The fish people are back at my market after their winter vacation. Actually they've been back Since the beginning of April but I've only recently gotten into the swing of things. And now all of the sudden we are eating a lot of seafood in my house. Here are some recent favorites, and the wine pairings that love them:
There are dark and brooding red wines, light and joyous red wines, and everything in between, and all can be delicious and satisfying - they all have their place. Poulsard, though, exists almost outside of the spectrum of red wine. As far as I know, Poulsard is vinified only in the Jura region of France. The grapes are relatively large and therefore have a low skin to juice ratio - the opposite of what is prized in say, Burgundy Pinot Noir. And the skins are not heavily pigmented. The resulting wine tends to be light in color, almost like a rosé.
But don't be fooled by the light color as these are, when well grown and well made, powerful and structured wines with great depth of aroma and flavor. Unusual aromas and flavors, too. The fruit veers towards pomegranate, red currant, cranberry, and blood orange. That sounds precious because it's so specific - but I promise you that it is true. I often find dried roses on the nose, in addition to those same bright fruits, and sometimes a salty, chalky bass note. Perhaps I haven't had enough experience with the wines, or maybe I'm just missing something, but I find that the wines are more about fruit and particularity of structure than they are about minerals and earth. The structure can be surprising, by the way, because it is firm, while the wine appears to be so light and delicate.
I love drinking Poulsard because it is such an aromatically expressive and spare red wine. It isn't a wilting lily - it's not delicate, exactly. A good Poulsard can stand up to mushrooms, steak, and other earthy hearty fare. But there is no extract, really, nothing other than the essence of the thing. This analogy is overused, but here I think it fits - Poulsard can be Burgundian in its melding of finesse, grace, and power. I misunderstood good Beaujolais for a few years because the wines are so brightly acidic and fresh. I thought of it as a light wine. Beaujolais can be joyous and light in body, but Morgon, Moulin-a-Vent, Fleurie (well, maybe Fleurie), these are not light wines. They are deeply and darkly fruited, and rich next to a Poulsard. I would drink Morgon with blood sausage, but not Poulsard.
The best Poulsards I've had are thrilling, but the problem is, the best Poulsards are quite hard to find and drink. I feel comfortable saying that Pierre Overnoy/Emmanuel Houillon make the finest Poulsard, and although Louis/Dressner imports the wine to the US, we're talking about a handful of cases for the US. I was able as recently as the 2007 vintage to walk into Chambers Street and buy this wine on the shelf for under $30. Those days are gone forever. Now the wine is just not seen on shelves, in NYC anyway. Another favorite for me is the Poulsard made by Domaine Ganevat, whose wines have also become rare and dear here in NYC.
Not long ago I found myself craving Poulsard and I realized that I haven't had a bottle since the end of 2012 at this amazing dinner in Stockholm. I knew that I would buy and drink Poulsard, but which one? What should I be drinking, if I'm not drinking Overnoy or Ganevat? I decided to gather a few friends who also appreciate the glory of this very light and strange grape, to buy every Poulsard we could find, and drink them together over dinner.
Three years ago I did a small Poulsard tasting and there were 5 wines I found to include. Last week I found 11 wines and chose to include 9 of them, and this excludes Overnoy and Ganevat. This probably reflects the rising popularity of Jura wines in general, and also the diligent work of several importers, and people like Sophie Barrett of Chambers Street Wines, who believe in the wines and want to offer them to curious customers. I'm sorry to say that on our recent Poulsard evening all of the tasters were a little bit underwhelmed by the wines as a group, but we agreed that a few of them were quite good.
I've always found that Poulsard is reductive and funky when first opened, and does much better when decanted. And so we decanted our bottles and drank them slowly with a feast of Middle Eastern food. Following are my impressions, but I want to mention that some of the wines that did not impress me on this night were better on other nights, in different vintages. All of the wines cost between $20 and $30, and are currently available on (some) NYC shelves.
My favorite wines:
Jura wines are kind of obscure, outside of the wine-geek world. Finding them requires seeking them out, your local shoppe is unlikely to carry them. And because they are not wines of obvious and immediate pleasures, they take some time to get used to, a little patience even. This means they may never really catch on here in America, like foreign films or soccer, but that's fine with me. They tend to be small production wines, and they already have fans that show the same level of devotion you see at English football stadiums. Some of the wines are already very hard to find, and I don't need to be jousting elbows with every Tom, Dick, and Harry at the Overnoy/Houillon bin.
Obscure or not, lots of people seem to be talking about the Jura lately. Eric Asimov recently wrote about the wines in his column and on his blog, Guilhaume Gerard, a former partner at Terroir in San Francisco, and who blogs as The Wine Digger recently cleaned out the Houillon stock from French retailers, Alice Feiring just went to the Jura and wrote a bit about it on her blog, and even this Brooklynguy has written a few times about Jura wines. It seems as though Jura wines are the next hip thing.
So it's good timing, then, that the Brooklyn Blind Tasting Panel's theme in its second meeting is Poulsard (or Ploussard if you are from Arbois), one of the red grapes of the Jura. Poulsard grapes are somewhat large, and the wines are typically very light in color, but they are intense in aroma and flavor. In general, I find their fruit character to include cranberry, pomegranate, and sometimes blood orange flavors. They often show gamy and woodsy flavors as well, veering into rusticity when things don't go well. In aroma and flavor, they are completely unlike other red wines. They are surprisingly tannic, and apparently they age very well, although I've never confirmed this for myself.
There are only 7 producers whose Poulsards are available in New York, as far as I can tell. Two of them were not included in this tasting - Ganevat's utterly delicious Poulsard is simply sold out, and Domaine de L'Octavin's Poulsard was also unavailable. I included everything else I could find - Overnoy/Houillon, Jacques Puffeney, Philippe Bornard, Domaine de la Tournelle, and Stéphane et Mireille Tissot. Bornard actually makes two Poulsards, so does Tournelle, but I included only one of each.
I was joined for this tasting by Levi Dalton, the much respected sommelier at the restaurant Convivio, Sophie Barrett, the Jura wine-buyer at Chambers Street Wines, and Clarke Boehling, who was the French Portfolio Manager at Michael Skurnik when I invited him, but who chose to complicate matters by taking a job at Rosenthal, the importer of Puffeney's wines. Although Clarke is a professional who will call it as he sees it, in an attempt to avoid even the slightest appearance of bias, I figured that we needed additional support from BrooklynLady, who also loves wine, and who is my wife.
I decanted the wines two hours before the tasting and kept them in cool water. We selected our two favorite wines, in order, identified the wine that we'd pick for long term cellaring, and also identified one outlier wine - a wine that is different from the others, if there should be one. Unlike the last time the Panel met, there was no clear winner this time. The wines changed tremendously in the glass, opening, closing, revealing hidden nuances, picking up or shedding weight and intensity. I personally didn't think that any of them showed all that well - could this have been a leaf or a root day? Here are the details:
2004 Domaine de la Tournelle Arbois Ploussard de Monteiller, $28, Jenny & François Selections, donated by Jenny & François for this tasting. During the tasting this wine received two 1st place votes and two 2nd place votes. Sophie loved the mature aromas and flavors of the wine, Clarke (and I hope he doesn't get fired for this) picked it 1st, calling it "subtle and elegant with a remarkable inner-mouth perfume." BrooklynLady liked it best during the tasting too. During dinner Levi proclaimed it to be "clearly the best of the wines." I was the one who didn't vote for it - during the tasting I found a weird quinine type minerality and something not entirely harmonious about the wine, but later as we ate, I thought that it was showing the best of all of the wines. Change, change, change.
2007 Philippe Bornard Ploussard Arbois Pupillin Point Barre, $30, Savio Soares Selections, donated by Savio Soares for this tasting. This wine received two 1st place votes and one 2nd place vote. Levi and I both had this as 1st choice during the tasting. I thought it clearly stood out above the rest - it was completely harmonious, subtly quite intense, and very beautiful. The nose was spicy with pomegranate fruit, very elegant, there was good acidity, and great length - the floral finish really lingered in my nostrils. The funny thing is, everyone agreed that this wine fell off over the course of the evening, and was perhaps overshadowed rather than enhanced by our dinner (biryani-style rice with beef, watermelon radishes, green salad).
2008 Overnoy/Houillon Poulsard Arbois Pupillin, $36, Louis/Dressner Selections. This wine received one 1st place vote and one 2nd place vote. Even after two hours in a decanter, this wine still had an effervescent twang on the palate. I thought this might be because there is no sulfur used to protect the wine, and instead is bottled with plenty of carbon dioxide that can take a lot of time to work itself out. Clarke and Levi disagreed, suggesting that the delicacy of this wine requires the most careful of storage conditions, and that this bottle may not have been stored properly. Or that there may have been further fermentation in the bottle. Who knows? Sophie picked it 1st during the tasting, and I loved it too, picking it 2nd. It was more overtly fruity than the other wines, but I liked its depth and resonance. And this wine changed dramatically over the next few hours, picking up lots of intensity, and loosing all traces of carbon dioxide. By the end of the evening, everyone really liked it. This is one for the cellar, I would say.
2005 Jacques Puffeney Arbois Poulsard "M," $26, Neal Rosenthal Selections. This wine was a world apart from the others during the tasting, in a bad way. Oxidized, dried prunes, and lifeless. It received no votes. Levi thought it was simply undrinkable. When it was revealed to be this wine, I realized that it had to be a flawed bottle - what we had in the decanter was not representative of this wine. So I opened another bottle, which showed better, but still a shadow of what it was several months ago. Clarke (in an attempt to salvage his new job) blamed my decanter, the wine glass, the air in my apartment, the manner in which I held the bottle while pouring, and eventually, my karma for the wine's poor showing. In the end we guessed that it had entered a closed phase.
2006 Domaine Stéphane et Mireille Tissot Arbois Poulsard Vieilles Vignes, $18, Imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons. This wine was corked, sadly, and I did not have another bottle.
So there you have it. Tournelle showed very well in a lineup including Houillon and Puffeney, and everyone agreed it was a wine worth buying. Bornard showed well too. Houillon was delicious, but provoked more disagreement than the other wines. Puffeney's Poulsard is great too, regardless of how the 2005 showed on this night. These wines don't stand still, they change a lot in the glass. I don't always decant two hours in advance of drinking them, and the changes are even more stark that way - they can start out pretty funky.
I've recently emerged from a bit of a "red wine stand-still." I've wanted to branch out some more. Not merely for the sake of branching out - I wish there was more red wine that I really like. Lately I've been exploring and enjoying the reds of Provence, a select group of Northern Rhone wines, and also the Poulsards of the Jura.
Why did it take me so long to find Poulsard? I love Burgundy and Beaujolais, and Poulsard is definitely of the same phenotype. Whatever the reason, I'm a convert, and a fervent one at that. Lately I find myself thinking of Poulsard at inappropriate times, like morning while at the playground with my daughters, for example. Is that so wrong?
I love the colors - rose petal, rusty, completely translucent, delicate and gentle. I love the aromas - red currants and blood oranges, cinnamon and other spices, leathery earth. I love the whole package - a marriage of lightness and delicacy with deep intensity of aroma and flavor, and a firm tannic structure that belies its delicate appearance. When it's good, Poulsard is completely satisfying and also totally gobless.
Only problem - you won't find Poulsard at the local Wine Superstore, you may not even find it at your favorite little shop. There are stores I know of with interesting and thoughtfully selected wines, and no Poulsard on the shelves. If you don't already drink Poulsard but you'd like to try it, you may have to look around a bit. But don't give up, it's worth it.
Here are a few Poulsards from recent times, all drunk at home with dinner (none at the playground...yet):
2007 Emmanuel Houillon Poulsard Arbois Pupillin Maison Pierre Overnoy, Louis /Dressner Selections, $32. Pierre Overnoy retired and his student Emmanuel Houillon took over. This is said to be the granddaddy of all Poulsard, but I plan on finding out for myself. Several years ago I drank the 2002 and didn't get it at all. Five vintages later, I love this wine, LOVE it. Leave it open for a while or decant it to let the CO2 work its way out. Such a complex nose with vibrant red fruit, orange peel, and spices, all riding on a wave of underbrush. The palate is fresh and pure with good fruit and acidity. It feels so good in the mouth, like a fine horsehair brush painting the palate with rich and concentrated flavors and aromas. Utterly delicious wine. My favorite pairing so far - a shell steak that was cured for a few days with rock salt and rosemary.
2005 Jacques Puffeney Poulsard Arbois "M", $26, Neal Rosenthal Selections. I drank this the other night with the Creole baked rice dish. On the first day it is rather closed, with red fruit and faint cinnamon spices on the nose and palate. Enjoyable, but closed. Big time metallic minerals also, and a rock solid wall of tannins. On day two the tannins have loosened their grip and let the floral and fruit perfume out of the cage, and the wine really blossoms. The nose is so intense, it filled every cavity in my head. The wine is perfectly structured, firm and giving at the same time, and so graceful and feminine. The fruit and acids are crunchy and interestingly textured. Beautiful now, and seems like a good candidate for the cellar.
2007 Philippe Bornard Poulsard Arbois Pupillin Point Barre, $29, Savio Soares Selections. We drank this the other night with Batch 35, a washed rind cow's milk cheese from a farm in upstate New York called Sprout's Creek. The most interesting color yet, almost more rusty than rose colored. This one also took a while to unwind, and was most beautiful about four hours later, as it was almost gone. The nose is cinnamon and spice, bright high-toned fruit, and underbrush, very pure and fresh. The palate is silky smooth with blood orange and red berry fruit, faint herbal tones, and great acidity. Just a delicious wine.
2006 Domaine Tissot Arbois Poulsard Vieille Vignes, $18, Imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons. This was a wine of the week a few months ago. We brought a few bottles to Rhode Island on a recent vacation, and everyone seemed to like it, even the non-Poulsard-ly inclined. This wine is a bit darker and more purple than the others, and the fruit is a bit more overt. So is the funk though, and it shows best with a solid half hour open. It is a lovely wine, with good fruit, earth, and great minerality on the finish. And it's essentially half the price of the other wines.
2007 Domaine de L'Octavin Arbois Vieilles Vignes Fiordiligi, $23, Savio Soares Selections. This is a bretty funky earthy wine. There is lovely fruit too, and the typical light body and smooth texture. But the brett is like a hot blanket in summer, and I wanted it off. Others might find it irresistible, and perhaps I didn't give it enough time to blow off. I think it's just bretty wine though. I'll check in on the next vintage and compare.
Any other Poulsards out there that you can recommend? I'll try almost anything, at this point.
2006 Domaine Tissot Arbois Poulsard Vieille Vignes, $18, Imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons. Poulsard grapes are large in size - think of those rubber super-balls that you can buy from quarter machines in front of the supermarket. And because they have such thin skin, the juice to solid matter ratio is the opposite of what wine makers look for in, say, Burgundy. The resulting wines can be light in color, although they typically have the fruit character, texture, and tannic structure of red wine.
The Jura, in eastern France right near Switzerland, is only place I know of where Poulsard is grown. Although the region is better known for its unique white wines, there are some great Jura reds too, and retail prices are still reasonable. Red wine grapes cultivated in the region include Pinot Noir, Trousseau, and Poulsard, and although I've had lovely examples of Jura Pinot and Trousseau, my favorite Jura reds are Poulsards. They combine the fruit forward spicy charm of a good cru Beaujolais with the complex woodsy perfume of red Burgundy, and the tannic structure of Nebbiolo. Okay, maybe not quite Nebbiolo, but the wines are tannic. My personal favorite thing about Poulsard is the certain something about the nose, something fruity and savory at the same time, something like a ripe blood orange.
I am just beginning to scratch the surface of Poulsard. I've never had an aged example, and I have been assured that the wines can age beautifully - the tannins and the high acidity allow for that. And although I'm making my way through most of the wines available in NYC, there are plenty of quality Poulsards that don't make it here because they are not imported. Crazy as it might seem, the American wine market has not yet found its Poulsard voice.
Anyway, I want to talk about Tissot's Poulsard because it is an excellent wine that in a hypothetical blind tasting of Poulsards would show in the same class as wines by Overnoy/Houillon, Puffeney, and the other big shots, but Tissot's wine is half the price of Overnoy/Houillon's, and much less than Puffeney's too. In other words, it's serious and delicious wine and it is inexpensive.
Bénédicte and Stéphane Tissot run an estate of about 35 hectares with vineyards in Arbois and the Côtes du Jura, and they recently acquired land in Château-Chalon. The entire estate is biodynamically farmed with Demeter certification. Yields are kept at rigorously low levels, grapes are harvested by hand in small baskets, indigenous yeasts do the work of fermentation, and very little sulfur is used. There are over 25 different wines produced, as the Tissots believe in expressing as best they can the diverse terroir of the Jura.
The 2006 Poulsard Vieille Vignes is made without sulfur, and the wine smells and tastes incredible clean, and all of the smells and flavors have great clarity. This makes for an interesting contrast in this case, because the nose is full of underbrush and dried leaves, almost mushroomy. So this is a crystal clear dried leaf and underbrush wine we're talking about. There is lovely fruit also, bright red currant and dark plum fruit, and there is a touch of brown sugar. The wine is deeply colored and the fruit is ripe and rich, with that blood orange nuance that I love in these wines. The tannins are smooth but quite prominent right now, and there is a definite sense of gravelly rock on the finish. Not as delicate as Houillon, not as focused as Puffeney, but this is a beautiful and complete wine. It is open and joyous and it is elegant too. And it is an incredible value at about $18.
One of the confusing and intriguing things about Jura wines is the distinction between technique and terroir. By technique I mean sous-voile, or under-the-veil wine making, a style in which wine is intentionally oxidized. The barrels are not entirely filled to begin with, and then are not topped up as the wine evaporates and seeps into the wood. A beneficial layer of yeast (the veil) is encouraged, somewhat akin to the flor in Sherry. In the hands of a good producer, sous-voile wines are completely delicious. I wonder, though, whether they are more an expression of technique or of terroir. Not that it matters in order to appreciate the wines - they taste and feel good, and they makes great company for fresh seafood, cheeses, and other foods. But I am curious, especially because most producers make only tiny quantities of sous-voile wines, the bulk of their production is "regular" non-oxidized wine. And the good producers are quite interested in and adept at making wines that showcase terroir over grape character.
I recently went to Vins du Jura, a tasting featuring 20 producers from the Jura region of France. It was a great opportunity to taste a lot of Jura wine and to think about and compare terroir and technique. This tasting was mostly about helping producers connect with potential importers, it was not a survey of one importer's or distributor's portfolio. Well known (if there really are any well known Jura producers in the US) producers like Houillon, Puffeney, and Montbourgeau already have rather illustrious representation, and were not present at this tasting. Yet Tissot was there, as were a few others that are already imported, so I don't really know how this was organized. No matter...Prices were not given, so I cannot discuss the wines that interested me in terms of value. I can, however, discuss them in terms of interest, and there were some great wines.
My favorite sous-voile wines of the tasting, in no particular order, were the 2005 Domaine Andre and Mirielle Tissot Arbois Savagnin, 2005 Domaine Labet Savagnin Vin de Voile from Côtes du Jura, and the 2004 Domaine de la Pinte Arbois Savagnin. Pinte's 2002 Vin Jaune was also promising, but the enamel-stripping acidity and tightly wound youth of the wine made it hard to evaluate for a Vin Jaune neophyte like myself. These are all wonderful wines that I would eagerly purchase, especially if they are priced in the $20-30 range. And they are quite different from one another. Tissot's wine is ultra clean and light, and redolent of nuts and salt. Labet's is also very clean and bright with nuts and salt, but with greater richness and depth, or so I thought. My notes say "mahogany depth," whatever that means. And Pinte's Savagnin is salty and nutty and exceptionally pure, with curry spice notes, feeling quite lean on the nose, but full and rich in the mouth. Are these differences about technique in the barrel room? About work in the vineyards? About soil and place? I will continue to enjoy these wines and other like them whether or not I learn the answer to those questions, but don't you want to know? I want to know. One day I will have the good fortune to drink a group of sous-voile wines with someone who can lead me through and describe them in terms of technique and terroir.
Tasting through the lineup of wines by Domaine Labet in Côtes du Jura was a great lesson in Jura terroir. Julien Labet explained that the Jura is incredibly diverse in terms of soils, because the formation of the Jura Mountains moved (and are still moving) layers of ground in random ways. Chardonnay in his hands is really just a vehicle for expressing soil. His 2007 Fleur de Chardonnay comes from 45 year old vines on chalky, rocky soil. It is fermented using indigenous yeasts and aged for almost 18 months in barrel. The wine is intensely mineral and a bit smokey, with what could plausibly be described as a total absence of fruit. But the wine has a broad mouth feel and is delicious. 2006 Chardonnay Les Varrons is also from chalky ground but the layer of topsoil is very thick, and the wine is round and intense with summer fruits and nuts, much less mineral than the Fleur de Chardonnay. 2006 Chardonnay La Reine is from deep red clay soils and is the most citric of the lineup, with clean grapefruit flavors. 2006 Chardonnay La Beaumette has a fruit profile that is similar to Les Varrons, but the wine is much racier and leaner - and I didn't note the soil type, I'm sorry to say. La Beaumette was perhaps my favorite of the bunch, although they were all delicious and interesting wines. If they are in the $20-30 range, I will most certainly be a good customer, potential importers. Honestly, potential importers, you're crazy if you don't bring in this guy's wines.
I sense more Jura wine in my (immediate) future.
Chambers Street Wines held a Jura tasting in the beginning of March. They poured a sparkling wine, four reds, five whites, and a dessert wine. What a perfect way to explore these unique wines without having to shell out the $18 - 75 it would cost to try the bottles myself.
I've had very little experience drinking these wines at home. My past includes exactly one Jura red (2002 Pierre Overnoy Arbois Pupillin - my notes say that I didn't like it) and a couple of Crémants - love 'em. But clearly you agree with me when I say that I am a newborn baby when it comes to these wines. And it's time for me to grow up.
So I will now reveal myself as an uncool wine person among the wine-geek set: as much as I wanted to like them, I just didn't like the reds, none of them. Not even a little bit. Alright, maybe the 2004 Puffeney Arbois Pinot Noir, $27, was okay, but I just don't see what all the fuss is about.
But the whites, now those were tasty and compelling. I liked them enough to bring two of them home to meet my family, and I will definitely explore them further.
You probably know this already, but there are a few particularly interesting things about Jura whites. For one, some of the most famous wines are made from a grape called Savagnin, found almost nowhere else. And the prevailing style of wine is known as sous -voile, or under the veil. Wine makers allow a layer of yeast to form on the surface of the wine and then do not top up the barrels as the wine evaporates. The aromas and flavors are oxidized, and are quite unusual. Eric Asimov's recent post on the Jura eloquently describes all of this, if you want more context.
Here are the wines we tasted:
NV Tissot Crémant du Jura, $19 - still delish, a former Friday Night Bubbles contestant.
Reds
2005 Puffeney Arbois Trousseau, $30.
2004 Tissot Arbois Poulsard, $18.
2004 Puffeney Arbois Pinot Noir, $27.
2005 Ganevat Pinot Noir, $30.
Whites 2004 Montbourgeau L'Etoile Blanc, $21 - tastes like sherry, but better than any sherry I've had. This one came home with us. This is Chardonnay, actually.
2006 Houillon Pupillon Chardonnay, $28 - nice, but didn't move me.
2002 Puffeney Arbois Savagnin, $29 - deeply nutty.
2002 Tissot Arbois Savagnin, $32 - this one moved me - old and oxidized and fresh and young and just delicious. We took a bottle home.
1998 Puffeney Arbois Vin Jaune, $75 - I wish I could tell you that this was mind-blowing, but it wasn't. Maybe that's because conventional wisdom says that Vin Jaune needs 15-20 years in the bottle to strut its stuff. Why couldn't they have opened a 1978 Puffeney Vin Jaune? A joke, people, a joke. If you had that bottle in your cellar, would you honestly open it for a bunch of nincompoops like me who have never even tasted a Vin Jaune? Pearls before swine. The 98 was certainly very good, but it was hard for me to imagine what happens in 20 years.
We drank the 2002 Tissot Arbois Savagnin the other night in classic fashion - with a good Comté cheese. And this time we had plenty of time to linger, to allow the wine to change in the glass, to feel it interacting with food, to enjoy it over the course of a few hours. It was just excellent. Unusual, not something I would want every week, but excellent and memorable. At the same time funky-sherry-nutty-oxidized and old smelling, but also completely fresh, pure, and youthful. Very bright energetic in the mouth. There some caramel type flavors that develop with time in the glass, and they complement the slightly bitter nuts. The acidity is definitely there, it tingles the sides of the tongue.
I'm not sure how to move forward in the Jura, but if it's going to involve Vin Jaune, I'm going to need a benefactor. Anyone want to be my Vin Jaune sugar daddy? And don't yell at me about the reds, I'll try again at some point.
