FAVA BEAN HARVEST!

The first larger harvest from our garden in a long while is these beautiful favas. Looking forward to sauteeing them up, and serving with some homemade quiche and a green salad. For wine, we'll probably go with an '04 Domaine Philipe Tessier Cour-Cheverny. OK, off to the kitchen to prep.

Enjoy your weekend.

Eric Asimov likes Terroir Natural Wine Merchant and blogs about it

Big up to Cory Cartwright for bringing this one to my attention.

And a huge congratulations of course to Dagan Ministero, Guilhaume Gerard and Luc Ertoran, for conceiving of and building up the coolest damn wine shop/bar in the United States. What I have learned from these guys by spending time drinking in their wine bar over the past year and a half or so has been invaluable towards adding to my understanding, and appreciation, of all things wine.

Authentic, confident, fiercely opinionated. That's how I'd describe these folks and their wine bar and shop. It's clearly more than a business for them; it's a vocation and a life's pursuit. That cannot be overstated and I have nothing but respect for these three.

So guys, keep that in mind when I start grumbling about how there is not enough room to even stand and drink after you earn your first print mention in the New York Times.

Here's the link to New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov's praise for Terroir in The Pour.

Brand Nubian - 'Slow Down'

Obvious classic here, going way back to 1990. Brand Nubian in their prime, with the terrific, chopped up Edie Brickell sample providing an ideal backdrop for Sadat X, Lord Jamar and Grand Puba (in that order) to rip it. CLASSIC.

Cider on Cinco de Mayo

On the left, Isastegi Sagarda Naturala, to the right, 2007 Henny's Still Cider - care to guess which one is filtered?

Leave all the margarita swilling, Corona sipping and Pacifico slugging to everyone else on this most amateur of amateur evenings. That's what I say, anyway. It's Tuesday night, the mood is right, and I decided upon a different course of action for el 5 de mayo, one that is near and dear to my heart: comparative tasting.

Recently I fell in love with Isastegi Sagardo Naturala, a natural Spanish Basque cider imported by that champion of all things Basque, Andre Tamers of De Maison Imports. The cider is essentially still, just slightly fizzy, and tastes of tart apples. It's sour, light, crisp, invigorating and most refreshing. Also unfiltered and very naturally made from apples indigenous to Pais Vasco. Only in really tiny harvests will the producer supplement with apples from Galicia and, if things are really rough, from France. While I doubted I'd find anything its equal for the price (usually $9-$11), I thought I'd give another highly reputed still cider a try, 2007 Henny's Cider from England. It's also imported by some passionate folks, the Shelton Brothers in Belchertown, Massachusetts.

The result? Henny's is definitely more appley, tasting more of the fruit and the juice that I recognize as an apple, and as a result also sweeter. Though sugar is added (as well as malic acid). The apple flavors are rounded out by darker, burnt brown sugar notes and a pleasantly bitter finish. All in all a very decent cider, but nowhere near as gulpable and impressionable as the Isastegi.

Pues, los vascos ganan. The Basques win (anyone care to offer a basque translation?) Regardless of the result, I'm just happy to have enjoyed a couple of tasty ciders and not have been stuck in an overcrowded dive taking shots of tequila with a back of Corona.

Chapeau Melon: Natural wines and Bistro in the 19th

[OK, thanks so much for bearing with the lack of activity on these pages of late. Collarbone recovery has been the focus of late. It takes me more time to do stuff - from work, to eating, to getting around, even sleeping - I seem to need an hour more sleep per night post collarbone fracture. Not to complain, just saying that I haven't updated as often as is typical and now you know why. Hopefully a change for the better this week.

My feedburner feed and widget seem to be back on track thanks to a little toying around (thank you Mateo). So if you'd like to subscribe, or have attempted to subscribe without any luck, or had subscribed way back in the day and then mysteriously lost the subscription, go ahead and enter your email to get your subscription to the world that is old and the school that is also old.]

And now, back to adventures in Paris....

The 19th arrondissement is to Paris what Queens is to New York: a diverse cross section of immigrants, the working class, and others who who make up a lively, colorful part of the city, that unfortunately goes under-appreciated by most tourists and even many city residents. What brought me here, besides taking a break from the touristy Paris, was actually Le Baratin, billed by none other than Terroir's Guillhaume Gerard as a 'must fucking go!' establishment for the quality of the food and the wine list. Since I tried to book a same day reservation for dinner, I was not surprisingly told that they were booked for the night.

I did happen to hear that another local spot, Chapeau Melon, was doing interesting things with natural wines. So I checked them out and confirmed this fact. They have a nice selection, with many of the usual French natural wine suspects, as well as Radikon and some other international representation, much more so than Le Verre Voleé. After purchasing a bottle of sous voile Arbois chardonnay as a thank you gift to one of my terrific hosts in Champagne, I discovered that this wine shop, as do many in Paris these days, doubles as a bistro at night.

I was able to make a reservation for two for that evening. While the 16 or so seats were full, the dinner did not quite deliver as much as I had expected. Salmon tartare with julienne granny smith apples in a soy sauce and olive oil dressing was a tasty start. After that, however, dishes were not as memorable: a plain chilled cream of asparagus soup; overdressed baby greens; overcooked pork. Given the enthusiastic reviews I've heard about this place, I might well have caught it on an off night. If you're around the neighborhood during the evening, I would encourage you to give Chapeau Melon a try for dinner, otherwise just check out their wines during the day and head elsewhere for dinner.

Chapeau Melon
92, r. Rébeval
75019 PARIS
T 01 42 02 68 60
m° Pyrénées / Belleville

Re-visting an '05 Bourgogne Rouge

2005 Confuron Coteconfused?

So last night I re-visited a humble bourgone rouge from the much praised '05 vintage. It was a 2005 Confuron Cotetidot (a tiny domaine based in Vosne-Romanee), and all I can remember is being somewhat impressed when I first tasted the wine a year and a half or so ago. I bought a few bottles. Though for me to buy anything from Burgundy that's not older is a bit of a rare occasion (much prefer most anything else to young Burgundy). So I looked forward to seeing how these wines would age. Upon cracking the bottle open, the wine was all over the place. Initially very clumsy smelling and tasting. Ripe, four square, coarse. While it opened over the next 20 minutes in the glass, showing a bit more tonal variety, some subtle mineral and floral notes lurking underneath the murky plummy fruit, the wine would unfortunately not improve further. It was slowly degrading further when re-visited tonight, not opening up.

Perhaps of most concern, however, was the lack of acidity from this bottle's start to finish. For those of you who drink more red burgundy than I do, does this lack of acid in the '05's concern you? Balanced (leaning towards higher) acidity isn't always needed to see a wine through mid to long term ageing, but 99% of the time it doesn't hurt. Does acidity go through a latent period during the course of a wine's evolution in bottle? I seem to remember this being a much livelier, higher acid wine. I should mention that the bottle was in no way compromised, corked or cooked.

I look forward to making one of my few young red burg purchases for the year shortly - gonna get some '06 Dom Gabriel Billard Bourgogne Rouge. And I look forward to repeating this experiment 12-18 months down the line with what well might be wine from a vintage that is more my cup of tea (or glass of Burgundy, as it were).

Now on Twitter: My repaired clavicle, with titanium plate, and all things clavicularly and rehabilitationally oriented

For those of you who haven't heard, I broke my collarbone in a bicycling accident last week. Well, Lance got 12 screws, I got seven. They ended up needing to operate, as my fracture is very 'distal,' or distant from the center of the body. Apparently, my best odds for full recovery were not simply a sling, as prescribed as far back as during Egyptian times (and, by the way, still a very reliable way of treating some instances of middle collarbone breaks), but through stabilizing the area with a plate and screws. And then the sling for six weeks.

To update you and all other interested parties on the pain, the drama, the intrigue that my recovery will surely entail, I have set up a twitter feed. My username is collarboneplate, all collarbone all the time! Surgery was on Thursday. Yesterday was at times tolerable, at others miserable. Glad it's over. Fortunately, that should be the worst of it, but follow the twitter feed and find out for yourself....