Thanksgiving recap

We pulled it off. 14 people, a first time heritage turkey cooking experience, Spanish vs French wines. Somehow it all worked. We started with 2004 Francois Pinon Vouvray Brut (1.5l), progressed to some whites, worked our way through cru beaujolais and Rioja, and finished with a 1990 Gordon & McPhail Glen Grant bottling. Some things I learned:

- Truffled may not be the only way to do Thanksgiving mashed potatoes, but it's surely the only way I plan on doing it in the future. Here's a recipe for 15 (with some leftover): peel, cut and boil 8 lb of russets for 20 minutes, drain, mash with a pint of half-and-half, a stick of butter, 2 tbsp white truffle oil, salt, pepper. Transfer into a baking dish, grate some parmeggiano on top, throw under the broiler to make a crust, take out of oven and douse with more truffle oil. A crowd pleaser, and incredibly easy.

- Thanksgiving is a white wine affair. The right cru beaujolais may do the trick, but not as well as the right whites.

- Spanish wines can work great. True, I'm a fan and write them up fairly often here, but the right Spanish wines work every bit as well as anything else for Thanksgiving. In fact, the '07 Carballal Sete Cepas Rias Baixas, with its terrific phenolic ripeness, moderate alcohol and bright acidity, was the best wine with dinner. Rich enough for the meatier than usual heritage bird, very receptive to the earthy savor of mushroom stuffing, and somehow equipped to even handle the sweet-tangy cranberry sauce. As far as reds, I wish I had had another bottle of 1999 Campillo Rioja Reserva. Why drink CA pinot (or moderately priced Burgundy, for that matter) when you could have this? It's a perfect compromise between softer, plumper new world fruit, and more old world acidity, terroir and savor. Perfectly balanced, traditionally styled Rioja with a bit of bottle age.

- Just about everyone loves the Beach Boys. As is usually the case, Dad was happy to be the itunes DJ, striking a chord with our Swiss guests when he played California Girls ("Udo, that's what was playing when we first met in Paris in 1968!") A few of us then reminisced about the video for the version of this tune which my generation perhaps knows a bit better:

Thanksgiving with friends, frenchies and family.

What foods should you prepare, and which wines should you serve when hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for fourteen people? I'd normally say that, as host, you serve whatever you damn well please, so long as you enjoy what's being served. However, when there are serious Thanksgiving traditionalists (one of whom is your mom), a vegetarian, and a French family experiencing their first Thanksgiving who will all be attending, the meal planning and wine selection perhaps require a bit more thought. I am proud to be serving the following menu along with some French and Spanish wines which should (hopefully) accompany the food well.

Crudite and assorted other hors devours (2004 Francois Pinon Vouvray Brut 1.5l, 2006 Rhedon Marin Domaine des Niales Macon Villages)

MAIN COURSE

Frisee salad with roasted fennel, clementines and shaved parmeggiano reggiano
Roasted Heritage Turkey
Cranberry sauce
Mushroom stuffing
Truffled mashed potatoes
Sauteed green beans
Roasted Sweet potatoes

WINES

2007 Grange Tiphaine 'Bel Air Sec' Touraine Amboise
2007 Carballal 'Sete Cepas' Albariño
2005 August Kesseler Riesling Kabinett

REDS
2007 Señorio de Peciña Rioja Joven
1999 Bodegas Campillo Rioja Reserva
2006 Georges Descombes Brouilly
2006 Jean Tardy Bourgogne Passetoutgrain

DESSERT

Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie
Ice cream

If people want dessert wine, I have some leftover Grange Tiphaine l'equilibriste from last year.

Well, it's off to Wednesday before Thanksgiving wine shop insanity followed by prepping and last minute house cleaning.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Leave the '81 Cote aux Enfants, take the fried chicken and vitovska

Last night my girlfriend and I, along with SF by way of Nîmes natty wine supporter/ California wine troublestarter Guilhaume Gerard and his lovely wife Claire, were treated to a delicious dinner hosted by our friends Josh and Catherine. A diverse group representing Baltimore, Philly, San Francisco, Sacramento, Southeast and Northeast France, we ate and drank quite nicely for a bunch of twenty somethings making a living selling wine, art and fancy desserts in a seriously downward trending economy. Food highlights included an amazing cream of celery root and parsnips soup, topped with a fried sliced fingerling potato and a drizzle of truffle oil - so simple and delicious. The 'fried chicken salad,' as coined by Josh, was a terrific mix of baby spinach, perfectly fried strips of chicken, crumbled blue cheese, lardons, sliced apple and persimmons.

As for wine, my favorite was an '03 Vodopivec Vitovska. Truly interesting, long maceration on skins Friuli-Slovenian type wine. It was so complex and continued to evolve until the last sip. Fresh stone fruit aromas, pronounced truffle, then some marzipan, a suggestion of acacia honey. Flavors on the palate were orchard fresh and unbelievably fleshy. Nectarines. You can really sink your teeth into this wine, it's so fleshy, but combine this with terrific acidity and vivid fruit, and you get a completely satisfying drinking experience, natural wine style. It was also cool in that this is, from the flavors anyway, much less oxidative style winemaking than Radikon or Gravner. I would guess a shorter maceration on the skins as well. This wine and the aforementioned soup - phenomenal.

On the other end of the spectrum, a bottle of 1981 Bollinger Cote aux Enfants, which I had happened across at work and purchased, with discount, for a modest $40, did not show too well. Very simple mature pinot noir flavors, a lack of acidity, and aromas which Guilhaume compared to wood floor cleaner just didn't make the cut. Guess that this rare bottling of pinot noir from Ay should be enjoyed in its first 10-15 years of life. In fact, a bottle of 1981 central coast pinot noir I drank last year absolutely would have killed this much fancier much higher pedigreed, northerly champagne in a head-to-head tasting.

In between the Bolli at the qualitative low end and Vitovska at the high end, there was some '06 Verget Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons (reductive and then gradually better, if a bit lacking in excitement), '98 Fonsalette CDR reserve (primary, chewy grenache, ok, but fruity and not a whole lot else, what do you expect - it's grenache) and an '07 Domaine de Reuilly rose of pinot gris (which was its usual, understated, subtle, elegant self).

Considerably less eclectic and fancy wines will feature for turkey day, which I'll hopefully get around to posting tomorrow prior to the flurry of prep which feeding 14 people in a small, minimally equipped kitchen entails.

Joe likes Bordeaux...Joe hates bordeaux!

I taste a whole lot of Bordeaux every month. Yesterday we tasted through a line-up of mainly Haut Medoc, with some St Emilion/Pomerol satellites and a few commune wines thrown in. The results were, umm...predictable. Some perfectly sound, technically well made wines, many boring wines, a few plain bad wines. There were some fruit forward $20 Bdx values, if that's your thing, an '05 Reserve de la Comtesse, which was textbook Pauillac with the black currant, lead pencil and in full effect (though is $50ish dollars for a well-made but otherwise fairly ho-hum 2nd label worth it?). Then there were the three wines from the Barton family: 2000 Langoa Barton, 1997 Langoa Barton, and 1994 Leoville Barton. As I anticipated, the Langoa Bartons showed much more nuanced, more interesting flavors, for a whole lot less money. The '97 in particular was great - all of that famed Bordeaux elegance which you read about in wine textbooks was on full display: cherries, roasted meaty savor, terrific velvety texture. While the '00 was good, it come with a 2000 bdx price tag, and is still showing a good bit more primary. The '97 is definitely the way to go for drinking now. And the '94 Leoville Barton? At first sniff, it was the most ripe, manipulated, simple, new worldy classified growth I have ever had the displeasure of tasting. As it opened up things got slightly more interesting, but there was still something really unagreeable and metallic on the finish. Just weird, heavily manipulated wine.

Further proof that the more ambitious the wine in Bordeaux (1st growths excepted?), the higher the pricing, the more often a chateaux increases its pricing, the worse wine you'll get. Hmmm, sound familiar? Do you see any correlation to other cab growing areas in the world?

Is it just me, or does it seem like Napa initially took the best of Bordeaux to inspire their winemaking, and Bordeaux has since taken the worst of Napa to inspire theirs?

Sort of reminds me of the relationship between hip-hop and reggae. I mean, would you rather listen to the Treacherous Three, or to Sean Paul?

Here's my vote.



UPDATE 11/23 - Speaking of poor quality, overrated red bordeaux wine, a bottle of 1990 Cos d'Estournel was opened in the store yesterday. Decanted for what I believe was an hour. Verdict? The wine was dead. Lifeless. Not closed, nor dumb, just not good. I'm not just being hard on Cos because I have disliked anything I've tried from them in the past. In fact, I really wanted to like this bottle, but did not enjoy it one bit. 1990 was a terrific year in Bordeaux, and at this point many of these wines should be showing pretty well. What's the problem here?

Finally, sangiovese that I like. A first time experience with Montevertine

I have heard tell that as it relates to really good, genuine, true school, real producers based in Chianti, there is now only one name: Montevertine. Granted, now that I think about it these words might have first registered while reading Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal Rosenthal, the gentleman who imports Montevertine. So yes, he may be necessarily biased, but the fact remains that I have not been as excited about any other wine from Chianti in a long, long time.

What I first noticed about the 2006 Montevertine IGT Toscano Pian del Ciampolo was the beautiful, translucent ruby color. It reminded me of a Cerasuolo di Vittoria, a young poulsard, or any other similarly bright colored, lighter vibrant style of wine. After nosing the wine, my hopes were confirmed: this would be young sangiovese the way I like it. Floral (really floral), red fruited, refreshing, slightly earthy, crunchy. None of the astringent, puckery tannins or lack of freshness that most of the sangiovese based wines I taste often show. Interestingly enough, I preferred drinking this wine on its own, as opposed to with my pasta dinner (wine without food, a decidedly un-Italian notion, I know). It probably had something to do with the tomato sauce, which always makes for tricky wine and food compatibility. That wine though! What a terrific bottle. I think I paid about $25 for it. Some specs on the wine: 90% sangioveto, 5% canaiolo, 5% colorino. Alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are in cement vats, followed by 18 months in used slavonian oak barrels. Hand harvested, gravity flow winery, non filtered, etc, etc. Git some!

Old Rioja, Old School

A few weeks ago, one of my co-workers paged me overhead. I picked up the phone, returned the call, and was told, “Joe, we’ve got some wines to taste. Trust me, it’ll be worth your time.” Having tasted plenty of super slick, same old, cookie cutter, oaky -fruity wines with this particular co-worker, I am confident that he has a pretty good sense of my palate and what I like. So on this particular day, we were to taste older vintages of Rioja and even a few middle age Ribera del Dueros. Nothing too fancy, no big names, but that in and of itself was exciting. After all, as many Spanish wines are now exported to the US, most of these are made with the US consumer in mind, and in fact many of the most popular are essentially wines sold exclusively outside of Spain. So whenever I have the opportunity to taste something of the old guard, or a winery’s library wines which were made in the older style (lighter in mouth, higher in acidity, subtler and more layered in its flavors), I jump.

It’s also always exciting to discover traditional Rioja which is not made by La Rioja Alta, Lopez de Heredia, or one of the much larger, more venerable bodegas.

Don’t know too much about these bodegas, but here are some tasting notes.

1982 Suso Rioja Gran Reserva

Tobacco and sweet red cherries on the nose. A touch of marzipan as well. Nice, ripe, red fruit, with a bloody iron element as well. Fully mature. Not bad.

1985 Izadi Gran Reserva

OK, so all of these are not no names. Izadi is a well regarded bodega in Rioja, nowadays leaning new school, but still making wines that sometimes show decent balance and deep, intense, pure fruit. This particular bottle, from the excellent ’85 vintage, shows truffle, sweet cocoa powder and braised brisket on the nose. Lots of bass tones on the palate, darker fruits that really build up and expand on the palate. More cocoa. Very tasty mature Rioja here.

1991 Señorio de Ulia Rioja Gran Rerserva

My co-worker thought this a bit tired, but I heartily disagree. Very savory, spicy and meaty aromas led to a similarly savory, spicy and meaty palate. Good acidity and terrific balance.

1995 Señorio de Ulia Reserva

Another winner from this bodega. Similar sense of balance, spicy savor, and strong acid backbone. Persistent as well.

1999 Abadia de San Quince Ribera del Duero Crianza
Shy dark fruit on the nose, but a lot more interesting on the palate. Black currants, minerals, very tasty. I’m a firm believer that1999 is an underrated vintage in Rioja, could it be the same in Ribera as well?

1999 Penalosa Ribera del Duero Crianza

Not as tasty as the wine above. More baked, not so fresh, even a touch lactic, aromas. Clearly dying on the palate.

It's always an education tasting more mature vintages. Old wines, bring 'em on, that's what I say....

Cheap Charles Ellner and a little Thelonious

As I sit at my desk and recover from a dude's night out to the Leatherneck steakhouse and karaoke, a night which began with Old Overholt rye whisky, ended with corona, and had some awful private label cabernet, decent new york strip steak, creamed spinach, iceberg salad with bleu cheese crumble and irish coffee in between, I am thinking that a blog update is in order. Don't worry, I'm fine. Not 100%, but well enough to write about champagne.

Recently David D commented inquiring on a bottle of closeout champagne we had lying around from a recent cellar acquisition. It was champagne for $5.99 so I bought it. Ellner is a larger vineyard owner and negociant-manipulant (NM), owning 54 hectares of vineyards from the Aube in the south to the Montagne de Reims in the north, which supply 70% of the juice for their champagnes. This bottling, the Carte d'or, consists of 75% chard and 25% pinot noir. The PN dominated the aromas and flavors of the champagne, with lots of red fruit and buttermilk biscuity notes. After some time opening up, marzipan notes emerged on the nose as well. I'd be curious as to what vintages were included on this bottle and when it was disgorged, but since it was not Tarlant I could not find this information on the back label. I would guess '01 and '02 formed the basis of the blend, given the texture, decent acidity and depth of flavor. As for the disgorgement, maybe sometime in '05? All that is secondary to most folks out there, what really matters is that the champagne, while somewhat simple and direct, is certainly better than most grand marques' basic NV efforts. Not quite as interesting as many grower champagnes, but still a decent deal if it were to cost around $35 (no idea on pricing, I've yet to see this brand in the market).

Here's some Sunday Thelonious from 'Straight no Chaser.' Just like my Old Overholt, straight no chaser. This one's much more complex though, and probably more enjoyable for many of you out there.