Tag Archives: wine

The Joy of a Well Made Wine

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girardAmong my wife’s friends and most of the people I have met here in Chicago, I am known as the wine guy. (I know it is a cliché but if I had a $1 for every time someone asked me any variation of the question “Have you had this wine?” or “Do you like this wine?” my wife and I would eat out more often.) Needless to say, people like coming to our house because of our good food, great conversations and they know we have good wine to serve. And if the people at our place have an interest in wine, inevitably a conversation grows.

We Have So Much in Common

A well-made wine is capable of so much. I think interesting wines often start discussions that boring bottles could never inspire. Captivating wines can bring a dynamic of commonality to simple cheese and wine get-togethers  that can make the evening much more memorable than a fancy four-course sit down dinner party..

Wine is like almost anything else that will bring about discussion whether it be cars, art, movies or food. Consider a group of guys sitting on a patio having a couple of beers.  They won’t talk about the brand new VW Jetta that’s parked out front, but if a 1963 black-on-black MGB in great condition pulls up and parks, the guys  are likely to start a conversation with the owner which will lead to a discussion about their favorite automobiles and great cars they have owned.  Soon – and inevitably – additional strangers will join the conversation because of a simple commonality.

Another Glass? Of Course

My wife had a couple of her friends over last week for some wine and desert. I opened a bottle of the 2009 Girard Napa Valley petite sirah which retails for less than $30 and is a really well made wine. Some of the fruit comes from 100-year old vines and the grapes are hand-sorted before going into stainless steel tanks for fermentation. It is a wine with ample new French oak, good acidity and plenty of fruit-forward flavors. It is also inky dark in color.

Both of my wife’s friends enjoyed the wine enough to comment and ask questions about the producer and varietal.  This wine was essentially responsible for a conversation that started with our bottle of wine from Napa Valley and meandered to one person’s weekend in California wine country and then to great vacations that we have all taken. This good bottle of petite sirah elicited a familiarity that would not have occurred had we started talking about the cold Chicago spring weather.

In the Back of My Mind I Knew I was Neglecting You…A promise to You Wine

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guiseppeWhy do we do it? Why do we neglect and forget about the people and things that bring us pleasure? I began thinking about this after I decided to call an old friend I had not been in contact with for a while. After the call ended, I looked at my phone — I could hardly believe that it had been almost 16 months since she and I had spoken.  We had been pretty close friends for many years. We shared good meals, great conversations and more than a few bottles of wine, but as we both got busier and older we slowly began to lose touch with one another. Fortunately we were able to catch up enough to plan on seeing one another despite our being in different parts of the country. If only our wines were as forgiving.

Pure Gold Without the Karats

Those of us that made an effort to buy multiple bottles of some of our favorite producer’s wines from multiple vintages can sometimes forget that each year has distinct similarities and often big differences. Some wines will be OK with us not checking in on them for five or six or even 10 years while others will simply fade from neglect.

I have always had a certain affection for the white burgundies from Jean Marc Boillot. Maybe that is because my first real experiences were the 1996 and 1997s. I bought a mixed case of Puligny Montrachet from each vintage. Four bottles of the “Les Referts” the “Champ Canet” and “Les Folatieres”   The 96’s almost required 10-12 years of cellaring to be at their best. They were full and rich with subtle oak and tons of acidity. The 97’s were the opposite. Riper fruit, generous oak and significantly less acid and around 2002 they were simply delicious — nothing earth-shattering or profound but just a really good bottle of chardonnay.

As is the case with most wine collectors, life got busier and I bought more wine as the weeks and months passed. Each year that I got older so, too, would every bottle of wine I owned. In the back of my mind I knew I had a few bottles left of these 97 Boillot’s and I knew they likely weren’t getting any better. So, early in the summer of 2010 I decided to open a bottle from the Champ Canet vineyard. As I feared, it was tired and lacking life and I was so disappointed. Not in the wine but in letting this happen to the wine. I really let this bottle down, along with the three others I owned.

I thought about the places where I had enjoyed some of the other bottles. My little yard in Berkeley in the late spring after planting 12 kinds of heirloom tomatoes, Thomas Brown’s living room watching a U.S. Open night  match between Agassi and Sampras while eating take out sushi after a typical 12 hour harvest day. More than once at Chez Panisse with a friend. These were all good memories and because of my neglect, my last memory of the 1997 Jean Marc Boillot’s is one of regret.

 Pouring out a Bottle for the Deceased Wine

valpoOn a long drive back from Cleveland this past week, I thought about family, friends and wines. I tried to take mental stock of some of the wines that I had not tried in a while and approach them with some of the meticulous enthusiasm that I had when I started out buying wine to cellar. With that, on Saturday  I texted my friend Dan Pilkey (somellier at the Boarding House restaurant) and told him I was going to bring a bottle in to decant and taste blind. I  wanted to open something we could taste and gauge its life expectancy.

For the next 45 minutes Dan, Alpana Singh and I chatted and shared our thoughts over that decanted bottle of 1997 Quintarelli “Ca del Merlo” Veneto IGT. The wine had good color with some classic brick around the edges. It smelled dusty, with dried fruit and Amarone like aromas. It was balanced, pretty and big despite a supple mouth feel. It was, as I think all agreed, a wine that will likely not get much better but will certainly hang around for another 4 or 5 years. It was a beautiful bottle of wine that was approaching 14 years old. We toasted the lost wines we left unopened in the cellar and promised we would not disappoint the late Guiseppe Quintarelli by forgetting and regretting because wines like our real friends deserve better

Food and Wine in Chicago? What an Amazing Surprise

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chez_panisse_crop380wI moved to Chicago in January 2009 from the San Francisco bay area (Berkeley to be precise) with the idea of trying something new and expecting to lose some of the things I had come to take for granted, namely, awesome food and tremendously good wine. After two months of living here I discovered that Chicago is actually a food destination city in its own right. In six months I had fallen in love with an amazing city (and an equally amazing woman).

Go Midwest Young Man

Just after my arrival, I set out on a quest to try a few of the extraordinary restaurants I had read about and I decided on Grant Achatz’s famed Alinea first. I am not here to write any reviews and I will gladly acknowledge that Alinea is a really special and memorable meal, but I have to admit that I was disappointed. I was disappointed because it was an event that I don’t really need to experience more than a couple of times in my lifetime. I was disappointed because one of the things I really love is spending a couple hours or more relaxing and talking over several courses of food and a few different glasses of wine with my friends and loved ones. A great restaurant for me is one that I can start a relationship with. A place I can go and know I will always get a wonderful meal. A place I can bring a couple bottles of wine that I can enjoy with my meal as well as share with the staff. A place I can develop a friendship with the people that work there.

The Good ol’ Days

I had that place when I lived in Berkeley, Ca. It was the venerable Chez Panisse. I ate upstairs in the café almost every single Monday for almost 5 years. I always brought a bottle of wine and dined alone half of the time. I could read a book and reflect over a leisurely dinner and then head home. Often times I would call the sommelier or the manager and asked if they felt like drinking any wine in particular. More than a few times I would bring 375 ml barrel samples of wine and seek the opinion of Jonathon the wine director.  It was something I expected not to find here in Chicago.

A New Place to Call Restaurant Home

After about a year of looking I found that restaurant in the Elysian Hotel, Ria (and its sister restaurant Balsan) when I met my dear friend Randy for dinner. I brought a bottle of chardonnay that I helped make and the 2001 Chateau Hosanna. As Randy and I got up to leave 3 hours later, I knew had found my new spot. It was my new go to restaurant and I looked forward to good wine, good food and catching up with the servers, bartenders, managers and, of course, the wine director. I called it dinner 3 or 4 times a month for about a year-and-a-half until Ria closed last May. It was a sad day for sure because I had to begin my quest for another restaurant I could call “mine”.

Let the Search Begin

So here I sit on a cold early spring day. My better half is out town and I really wish I had a new place where I can walk in and catch up with the staff, have a nice meal, a great bottle and a good read.

The 4 Wines that Changed Me

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There is always a beginning that starts a lifelong passion. That initial moment of being taken aback after having experienced something unimaginable for the first time. Sure there may be times when we step away from it for a short time, but we know that it will be with us for a lifetime.

Wine 1: Clubbed over the head2005-front

While I don’t recall the occasion or have any tasting notes I just remember that this was the glass that made me change the way I thought about wine. Sure I had lots of different wines but this was the first time I genuinely liked it enough to want another glass. It was the first wine that I thought was…well…good. That 1983 Chateau Cos d’ Estournel had me wanting to know why this was so much better than all the other wines I had ever tried. Within a week, I was subscribing to wine magazines and reading through the tasting notes for their reviews.

Wine 2: Deep pockets wine

The second wine was the 1984 Caymus Special Selection. It was a bottle  that I spent a small fortune on because it had received 98 points from the most widely read wine publication in America, Wine Spectator. I could taste, appreciate and understand the accolades. I started a modest but highly collectible California cabernet collection and began making friends who were into wine. It was all so perfect until wine #3.

Wine 3: A subtle surprise

The third wine epiphany happened while having dinner with a new friend (and future all-star wine maker) and a couple of his friends. I brought a bottle or two of high scoring California Cabernets and was eager to drink some until Thomas Brown handed me a glass of 1985 Armand Rousseau Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St Jacques. I distinctly remember putting my nose in the glass and then sitting down. I had never smelled anything so exotic, perfumey and pretty. I took a small taste and immediately accepted that this was a revelation. The flavors evolved and resonated. The world of red Burgundy had grabbed me by the neck and walked me over to sneer disdainfully at that bottle of Silver Oak sitting on the table. After that glass of wine, I never bought another cabernet from California to lay down for future consumption. I instead sold 6 or 7 cases of cabernet because I needed to explore the world of French pinot noir.

Wine 4: Close to the soul

Now we come to the fourth wine. It was one of the top-three greatest wines that I have had the pleasure of drinking. I have opened this wine a couple of times since that first encounter and the 1994 Zind Hmbrecht Pinot Gris Clos Windsbuhl Vendage Tardive has always been as good as I remember. I had sweet wines in the past but this wine has always been nothing short of of stunning. It has been 11 years since I first tasted this pinot gris but my memory is perfectly clear on this wine. A near perfect rendition of a late harvest wine that could comfortably last another 25 years. I am certain I will drink wines that will astound me, confuse me, bore me or simply disappoint me and that is essence and nature of passion. So, what were your four wines?

Drink for Yourself!

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robert parker wine

Bryant Family label – loved by Parker, but do you love it?

Our palates are a curious thing. When it comes to food we trust it enough to opine. Almost all of us are able to sit and discuss new restaurants and old. Our favorite meals and least favorite.  We can go to work on Monday and tell our friends/co-workers about the fabulous meal we had at a critically acclaimed restaurant: “I started with the citrus salad that was topped poppy seed and crème fraiche dressing that was refreshing and delicious! We then shared the panko-crusted cod fritters and lemon aioli. They were a little salty but still good and the main course was braised short ribs with horseradish mashed potatoes. Oh my God they were SO good!”

Talk amongst yourselves

These kinds of conversations are not uncommon among people — they’re probably frequent if you are excited by food and food trends.

Now, allow me part of a conversation I had with man I know after he found out about my wine background. “Really, you were a wine maker? I had no idea,” he said, adding, “I’ve been into wine for 15 years. Have you had…”  You see where this is going. After a couple minutes of discussing wines we have had that were unique/good recently, he then says, “I just got three bottles of the 2007 Bryant Family Cabernet that Parker gave 97+ points. It is an awesome wine.” (This is a wine that sells for about $500 a bottle  so it had better be awesome.)

“But”,  I asked him, “Have you tasted the wine?” and the guy say “no.”

“How do you know it is awesome if you have not had it?” I asked.

The guy tilted his head a little and said “I know it will be delicious because Robert Parker gave it 97+ points.”

“What the hell man, you need to trust your palate!”

Like the wine that you like

I have helped make or made wines that Parker gave 95 and 98 points to, and while I think they are good wines I would rather drink something I really love. Just because a critic gives a wine a huge score doesn’t make it an awesome wine.

“Hold on a sec and let me explain,” I said to my friend, “I really respect the winemaking in Australia and I fully accept that Robert Parker loves these wines and gives them 95, 96, 97 points regularly because he trusts his palate. I also accept that these wines are really, really well made but here’s the thing: I don’t like American oak.”

As example, the 2005 Two Hands “My Hands” Shiraz that Parker gave 97-100 points to was aged for 38 months in new American wood. This, according to the Wine Advocate is a potentially perfect wine. But what if you’re someone who doesn’t like eggplant in any way shape or form and a food critic tells you that the best eggplant dish they have ever had is at restaurant X, you would never know because you don’t like eggplant.

So, this Two Hands shiraz might be the best shiraz that Parker has ever had but frankly, I would rather have a Foster’s Lager because I don’t like American oak!

This guy says to me “Yeah, I hear you but I know that Bryant Family will be awesome.”

 

Articles and Stories to Wine About

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beer on an assembly line.

Photo credit: National Archives, Flip Schulke, 1930-2008, Photographer

I have worked around and in the wine business for quite many a year. From the retail side, restaurant side, collecting side but mostly from the production side.

When I am out at parties or at bars and most restaurants I prefer to drink a winemaker’s best friend, beer. Does this make me a wine snob? Despite my insistence that I am not, I am viewed with skepticism. So often I hear people say “I like it even though it is crappy wine,” or “Even though it isn’t good enough for you, I like it.”

As you like it

Well allow me to dispel the myth: Not all wine people are wine snobs. Just because I don’t like a wine doesn’t mean it is bad wine and when that happens, which is 95% of the time, I just drink a cold beer. A delicious and refreshing cold beer.

“Just taste it, it is not that bad,” “Taste it and tell me why you don’t like it.” I say: Let me enjoy my cold beer and you enjoy the glass of wine that I chose not to drink.

Wine the way you like it

My grandmother genuinely enjoyed a couple of glasses of Almaden Chablis from the jug each night with two ice cubes. She looked forward to it and I would have a glass of beer along with her. Never did it occur to me to say “Grandma, you are drinking bad wine.” And I will tell you why. Because she liked it!

So begins a once or twice a week rambling about my life in wine. From stories in the vineyard and winery to long meals with good friends and family.