor Schwartz and Frank Johnson attended, tasted, and likely found inspiration in much the same manner as did I.

as usual, I lost myself among the various German bottlings, and just barely rescued myself from that reverie in time to taste through a very rewarding retrospective of Zöbinger rieslings being poured by the single courageous Austrian grower in the presentation, Johannes Hirsch, who showed multiple vintages of Gaisberg and Heiligenstein reaching back to 1999.

I enjoyed the usual collegial disagreement with Bob Millman, who didn’t like the Schloss Johannisberg 06er QbA as much as I did, and liked the Loosen collection less than I did—we regularly encounter such interesting points for discussion.

my favourite wines were, in no hierarchical order:

Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Kabinett 01
Schloss Johannisberg QbA 06
Schlossgut Diel “Dorsheim Pittermänchen” Spätlese 07
Ökonomierat Rebholz “Im Sonnenschein” Grosses Gewächs 07
St. Urbans-Hof “Leiwener Laurentiuslay” Spätlese Erste Lage 07
Gunderloch “Nackenheim Rothenberg” Trocken 07

perhaps my one top pick was the Rebholz, which showed a glorious combination of sap and sizzle—and then the Nackenheimer. I asked Hasselbach about his resistance to calling this wine “Grosses Gewächs” and Fritz replied that next year it would in fact be so; that his next generation at the estate had been agitating in that direction.

and the $60.17 question: Where does one dine after this sort of tasting? This was easily answered by Mr. Millman and me, first with apéritifs of Latte and straight Black at a local coffee-establishment which needs no advertising help, followed by a trip to Carnegie Deli—where Bob and I just barely made it through a single serving of that mountain of corned beef- and pastrami-on-rye known as “The Woody Allen”, with sides of potato pancakes and coleslaw, a Dr Brown’s for Bob and more black coffee for me. Carnegie’s pickles were a little on the aggressive and salty side this evening, but, davon abgesehen ist alles in Ordnung gewesen...

I was very pleased to learn that Millman had just seen and enjoyed my favourite movie, Ingmar Bergmann’s “Smiles of a Summer Night”, a rather Mozartean romantic comedy from 1955—

— hell, I’m a romantic comedy from 1955: maybe that’s why I like the damn thing so much ~

~ Aventinus ~

2008-11-30T12:31:00.018-05:00

so one often hears the question raised, about wine-matches involving chocolate...

Banyuls is often cited as the most effective, and some people swear by zinfandel. But my experience has shown that The magic elixir, so far as putting chocolate in more places on the palate is concerned, doesn’t come from any arcane address in the wine-world, but rather from a town on the Danube—and not Krems or Weißenkirchen or Spitz or Loiben—but rather a medium-sized Bavarian municipality called Kelheim, some hundred kliks north of Munich...

and it’s a top-fermented wheat beer called Aventinus—a Doppelbock Hefe Weizen—named neither for the son of Hercules and Rhea nor for the saint, but rather for a local philologist. Made by the famous Munich Weißbier brewery G. Schneider & Co, Aventinus has more alcohol than some Mosel wines at 8.2%, but doesn’t finish at all hot. Really rich, lovely malt flavours—bottle-fermented with the yeast still in play—there’s a bit of art and science to getting the yeast into your glass from the bottom of the bottle—this beverage is truly exceptional. And alongside chocolate, I have yet to find anything else which comes close.

below is what is I am sure a copyrighted image, borrowed under the principle of ‘fair use’ from their website, following the link to ‘secret recipe’ which, translated, means “!@#$%* Top Secret!”

~ and another lazy afternoon at Trestle on Tenth...

2008-11-10T18:59:00.020-05:00

...this time with my associate Stephan Schindler from California, visionary winegrower Roland Velich from Burgenland, and my colleague & friend Bob Millman...

We went to lunch, and we drank white wine. Real doggone good white wine. The greater part of this white wine had been sitting in my basement for quite a while, patiently waiting for the right gullets to get itself poured down, and couldn’t have found a better set.

Two of these bottles I had hand-carried from Germany, some ten years ago. They both came from Weingut Koehler-Ruprecht in the Pfalz, and dated from the era before Terry Theise started bringing in the big dry wines with any regularity. Back then I used to feed Bernd Philippi’s then-greatest in Germany collection of California Cabs, and would receive in exchange these magnificent and distinctive dry rieslings grown in the Kallstadter Saumagen, a kettle-shaped limestone site (and sight, as well—that really wasn’t too bad a typo) north of Bad Dürkheim.

Weingut Koehler-Ruprecht:

1996 Kallstadter Saumagen Auslese Trocken

1990 Kallstadter Saumagen Auslese Trocken Reserve

The question is recently often asked, how well do dry German rieslings age? Although this experience yielded no definitive answer, it was clear to the four of us Profis that the 96er, although not quite showing as much sheer horsepower as the 90er Goldkapsel Reserve, more than made up for its comparitive lack of weight by showing an enormous agility and vitality. At eleven years of age, it is hard to imagine a more perfectly eloquent wine than this. At somewhere around 13.5° alcohol it imparted no sense of heat; the minerality melded melifluously with a fruit collection that referenced (with more relish than reverence) several lively orchards...

And was the 90er on a downturn, or did the younger wine merely dance circles around it? It showed acid in adequate measure, clean and still voluptuous fruit, some lovely and encouraging old-riesling tones, and a commanding texture on the palate. Hard to say that it was losing anything, but I remember having been awstruck by bottles of this wine, say, ten years ago.

I found an excellent food match for these wines, Ralf’s salmon with fennel—which I also enjoyed on a subsequent visit alongside a Nigl Zweigelt rosé out in the garden...

...and then came a welcome surprise after I asked for the wine-list. One of the biggest challenges I face when dining here with an Austrian winegrower—and Roland Velich is currently in the process of turning Burgenland on its ear, creating a new and finely-tuned idiom of Blaufränkisch—is what kind of American white wine can I feed ‘em? Plenty of American reds, all shapes and sizes, which will prove fascinating and/or challenging to an old-world palate, but white wine from my native land proves itself a problem. (Guzzling Littorai 05 Mays Ranch Chardonnay at Michael’s with Paul Achs was an uncommon occurence...)

...and the answer to this challenge on that date?

1997 Kalin Cellars Livermore Valley Semillon

I hadn’t drunk a Kalin wine for quite a while. Bob pointed out that this was in fact their current release, and so I yielded to my sense of adventure and ordered a bottle. Talk about scrumptious! Oranges and lemons and ginger-snaps with a bit of caramel and cream. Grew in the glass even more than the German rieslings had. Firm acidity and even a bit of mineral underneath. Extraordinarily good stuff. Apparently comes from ancient vines on the Wente estate. To be sought out, relished and prized ~

¡!¡! ~ DAZZLE ~ !¡!¡

2008-11-10T18:49:00.000-05:00

vagrant cloud caught in a fluttering stream ~

2008-11-10T17:00:00.000-05:00

extraordinary music, extraordinarily American ~

2008-11-08T10:05:00.004-05:00

just an arbitrary selection:

Blues in the Night
Let’s Fall in Love
Stormy Weather
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
This Time the Dream’s on Me
That Old Black Magic
Ac-cent-chu-ate the Positive
Come Rain or Come Shine
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
Paper Moon
One for my Baby and One More for the Road
Written in the Stars
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues

all those great songs, you can’t quite think who wrote ’em?
Harold Arlen wrote ’em.

on some occasions his own co-lyricist with Truman Capote, he collaborated extensively with Ira Gershwin, Yip Harburg, Ted Koehler and Johnny Mercer...

and out of all the cantor’s sons who found their way to Tin Pan Alley, Arlen had the ear most keenly tuned to what was happening ’way uptown...

many of his songs find quite an exquisite expression on Ella Fitzgerald’s Harold Arlen Songbook, a current Verve rerelease. Here, in contrast with the elegant and understated stylings of Buddy Bregman on the Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart collections, the Billy May orchestra is really, really hot...

Mahler V at Carnegie Hall...

2008-10-31T17:46:00.012-04:00

...on Monday I night got taken to Carnegie Hall by honorary-ex-wife Susan, to hear James Conlon conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in a program of extravagantly proportioned symphonic works.
Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony followed intermission, and I was very impressed by the passionate rendering of the first two movements,
I Trauermarsch and II Stürmisch Bewegt. Very exciting stuff. And then movement III Scherzo fell flat on its Allerwertesten, which I thought was the conductor’s fault more than it was the orchestra’s... it just didn’t swing, and a Ländler’s got to ought to swing... Movement IV Adagietto was pristinely beautiful, and it was perhaps just an illusion from sitting in the orchestra section of Carnegie that made the harps sound a little too loud... Personal triumph for me was that I didn’t think of Dirk Bogarde dying on the beach until after I was out of the concert... Movement V Rondo got run a bit ragged by a band that was slightly beat, although it remained stirring and proud.
All in all I found Conlon at the bat to feel a bit foursquare, but I will take any opportunity to hear this music. It remains complex and challenging to players and interpreters at one hundred years of age, reveals its depths in no hurry over the decades I’ve had it in my life, and reminds one that the listener has responsibilities as well.

a couple exceptional wines at Forge...

2008-10-31T17:11:00.016-04:00

...so had dinner down in Tribeca with the lovely and companionable Cynthia Sexton on Wednesday night, enjoying the flavours of Marc Forgione, along with two bottles that weighed in somewhere between outstanding and memorable.
The first of these was my bright idea. Knowing that Cynthia willingly dines fizz-first I had already ordered a bottle of Pierre Moncuit Cuvée Delos, Grand Cru Mesnil by the time she got decanted out of her taxicab—this was a bottle that didn’t get hurried out of Champagne and shoved on to a boat, so in addition to the expected exuberance and depth, the lemon and grapefruit explosion, there were wonderful mineral tones, and an expansive body underneath with a bit of dough and satisfying yellow fruits. Deluscious by itself, it fared well alongside a slightly citric grilled octopus with various mushrooms and contrasting greens.
Our second bottle was chosen by sommelier Matthew Conway, who sympathised with a certain amount of indecision over what colour wine to drink with the combination of veal medallions and sweetbreads that we’d both ordered. We chose this special for all the wrong reasons, mainly that the chap who was sitting at the adjacent table when we arrived—who pitched his Blackberry to the floor via my lap as he was extricating himself from his seat— remarked in passing how much he hadn’t liked the veal medallions with sweetbreads—but I couldn’t help but notice that he was also slightly polluted (although in no way personally unpleasant) so perhaps not in the best shape to judge fine flavours... We consulted the server, asked her opinion, were given a most articulate defense of said menu item, and decided both to order this dish in solidarity with her and the house—whereby we indulged in a bit of contrariness with no victim, and were fed excellent veal as a result. So what to drink? Agonised over the ’90 Olga Raffault Chinon Picasses, but let Matthew choose, and were rewarded with his pick of a 2006 Mas Daumas Gassac blanc, which showed itself to be a totally splendid olofactorama... It got sloshed into a decanter and sat off ice on the table for the better part of an hour as the aromatix just continued to develop. Grown from various vines of viognier, chardonnay, chenin blanc and gros manseng, each whiff of the stuff out of big burgundy glasses ventured farther and farther off the beaten track—continuing the pineapple theme of the champagne, but reaching fuurther beyond into the realms of mango and candied peach... the wine’s presence on the palate was substantial without being heavy, showed a very nice and finely tuned texture.

the national pass-time...

2008-10-27T09:08:00.008-04:00

in spite of the fact that it might get me accused of wanting to be on the side that’s winning, I shall go on record preferring the Phillies, for the sole reason that they are the only ball-club I know of that was named for a cigar. Also I very much like the fact that their pitcher hit a home-run last night...

~ Bad Tölz ~ von der Fußbrücke über die Isar neben dem Alten Fährhaus gesehen...

2008-09-23T06:38:00.013-04:00