The BLT and Fried Green Tomatoes - End of Summer Tomato Gluttony

Amazing that it's happened so quickly, but summer is basically over. The good news is that fall happens fast too, and after Thanksgiving it's just a few winter months, and then it's almost summer again. So yes, it's almost next summer already, and that is exciting.

This time of year I eat tomatoes shamelessly. Tomatoes of all colors, shapes, and sizes, at any time of day, with any combination of foods, and prepared in all sorts of ways. I try to be creative and still, some of my favorite late summer tomato dishes are the classics. Really, I ask you, could you turn down a well-made BLT? Could you refuse a plate of fried green tomatoes? I should think not.

The BLT, just in case you require a little tomato inspiration. I like mine on good white bread.

And high quality thick-cut bacon is a must. I'm using Lou's Natural bacon these days, and it's very delicious and not too fatty.

But in the end, this sandwich is about the tomato. It has to be flavorful enough so that it actually offers contrast to the smokey bacon. I've used heirlooms of various colors on a BLT and while I wouldn't kick any of them off my plate,  it is the classic orange variety that gets me on a BLT.

This is a Ramapo tomato grown by star New Jersey farmer Bill Maxwell and it is not to be trifled with. It isn't as firm as some others and therefore gets a little sloppy when in sandwich, but it is well worth it for its wonderful fresh essence-of-tomato flavor. Really though, this is a messy tomato and is better eaten at home where you can get all sloppy with it.

Fried green tomatoes require a little more time but not much more effort. You are slicing green tomatoes to about a half inch thick, coating them in flour, dipping them in a mixture of buttermilk and egg, then dredging in seasoned cornmeal. There are many variations here and all work fine. I like to use breadcrumbs as a solid third of my cornmeal mixture because the crust stays together better after cooking. And I season with salt and pepper, nothing more. I'm sure there are at least 146 correct ways to do this, so do what feels right to you.

After the coating, the dipping, the dredging, and the frying, the hard part of your work is done. Now it's about choosing a vehicle. Fried green tomatoes are delicious as a side dish, but I like them to get top billing. Last week I served them as a first course, interspersed with slices of a beautiful ripe Green Cherokee tomato and topped with green goddess dressing. Green goddess dressing is ridiculously delicious and pretty easy to make, but that's for another time. This was a good dish, by the way. My friend asked for seconds and happily cleaned his plate.

What to drink with this sort of late summer tomato goodness? Anything really, from an acidic white wine to a light red wine. 

I've been enjoying rosé with these dishes. A good Bandol rosé, the 2011 Terrebrune Bandol Rosé, $32, for example, imported by Kermit Lynch, has the complexity, depth of flavor, and the body to stand up to this hearty food, and also the acidity and fresh fruit to cleanse the palate. And there is something about the way Mourvedre rosé works with bacon...But I drank the leftover half of the less ambitious 2011 Domaine Les Fouques Côtes de Provence Rosé Cuvée de L'Aubigue, $14, David Lillie/Chambers Street direct import, with a BLT today and it was great. Then again, I don't need much of an excuse to drink good rosé, especially now that it is almost next summer. 

Sapidity

You know how when you're drinking a good Sherry, how one of the things that's so good about it is that strong streak of acidity that runs right down the spine of the wine? I've always appreciated that about Sherry, particularly Finos and Manzanillas, the bright acidity that enlivens the oxidized wine.

Everything in the above paragraph is factually incorrect, and I refuse to believe that I am the only one who thought those things about Sherry. Doesn't it seem like an acidic wine? And obviously it's an oxidized wine, right?

No! And no!

I remember the time I was drinking some or other Sherry with Peter Liem (whose much-anticipated book on Sherry will be out soon), and I told him how great I thought the acidity was, and how fresh the wine felt even though it was oxidized. He smiled at me the way one might smile at a 3-year old who is learning to put her pants on by herself, and told me that actually, Sherry is a very low acid wine. And that biologically aged Sherries (Fino style wines) are actually reductive wines that are protected from oxygen by a layer of flor.

Palomino is the dominant grape grown in Jerez, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa Maria. It is a low acid grape, and the very hot climate probably doesn't do anything to help preserve whatever natural acidity is in the grape. I recently learned that Sherry wines, by law, must achieve a certain pH level and therefore have to have acidity added in most cases!

So what is it that gives good Fino style Sherry wines that acidic feeling? I asked this question while tasting with Peter and Eduardo Ojeda, cellar master at Valdespino and La Guita.

"Sapidity, it is sapidity," Eduardo said. Peter agreed.

Here is what the interweb says is the definition of the word sapid:

--Perceptible to the sense of taste; having flavor. b. Having a strong pleasant flavor; savory. 2. Pleasing to the mind; engaging.

Here is another, this time a "medical definition:"

--affecting the organs of taste : possessing flavor and especially a strong agreeable flavor.

Okay, I don't think that Eduardo and Peter meant exactly this. Eduardo put his fingers to the sides of his cheeks, where they meet the back of the jaw bone as he said this. I think he meant the sensation of mouthwatering-ness, the idea that something in Fino style Sherry produces a vibrant sensation in the mouth the way acidity does, something that causes that tingling mouthwatering feeling. What is this thing, that Eduardo and Peter are calling sapidity? I honestly have no idea. One of wine's mysteries, I would guess. 

I was reminded of this recently when drinking a glass of 2011 Domaine Les Fouques Côtes de Provence Blanc Cuvée de L'Aubigue, $14, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. I know I've been harping on these Fouques wines lately, but with good reason. $14 is what you pay if you buy one bottle. If you put together a case you're talking about $12.60, and tell me honestly - how many truly interesting wines are there at that price nowadays (in NYC, anyway)? Mssr. Asimov has been saying for a while now that $20-25 is the value sweet spot, and I agree completely in the sense that there aren't so many great values at lower price points. The Fouques wines are David Lillie direct imports at Chambers Street, and that's why the prices are low - no "middle man." Take advantage, my friends - the wines are full of character and are completely delicious. I've not had the red wine, but the rosés and the white are really lovely. This white is just so correct and tasty, with slightly smoky lemon and seashell aromas, and a balanced and energetic palate. It would be great with seafood of all sorts, and I imagine it is versatile enough to do well with all sorts of other warm weather fare.

Anyway...At first I was worried about the white wine when I saw 14% alcohol on the label. Would the wine be balanced? Turns out the answer is yes, although the wine doesn't feel particularly acidic to me. It is mainly Rolle, also known as Vermentino, with about 10% each of Ugni Blanc and Clairette. I don't know, but I doubt that these grapes are low acid grapes like Palomino. Could be. The climate in Provence, however, is hot hot hot, and many producers nowadays have trouble keeping potential alcohol at a reasonable level if they allow the grapes to hang long enough to reach phenolic ripeness. Perhaps even a modest hang time in that climate can result in lower acidity.


Yet this wine still has a mouth watering feeling, and I felt it immediately, and particularly on day 2. What is this about? Sapidity? I'm willing to go with that.

A Perfect Spring Lunch

It's finally spring in New York. That two weeks in early April when all of the sudden it was 75 degrees and the cherry trees blossomed early and everyone wore shorts, no, that wasn't spring. That was more about the great floods that will surely come my friends, as the weather all over the world gets weirder and weirder. Anyway, now, it's spring. Temperatures are in the high 50's to early 60's and it always feels like it's about to rain, which hopefully it will. It's supposed to rain in April, for goodness sake.

My favorite farmer Bill Maxwell is back from hibernation and once again selling his beautiful and delicious produce at the market. He said that he's had almost no rain and that his yields aren't what they usually are, so far. This morning I got there early enough to grab a nice handful of asparagus, my first of the season. And a box of Tello's Farms eggs. And then at Almondine Bakery I grabbed what I think is the best baguette in NYC. I sense a really good lunch coming...

Nothing innovative here, this is classic spring pleasure. Broke the stems off a handful of asparagus, and peeled the bottoms a little because I was feeling fancy. Dropped them in boiling water for about 2 minutes, maybe less. Meanwhile, water simmered in a pot to poach the egg. Whisked a little good olive oil into some Fernando de Castilla Sherry vinegar, you know, to drizzle over the top of the egg after placing atop a mound of blanched asparagus. Good butter warming on the counter since the morning, so it's nice and soft when spreading time comes.

A touch of vinegar in the simmering water right before dropping in the egg, swirl the water a bit to create a vortex in an attempt to keep the poaching egg whites in a manageable oval shape, as opposed to spreading out uncontrollably in the pot. Poach for maybe 2 minutes, just long enough for the whites to set. Salt, pepper, drizzle on a spoonful of Sherry vinaigrette.

So delicious, it's a little ridiculous. I like to poke the yolk and let it run out, to try to get a little bit with each asparagus bite. But don't worry - a baguette is the perfect tool for swabbing any Sherry vinaigrette-infused egg yolk that you might miss.

What to drink with this spring feast? Popular wisdom is to complain about how hard it is to pair wine with asparagus. I think that's malarkey. I can think of several wines right this second that I would have enjoyed very much with this dish - Fino Sherry, any sort of sparkling wine, Chablis, any Jura wine, white or red, and so on.

Today, with my first real spring lunch, I drank a rosé from Provence, the 2011 Domaine Les Fouques Côtes de Provence Rosé Cuvée de L'Aubigue, $14, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. I bought this wine while speaking on the phone with David Lillie, one of the owners of Chambers Street Wines. I called about an order I placed, including a few bottles of a popular Provence rosé that I buy every year. David said "You know, that wine is yeasted, it smells and tastes like what they want you to think rosé smells and tastes like. If you like the pale rosés you might enjoy this other wine by Les Fouques. It's quite good."

For David, "quite good" is astoundingly high praise.

"Okay, I'll try it. How much is it?" I asked.

"Fourteen dollars," David said. The wine I was going to buy costs over 20% more than that. Just another thing to love about Chambers Street Wines - they'll steer you to the wine they think you should try, even if it's less expensive. 

Can I tell you, the wine is great. It's mostly Cinsault and Grenache, with little bits of things like Syrah and Rolle (aka Vermentino). It has very pretty berry aromas, a metallic kind of mineral tone, and with some time open it has a very lovely earthy smell too - something that I think is part of what is wiped out of too many inexpensive rosés in an attempt to enhance their fruity character. The wine tastes great, it's balanced and pretty and very refreshing. It's got a lot of structure too, for an inexpensive little Provence rosé. David Lillie (who I think direct imports this wine) - you rock.

If you can think of a better early spring lunch, I'm listening.

Chateau Simone - Wine From Another Era

Last night I had dinner with a friend and we shared a bottle of 1999 Chateau Simone Palette Rouge, $48, Imported by Robert Chadderdon Selections. I absolutely loved the wine and I was still thinking about it this morning. The wine offered so much visceral pleasure, and that's mostly what we discussed last night while drinking it. But today I've been thinking about where the wine is from and when it was made, and how it is so different from most other wines that we are likely to drink today.

Chateau Simone is about 15 hectares of vineyards in and around the village of Meyreuil, less than 10 miles east of Aix-en-Provence, further inland and to the west of Bandol. The same family has been making wine there for over 300 years. Different members of the family, of course - no one can live to be 300 years old. Except vampires. Anyway, this old estate has been making great red, white, and rosé wines for a very long time. The reds are made primarily of Grenache and Mourvèdre, and there are many other grapes added in smaller proportions, like Cinsault, Syrah, Carignan, Petit Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and then local varieties such as Muscat Noir, Castet, Manosquin, and Brun-Fourca. If I ever again have cats, they will be named Manosquin and Brun-Fourca, and that is a promise.

If you aren't familiar with Chateau Simone, you might think of the estate as a wise and slightly eccentric uncle who is entirely old-world. These are wines that are highly prized by a small but lovingly devoted following. They are similar in composition to most wines from Châteauneuf-du Pape, which is not really that far away as the crow flies, but from my drinking experience, they don't taste anything like Châteauneuf-du Pape. To me, they don't taste like anything else that I know of.

I want to tell you what I think makes these wines so special, but before that I should tell you that I do not possess many facts about Chateau Simone. I read on the Wine Doctor's site that the wines are aged in foudres for 18 months and then in barrique for a year. Seems plausible, but the wine I drank last night, and all of the Simone wines I've had, taste and feel nothing of barrique. Then again, I've never had a recent vintage - I've drank only a few wines from the late 90's and a few from the mid-late 80's. Was the Wine Doctor writing about today's Chateau Simone, or about Chateau Simone in the early 90's? Perhaps the wines are made differently now - I heard that a father retired and a son or sons took over. But I honestly have no idea whether or not this is true. Another thing - as of a few years ago Robert Chadderdon no longer imports Chateau Simone. It's now a Rosenthal wine.

So now, let me tell you why I think these wines are so special. Most wines that are made today in Provence and in the southern Rhône are very big and extracted wines. Chateau Simone Rouge is made from well-muscled grapes too, but extraction is not a word that comes to mind. Somehow, this wine is a miracle of silky texture and wispy elegance. It can be stunning in its clarity and lavender flower detail, and in the intensity and pungency that emerge from its slender frame. Just think about the alcohol level - the 1999 is 12.5%, and that was a pretty warm and ripe year. There just aren't many wines anymore from this part of the world that are made this way, emphasizing delicacy and detail of expression, texture, and weightlessness. Who makes 12.5% alcohol wines in Provence nowadays?

And what a shame that is! Grenache, Mourvèdre, and these other grapes clearly have the potential to make great wines in a subtle style, and very few estates use them that way. And that number seems to be shrinking. There are still a solid core of Bandol producers making old school wines that although big, are modest in alcohol and quite expressive and detailed - Terrebrune, Pradeaux, Pibarnon, and Tempier come to mind. But wait - didn't things change even at the venerable Domaine Tempier in the past 10 years or so? Will the wines from the early 21st century, when mature, taste as the wines from the 1970's do now? Will the 2007 Chateau Simone Rouge in 8 years taste the way the 1999 did last night? I don't know, but I really hope so.

If you haven't tried a mature Chateau Simone, they are worth searching for, and although rare, bottles turn up here and there if you're looking. They are beautiful and unique, and of another era.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Cellar space is at a premium in NYC. I can't save all of the different wines I would like to age. There are many different wines in my "cellar" (read: wine fridge), things that most anyone would agree should be left alone for years before drinking. It's the little wines that I never seem to make room for, and we drink them up when they're young.

There's nothing at all wrong with that - if a wine is expressive and delicious young, why not drink it? Some humble little wines, though, can improve dramatically with even short-term cellaring, and I wish that I had more space/self control to give them that extra year or two in the bottle.

A couple examples. I never manage to hold any Coudert Fleurie. The old vines Cuvée Tardive I'm good about, but the regular wine...as much as I'd like to sock a few bottles away, the wine is always delicious young, and so we drink it. Another example - all Bandol rosés. As committed as I am to holding a bottle or two, I seem to find excuses to open them.

This is all too common with me. There are so many wines that I'd love to put away, but don't. Such is life - there are choices to make and one cannot cellar every interesting bottle of wine. I drank a few things recently that reminded me of the rewards of storing the humble wines even for just a year or two.

2006 Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvée Domaine, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. I've always enjoyed this wine but I never managed to store any until the 2006 vintage. It's just so good, even right out of the gates. Some folk, like the Vulgar Little Monkey, figured out long ago that there are several Baudry wines worth cellaring, the humble Cuvée Domaine included. It's not Baudry's top wine and it will never be earth shattering, but Cuvée Domaine is a great wine that in most vintages is even better with a few years in the cellar. The tannins have rounded a bit in the 2006 and the wine flows freely across the palate. The fruit is rich and the body lean and muscular, the sensibilities of gravel and flower coexisting harmoniously. You will be proud of me when I tell you that I still have another bottle of this. And a few of the 2007's too. I need an underground cave.

2006 Jacques Puffeney Arbois Trousseau Cuvée les Bérangères, $30, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. Again, this was always an attractive wine. But I managed to hold this last bottle for merely one year and the payoff was huge. The slight astringency that I was always happy to work with is gone now, and so is whatever else that is not essential to the purest of cool red currant and leafy raspberry, the gamy undercurrent, and the stony finish. So agile and energetic, such a compelling example of cool climate mountain wine from the Jura. I hereby renew my commitment to the 2007's.

2007 Domaine de Terrebrune Bandol Rosé, $25, Kermit Lynch Imports. I won't lie to you - I didn't cellar this wine. I drank all mine last summer and loved all of it. But Chambers Street came across a small bit recently and I bought a bottle from them. Wow - the wine is even better. It takes a while to open up, but when it does it really sings. Peach juice, spices, metal, and stone, pure as can be and perfectly balanced. The gamy streak that was there in its youth was not here a year later, but I loved how there is a new dimension to the texture. There are layers on the palate now, and there is a tactile sense to each flavor. I bet that this is just the beginning for this wine, actually. Bert Celce of Wine Terroirs has written about the aging potential of Bandol rosé, Terrebrune's in particular.

The Handsell

Some wines sell themselves. Consumers know about and want these wines, and do not require any discussion with sales staff in order to buy. Not being in the business myself, I don't know for sure which wines these are, but I'm guessing things like high end Bordeaux, cheap Malbec or rosé, or most any California wine in the $20 and under price range.

Then there are wines that simply will not sell without some special urging. Think of the customer that walks in and says "I want a dry white wine and I don't want to spend more than $20." If left to their own devices, are they going to decide on Clos des Briords? I don't think so. The bottle is shaped funny, and what the heck is Muscadet anyway? Actually, Clos des Briords and particularly a wine like Granite de Clisson are probably not good examples here because they also sell themselves. To a far more limited audience than high end Bordeaux, let's say, but there are people (count me as one) who anticipate Granite de Clisson the same way others anticipate Bordeaux futures.

Think back to the days when you were in the early stages of learning about wine. If you wandered into a retail store, would you have picked out a bottle of $24 Granite de Clisson? If that's the bottle you got, it's more likely that you would have told one of the staff about some of the other things you enjoy drinking, and that person might have asked you "Well, have you ever tried Granite de Clisson?" Five minutes later, after they helped you to develop some context for the wine, you bought it.

It's easy to forget that there are many wines that I love, you too probably, that require conversations like the one above before they sell. Entire categories of great wine - Beaujolais and Jura to name two. If you don't already drink those wines, even if you drink wine several times a week, who wanders into a retail store and picks out a $20 Morgon or a $29 Trousseau without help from the staff?

I guess this is why the stores that carry those wines tend to be the stores that employ intelligent and well-trained sales staff. How else can you move the wine? And make no mistake, as much as we all respect Clos Rougeard, it doesn't make sense to have $45 Saumur-Champigny sitting on the shelf for over a year. The wine has to move.

The other day I was in Astor Wines and I noticed a few bottles on the shelves by Henri Milan, a producer that I really like in Provence. I said to the wine buyer "Wow - I love Henri Milan wines, that's so great that you carry them." She said "yeah, I think they're great wines, but Henri Milan was in town last week and I had to get him in here to train my staff on how to sell them before I agreed to carry them."

This is Astor Wines, one of NYC's mecca's for great wine, and Henri Milan is, as she put is, "completely a hand sell." Makes sense I guess - the wines start at $25 for a VdP and go up to over $50 for his top wine, a gorgeous Syrah blend called Clos Milan. But the wine isn't one of the spectacularly popular Provence wines, like a Bandol for example. You have to know what it is before dropping $50 on Clos Milan, or $25 on the VdP, never mind $35 on the VdP white blend.

Last week I was hanging out with my friend Clarke who represents Neal Rosenthal's wines, and he poured me something that I had never heard of, a white wine from the Languedoc by Mas Jullien, the 2006 Mas Jullien Vin de Pays de l'Hérault. (sorry for the rough photo, but it was taken with a blackberry) I was immediately captivated by this wine. It had been open for almost 2 days and it was showing great balance, an expressive and expansive nose of dark floral and wet stone aromatics, bright fresh fruit that was completely infused with flowers, and that elusive (among Languedoc whites, anyway) combination of richness and intensity with lean texture and energy on the palate. Truly delicious wine, something I would love to explore further at home with dinner.

You might have noticed that I didn't give the price of the wine, and that's because as far as I know, no one sells it. Clarke says that perhaps 25 cases come in each year, and so far, only restaurants buy it. When I asked why no retailers have bought it he said "This is the ultimate hand-sell - an over $30 white wine from the Languedoc."

I guess there are hand-sells on the importer/distributor side of the business too. There are hand-sells everywhere, come to think of it. I need to think about this more, but it occurs to me that most of the interesting and good things in life are hand-sells.

Brooklyn Blind Tasting Panel #4 - Inexpensive Provence Reds

Everyone knows that well made Bandol is beautiful and age-worthy wine. But the inexpensive red wines of Provence? Even at under $20, these are not exactly popular wines, which makes perfect sense if you think about it. The marquis wine crowd doesn't even know that these wines exist, and the cool-cat wine crowd prefers light red wines with low alcohol. Some of my favorite wine stores, Chambers Street included, do not stock even one inexpensive Provence red wine. Why would they - the wines are high alcohol, clunky, sweet fruit bombs without any grace. Aren't they?

Some are, yes. But there are some great under $20 red wines from Provence. Wines that can offer the same level of quality as good Beaujolais or Loire red wines at those prices - delicious wines that express terroir and work perfectly with food. When well made, these are wines that offer lots of power and intensity, but also a modicum of grace, and that's an intriguing combination. Okay, these wines are not as flexible with food as Loire or Beaujolais wines, but there's plenty of room to play around here. I'm not saying that I want to drink an inexpensive Provence red every night, but when I want a big red wine and I'm not spending more that $20, I think there's a lot to like in Provence. I'm talking about lavender and other Provence herbs and gamy leathery animale aromas - not just ripe fruit.

With that in mind, I convened the Brooklyn Blind Tasting Panel to take a closer look at inexpensive Provence red wines. For this tasting I was joined by Rosemary Gray, the Champagne, Austria, Germany, and Sake wine buyer and a manager at Chambers Street Wines, Ben Hagen, the wine buyer at Slope Cellars, one of my favorite Brooklyn retailers, and Dan Melia who runs the US operations for Mosel Wine Merchant.

Such a great group for this tasting - Rosemary drinks loads of minerally white wine and has a tough time with big red wines like this. Dan represents a load of German Riesling producers and also rarely drinks wines like these. And Ben said that he studiously avoids wines like these, that he can't deal with the alcohol and the big fruit. We tasted (and then drank with dinner) 8 wines, all of them currently available in NYC retail stores.

Ben thought the wines were interesting, and found that he had a lot to say about them, which he felt was a good thing. He also felt that he wouldn't buy any of them for himself other than the first wine below, that he found the fruit to be candied in many of them. Dan felt that there wasn't a lot of pleasure in many of the wines, he didn't feel like he wanted to sit there and drink them. And he wasn't saying that he wished he had food with them, he meant that sometimes he just wants to drink a wine and he didn't find many that he wanted to just sit there and drink. Rosemary was surprised that she liked the wines, but she found the group to be hit or miss, and imagined that it would be tough to shop for these wines without knowing exactly what you wanted. I wasn't disappointed - I thought that some of the wines were very good, and very much expressive of Provence. And these wines can offer unusual flavors. things that I don't experience in wines from anywhere else. Here are the wines we tasted, with a few notes:

Three of us picked the same wine as our favorite, the 2006 Delille Vin de Pays du Mont Caume Terre d'Ombre, $17, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. Reymond Delille makes Bandol at Domaine de Terrebrune, and this is a very similar wine. I don't know the exact blend but it's lots of Mourvedre with some Grenache and Cinsault in there. Could be Terrebrune Bandol but younger vines, could be the same wine but a different blend, using less than 50% Mourvedre, I just don't know. But it really stood out for me in this tasting - earthy and intense but still energetic and lively. The nose was very animale with bretty leathery notes, dark and a bit spicy. Spreads out on the palate but the wine is nicely structured, the fruit is bright and perky, and it is infused with this herbal animale funk. I thought it was well balanced and delicious. Dan was worried at first that the animale would obscure the wine, but he was very happy with the savory, spicy taste, and found the wine to be entirely approachable. He thought it got better and better over the course of the evening. Ben thought it was a classic Provence red wine, with an interesting chestnutty quality, and Rosemary thought it opened up nicely and showed a lightness and deftness that balanced the animale intensity. She thought it would be a good candidate for the cellar. I can tell you from re-tasting it the next night that the wine continues to improve, and all the balance, character, and class that you could want in a big red wine. And it's drinkable - the alcohol is a entirely reasonable 13%. This is one to buy if you come across it.

The next four wines were all quite good, and were preferred by some of us, enjoyed by all, and in no particular order:

2004 Domaine du Deffends Côteaux Varois Clos de la Truffière, $19, Robert Chadderdon Selections. During the tasting and then dinner, this wine was good but also a bit weird. A blend of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, I found bright citrus fruit on the nose - think persimmon, and also some very prominent sandalwood aromas. Although the texture was very smooth and the fruit bright, I found the wine to be a bit disjointed and wasn't crazy about it. Dan at first found it to be glossy and manipulated, and said that he was dismissive of it initially, but thought it improved with air. Ben and Rosemary both liked the wine, seeing past the incense smells and finding something classically Provence about the wine. And let me tell you that on day 2, the wine is the best of the bunch, with a harmonious nose that shows brightly floral fruit and loads of Provence herbs, and a structured but graceful and joyous palate with a long lavender finish. This is a wine that I want to drink on day 2, or to cellar for 5-8 years and then open up for some wine-geek friends in the winter with a bowl of stew.

2007 Mas de Gourgonnier Les Baux de Provence, $14, Michael Skurnik Wines. This was Rosemary's favorite wine, and it is the most spare of the lot, without the pungency of some of the other wines. This wine has lovely and bright strawberry fruit, and a shot of animale earth that offers nice contrast. I thought the fruit was interesting in that it reminded me of the way that black tea can be fruity. The wine is energetic and well balanced and is easy to like - everyone liked it. It is still quite good on day 2 and shows a pronounced black licorice character, and continues to show an attractively spare structure. It is 12.5% alcohol and under $15 and eminently drinkable.

2006 Château Jean-Pierre Gaussen Vin de Pays du Mont Caume, $11, Moonlight Wines Imports. I wrote about this wine last summer, and I liked it again in this tasting, but not as much as some of the other wines. The nose shows a dark and earthy animale character, but I wanted this to be balanced by brighter fruit. There is good acidity and structure, but in the end I thought the wine just wasn't very interesting. Rosemary thought the alcohol stood out a bit, and although it is only 12.5%, it does stand out, on day 2 also. But the fruit is also brighter on day 2. Dan liked this wine more and more as the evening wore on, and he said that it was the one he was thinking about the next day. Who knows about this wine - it is mostly Mourvedre and those wines from this place are a bit of a mystery, I think.

2008 Comptoirs de Magdala Vin de Pays du Mont Caume La Chance, $17, Jenny & François Selections - this wine kindly donated by Jenny & François for this tasting. This wine was entirely different from the others in its lightness and drinkability. It is very young wines of Cinsault, Grenache, and Mourvedre from the back garden of Antoine Pouponneau's garden (he makes Bandol at Tour du Bon). Rosemary liked it a lot and said that she wanted to drink it more than the others. Dan too said that it offered pleasure, and that he didn't find as much pure pleasure in the other wines. Ben liked it too, but didn't find it to be as expressive as the others. I enjoyed this wine but I thought it was more expressive as a natural wine than as a Provence wine, and that it drank more like a Beaujolais than a Mourvedre blend. This is not a bad thing, but if I were looking specifically for a Provence red wine, I would be a bit disappointed if this is what the salesperson sold me.

2008 Commanderie de Peyrassol Vin de Pays Portes Méditerraneé La Croix, $13, Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. I really like this wine. I loved it in 2007, and I like it in 2008, but I will say that it is a very weird wine this year. The fruit character is bizarre, very floral, and almost confected. Rosemary said it was like drinking some sort of plastic toy. I thought the nose with its persimmon and pineapple fruit was simply strange, but the palate was interesting and in the end, attractive. No one thought it was flawed, and no one disliked it, but everyone thought it was very weird wine. It is a blend of Syrah and Cabernet, and there might be other grapes in there too. The alcohol is 14% and it does stand out a little bit. I liked it because to me, it is so clearly of Provence. It is unusual, but with a rare and bloody steak...I'm in.

2005 Domaine de Triennes Vin de Pays du Var St Auguste, $18, Imported by The Sorting Table. This is a modern and well made wine, but a wine that offers little to distinguish it as a Provence wine. It is much more about Cabernet Sauvignon than it is about Provence. Everyone pegged is as Cabernet, and everyone found it to be glossy and modern, and most found it to be unappealing. I thought it was well made and I liked it, although I would again be very disappointed if this is what i came home with, wanting Provence wine. On day 2 it was muddy and nondescript. 13.5% alcohol.

2005 Château du Seuil Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence, $9, Winebow Imports. This is a closeout deal, and it simply didn't show well at all. Non-descript, modern, devoid of any real character, this is not why I'm interested in Provence wine.

Lunar Cycles and Wine Showings

I'm starting to believe in the influence of lunar cycles on wine. I'm not saying that wine is better if it's made biodynamically, I'm not trying to tell you what you should do, there is no dogma here. I'm talking about what I'm finding regarding the days when wine shows well and when it doesn't. I haven't done any kind of study, although I might soon try to do just that. But through casual conversations with people who know and love wine, I'm finding that when a wine doesn't show well it turns out to have been a root day or a leaf day. And when a wine shows great, it turns out to have been a fruit day or a flower day.

Disclaimer: I've only been paying attention to this for a few months and following along myself for a few weeks since reader TWG kindly emailed me a copy of the 2010 calendar. And there have been exceptions.

But I kid you not, the calendar has been so reliable that I'm starting to plan dinners and tastings around it. And I'm already at the point where I cannot imagine opening a special bottle unless it's a fruit day.

Listen to this: on Saturday we had our friends Clarke and Sophie over for dinner and we opened 7 bottles of wine. Lest you think that we are lushes, we didn't drink all of the wine, only most of it. Every single wine showed spectacularly well. And yes, it was a fruit day. On its own this means absolutely nothing, of course. But when was the last time you drank (not tasted) 7 bottles of wine in an evening and every one of them showed beautifully? The last time I drank this many wines in an evening was the Savigny-lès-Beaune night I hosted and nothing showed very well. It was a root day, as it turns out. Check that, I drank loads of wine the other day at Levi's luncheon, and they showed very well, for the most part. It was a flower day, and it was the only favorable day for drinking that week until Friday. I wonder, did Levi check the calendar before choosing the date of the lunch?

Who really knows what's going on with these things. I put a period at the end of that sentence because it is a rhetorical question. So please don't get riled up in the comments - I'm not trying to convert anyone, I'm not making any kind of argument, and I haven't done enough to know how I feel about this yet. But as you have surmised, I am greatly intrigued.

And by the way, the wines from Saturday night really were superb. Here is what we drank and ate:

NV Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla Nº 16, $39, Eric Solomon Selections. Imported by European Cellars. We drank this with my first ever attempt at scallop ceviche. The wine was the essence of Manzanilla, although in drinking the leftovers two days later (on a root day) I can say that it would benefit from a few years of bottle age. It was delicious, but burly and assertive when we drank it, and now it is completely harmonious and gorgeous.

2005 Damien Laureau Savennières Le Bel Ouvrage, $32, Jon-David Headrick Selections, Imported by European Cellars. My favorite Savennières producer right now, Laureau's wines are consistently delicious and very expressive. Bel Ouvrage, anyway, as I've never had his other cuvée called Les Genêts. my first time with the '05, this wine showed more overtly fruity than any other Laureau wine I've had. That's to be expected from 2005, but it was also very floral and mineral with an almost powdery sense to it, and with great poise and balance. I loved this wine and imagine that it will age very well.

2006 Paolo Bea Arboreus Umbri Bianco, $66, Neal Rosenthal Imports. My first time with Arboreus, or any of Bea's white (orange) wines for that matter. This is a local strain of Trebbiano that spends lots of time in contact with the skins and then lots of time on the lees. It was incredible in that the aromas were absolutely the purest of orange fruit, fresh juicy and vivid orange and tangerine. Some rocks too, but I was wowed by the fruit. We drank this and the Savennières with flounder baked in parchment paper (look out, my fish monger is back at the market).

2001 Azienda Agricola La Torre Brunello di Montalcino, $69, Neal Rosenthal Imports. Beautifully rich and dark cherry fruit and a bit of soil. Delicious, but came across as a bit one dimensional on night one. One dimensional in a hedonistic and delicious way. This is probably because the wine simply needs time. I drank the remnants the following evening (still a fruit day) and the wine was utterly superb, showing everything I would hope for from a Brunello. A beautiful interplay of pungent leathery earth and vivid dark cherry fruit, an herbal finish that really resonates, clarity and purity - this wine was a bit of a revelation for me.

1986 Château Simone Palette Rouge, $50, Robert Chadderdon Imports. What can I say here? As Clarke put it, this was a great example of a noble old wine. The nose was of the forest, and very mellow, while the palate was fresh and vibrant, still showing good acidity, and showed that seamlessness that makes it silly to try to describe the flavors. The whole package was really quite beautiful. We drank this and the Brunello with braised pork ribs, creamy polenta, and kale.

2001 Domaine de Montbourgeau L'Etoile Cuvée Spéciale, $26, Neal Rosenthal Imports. What a bounty of ripe fruit! Yes, this is made in the under-the-veil style and is gloriously oxidized, but the brightness and clarity of the fruit was amazing. I assumed it was Savagin, but Sophie told us that it is Chardonnay in 2001. This was great with a Vacherin du Jura, the creamy cow's milk cheese that is wrapped in a band of spruce bark.

And then after BrooklynLady's delicious home made chocolate pudding we drank a bottle of 2002 Huet Vouvray Pétillant, $33, Robert Chadderdon Imports, because we were a bit drunk and it just seemed like the right thing to do. A great showing there, as well. I loved how completely woolly the wine was, compared with the flowery fruit and crystalline shimmer of the Savennières - such wonderfully different expressions of Chenin Blanc.

Getting Started with 2010

If you look at the left side-bar of this blog you'll see that with 2010, this blog enters its fifth calendar year. This is misleading, as I have been doing this for only three and a half years. In any case, enough time has passed so that I think it's worth stepping back for a minute. And I'll use the beginning of the new year as an excuse to do this.

I am not in the wine business. I write this blog anonymously in an attempt to maintain some sort of privacy for my family and for myself in my "real" life. I started blogging as a way to record my learning about wine, and that's basically still what it is for me. Some things have changed, of course. I get to do much more than I did back then, as the New York City wine community has, luckily for me, welcomed me into it's folds. And when I write a post now I am conscious of that fact that there are people who will actually read it. But other than that, everything is the same.

I'm still not in the wine business. I've still not had a bottle of 91 Rousseau Chambertin with dinner (or any vintage of any Chambertin with dinner, for that matter), I've never tasted DRC, I've never had anyone's Montrachet with dinner. Don't mistake me for some guy who has tasted and drunk the best wines of the world, because I haven't, and I never claim to be that kind of guy. I do drink a lot of wine, I like to think that I have a decent palate, and I'm learning as much as I can. I'm having an absolute ball doing so, and I'll continue to share whatever interests me with you here on this blog.

Now that that's out of the way, I want to share a bit about something exciting from 2009. I haven't written about this yet because I couldn't figure out a graceful way to do so. And I still can't, but it was really exciting, and so this will have to do - Eric Asimov came to our house for dinner! Why did he come to dinner at my house? My mother would have you believe that he's mulling over some sort of fantastic job to offer me, and he needed to meet to check me out first. That's kind of cute in its own only-your-mother-could-be-that-patently-absurd way, isn't it?

He came over for dinner because he loves to drink wine and eat (hopefully) good food, and because he probably gets mostly business invites, and this invite was personal. He came over because I have a blog and he does too, and because I invited him.

What would you serve Eric Asimov if he came over for dinner? I decided that I wouldn't try to impress him with Grand Cru Burgundy and things like that. He has access to that kind of thing through his work, and that's not what I drink at home and write about anyway. I decided to serve some of the things that I know and love. Here's what we had:

(2005) Cédric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Les Ursules Brut Blanc de Noirs - solo. This Champagne is delicate enough that I prefer to drink it on its own - no almonds, no nibbles, nothing. It was delicious.

NV Equipos Navazos La Bota de Fino "Macharnudo Alto" Nº 15 with pickled herring. I love this Sherry, but it was the only wine that didn't show at its best that night. Three days later it was great, but at our dinner it was just good. And I'm still not sure if there really is a wine that pairs harmoniously with pickled herring. Sherry comes close.

2002 Luneau-Papin Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Excelsior Clos des Noelles with fish soup. We decanted this wine and it was lovely. Young, but lovely, and to my taste, a harmonious pairing. Is there a better value in wine than Muscadet? I don't think so.

1993 Domaine Tempier Bandol La Migoua with steak, mushrooms, and winter radishes. When mature Tempier is good, it's really good. We got lucky with this one - it was really good. From another era, literally and figuratively.

2001 Dirler Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Kessler with a stinky Bavarian Muenster cheese. Although there is plenty of residual sugar in this wine, the vibrant acidity brings it into perfect balance and the wine doesn't seem sweet. It's not just about spicy exotic fruit - there are herbal and mineral flavors here too. I loved this wine, and there is a reason that the pairing of great Gewurz and Muenster is a classic.

Anyway, he's a very nice guy, that Eric Asimov, and it was a thrill to have him over. I know what you're thinking - "how can Brooklynguy top that in 2010?" Well, I've invited Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner over (both big into Cali Cabs), and hopefully they'll get back to me soon. If they can make it, I really need to get started thinking about what wines to serve.

Simplicity = Onion Tart

In the oppressive heat and humidity of August in New York City, it is the simplest food that I crave. I can't do the amazing things that my friend Peter, for example, does in the kitchen. He is a down-to-earth guy who composts and re-uses and grows his own vegetables, but his food is not simple. Everything has yuzu, agave nectar, smoked poultry broth, and homemade bacon in it, and then gets plated with lovely little edible flowers. I would like to eat the things he makes, but I cannot/do not have the will to cook them. I have to keep things simple. But I want delicious food too - simple doesn't have to mean plain.

Here is a truly simple dish, and it is a wonderful dish whose sum is far more elegant than its parts. I'm talking about the onion tart. The ingredients are inexpensive and the tart is quite versatile - you could serve this to your foodie friends, to your 2.5 year old, or brown bag it for lunch the next day. Oh, and it lends itself very well to wine - you can go in most any direction with this.

All you need is a few onions, a pie crust, and butter. The essence of the onion tart is very simple - thinly slice 3 or 4 medium onions and cook them for 25-30 minutes in plenty of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Add a bit of salt and stir every few minutes so that all of the onions get a turn touching the pan's surface. You can let the onions get all brown and caramelized if you like, but I prefer to stop about 5 minutes short of that. They will still be very sweet, but not as intense and rich. Put these onions in a pie crust that you have flattened (or if you're Peter, make your own crust), fold the edges of the crust up around the onions, and bake for about 40 minutes. That's it - the most basic of onion tarts. I like to add dried herbs to the onions as they cook. You also add things like olives, tomatoes, anchovies, lemon zest - whatever sounds good to you. This time I added Herbs de Provence to the cooking onions, and put black olives and little Juliette tomatoes atop the tart before baking.

Now, what about wine? I think it would be pretty hard to take a wrong turn here. This is simple food that will go with just about any wine. I thought about an Alsace Pinot Blanc, but that made me want to add eggs and cheese to the tart and eat it in January. It's late summer, it's hot, and I used Herbs de Provence - we went with the 2008 Château de Pibarnon Bandol Rosé, $26, Michael Skurnik Wines. This wine turned out to be absolutely excellent, as good as any Bandol rosé I've had this year, including the phenomenal 2007 Terrebrune. I have yet to drink the '08 Tempier, so the jury is still out for me. Anyway...Pibarnon's rosé is 50% each of Mourvèdre and Cinsault, and it is a beautiful deep orange, with vibrant and spicy aromas of peaches. The lavender in the herb mixture brought out something floral in the wine - this was one of those times when the wine and the food elevate each other. But it was the texture that made the wine stand out, for me. It is voluptuous and thick, almost viscous, but the fruit and mineral flavors are so clean and bright that the overall effect is one of elegance and balance. This wine has plenty of stuffing, and If I had a case, I would drink half while young put half of it in the cellar for at least 5 years before checking in.

Tomatoes Provençal (sort of)

August brings some serious goodness to our local farmer's market. Check out these sugar plums and apricots - my two and a half year old practically tore the bag out of my hand when I got them home. Actually, these might be a bit late this year because of all of the rain we've had this summer. I think sugar plums typically arrive in July.

Eat them or paint them?

As wonderful as those plums are, tomatoes are my favorite food-thing about August and September. There's been a lot of talk about tomato blight this year, about how the crop will be small and very expensive. Crossing my fingers that this will not be the case, and so far the markets seem pretty well stocked, prices seem about normal.

I got my first heirlooms of the summer this past weekend from Bill Maxwell's farm in New Jersey. These tomatoes need nothing, they're utterly delicious on their own. We chose three varieties, and I cannot remember their names - I think they are green stripe, purple velvet, and the third one escapes me. A few drops of Peter Liem's amazing olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, and voila - the best thing I've cooked all year.

Keep it simple.

Everyone knows that fresh tomatoes can be finicky with wine, and vice-versa. Tannins and fresh tomatoes don't get along so well. We ate these heirlooms with a very fine bottle of white Provence wine, the 2006 Domaine Henri Milan Vin de Table Le Grand Blanc, about $30, Imported by Meilleurs Vins de Provence and Domaine Select Wine & Estates. Disclaimer - I received this wine as a sample from the generous folks at Meilleurs Vins de Provence. I also shared some friendly and informative emails with one of the owners, and viewed photographs of him and his son tasting wine in a Provence cellar. He has not yet sent me a Rolex, but I'm working on him.

Milan farms biodynamically and makes, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful wines of the region, white or red. The soils for the white wines supposedly resemble some of the Grand Cru plots of Chablis, with blue marl and limestone. Le Grand Blanc is a blend of 30% Grenache Gris, 30% Chardonnay, 20% Roussanne, 10% Muscat, and 10% Rolle (aka Vermentino). It is fermented and raised for a year in used barrique.


The nose is very fresh with pears and oxidative notes of orange peel. It is airy and broad, clean and pure, potent and lively, a very beautiful nose. Later on there is a bit of barrel toast and caramel on the nose, and that's fine in this case. The fruit is vivid and almost tropical, with a rich oily texture. This is a well balanced and complex wine with an intense nutty finish that keeps crawling up the nostrils. It went beautifully with the tomatoes - it is neither tannic nor acidic. I know that $30 might sound like a lot for a VdT from Provence, but this is one of those amazing-wines-that-terrify-the-INAO-and-so-is-denied-appellation-status wines, and it is worth every penny.

Provence - the Best $10 Red Wines?

I think that the sweet spot for red wine these days is in the $20 - $30 range (in NYC retail prices, anyway) There are all sorts of beautiful wines in that price range. There are excellent wines at the $15-$20 mark also, but they are harder to come by. Great $10 reds...not so easy, in my book. But I found two of them recently, and they're both from Provence. Is Provence quietly putting out the best $10 red wines?

Provence is such a misunderstood wine region. People seem to think of it as the armpit of French wine regions. Why does it get so little respect among wine lovers? Bandol is well known as the home of some of the world's greatest rosé wines. But it is also, and perhaps more quietly, the home of the unique Mourvèdre-based red wines that offer a stunning blend of silky texture with raw, tannic, and animale-infused fruit. These red wines age beautifully, they go great with a wide array of foods, and the top examples, with only one or two exceptions, will not run you more than $50.

From my rather limited experience, quality does tend to take a noticeable step down outside of Bandol, and perhaps this is the reason that Provence as a region does not get a lot of respect. There are, of course, great producers making great wines from other areas in Provence, and their entry-level bottles can offer truly fantastic value. These wines are not as easy to find as some other $10 reds, but they are of such high quality that they are worth seeking out and buying by the case. These are big Provence red wines, full of meaty fruit and lavender, and they are perfect with summer grilling. They're perfect with winter stews too, but why wait until winter? Here are two such wines:

2007 Commanderie de Peyrassol La Croix Vin de Pays de Méditerraneé, $11, Rosenthal Imports. I love this wine! An approximately equal blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah from the great producer in Var in the Côtes de Provence. A reasonable 13.5% alcohol. It's all funk at first but that blows off quickly, and then the nose is rich and dense with dark tarry fruit. With an hour open the Syrah blossoms and the nose shows a distinct animale side, full of pheromones. The palate is lively and balanced even though the fruit is rich and dense, and the finish is fragrant with dark fruit, lavender, and tar. An absolutely lovely wine that works well above its pay-grade.

2006 Château Jean-Pierre Gaussen Vin de Pays du Mont Caume, $10, Moonlight Wines Imports. Gaussen is an old-school producer in Bandol and this is his "baby Bandol." Red wine must contain a minimum of 50% Mourvèdre to be labeled Bandol, and this wine has about 35% Mourvèdre (the blend changes with each vintage and really, it's a mystery). There is about 35% Grenache, some Syrah, probably some Cabernet Sauvignon, and perhaps some Cinsault. This wine really improves with a bit of air - I recommend opening it a half hour or so before serving. Then the nose shows youthful and fresh strawberry fruit, some cocoa, and a bit of alcohol (13% - even less than the Peyrassol) that integrates as the wine aerates further. The palate is well balanced, with good acidity and a gamy note that infuses the fruit - really delicious and such an interesting and complex wine at this price. This is big wine, very muscular, but with a gentle side. Like a longshoreman who plays the violin.

Wine of the Week - Terrebrune Rosé and Tapenade

I've lived in New York essentially for my whole life (there were four years of college in the mid-west and a year in Southeast Asia and India). I've never seen a June like the one we just had, with rain almost every day, skies overcast. We had 18 days straight of rain at one stretch.

But you know what - it's still summer, and I'm taking every chance I get to treat it as such. For example, the other day while my daughters were both down for their mid-day nap, even though the sky was white, and the air thick and humid, I found myself thinking of rosé and tapenade. Probably because Bert of Wine Terroirs and I had been emailing recently about the glory of Bandol wine, and I recently re-read his post about this classic Provence pairing.

Bert says that it is easy to make tapenade - all you need is some olives, garlic, anchovies, capers, and lemon juice. A food processor helps, although a mortar and pestle is fine too. My kids nap for about two hours in the middle of the day. Could I make tapenade, enjoy it under gray skies on our deck, and still get some work done while they sleep? The answer, I'm happy to tell you, is yes.

Not a bad lunch on a humid and gray day. A food processor would help.

I used just over 6 ounces of pitted kalamata olives, one large garlic clove, two anchovy filets, about two tablespoons of capers, and the juice from half a lemon. I don't have a food processor, although we've been meaning to buy one for months. The mortar and pestle was fine though. Start by pounding the garlic with the anchovies and capers. I buy capers packed in salt usually, but for this dish it seemed better to buy a jar of large capers packed in water. Put the creamy garlic/caper mash in a bowl, then pound the olives - I had to do this in two batches. Add the olives to the caper/garlic/anchovy mash, and add the lemon juice. Stir well, and spread on slices of a baguette. My tapenade was not as creamy as Bert's, but there's only so much you can do with olives in a mortar and pestle. And coarse tapenade tastes great too.

The sun poked through the clouds as I was choosing a rosé, and I realized that celestial forces were telling me to open the very best Provençal rosé that we have. There are many fine rosés from Bandol, and every Bandol lover has his or her own favorite. Right now, mine is Terrebrune, and so I opened a bottle of the 2007 Domaine de Terrebrune Bandol Rosé, $25, Kermit Lynch Imports. Bert wrote a truly great profile of Terrebrune, and I won't waste space paraphrasing him.

Just look at that gorgeous orange color.

Terrebrune's rosé is made from the same low-yield, top quality Mourvèdre as is the estate's famous red wine. It offers rich and delicious fruit, and also a strong sense of the mineral soils that make up Terrbrune's vineyards near the sea. It is a rosé that typically benefits from cellaring. In fact, in its youth it can be quite wound up and intense, even difficult to drink. It has the classic and beautiful color that many Bandol Mourvèdre based rosés have, a deep coppery orange.The 2007 Terrebrune rosé is 50% Mourvèdre, 30% Grenache, and 20% Cinsault. The nose is tense with minerals at first, and opens up to to reveal herb-infused fruit, 7 hours later the lavender is quite clear. The oxidative nature of this wine gives the fruit an orangey character that contrasts nicely with the tension of the minerals and herbs. I saved two-thirds of this bottle to enjoy with BrooklynLady that evening, and I don't think the nose ever finished opening, although it certainly was lovely. This wine really glides across the palate with great textural richness. It is not heavy or sweet, but it is an intense and big rosé, with sunny seaside fruit flavors, a metallic mineral frame, and a nostril-filling fragrance. It demands food, and it worked perfectly with the assertive flavors of the tapenade. I hope I have the self control to cellar one or both of my remaining bottles of this wine. I would love to see how it evolves with say, 10 years. But it's just so good now, this will not be an easy task.

By the way, one thing that I particularly love about Terrebrune's wines is that they defy the trend towards higher alcohol in Provence. Not just the rosé, the red Bandol too. The 2005, the current vintage on NYC shelves, is a completely reasonable 13% alcohol. Perhaps wine maker Reynald Delille is using modern equipment to de-alcohol-ize the wine? Unlikely. But I would love to attend a presentation in which he and other Bandol producers discuss vineyard work, cellar work, and alcohol levels in Bandol over the past 15 years.

Two Kinds of Ripe

Lars Carlberg recently left another informative and interesting comment on this blog, this time to the post on Domaine Tempier's 1994 Bandol. Lars, Mosel wine exporter, wine lover, and wine thinker extraordinaire, lamented the fact that alcohol levels are consistently higher now in so many wines from Bandol and Châteauneuf du Pape.

Alcohol levels are typically at least 14% now in wines from those places, regularly hitting 15%. Until a decade ago, alcohol levels were typically about 13%. That increase of 1-2% represents 10-15% more alcohol in the wine, a significant increase. Why has this happened? I do not have a definitive answer for you, but Lars talked about phenolic ripeness and I want to explain what I think he meant - it's an interesting and counter intuitive idea.

First of all, the amount of sugar (measured in Brix) contained within grapes determines the potential alcohol level of the resulting wine. Bandol reds and also those from Châteauneuf du Pape, like most red wines, are fermented until dry. If alcohol levels are higher now, then it seems clear that grapes are now picked at sugar levels that are higher than they used to be.

Why would there now be more sugar in Bandol and Châteauneuf du Pape grapes? Perhaps it was a collective decision to pick later, encouraging maximum ripeness. But I don't think that's the answer. There are wine regions in which the prevailing style is to leave the grapes hanging as long as is safe to do so, producing ultra-ripe grapes that in turn produce huge, fruity, high alcohol wines. I don't think that's what they're going for in Bandol or in Châteauneuf du Pape.

So what's else could be behind the increase in alcohol levels if it's not a conscious decision to pick later? Well, it turns out that there are two types of ripeness. Sugar ripeness, but also something called phenolic ripeness. As Jamie Goode's describes in an excellent article that goes into far greater detail than I do here:

Phenolic ripeness (also referred to as physiological ripeness) refers to the changes in the tannins that occur in grape skins, seeds and stems. Sugar ripeness refers to the breakdown of acids and accumulation of sugars.

The tannins in grape skins, stems, and seeds have to be ripe in order for wine to taste and feel right in your mouth. Under-ripe tannins can taste green and astringent, unpleasant. But sugar ripeness happens earlier than phenolic ripeness. So grapes that hang for a long time and achieve ultra-ripe sugars also achieve very good phenolic ripeness. Think of that California fruit bomb that exhibits loads of fruit and almost no structure.

It's warmer than it used to be, so shouldn't ripeness occur earlier? Sugar ripeness - yes. Phenolic ripeness, not necessarily. What if grapes achieve sugar ripeness before phenolic ripeness is achieved? The grower must then either pick early, perhaps making wine with astringent tannins and a green streak, or must allow the grapes to hang longer, achieving higher sugars and wines of potentially higher alcohol. This is what I imagine is happening in Bandol and in Châteauneuf du Pape, and in other hot weather wine regions too.

Global warming, as GW Bush said, is a load of hogwash spread around by environmentalist pagans. That wisdom notwithstanding, harvests that used to happen in late September and into October are now complete by mid September. In Bandol they're getting the right sugars, but they cannot pick grapes with unripe tannins. The wines are already notoriously tannic - imagine a big Bandol with unripe tannins. So they have to leave the grapes for longer than they'd like, and the wines are higher in alcohol.

Perhaps they will start making off-dry wines in Bandol and Châteauneuf du Pape, in order to bring the alcohol levels back down. Or perhaps they will plant different grapes that require more sun in order to ripen. Or perhaps, truly fine red wines made from Mourvèdre, Grenache, Cinsault, Syrah, and the other southern grapes, will in 30 years be coming from the more northerly climes of Beaujolais and Burgundy. Or perhaps producers in Bandol and Châteauneuf du Pape will be forced to start de-alcoholizing their wines, and using all sorts of other unnatural processes in order to make balanced wine.

None of this seems good. I'm buying hillside land with good exposure in Scotland and Greenland. Anyone want in?

Wine of the Week - 1994 Tempier Bandol

1994 Domaine Tempier Bandol Rouge, Kermit Lynch Imports, current vintage is 2006 and price is about $50. Sometimes you just have to open a special bottle of wine. We had one of those nights this week. BrooklynLady has been dealing with all kinds of stressful changes at work, the same for me, and our 5 month old has decided to wake up each night between 2 -3 AM, and start screaming. We're tired and we're stressed, and we need a vacation that we're not going to be able to take. And to top it off, the Yankees seem to turn into little league players every time they face the Boston Red Sox.

So, we opened a phenomenal bottle of wine on a humid and rainy night, and wow, did we feel better. Actually, I've been looking for a reason to open this wine for a while now, and our collective mood along with a beautifully marinated set of beef kabobs turned out to be just the thing.

I don't want to overdo it with the lavish praise, but this wine is a beautiful thing, and a great example of why aging wine is so rewarding. It was stunning on its own, a wonderful partner to our dinner, and totally and completely delicious. And it's only the Domaine's basic red, and from what is considered to be one of the more forgettable vintages in recent Provence history.

Domaine Tempier is widely considered to be among the finest producers in Bandol, and therefore in all of Provence. The Peyraud family, the family that is credited with defining the modern Bandol AOC in the 1940's, continues to run the estate and make the wines. For more on this, check out Bert Celce's profile on the estate on Wine Terroirs - full of excellent photographs and information.

Tempier, as with most of the top estates in Bandol, farms with the most minimal of chemical interventions, and uses natural yeasts to ferment the red wines - these are natural wines through and through. The Bandol Rouge is made of grapes from all of the Tempier parcels and reflects a blend of all of the terroirs. The blend is typically 75% Mourvèdre (appellation rules require that a Bandol rouge contain a minimum of 50% Mourvèdre), the rest Grenache and Cinsault.

This wine was fantastic right upon opening, with a vivid perfume of tobacco and earth, fruit liquor, and something very animal, like horses. A beautifully mature and rewarding nose, the primary fruit long gone, and it got deeper and deeper over the course of the three hours it was open. The palate is sweet and ripe, and there is great balance. The acidity is still vibrant, and here there is the memory of sweet strawberries. The finish is an encapsulation of everything that happens in the wine, the soil, the echo of ripe fruit, the tobacco, the acidic snap. But the most impressive and memorable thing about this wine is that thing that is so prized in mature Bandol - the texture. It is absolute velvet, the tannins present and providing structure but so smooth and sweet. Truly memorable, what a wine! makes me feel so good about the other Bandol sleeping in the cellar.

It Comes in Waves

We had quite a streak, and I guess I shouldn't complain. For several months, BrooklynLady and I enjoyed opening our wine with dinner without running into a corked bottle. The generally accepted odds say that about 1 in 9 bottles of white wine will be corked, and about 1 in 10 bottles of red. So yes, we had been beating the odds for a while now. Funny, I used to think that I couldn't pick out a corked bottle. Now I know that I actually am quite sensitive to it. Sometimes I am underconfident about it though, and I have to let the wine sit for 15 minutes and try it again to make sure.

Anyway, our good luck ran out three weeks ago and we are mired in an extraordinary slump.It's getting to the point where I'm afraid to open wine - everything is corked. So no special wine lately, nothing from the cellar, only wine that is still on retail shelves so I can return it if (when) it is corked. You can't return a corked wine that you purchased more than a year or so ago, can you?

It started with Pierre Gonon's Vin de Pays de l'Ardèche Les Iles Feray in late May, and this was the first bottle in so long that I argued with myself for a while before accepting the truth. And the flood gates opened and a week later we had corked Shinn Rosé, and five days later it was corked Qupé Roussanne.

Tonight, merely two days after the corked Qupé, some friends invited us for a quintessential summer dinner of burgers off the grill. This guy likes Bordeaux, so I brought a wine I thought he would enjoy, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah from Provence, a naturally made wine with beautiful aromatics and a real sense of place, the 2000 Domaine du Deffends Côteaux Varois Clos de la Truffière. I had it bagged so everyone could taste it blind and enjoy it without preconceptions - it should have been great with burgers and vinegary salad. But it was ferociously corked. And I hadn't brought a second bottle. Lame, lame, lame.

Is this my destiny for the nest two months? Loads of corked wine? And what are the rules, anyway, for wine that I've cellared if it's corked? Are there due process rules that I have to respect regarding the retailer? One day I'm going to open some fancy bottle of Burgundy that I've nurtured for 12 years in the cellar, something of which I could afford to buy only one single bottle...and it will be corked. And then, my friends, you will hear the sound of Brooklynguy yelling.