Whoa!

Been so busy lately with work that I just haven't had time to write here. But I want to share some recent "Whoa," wine and food that really knocked me out.

1999 Clos Rougeard Saumur Bréze, Louis/Dressner Imports, price unknown. Whoa, this is just amazing wine. Clos Rougeard's rare (and pricey) Chenin Blanc is one of the most intriguing white wines of the Loire Valley. I've had three bottles in my life, including this one, and this was the best of them. Such wonderful freshness and purity on the nose, such well articulated aromas and flavors. Beautifully balanced, deep, complex, so very delicious. More, please.

 Have you ever been to City Island? I grew up here in New York, my parents both grew up in the Bronx, and I had never been until a few weeks ago. Among other things, we ate this plate of Little Neck clams. Briny. Cold. Refreshing. Whoa.

 2009 Chateau Pradeaux Bandol Rosé, Imported by Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchant. I bought two bottles last spring and never got around to drinking one of them. Whoa! I need to remember to put some good rosé away and forget about it for a while. Well made Bandol rosé definitely improves with age. This Pradeaux rose is only a year old, but already offers a glimpse of what time in the cellar will do. Mellow, incredibly mineral, very complex, flashes of the savory. Truly lovely.

This is William Mattiello, one of the owners of Via Emilia, in the Gotham City section of Manhattan, pictured with a bottle of Vittorio Graziano's white Lambrusco. William's wife is the owner of Lambrusco Imports, a small company that brings some very special wines to NYC, among them the very fine wines of Vittorio Graziano. At Via Emilia you will spend $36 for Graziano's red Lambrusco, the best that I've ever had. Initially the wine smells like a barn but it does beautifully with air (and with age, says the wise Levi Dalton). Try the white wine too, called Ripa del Bucamente, made mostly of Trebbiano. Oxidative, herbal, fresh, delicious. And $34 on the wine list. Whoa!

Crabby Jack's in (just slightly out of, actually) New Orleans. Do you like a po'boy? I do. I had the half and half, with fried shrimp and oysters. Very good. My friend had roast beef. Whoa.

2006 Benoît Lahaye Champagne Millésime, $68, imported by Jeffery Alpert Selections. I haven't seen Lahaye's vintage wine in the states, ever. I drank the 2002 in Portland on the day that I met my good friend Peter Liem, back in August of 2008. Always wanted to be able to buy the wine here, and now Chambers Street has a few bottles. Whoa, the 2006 is drinking so well right now, such a silky texture, so well balanced, so graceful, and with such wonderful finesse, and such a skilled bit of blending. At this price, it is among the very best Champagnes available in NYC.

I used to make fish soup all the time. It's been two years now, I think, but I made fish stock from a black fish rack the other day, and then fish soup. Whoa, one of the best I've made, if I may say so. Made an aioli to go with it, with green garlic pounded to a paste with a mortar and pestle, and hot paprika. Tried a few different wines with it this week. Best was a Provence rosé, the 2011 Domane les Fouques Côtes de Provence La Londe, $18, Direct Import of Chambers Street Wines. On day two the wine has distinct licorice notes. Lovely.

I have a good friend who loves Bordeaux wines. He's younger than me, so it's not that he grew up in the glory days of Bordeaux. He just loves the wines, that's it. He likes to open one when I'm over for dinner, and he's gotten quite good at picking one that I might also enjoy. Recently it was the 1995 Calon Segur, whoa. Tobacco leaves, mellow, honestly a lovely wine. Very, very young, and also very enjoyable on this early spring evening.

Wine Big Shots and the Wines they Share

One of the many perks of the glamorous blogger lifestyle is the fact that you get to hang out with people in the wine and restaurant business whose knowledge of wine utterly dwarfs your own. Well, maybe you know more than I, but their knowledge dwarfs mine, anyway. And if you invite these big shots to your house for a drink or for dinner they tend to bring some fantastically interesting and delicious wine.

In the past week or so two of my favorite wine big shots came by, and I got to drink great wines that were new to me. And these aren't fancy expensive bottles - these are things that we all can afford to buy and share with friends. These wine big shots...they really know how to get the best out of $20.

Jeremy Parzen, the dude behind the great Do Bianchi blog, was in town recently and he came over one afternoon with his terrifically friendly and lovely bride Tracie P. It's a rare treat for me to get to hang out with Jeremy and although we insisted that he and Tracie were our guests, they insisted upon bringing a wine to us, a dry Muscat from the Veneto. We drank Champagne and Poulsard on that sunny afternoon, but I made sure to ask Dr. P what to eat with this wine. He recommended something like a salt cod purée. I've never made that dish, although I do love to eat it. Instead of waiting until I learned how to make salt cod, BrooklynLady and I opened this bottle a few days ago with seared fluke and spring vegetables.

It was fantastic! 2007 Vignalta Muscat Sirio Veneto IGT, about $20 (don't remember the importer because I'm sitting in the airport in Charlotte, NC, but that's another story). This wine is bone dry, which is the only way I enjoy Muscat or Gewurztraminer at this point. But aromatically so satisfying, with focused exotic fruit aromas and something like bitter honey. The palate is exotic and lush, and very fresh and pure with good focus and a mineral cut. It was great with our fluke, but I can see how a more robust dish like creamed salt cod would be an even better match. Thanks Jeremy and Tracie P - we truly enjoyed this wine and will be going back for more.

And that's not all - the inimitable Levi Dalton and his terrifically friendly and lovely girlfriend Ayako came by for dinner on a recent warm and sunny evening. Levi is the head Sommelier at Alto restaurant, and he's very good at bringing wines that he knows will be interesting to whoever he is hanging out with.

On this evening he brought a magnificent bottle of Lambrusco by Vittorio Graziano, the 2005 Vittorio Graziano Lambrusco Fontana dei Boschi, about $20, (again, don't remember the importer). Levi explained that this is an unusual Lambrusco in that it does very well with a bit of bottle age. Most Lambruschi are meant to be consumed when young and fresh. He compared Graziano in his talent and uniqueness to Raveneau in Chablis. This wine was fresh as a daisy, and it achieved this while mingling aromas of aged salami with dark purple fruit. A tickle of effervescence on the palate, dusty dark fruit, and a cooling almost medicinal hint on the finish - this was simply delicious wine. The next day it was even better, by the way (we had a lot of wine that evening, which is why a wine like this made it back into the fridge). We ate speck and roast asparagus with this wine, along with fresh bread and butter. All was good, but if I have the good fortune to drink this wine again (it is barely imported and Levi snapped up everything that came into the country this year), I will most surely pair it with the funkiest of salami.

Levi also brought along a wine that is more familiar to me, although I'd never had it in the 2004 vintage. The 2004 Domaine du Vissoux Moulin a Vent Rochegrès, price unknown, Peter Weygandt Selections, was in a great place. Mellow and smooth, the aromas and flavors like a bowl of fresh strawberries on a bed of iron filings. This is the kind of Beaujolais vintage that I really like, and this wine is developing beautifully. It still has plenty of upside, as it also improved the next day. Thanks to you too Levi and Ayako for sharing these wines.