Rhode Island Wine Weekend, Part III

We drank several exceptional bottles of Rioja on Saturday night. Each of these wines was a special thing, something that could be the focus of a special dinner. I've had a little experience drinking mature wines by López de Heredia, and maybe a bottle or two by La Rioja Alta. But that's about it. So drinking these wines was a wonderful way for me to get a sense of some of the other great producers in the region.

These wines also rekindled my thoughts about the objective an subjective in wine. The wine I liked the most was not, objectively speaking, the best wine. This is something that can be hard to wrap your head around as it's happening. For me, it can still be tempting to conflate favorite and best.

We began by drinking two bottles by Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España, a famous Rioja producer whose wines I had never before tasted. You see this producer referred to as CVNE, which everyone seems to then pronounce as if it were spelled CUNE. The 1970 CVNE Viña Imperial Gran Riserva is the first Rioja we poured and I was blown away by the nose. To me the nose was the epitome of Rioja. I could tell you that it smelled of leather and blood, and it did. But that could describe Syrah or wines from other places. There was just something particular about the sheerness of the aromas, the way they came together as a whole, that for me was a classic expression of Rioja. The wine was not as complete on the palate, but it was delicious and I loved it.

The 1978 CVNE Imperial Riserva was thought by everyone to be the better wine, and as the night wore on, revisiting them both, I do not disagree. Also lovely on the nose, but with a more floral aspect, and more complete on the palate, the wine was great. It made me think of Burgundy, in a way, and I got hung up on this after the essence of Rioja that was the Viña Real. It's perfectly fine that I preferred Viña Real, but that doesn't mean it was the better wine.

We then drank 1981 López de Heredia Viña Bosconia Gran Riserva. I've had this wine several times and this was the finest bottle yet. Beautifully perfumed, incredible balance and detail, a truly spectacular bottle of wine. This wine is objectively better than the 1970 Viña Real, and I absolutely loved it. But I preferred the former on this night. By this time I understood what was going on - the experience I had with the clarity of the terroir as expressed in the Viña Real simply made a bigger impression on me than the great things about the other wines.

We finished with two very special bottles, 1987 and 1964 Marqués de Murrieta Castillo de Ygay. Both were excellent. The 1987 was noticeably young, especially after drinking the other more mature wines. The 1964, however, that was a memorable bottle of wine. Perfect harmony and balance, everything so well integrated, a lushness to the composition but the feeling was nimble and bright. Fantastic wine, maybe the best of them all.

And yet, I preferred the 1970 Viña Real! You know by now that I am not trying to say it was better, because objectively speaking it might have been the least of the five wines. But on that night it spoke to me in a special way. That's worth something too, and I am happy to be learning how to appreciate both the subjective and objective.

What I've Been Doing

Haven't written anything here in a little while. Partly because I've been very busy. I've been working a lot, and some of that involves travel.

I found this place in New Orleans called Bacchanal, where you can buy a bottle of wine from the shelf and then drink it out back amidst the large shade trees, eat something tasty, and listen to shockingly good music.

In that garden, I very much enjoyed the 1996 López de Heredia Tondonia Reserva.

With a simple and lovely seafood salad.

I've visited family and walked in the woods some.

The nights are starting to get chilly and I've cooked some heavier food.

These potatoes with butter and dill were supposed to be like the ones you can eat on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. Not quite, but I almost got there. I continue to be surprised and inspired by how hard it is to prepare seemingly simple dishes.

I've eaten at old and familiar restaurants, like Aliseo.

I've eaten beautifully prepared Aji (horse mackerel), at my favorite Japanese restaurant.

Gorgeous with Champagne, by the way.

I've drunk the new vintage of some familiar wines that I love. Bernard Baudry's 2010 Cuvée Domaine and Grézeaux are both very, very good. Also, some older vintages of familiar wines that I love. 2002 Huet...whoa!

I've had some grand wines that are new to me. I'd tasted Raveneau before, but never sat with a bottle over dinner.

Same with Bartolo Mascarello. This wine was quite moving, I thought. And still very young, I kid you not.

It's been a great fall so far. And now, we in NYC are lucky to be in the midst of Sherryfest, the greatest week of Sherry events that the US has ever seen. More on that soon.

March Wines - a Laundry List

Here are some wines that I drank in March that did not appear on this blog. The "excellent" group consists of wines that are truly memorable, wines that inspire me to seek out and buy these and wines like them. The "excellent" and "very good" groups are wines that I would happily buy at the given price. All other wines, even if I liked them, are not wines that I would buy today given my recent experience with them. Doesn't mean that I think they are bad wines, just means that based on the bottle I drank, there are other things I would prefer to buy with that money.

Excellent Wines
2002 Houillon/Overnoy Arbois Poulsard, $36, Louis/Dressner Selections. The best bottle of Poulsard that I've had. It was still growing as we finished it with gorgeous aromatics, so pure fresh, high toned but gentle -not primary, currant and blood orange fruit and a dominant aroma of dried rose petal. The nose is really beautiful. Resolved on the palate but still well structured and perfectly balanced, with sweet red fruit and underbrush, great acidity and length, and the finish is fragrant with dried roses. Elegant, harmonious, beautiful wine. This is why I keep buying this wine, even though many bottles do not achieve this kind of showing. The new vintage is 2009 and it costs $60 (!!!) in NYC. Not sure I can keep riding this train...

2002 Albert Boxler Riesling Grand Cru Brand, $35, Robbert Chadderdon Selections. A perfect bottle, great freshness and complexity, and it was beautiful with braised pork shoulder. Aromas of petrol and baking spice infused ripe orchard fruit. The nose becomes perfectly harmonious after a short time open. The palate is much drier than I expected, and is entirely delicious, with good acidity supporting the ripe fruit and the more mature secondary tones of petrol. Compelling and memorable.

2000 López de Heredia Rioja Rosado Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia, $24, Polaner Selections. With the 1995, this is my favorite vintage of this wine, so far. There is a kinetic energy here, a grippy texture that works perfectly for the diversity of flavors - orange oil, sherry, peach, salt...so good. Nothing else like it. And if you buy it as part of a case you're paying under $22. Kind of amazing.

Very Good Wines
Emilio Lustau (Almacenista) Jerez-Xérès-Sherry Amontillado del Puerto Jose Luis González Obregón, selected by Christopher Cannan, Imported by Europvin USA, $37. Plenty of flor character in this wine, probably includes a decent proportion of wines that were under flor not too long ago. Fresh and complex aromas of butter, roast nuts, and even some dark fruit. Fantastically harmonious on the nose, and follows through on the palate, which is silky textured and offers great depth. This is a very classy amontillado, and one to go back to again and again.

2009 Domaine Ganevat Côtes du Jura Cuvée de l'Enfant Terrible, $34, Jeffrey Alpert Selections. Another great Poulsard. This bottle showed best on day 2, after decanting the remaining half bottle. At it's best it is strikingly pure and fresh, absolutely inviting, with high toned cranberry and red currant fruit. There is a gamy undertone that also somehow seems very fresh and pure, and an unmistakable stony minerality that grounds the wine. The wine is cooling, very refreshing, and really just a beautiful drink. Perfect balance and structure, so the wine is seamless. On the first day, however, this is not the experience. It is delicious, but the structure sticks out a little, there is a rusticity that vanishes by day two, and the wine doesn't show the harmony that makes it so special. Decant a long time in advance, or really, just hang onto the wine for a while. That's what I'll do with what I have left.

Laherte Frères Champagne Brut Tradition, $39, Imported by Selection Pas Mal. A truly lovely Meunier-based blend. This bottle is based on 2007, although 40% is reserve wine from 2006. Harmonious and classy, this wine shows delicious apple and quince fruit and good acidity, and there is a pleasant chalky undertone. Just a pleasure to drink, and a very good value.

2004 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Reserve, price unknown. A fascinating bottle of wine. The nose took a while to open, and was never loud, with waxy white flower and orchard fruit aromatics. I enjoyed the slightly oily texture of this wine, and the subtle salty complexity. White wine from this region is still a mystery to me, but this is one of the better examples that I've had.

Jacques Lassaigne Champagne Les Vignes de Montgueux Blanc de Blancs, $45, Jenny & François Selections. This wine is always delicious, and this was a particularly good bottle. Broad and ample with very ripe fruit, and still firmly under control, with great acidity and freshness. Surely one of the best Blanc de Blancs from down in the Aube.

Good Wines
2006 Camille Giroud Aloxe-Corton 1er Cru Les Guérets, $36, Becky Wasserman Selections. I really appreciate the terroir expression in this wine, as the gamy and rocky earth of Aloxe is apparent. But something bugs me about what I experience to be a liberal application of oak. I have nothing against oak, as long as it doesn't jut out, and here it juts out a bit. that might change with more time in the bottle, but I'm not convinced that there is enough raw material here to absorb the wood.

Diebolt-Vallois Champagne Brut Rosé, $60, Imported by Petit Pois Corp. I think this is based on 2007 and like the Diebolt 2007-based Blanc de Blancs, I'm just not crazy about it. The fruit is juicy and bright, but the wine is pretty simple and unmemorable, disappointing.

2009 Château de Pibarnon Bandol Rosé, $27, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. This is good, but I've preferred the past few vintages. the fruit here veers just a bit towards candied, and although there is some mineral complexity, the wine just kind of spreads out without much structure or acidity.

2009 Michel Brégeon Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine, $12, Imported by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. This was a bit fat and didn't offer the precision and detail that I've come to expect from this producer. 2009-itus, or perhaps like the past few vintages, the wine really just needs more time in the bottle?

These, I had Problems With
2005 Jacques Puffeney Trousseau Arbois Les Berangères, $32, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. Wow, what a disappointment! As hard as it is for me to say this...not every bottle of red wine from Puffeney or from the Jura is a good bottle. Here the fruit was candied and stewed, the tannins were harsh, the wine was fundamentally out of balance. Bad bottle...perhaps. Too young...perhaps. I'm not convinced.

2007 Domaine de Chantermerle Chablis 1er Cru Fourchaume, $25, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. Perfectly fine in that there is apple fruit, just enough acidity to make the wine drinkable, and the flavors are pleasant. But the wine has a flabby texture and a dilute midpalate, and does not really say anything to me about Chablis. Quite underwhelming, considering that other wines I've had by this producer have been quite good.

López de Heredia Across Five Decades

It is not often that one gets to taste a variety of the older Riojas of López de Heredia, but last week at the David Bowler portfolio tasting I had the distinct pleasure of doing exactly that. Monica Nogues, a López de Heredia ambassador, was pouring wines spanning five decades and I lingered for quite some time.

It's funny, I have an ongoing argument with myself about which López wines I like the most. Originally it was the whites, then for a good chunk of time it was the reds, and the past few months I've been thinking that it's the rosé that dollar for dollar is their best wine. All of the wines poured at this tasting were excellent, but I came away swooning over the white wines. I suppose it's silly to try to choose favorites with wines of this caliber.

I very much enjoyed the newly released 2001 Gravonia and 1993 Tondonia Reserva - these are delicious white wines that show a lot of complexity and are every bit as much of the house style as the older Gran Reservas. The young red reservas didn't move me as much. I keep hoping that the 2000 Tondonia Reserva will take on a little mid-palate depth, but so far it hasn't. The new red Gran Reservas are from the 1991 vintage and I've tasted them several times now and enjoyed them but each time I find them to show more vanilla wood flavors than I am used to, and I think they're a bit young to drink right now.

The old white wines...fantastic, moving, haunting. I particularly loved the 1973 Tondonia Gran Reserva and the 1964 Tondonia Gran Reserva. These are wines of tremendous aromatic complexity and distinction, and they still feel fresh and vibrant. There really is nothing else like them, as far as I know. The '73 was absolutely perfectly balanced and I loved the salted caramel tones and the way they played with the wine's mineral essence. But the '64, this was an absurdly good wine, with a pungently salty nose, like wet sand on the beach. It was fragrant in the mouth too and all the way down the throat. A restore-your-faith-in-wine kind of wine.

Of the reds, I particularly enjoyed the Tondonia Gran Reservas from 1981 and 1980. The '81 had a very strong mineral component that nicely complimented the earthy stewed fruit, and the 1980 was a haunting wine, a real highlight. It's musky perfume and incredibly detailed palate really stayed with me. But again it was the wines from the 1960's that truly knocked me over. The 1968 Tondonia Gran Reserva was a bit shy on the nose at first, but then blossomed with blood orange and floral aromatics, and the wine was so fresh and expansive on the palate, so well structured and gentle.

I had a little López de Heredia revelation with the 1964 Tondonia Gran Reserva. I will admit that as much as I love the wines, I've never understood them in terms of terroir. It's not that I doubt them in this way, but I've understood the wines in terms of the style of wine making. I just don't know much about Rioja, I guess. But when drinking this wine, the 1964, I finally got it (I think). The thing is, the wine smelled exactly like the white wine from 1964! The nose showed the same pungent salty beach sand aromatics, there was no mistaking it. Does it usually take 48 years for the whites and the reds to converge aromatically? Is this the essence of the Tondonia terroir, this marine salted caramel package of aromas? I think I should probably drink these wines again to further investigate these issues, you know, in the name of science.

More Mid-term Cellaring Results

In the past few weeks I had the chance to enjoy a few wines from the cellar, things that are not by any means at peak maturity, but maybe approaching middle age. These are wines that I know and love, and the results were all good. A few notes:

1997 López de Heredia Rioja Rosado Viña Tondonia Gran Riserva, $25, Polaner Imports. A good buddy brought this over not too long ago and it was a great reminder of why it's smart to save a bottle or two of this amazing rosé. It's always so delicious when released that it's hard, I know, but you will be well rewarded. The idea, as I've heard it, is that the winery releases this wine when they feel it's ready to drink. The current vintage is 2000, for example (and so far it is my favorite since 1995). But the wine does improve with further cellaring. This bottle was more delicate than I remember the wine a few years ago, the aromas more precise and elegant, the mid-palate that much more detailed. Seems to have shed some weight, but there is even more intensity. Now please give me strength regarding the wonderful 2000's.

2006 Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvée Domaine, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. Is Cuvée Domaine the best little red wine on the planet? Maybe so, maybe so. In this vintage Baudry did not make Les Grezeaux, one of his top cuvées, and some of that juice went into this wine. This was my last bottle, sadly, and it was superb. The aromas could not possibly be more clear and detailed, with tobacco leaf, gravelly earth, and cooling dark fruit. The palate too - so fresh and clean, such great balance, so classy. This wine is always good and I think this particular vintage is great. My friend took the remaining half bottle with him and he said it continued to be delicious for days.

2007 Foillard Morgon Côte de Py, $29, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. In such a great place. There is still a lot of fruit, but some of it has taken on a secondary stewed nature, and there is an intensity to the midpalate, a certain kind of grip, that comes with a little bit of maturity. Perfectly balanced, beautifully textured, strikingly harmonious - beautiful wine. Yes, there is lots of room for further development, but if you have multiple bottles you could do worse than to drink one of these soon.

2007 Gilbert Picq Chablis Vieilles Vignes, $23, Polaner Imports. I've loved this wine from the beginning and it just keeps getting better. To me, Picq's Vieilles Vignes is one of the very best villages Chablis out there, and when you consider price, it might be the best. This wine is ripe in 2007 but it is also very much expressive of place, with with distinct iodine and seashell aromas encircling the bright green fruit. It actually might be closing down now, as this (my last) bottle didn't show very well on day 1. It was awkward and inexpressive, disappointing. But the next day it was fantastic, the intensity and purity of the flavors really shining. There is a gentle, slightly mature, old vines grip on the midpalate that makes the wine texturally satisfying too.

December Wines - a Laundry List

December tends to be a good month for wine drinking. Everyone reaches into the cellar for the good bottles to help celebrate the passing of another year. Here are the wines I drank in December that have not, even in passing, appeared recently on this blog. Usually I put them into groups - excellent, very good, and so on, but I had so many great wines in December that I will simply list my favorites without any qualification.

1993 Chateau Laville Haut-Brion Pessac-Léognan Blanc, price unknown, Chateau & Estate Wines. My generous friend Adam shared this treasure with me over his tasty braised veal shanks. First of all, I've had maybe two or three white Bordeaux wines in my life before this one, and none of them were terribly exciting. This one, however, was thrilling. The Wine Doctor profiles the estate here, so you can read up on the details if you like. In short, Laville Haut-Brion is owned by the same people who own Haut-Brion, but the Laville vineyards and wines are distinct. They are made from old vines, mostly Semillon and the balance Sauvignon Blanc. Pungent and still very graceful aromas of orange peel, wax, menthol, and honey. A mesmerizing nose, and one that grew in detail and breadth over the hour or so in which we drank it. Youthful acidity on the palate and perfectly balanced at only 12% alcohol (!), with a dazzling combination of richness and delicacy to the flavors. Memorable wine, and I suspect that it is a wine that might not exist in this style these days.

(2000) Tarlant Champagne La Vigne d'Antan Extra Brut Non-Grefée Chardonnay, $65, was imported by Jon-David Headrick Selections, not sure who imports it now. As described by Peter Liem on ChampagneGuide.net, this wine comes from un-grafted French rootstock in the sandy phylloxera-resistant soils of a vineyard called Les Sables. This is just the second release of this wine (Benoit Tarlant began making it in 1999) and already it is one of my favorite Champagnes. It expresses with incredible clarity the sandy brown tones of the soil. The fruit is piercingly clear, although the fruit plays a secondary role. The fruit and the soil work together so harmoniously, and the wine is both fascinating to think about while drinking, and also just plain delicious.Well worth seeking out.

2002 Domaine Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec Clos du Bourg, $33, Imported by Robert Chadderdon Selections. Such an incredibly beautiful wine, and so accessibly priced. Crystalline purity, elegance and energy, rocks, herbs, honey, and stone fruit are all in perfect balance. The wine is delicious now although it is probably showing only a little of itself. It started to show a spearmint kind of herbal complexity on the finish only after an hour open, and the texture became more energetic and almost grippy after that hour. I'm sure this will last forever but it will be delicious at any point between now and forever.

1981 López de Heredia Rioja Gran Reserva Viña Bosconia, price unknown (but you'd have to pay over $100 in NYC to buy this now), imported by Polaner Selections. A very generous host at a holiday party opened this and also the 1985 and 1991 Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia. They were all great wines and it was interesting to drink them next to one another. The 1991 was just too young, I thought. The 1985 was utterly lovely, but the star of the show was this wine, and it was all class and grace, with deeply complex aromas and flavors, an incredibly elegant mouth feel, and a finish that just didn't quit. Awesome wine, and it's the same price as a newly released 1er cru red Burgundy from a good terroir. One of the best ways to spend $100 on wine, in my opinion.

2004 Henri Prudhon Chassagne Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chenevottes, $47, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. White Burgundy is tough to buy, I think. I want to buy good bottles, but there have been oxidation problems so it's a dicey proposition to cellar them. But the really good bottles take time to fully express themselves. Prudhon's wines are a safe bet, I would say. The range includes some very good terroirs and the wines are made in a classic understated style. Perhaps not the very finest that Burgundy has to offer in white wine, but delicious and expressive of place, and accessibly priced. This bottle was very good when we opened it, but it was day two when it really shined. Slightly smokey and marine inflected aromas that mostly feature stones and rocks. The palate is all elegance and finesse, with good intensity and a grippy finish that smacks of the ripe raw material. And the thing is, this wine is completely light in texture and weight, almost sheer - you have to pay attention to get it. Very impressive.

2007 Bernard Baudry Chinon Cuvée Domaine, $18, Louis/Dressner Selections. This is one of baudry's two "entry level" wines, and it can be simply fantastic. I love it in 2007, and it's drinking better than ever. Showing a mineral pungency and lovely floral tones that weren't there earlier in its life, a bit musky too on the nose. The fruit is a bit less pronounced and the dry leathery earth components are more prominent. Well balanced and great wine and year in, year out, one of the finest red wines that can be purchased for under $20. Yup, I said that.

2002 Louis Boillot et Fils Pommard 1er Cru Les Fremiers, $52, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. Louis Boillot is Ghislaine Barthod's husband and they will star together in a new MTV reality based mini-series on wine making spouses, their trials and tribulations. Keep an eye out for it. This wine is still young, but certainly showing good detail in aroma and flavor and the minerality is prominent. The fruit aromas are dark and brambly and with air, completely infused with wood smoke. Plenty of extraction here, but the palate is still balanced and lively and with air the minerality takes on a pungency that for me, defines the wine. Very lovely.

NV Jacques Lassaigne Champagne Cuvée Le Cotet Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs, $70, Jenny & François Selections. 45 year old vines planted in 10 centimeters of topsoil over chalk in an east-facing vineyard in Montgueux. This is a laser beam of chalky Chardonnay, and because it is farmed so well and grown in such a ripe climate, you'd never guess that it is dosed at merely 2 grams and is technically an extra brut wine. So good, and with an hour of air, terrific.

NV Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé, $75, T. Edward Wines. So silky and refined, such finesse. This wine has earned its reputation as one of the finest NV rosés in Champagne.

1997 Chateau Pibarnon Bandol, about $25 on release, but $54 a few years ago, Imported by Michael Skurnik Wines. Absolutely classic Bandol, with lots of animale inflected tobacco and earth. Offers a lot of pleasure, and it is perhaps just approaching middle age. Very well balanced and the acidity is strong. The tannins are dusty and pretty fine, and the whole package is very attractive and typical of the place. Very strong wine.

2009 Immich-Batterieberg Riesling Kabinett, $23, Mosel Wine Merchant. I'm just beginning to start attempting to engage in trying to begin learning about Riesling. This is one of my favorites so far. I love how it is almost extreme in its focus, but its also so pretty and generous in its flavors. At first it's all orchard fruit but with air time the earthy notes emerge. There are fleeting sponti whiffs, the palate is very mineral, and the wine is well balanced and expressive. Hard to argue with that.

Thanks for indulging me in this very long laundry list post. December was a good month and I wanted to share...

Winter Radish Salad and López de Heredia

Have you ever eaten a watermelon radish? They look like turnips on the outside, except that the tail has a pink hue under the skin. They are very mild as far as radishes go, and they are very beautiful, bright fuchsia on the inside.

Every year beginning around now, I impose watermelon radishes on my family and the friends who come over to eat. My typical cooking technique is to slice them and cook them simply in butter and salt, and to serve them alongside a main dish. But last weekend at the market, Bill Maxwell (I like to think of him as my family's farmer) told me that they're great raw. And so it was decided.

I decided to make a salad using watermelon radishes, but what else should go in there? Have you noticed that salads at good restaurants always have walnuts or pumpkin seed oil or some sort of nut in them? I decided that a small handful of coarsely chopped walnuts should be part of the equation. And as I mixed things together I realized that as much as I love watermelon radishes, they would need to share the stage with something else. I had a bunch of good kale, and so it was decided. Shreds of kale - kind of bitter. Slices of radish - kind of spicy and savory. Pieces of walnut - kind of nutty and rich. To balance it out...a bit of ricotta cheese - kind of sweet and creamy. For the dressing, olive oil and sherry vinegar - kind of acidic and very savory.

My plan was to eat this before some leftover roast chicken and turnips, but that went out the window as soon as I tasted the salad. A larger serving, and that was dinner. And a healthy one at that.

There was no question in my mind that I would drink Sherry with this dish. But as I put the food on a plate I began to think of another wine, and imagined that it would be good.

I'm wrong lots of times, my friends, but this time I was right. I drank the 1998 López de Heredia Rioja Rosado Viña Tondonia Gran Riserva, $25, Polaner Selections. Funny, among those I've tasted, this is not my favorite vintage (that would be '95), but I've enjoyed this wine every time I've had it. This was the best bottle yet. It took a half hour for the aromas to knit together, and then it was a completely harmonious and deeply complex, utterly drinkable and satisfying thing of loveliness. Mushrooms, crabs, orange water, musk, rocks, Sherry...those are the things that I thought about while smelling this wine. And this bottle showed such a compelling length and energy. It was truly great with my salad, although it's hard to imagine a meal that this wine would not compliment.

By the way, you know that López de Heredia waits a long time to release their wines, unlike almost every other winery in the world. The idea is to release them when they believe they are ready to drink. I'm starting to believe that the Rosado, like their other Gran Riserva wines, shows best if you give it even a few more years in the cellar. The 1998 did, in any case. Let's see if I can show some self control with my 2000's.

New Vintages

Some of my favorite wines have just been released in new vintages. I haven't had all of them yet, but I figured I'd share the news about the group that I've had at home with dinner:

And by the way, if these wines are representative of what's happening in general, 2009 in Beaujolais really is as awesome as they say. Buy the wines and drink them. Sure, pick a few that you are most interested in and lay a couple of bottles down, but these wines are drinking beautifully right now. Don't miss it.

2009 Marcel Lapierre Morgon, $22, Imported by Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant. Ripe and enticing, pure and clean, very fresh, this is bursting with red fruit and as if to suggest what we would be eating with this wine if we were already in heaven, an undertone of earthy cured meat. This wine is not perfect - I find the alcohol to be a bit awkward, although the bottle says only 13%. But I wouldn't be surprised if it is in fact higher. And in any case, it juts out a little. The this is, the wine is still delicious. I cannot imagine cellaring it, as it tastes so good now, and doesn't seem to be holding anything in reserve.

2009 Coudert Clos de la Roilette Fleurie, $20, Louis/Dressner Selections. Ripe and aromatic, very generous, plushly textured and with good body and richness, but without crossing into the land of overdone or huge. In other words, it's a solid standard deviation away from the ripeness mean, but still within the realm of normal. Will this age well? I don't see why not. There is plenty of acidity and the wine is fundamentally in balance. In this case though, I'm having a really hard time imagining why I would try to hold it. The drinking really is just that good right now.

2009 Clos de Tue-Boeuf Cheverny, $16, Louis/Dressner Selections. Pure joy. Vivid red fruit, when served cool the texture is not entirely smooth and that is a big part of the charm, the acids are strong, the aromatics are lovely, the wine is clean and absolutely well balanced, and the finish lingers longer than it has a right to considering its humble pedigree. You blend Pinot Noir and Gamay somewhere near Touraine and you can make a decent wine. Even if you are Thierry Puzelat, the wine is not always great. This time, it's great. What else can I say - pure joy.

2008 Pierre Gonon St. Joseph, $25, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. As good as this wine is, it's a bit of a disappointment. The past several vintages have been wonderful and this wine is very tasty too, but it isn't as strong as its predecessors and this is clear. It has the dark fruit, the olives, the wet soil, the finesse that I know of Gonon and his plots in St. Joseph, but it is lacking the complexity that I have come to expect and with air, the emptiness of the midpalate really shows. The price is right and this is good drinking, but don't believe that this is the best that Gonon can show you.

2009 Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet Clos des Briords, $16, Louis/Dressner Selections. This drinks differently than any young Briords that I've had, but that's okay because it's still absolutely delicious. This one is far more crowd friendly and approachable. The aromas are lovely and clear - lemon, a bit of yeast, spring water. The wine feels relaxed, as if it's already gone through that young tightly wound period. I've learned enough, however, about this wine to know that based on this one bottle, I have no idea what's really going on here. It certainly seems like it wants to be enjoyed early. And it tastes really good right now.

2008 Albert Boxler Edelzwicker Reserve, $16, Robert Chadderdon Selections. Sometimes the overall bigness and the residual sugar in Boxler's wines makes it hard for me to appreciate them on a practical level. Meaning, I respect what's going on, but I don't always want to open and drink them. Not so with this wine. This is the field blend of essentially every white grape grown by the estate. Yes, it is full bodied and big, unmistakably a Boxler wine, and there is residual sugar too. But the wine is very well balanced and actually feels lean and mineral on the finish. Herbs, pits, wildflowers, and bitter honey support and lend complexity to the wine, and it is so very satisfying. And flexible too - find something that doesn't eat well with this wine in the heat of summer, I dare you.

2000 López de Heredia Rioja Rosado Viña Tondonia Gran Riserva, $24, Imported by Polaner Selections. I haven't actually had an entire bottle of this yet, just glasses on several occasions. But I'm very excited about what I drank. This wine is perhaps more grounded than the 1998, a wine that I think is absolutely excellent, but a wine that took a year after release to show as well as it does now. That's the thing with these Lopez wines - they release them when they think they're ready, but maybe they should get a little more time in your cellar anyway. The 2000 has a darkly spicy, very focused character, and it is more attractive to me early on than the more tropical 1998 at this point in its life. Blood orange, salt, sherry, and so clean and pure. I hope I have the self-control to hold onto a few of these.

Four Rieslings - a Long and Winding Road

The other night BrooklynLady and I went to dinner at Vinegar Hill House with Peter Liem and Dan Melia. We had a great time and I thought the place essentially lived up to the hype. Forgotten New York neighborhood, lovely decor, even if painstakingly mussed like a Williamsburg cool-cat's hair. Appetizers were fantastic, the rest of the food very good too, everyone was happy. And someone over there loves wine, because there are many enticing things on that list at fair prices.

While we were waiting for our table, and part of the way into our appetizers, we drank 2007 Romano Clelia Fiano di Avellino,"Colli di Lapio". Fiano is something that Levi Dalton has poured for me several times now, and he feels that it offers perhaps the best raw material of any white grape in Italy. This wine was so well made, and just delicious, vibrant and well balanced. And my last smokey sip was a ridiculously good match with grilled charred octopus. Our 1998 López de Heredia, Gran Riserva Tondonia Rosado showed beautifully too, and worked with everything on the table. Fleshy, oxidative, focused, pure, this wine is its own special thing and if you haven't yet had it, at about $25 retail it's just spiteful of you to continue not trying it. Especially now after a year or so since release - this wine has never shown better. We moved onto the 2007 Agnès et René Mosse Anjou Les Bonnes Blanches, and I'm just not a fan. I know that all the cool-cats love Mosse, and they are darlings of the natural wine scene, but for me the wines are hit or miss. This one showed a lot of volatility and simply wasn't very interesting, but it didn't matter - Opici "Chablis" couldn't have darkened our mood at that point.

Dinner with company like this is always great, but on this particular evening there was a nice little ancillary benefit. Dan arrived right from work, and his work is selling Mosel Wine Merchant Riesling. He schlepped 20 wines with him in a crumby red Toyota Tacoma (it might be in perfect condition for all I know, but in my mind's eye it's crumby) to Prune and TriBeCa Terroir and Blue Angel, and lots of traffic and other hassles later, he arrived at my house. He brought four great Rieslings with him for us to enjoy as apertifs, and then tired of the schlepping, Dan left the bottles with me. How cool is that?

These were all 2008's, all harvested at the Spätlese ripeness level, but they are all dry wines. Well, only two of them are technically trocken wines, but the other two drink as if they are dry wines. These are some of the top wines from each producer and it was quite a treat to enjoy them over the next few days. A few notes to follow, but since I have precious little experience with Riesling, my notes aren't all that interesting. What I can tell you, is that as a group, these wines have a common thread. They are remarkably pure, they are delicate and detailed, they have great intensity and length, and they are very much of the soil. They are great wines, and if they were Burgundies, they would cost upwards of $75. But they are dry German Rieslings, they typically require the hand sell, and none of them will run you more than $35 - honestly, a bargain.

2008 Peter Lauer Saar Ayler Kupp Riesling Fass 12 Unterstenbersch, $35, Mosel Wine Merchant. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite, this would be it. A bit of sponti natural yeast fermentation musk on the nose, deeply earthy and mineral too. Pure, vibrant, sweet fruit, a delicate springwater feel to the wine, but also intense and with great length. The thing that killed me about this wine is that is so intense and still is a wine of such finesse. Lauer is not using the typical German wine language, and the label says nothing about must weight at harvest or dryness level. Instead, Lauer describes the terroir, in this case at the bottom of a south-facing slope just west of the Saar river, from 50-year-old vines.

2008 Clemens Busch Vom Roten Schiefer, about $28, Mosel Wine Merchant. Vom Roten Schiefer means "from red slate," and Clemens Busch is also avoiding ripeness and dryness on the label, in favor of a statement about terroir. Again, amazing purity, a creamy sense to the wine, a bit doughy and spicy. I took a sip of this wine and then, rather unglamorously, had to go and change my older daughter's pull-up (a diaper for the mostly potty-trained to wear while sleeping, for you non parents out there). As I leaned over her on the changing table, amidst several other pungent aromas, she asked if I had been eating bread! The finish

is all herbs and rocks and bitter pits and the length honestly is rather startling. This wine is not yet available in the US, but it will be soon. A bit more about it here, from Lars at Mosel Wine Merchant.

2008 Stein St. Aldegunder Palmberg-Terrassen Spätlese-trocken, $26, Mosel Wine Merchant. Perhaps the most delicate of the lot, this wine also showed the most overt fruit - lots of apricots. Very pure and fine, intensely mineral, and the creamy mid-palate merges with the very mineral finish that lasts forever and buzzes with some sort of herbal honey. Such a delicious wine.

2008 Knebel Winninger Röttgen Spätlese-trocken, $36, Mosel Wine Merchant. More muscular than the others, more concentration. Also a bit more fruit on the nose, with green melon, but still a wine of rocks and bread. Energy, depth, finesse, purity - I've said the same thing about each of these wines, but it's true of each. One more thing I can tell you - this wine had already been open for 48 hours when I mistakenly left about a glass in the bottle, same for the Stein wine, overnight and out of the fridge with no stopper. And the next day at 1 pm they both were excellent with our fluke lunch.

Wine of the Week - López de Heredia Viña Cubillo

What do you think of when you think of López de Heredia, the great master of Rioja? I think of very old and very beautiful wines, Reservas and Gran Reservas that are first released to the retail market when they are 10-20 years old. Perhaps this is why it took me so long to try their entry-level red wine, Viña Cubillo. But try it I did about 6 months ago, and I feel like a dope. It's easy to focus only on a producer's best wines. But I shouldn't have overlooked Viña Cubillo. It is a great wine in its own right, at about $25. Think of Cubillo the way you might think of a Michel Lafarge or a Leroy Bourgogne.

Cubillo is technically a Crianza, meaning that it must age for at least 2 years, at least 6 months of that time must be in oak. López de Heredia, as they do with all of their wines, ages Cubillo longer than is required - about 3 years in oak and then another few years in the bottle. And Cubillo, like all López de Heredia wines, is released only when they think it is ready for drinking. The blend is always the same: 65% Tempranillo, 25% Garnacho (Grenache), and 5% each of Carignan and something called Mazuelo.

2002 López de Heredia Rioja Crianza Viña Cubillo, $25, Polaner Selections. BrooklynLady thought this was a Burgundy wine when she first smelled and tasted. I completely understand that assessment - the wine a lovely mingling of bright red fruit and earth. The nose really soars, fragrant and full of energy. Vibrant and juicy on the palate, very intense and fruit forward but with a compact and lean frame. The current vintage is the 2003, and I think that another year plus of bottle age has been great for the 2002. With just a little air time, the aromas are still fruity, but become very stately and mature, a woven basket of fruit on a fine mahogany dining table. We drank this wine with a simple but wholly satisfying meal - cauliflower cooked slowly with pimentón and garlic, and a scallion omelet. The pimentón and the wine recognized each other immediately from their childhood days, and wasted no time reconnecting.

The moral of this story is simple: you do not have to shell out the $75 plus to experience the joys of López de Heredia. Not that you shouldn't - many people say that a López de Heredia Gran Reserva represents one of the very best values in red wine. But you can spend about $25 on Viña Cubillo and still bask in Rioja glory. By the way, the steady-handed David McDuff's wrote about this same wine only a few weeks ago. Check out his take on it here.

Overachievers and Underachievers

Last week I had the opportunity to drink some pretty fancy wine. BrooklynLady and I had some out of town (out of country, actually) friends over for dinner and we opened a few nice bottles. And my pal Bruce had a bunch of people over for dinner and selected Burgundy as his wine theme, and he was quite generous with the bottles he opened.

I don't often drink wine of this caliber and I think it can be tricky to evaluate. High expectations can color things. If I'm tasting blind, I can give you my thoughts and there's nothing tricky because I have no idea whether or not I'm supposed to like the wine. But if I open a bottle of 1978 Domaine Dujac Clos de la Roche with you over dinner, evaluating the wine would be tricky. I hardly ever drink wine of that caliber and I would so very much want to like it. And yet I would have such high expectations, the wine might have to be perfect in order to live up to them. This is purely hypothetical by the way, because I possess no such bottle of '78 Dujac. But you get my point.

Since I am only an occasional drinker of fancy wine, I think it's easiest to evaluate by simply classifying it as an overachiever or an underachiever, or as a wine that performs exactly as it should. The simplicity of this helps me avoid some of the over-thinking and the hype. Here are the fancy bottles I'm talking about from this week, and by fancy I don't necessarily mean expensive, by the way. For me, fancy wine can also be a bottle by an iconic producer whose wines I simply do not often have the opportunity to drink.

Overachievers:

1999 Domaine Leroy Meursault - Tough to get a handle on, but with time to re-taste and to think about the wine, it kind of blew me away. It's still a baby with a somewhat disjointed feel, and with almost too-intense acidity. But the fruit is so absolutely crystalline and pure, and the sense of mineral soil is so complete. The wine simply has incredible presence. This is Leroy and it's supposed to be among the very best wines of Burgundy. Is there a finer drinking villages Meursault right now? I don't know. But this one is fantastic, and it will get better. Would I feel the same way If I tasted it blind? I don't know. Not everyone at Bruce's house liked it. In fact, I liked it more than everyone else. I'd take a half case for the cellar and re-visit in 5 years. Provided that I find a thousand dollars on the street, that is.

1997 Champagne Salon Brut Blanc de Blancs - I drank this at the recent Wilson Daniels tasting. Before I drank it I asked my friend Tista who directs the estate's exports if it is surprising that Salon would make a 1997. "Not at all," he said. "Many top producers in the Côtes des Blancs made vintage wine in 1997." Shows you what I know. Anyway, this is supposed to be great wine - it is Salon. And it really was great - just amazing, with astounding complexity, layers of mineral and fruit, and a truly regal and graceful presence. I'm not sure what could happen to Blanc de Blancs so that it would be better than this. Tista poured me first the wine from the bottom of a bottle that had been open for a few hours, and then sent me off to sit with a glass from a fresh bottle. That was a good morning.

Wines that performed exactly as they should:

1981 López de Heredia Rioja Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia - this noble white wine was served blind, as I served all of the wines blind for our out-of-town friends. I was the only one who knew what it was. This was incredibly fresh, utterly defying its 28 years of age. There was a complex interplay of fruit and secondary flavors, a slightly saline and nutty note, and a persistent finish that seemed to offer a replay of each sip in its entirety. Great wine, and it's wine that is supposed to be great. Worth every penny.

2002 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clavoillon - Bruce opened this wine alongside the Leroy, and it was more open and ready to drink. It was clean cut and lovely with ripe fruit and bracing acidity, and a strong mineral sense. It is an elegant wine with delicious fruit and bitter herb flavors, and a stony finish that really persists. Which is exactly what I would expect from such an exalted producer.

NV Jose Dhondt Brut Blanc de Blancs - Served blind at our dinner. Tista actually nailed it as being from Oger, which is a little scary. Chalk infused citrus fruit with a lovely sheer texture, great acidity too. Delicious wine, exactly as it should be.

Underachievers:

1998 Chateau Simone Palette Blanc - Served blind at our dinner. From the iconic producer in Provence, this wine is a blend of about 47 different grapes. Okay, five grapes, maybe. Not a terribly expensive wine (although Simone has recently gone up in price), but not an easy find either. This was described by one guest as "a good wine, but not a great Simone," and that makes sense to me. I've only had one other Simone Blanc, and I was much more excited that time. This one was so fresh and youthful that it didn't really offer the nuance and complexity that one might want from a 10 year old white wine. It was perfectly good, but not exceptional, and it's supposed to be exceptional.

2002 Nicolas Potel Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Suchots - Let me tell you firstly that everyone else at Bruce's house really liked this wine. And it was, in fact, delicious wine - the nose was quite shy, but the fruit was ripe and dark with lovely floral notes and there was good acidity and balance. What's not to like? Nothing - I liked it too. But to me it is an underachiever in the sense that it just wasn't very complex, and there was little about it that spoke of Vosne-Romanée. That doesn't make it bad wine - as I said, a crowd of people really liked it. But when I spend that kind of dough on a bottle of red Burgundy I'm looking for more of a terroir stamp. I know, I'm a wine curmudgeon.

NV Champagne Lallement Cuvée Réserve Brut Grand Cru - Served blind at our dinner. Perhaps the top producer in Verzenay, Lallement makes tiny quantities of superb wine, based mostly on Pinot Noir. Cuvée Réserve is made from the estate's older vines, 80% Pinot Noir and the rest Chardonnay, and is a blend of at least two vintages. Which vintages in this case I cannot tell you, as there is no indication on the bottle (honestly - I am SO DONE with producers that will not provide me with proper information on the bottle). I've had great bottles of this wine, and poor bottles, and this was a poor bottle. As Peter Liem, Champagne guru succinctly put it when it was unveiled, "this bottle did not show well at all."

Wines to Obsess Over

"This was one of those wines that make you realize why you spend 2/3 of your waking time thinking, reading and writing about wine, as well as drinking it." - Sharon Bowman, in her post about the 1985 López de Heredia Rioja Rosado Viña Tondonia Gran Riserva.

That resonated with me when I first read it several weeks ago. Every so often we are lucky enough to drink a wine that provokes that sort of sentiment, a wine that dominates our thinking for a while, a wine to obsess over. This can be something of a curse too, if the wine is unavailable, or priced high enough so that my wife would kill me if I were to buy it.

I've been obsessing about several wines for the past few weeks since I drank them at the Polaner tasting. I know, that sounds like a contradiction - you don't really get to drink a wine at an industry tasting, it's one of many that you quickly taste, and then move on. But these wines I actually did drink.

All of the López de Heredia wines were very good, but the 1985 Rioja Rosado Viña Tondonia Gran Riserva, the very wine Sharon spoke of, was just drop dead gorgeous. Such an incredible perfume - roses, the softest and most well-worn leather belt, raspberries, so fresh and pure and youthful at 24 years old. This wine ended the tasting for me. I begged for a half glass and the woman pouring the wines took pity on me and said "Yes, I want people to drink my wines." I took my small glass of this amazing wine, found a table off in a corner of the room and spent the next 15 minutes savoring it. I can't stop thinking about this wine! The next time I have $90 burning a hole in my pocket, a bottle of this wine comes home with me.

Earlier at the same tasting I drank a wine that Peter Liem has written about, a very special Sherry made by Equipo Navazos. This is an unfiltered fino Sherry and like the other La Bota Sherries, it is a special selection of the finest wines from the finest barrels in an old solera. In this post Peter discusses Equipo Navazos a bit further and describes why what they're doing is so unusual and special.

I was thrilled to see a La Bota table at the Polaner tasting, and the wines were just sitting there - no one was tasting them. I spent almost a half hour there, tasting and "re-tasting" the absolutely beautiful La Bota de Fino #15 Macharnudo Alto. Impossibly fresh and pure, the cleanest and most incisive flavors, so brisk and refreshing, and astoundingly deep, all in one package. The La Bota de Amontillado #9 Jerez was also wonderful, but in a totally different way. Burnished amber and incredibly rich, like an intense chestnut honey, this wine was so intense that it made it difficult to taste or smell anything after drinking it, and I would prefer it at the end of an epic meal. Tasting it there in that crowded room felt out of place, it was too intimate of a wine for that setting. But the #15...my goodness! I ran into a friend and insisted that he taste it with me, which necessitated a "re-re-taste" on my part. The great thing is that this wine, what is perhaps the finest example of fino Sherry on the market today, can be had for $40. I bought a bottle and now have to stop myself several times every day from opening it.

1/3 of my day is essentially over and I've already used up most of my time allotted for thinking about wine...

Wine of the Week - 1998 Lopez de Heredia Rosé

1998 López de Heredia Rioja Rosado Viña Tondonia Gran Riserva, $27, Polaner Selections. Spring is in the air and there's no denying it - even the sourest New Yorker is ready to smile. Recession? Depression? Fugedaboudit. Magnolias are blooming and my 3 month old daughter seems to have inherited my green eyes.

BrooklynLady and I began what is now our tradition, to open a bottle of this beautiful old rosé from Rioja at the beginning of the springtime. This is no ordinary rosé, by the way. This wine, like all of López de Heredia's Gran Riservas, is aged in oak and is released only when Maria and the other members of the López de Heredia clan feel that it is ready to drink. It is made only in better vintages, and it brings with it the ancient marine mineral bed that is the Tondonia vineyard. You can drink all sorts of Rioja, and then drink López de Heredia, and it's as though you're in outer space, it's so different from everything else. Not overly extracted or concentrated, not vanilla oak flavored, not masked by anything at all, these are some of the last wines that truly speak of the place that is Rioja.

The blend is the same every time this wine is made - it is mostly Grenache at 60%, and the balance is Viura (20%), and Tempranillo (20%). The 1998 is more tropical on the nose than the '97 or the '95, with prominent aromas of coconut and tangerine. It is an airy and fresh nose, although the wine is oxidized to the point that it also shows distinct sherry-like notes. A strange and lovely contradiction. With a bit of air, a level of minerals emerges, as if you've been sinking slowly in seawater and suddenly come to rest on a bed of old coral. On the palate this shows far greater structure than I expected, as the wine is so spread out on the nose. The acidity is vibrant and the wine is perfectly balanced. The flavors are bold and clean, and quite complex, with fresh oranges and even a hint of pineapple, infused throughout with minerals, and with a sherry-like buzz underneath. This is just delicious wine, one of the most rewarding rosés available.

I'm not sure of the classic pairings for this wine. Jamón Ibérico? Grilled shrimp with garlic and butter? The '97 was more of a crab and shrimp wine (and I prefer it to the '98, but that's about style, not quality), whereas this wine, the '98 is more tropical. We loved it with our Sephardic roast chicken, rubbed with pimenton, cinnamon, and allspice, and stuffed with pistachios, apricots, almonds, orange rind, and sherry. Maybe it just doesn't matter. With wine this good, the food just falls into step.

If you're curious (or masochistic, perhaps), here are the posts on our previous experiences with López de Heredia rosé: the 1997 last May, and the 1995 in spring two years ago.

Why I Hate/Love New York

I'm not going to sugar-coat it for you, folks. I grew up here and I understand its appeal, but New York City makes me crazy sometimes. Maybe my biggest pet peeve is the prevalent attitude in so many high-end restaurants: you're lucky just to be here, so throw those "service" expectations out the window and be grateful that you are present. There are other people waiting, you know - you can leave if you don't like it. Places like that make me so cranky.

The other night my old pal Deetrane and I had a night out together. We decided to check out The Ten Bells, a natural wine bar on the Lower East Side. I called them at about 2 o'clock to make sure they'd be open and was told yes, 5pm. When we arrived at 7pm the place was closed for a private party. Hmmm, they might have mentioned that when I called.

If it's my wine bar I tell these people "I'm sorry about this but I cannot seat you now. If you come back later tonight or another time I'd like to buy your first glass for you and your friend," or something like that. There are businesses that would handle the situation in this way, but less so these days in NYC, it seems to me. This guy behind the bar - "No, we're closed," and that's it. No apologies, basically gave me the finger attitudinally, if you know what I mean.

So we left. I was annoyed - how do these places get away with having so little regard for their clients? Deetrane, as he does with most things, took it in stride. "We'll go to that restaurant you were talking about," he said. By this he meant Little Giant, the place on the corner that I'd also heard good things about.

They could seat us but only if we were willing to squeeze in between two other tightly packed tables - the roomier open tables (that remained open until we left) were for some reason not available. We decided on the dishes we would order and Deetrane very wisely selected the 1989 López de Heredia Rioja Reserva Viña Tondonia, the regal white wine from probably the last traditional producer in Rioja. At $78 (more like $40 retail), this was a bit of splurge, but we were celebrating being out together and my recent birthday and it seemed like the perfect pairing for our food.

10 minutes went by, our appetizers arrived - chicken liver mousse with a fig and onion compote, grilled bread, toasted hazelnuts, and sunflower sprouts, and the house pickle plate - baby carrots, jicama, golden beet cubes, red onion slices, and other savories. (Two Jewish guys eating dinner on the Lower East Side - did you think we would order the warm spinach and mayo dip?) Where was our wine? The waitress appeared with the wine list and told us that they had the wine, but not chilled. Would we like something else? No, our hearts were set on the Viña Tondonia, so would you please chill it for us? Another 10 minutes went by before she returned with the chilled wine. Shouldn't a three minute spin in an ice water bath have been sufficient?

If that's my restaurant, these customers are sent a couple glasses of Prosecco or something while they wait for their wine to chill. This is not the Greek diner on the corner. This is one of those hip joints on the Lower East Side where dinner runs at least $100 for two people. Are my expectations out of whack? Am I too cranky for NYC?

But here's the thing - when the wine arrived and when we drank it with that richly flavored and silky light chicken liver mousse on grilled bread, maybe a toasted hazelnut or a bit of fig compote...it was good. I mean really good. A great dish and a great wine pairing. The combination of saline-fresh and rich tropical aromas in this fantastic wine worked perfectly with the chicken liver mousse. Deetrane was so excited - "Dude, put some of this fig on top, take a bite, and then have a sip of the wine!" And so I did, and I was glad for it. So glad that it didn't bother me when the Swine of the Week (braised pork butt) came out cold. Whatever - this is a restaurant, they can re-heat it. And so they did. And it was also good. The scallops were even better, perfectly cooked and generously portioned. And the wine worked perfectly with these dishes too.

Still though, if this is my restaurant these people are sent dessert. Not "would you like to see a dessert menu," not "how about some more wine." After the wine-wait and then the cold pork just send them the sticky toffee pudding and see if they'd like some coffee. Then again, maybe this is why I don't run a restaurant.

The food and wine were good enough to make us (me, really) forgive and forget, so we actually went to The Ten Bells again for an after dinner glass. It was loud and thumping, dark and inviting, quintessential Lower East Side energy. They offered essentially the entire Dressner portfolio, a lot of it by the glass. Other goodies too, like Gonon St Joseph, Brick House Gamay, Binner Pinot Noir...what fun! And it happened to be Beaujolais Week, all wines $9 by the glass or $45 for the bottle. I'm talking about Lapierre, Descombes, Desvignes, Tete, and various other superstars of Beaujolais. We stared with two half-glasses of the excellent 2006 René Mosse Anjou, an oxidatively delicious Chenin Blanc. We moved on to a bottle (some friends had joined us by now) of the 2007 Descombes Régnié. Snappy and vibrant, especially the last glass. This was quite good, although nowhere near as good as the bottle I had at home the previous week.

So in the end, we had a blast, we drank great wine, and ate very tasty food. You have to love New York - this is a place where on this one block in one neighborhood, and on so many blocks in so many neighborhoods, you can enjoy eclectic wine and imaginative food in two different and equally vibrant settings. Maybe the moral of this story is this is New York - expect some attitude. Try to get past that and enjoy it anyway. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. Like I said, restaurants make me cranky.