New Cantillon Releases

About a month ago, I was very excited to learn of our comparably generous allocation of Cantillon "Lou Pepe" Kriek and "Fou-Foune" apricot lambic. Apparently, it was so generous to have seriously irked a few accounts in the Bay Area who did not get any of these, but that's another story....

I bought two bottles of each, one to drink now and another to stash away for a few years. Yes, fellow oenophiles, beer too can be cellared, increasing in complexity, changing in texture, and generally evolving in ways similar to how well-made wine will after some bottle age. I don't know this from personal experience so much as I do from anecdotal accounts from beer drinkers and brewers.

A quick primer on Cantillon. They are the kings of lambic style beers, the traditional, spontaneously fermented, oak aged Belgian sour beer, as well as the benchmark producers of geuze, a blend of lambics of varying ages, usually 1, 2 and 3 years old. According to their brewer, Jean-Pierre Van Roy, the geuze beers improve in bottle for up to two decades - amazing! I'd love to try an older example. Though drinking the unusual combination of acidity, fizz, and brettanomyces influenced savor in a current bottling of Cantillon Geuze is arguably (depends on who you ask, sour beer is divisive) a wonderful tasting experience.

In addition to their famed geuze beers, Cantillon produces fruit lambics from fresh fruit that is thrown into the fermenting sour beer. They do so with raspberries (Rosé de Gambrinus); Merlot grapes from St. Emilion (St. Lamvinus), and as it relates to this post, cherries for the "Lou Pepe" Kriek and apricots for the "Fou-foune." Lou Pepe pours a beautiful, cranberry color, and shows intense, youthful cherry fruit to balance out the tart lambic notes. In fact, there is a really fresh cherry character here that almost brings to mind a lighter Alpine red wine. Other Krieks I have had show cherry fruit that is tasty but nearly overshadowed by the sour lambic. Upon further review, the "Lou Pepe" fruit lambics are brewed with 50% more fruit than Cantillon's (and other breweries) typical lambics. They are also aged in old Bordeaux barrels which are being used for beer for the first time, likely another cause of the vinous quality of these brews. Fou-Foune was bright, crisp, tangy and ethereal. Just the right level of tartness, complemented by subtle fresh apricot flavors. A real treat.

If you're not familiar with Cantillon, then I suggest you try one of their beers. Check out some more terrific info on this Belgian treasure on the importer's website. Other names to look out for in the world of geuze and lambic beers would include Girardin, Hansen's, De Ranke (who makes a killer Kriek) and Drie Fonteinen. Prepare yourself for a delicious, sour experience.

Thanksgiving 2009 and Thanksgiving Wines Re-visited

I had a realization last Thursday, the last Thursday of November and the day commonly referred to in the United States of America as "Thanksgiving." As much as I enjoy exploring the synergy, indifference, or, every so often, the discordance between food and wine, I would prefer not to during Thanksgiving. I simply don't have the patience or mental acuity necessary to engage in such an activity. Especially as the host, responsible for cooking much of the food, negotiating space in the oven, and making sure that dinner is served at a reasonable hour. By mealtime I just want to eat and drink a single red and/or white wine to complement the meal. No careful consideration of multiple wines and how they complement the turkey, the truffled mashed potatoes, stuffing and multitude of other sides.

Nope, next year I'll bypass that level of intense analysis and observation. It's Thanksgiving, which means getting mildly to heavily soused, over-eating, and passing out on the couch when it's all said and done. I accomplished two of the three last week, thanks in part to the food we made and were brought by friends and family as well as a few more than a few drinks. Here's an annotated list:

BASQUE CIDER
2008 Isastegi Sagardo; 2008 Sarasola Sagardoa

Both tasty (they're sour cider, how could they not be). Though I preferred the more expressive and appley Isastegi. Sarasola is comparably very acetic and slightly too tart. Like the Hansen's Geuze of Basque cider. After about finishing 3/4 of each bottle (with just a little help from Natalie, most people don't dig the sour) I was ready to progress to wine.

WHITE WINE

1999 Lopez de Heredia Viña Gravonia

Delicious wine. Somehow it's rich, soft, nuanced, expansive and possessing of that rare, elusive cutting white wine acidity combined with depth of flavor that I only seem to find in the likes of Huet, good savagnin, Equipo Navazos Manzanilla Pasada, Gerard Boulay Sancerre, vintage Champagne and some others I'm leaving out. Be careful with Gravonia and turkey, though! While this was awesome wine on its own and ok with epoisses, what a train wreck with our heritage turkey. It brought out the gamey flavors in a big way, and created a chlorinated public swimming pool like flavor in the mouth - not so pleasant.

2007 Domaine de Nembrets (Denis Barraud) "Les Chataignieres" Pouilly Fuisse

Not bad. It's become rounder, plumper, a bit more expressive, and also slightly oakier since last tasting it several months ago. For Pouilly Fuisse you could certainly do a lot worse.

2008 Pascal Janvier Jasnieres

Does Chenin Blanc sec to demi-sec always have an intensely mineral pungency along with its sweet fruit flavors? I liked it, and it was the white which best complemented the meal. A stick to your palate Loire white, very distinctive.

2008 Evesham Wood Puits Sec

85% Pinot Gris, 15% Gewurztaminer. Delicious wine, though unfortunately the best of Williamette white alongside the best of Jasnieres white will inevitably be overshadowed. I enjoyed this wine's fruit expression and long dry finish. It just seemed a little one note compared to Janvier's Jasnieres.

REDS

2008 Benaza Mencía Monterrei

A fairly simple and basic lighter style Cote du Rhone like showing. Cherry fruited, peppery, lacking in the acid I need for a meal like this, and come to think of it, the acid I generally prefer in wine, food or no food.

2005 Algueira Ribera Sacra

10 months in French oak, a significant portion of it new, has not robbed this wine of its intense plum and blue fruit quality. Subtly smoky, with delicious fruit. Sort of somewhere between a Pommard and Crozes Hermitage. Nearly 7 days after first opening, this still bears more than a passing resemblance to its orginal self. OK with turkey, but what it really wants is lamb. Next Thanksgiving, young turkey and lamb! While this is a very interesting drink right now, I'd love to check back in five years. Famed mencía master Raúl Perez acts as consulting winemaker here.

2007 Marcel Lapierre Morgon

Tasty, and not surprisingly the best wine for dinner. It had enough depth to handle heritage game, plenty of acidity to refresh the palate, and such a high level of quaffability that Natalie and I nearly took it out ourselves (after some heavy drinking beforehand).

2007 Domaine Cheveau Saint-Amour "En Ronty"

Spotting this bottle in our tiny Beaujolais section at work, I wondered why I have heard so little about this particular producer. Well, I quickly figured out after sampling, giving the bottle more careful consideration, and even re-visiting on day two, that there is a reason I have heard so little about this wine: it is not good. Muddled, unfocused, uninspired.

2008 Evesham Wood Pinot Noir Williamette Valley

This winery makes very good wine. One of the few Williamette wineries (at least who sell out-of-state) whose new releases always get my attention. Two reasons for this: price ($18 for the basic PN and $14 for the white) and consistent transparency. Even in warmer vintages, the wines are nuanced, lighter in color, and taste the way Oregon pinot should but increasingly does not. This is the bottle of which our assorted lightweight guests drank the most.

Next year will be the year of turkey and red meat. Also, just two different wines at the table. Early front runners are good Rioja crianza and albariño just to keep it Spanish and to bore the French natural wine heads out there.

The 500th Post (in which I ramble and include a Kraftwerk inspired video)

Well, according to the blogger tally, I am posting for the 500th time. Rather than expound upon this relatively insignificant piece of trivia for too long, I will simply thank everyone who occasionally indulges my online hobby by reading and/or commenting on this site. I hope to present at least another 500 posts, while in the process sustaining the occasional jibes from my girlfriend (who at this moment is checking out the Muppets Bohemian rhapsody video for the fifth time in as many days), rushing out the door in the morning to work after finishing up a post, and dealing with the occasional quandary of what I ought to post this week.

I know many of you enjoy Kraftwerk. So does Guilhaume, who apparently has a music video blog featuring three versions of a single song per post. Inspired by his Krafterk entry, here is another gem from Señor Coconut. Enjoy, and thanks again for reading.

Old Riesling and Chinese at Jai Yun

For a while, now, a few members of my tasting group have each been meaning to dine at what many consider San Francisco's most serious Chinese restaurant, Jai Yun, a non-descript address in the Financial district with a simple prix fixe menu; the amount one agrees to pay correlates to the quantity and variety of dishes. The menu starts at $55 for dinner, and goes up to $65 (our selected option); $85 (I think) and on up if you really want to sample some extravagant Chinese banquet type dishes. That having been said, for $65 five of us tasted what amounted to at least 30 different dishes. The dishes represented quite the array of colors, textures and flavors, and varied from impeccably prepared familiar favorites to more unusual dishes, many of which showed such a high level of attention to detail and harmony in flavors that I felt as though I had never before really experienced Chinese food as it's meant to be eaten.

Almost immediately after everyone and was seated, our server brought us fourteen cold dishes, each a tiny pyramid shaped mound of food. Bright, tangy cucumber salad; tender, garlicky enoki mushrooms; a few pieces of simply roasted duck; radish salad; smoked fish; marinated tofu skins; barbecued pork; braised meat; sauteed chinese broccoli...plus five more I cannot recall.

At this point, let's discuss the first wine of the evening, a bottle of 1983 Weingut Graf Wiltinger Scharzhoffberger Riesling Kabinett. Delicate, wispy and in this case just a bit past its prime Saar Riesling. After 10 minutes in the glass Mark observed the structure firming up and gaining more intensity, only to peter out again shortly thereafter.

Next up a 1983 Reichsgraf von Kesselstat Josefshofer Riesling Spatlese. The Josefshofer vineyard lies outside of the village of Graach, in between the top sites Graacher Himmelreich and Graacher Domprobst in the middle Mosel. It was as beautiful and profound an older riesling as I've had since tasting a bunch of Prum two years ago. A deeper golder color than the Kabinett, there were intense aromas of apricots and mandarins, and a definite mark of botrytis on the palate. A golden elixir, this, whose sugar was completely resolved, leaving a delicious ripe mature Riesling, with a lot of detail and length. It's worth noting that Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt is serious about only using indigenous yeasts for fermentations, employing extended lees contact, and in their own words from the website, "we categorically reject the so-called new oenological procedures."

Another Spatlese would follow, this time from the terrific 1985 vintage, a Weingut Benedict Loosen Urben Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Spatlese ***. If you thought that I would not be tasting at least one German wine with stars involved, do not not worry, this is the starred wine. More youthful in appearance and flavor than the von Kesselstat, this wine was lighter in weight but more agile, arguably less profound now but still pretty darn good. It was very heavily sulphured, from what I understand, to help encourage long-term aging.

OK, back to the food. There were five spiced morsels of rib accompanied by deep fried taro paste balls; orange beef totally unlike any other I've had, with very gamey and wild tasting (aged?) beef fried to a crisp and redolent of orange peel; spicy kung pao chicken; a wonderfully earthy dish of snails (chewy, but still tasty) with fermented black bean; abalone and egg whites. Butter soft, rich braised pork; fried whole grouper; Sauteed soy beans; and several other vegetable dishes to balance out the fact that we were being served such a wide variety of animal protein, probably more at a single sitting than I had ever eaten. Unlike with other shared dining experiences, each diner always had at least a couple bites of whichever dish was being served. It was quite the culinary display from Chef Chia Ji Nei, living up to all the high praise I had heard prior to dining at Jai Yun.

Rounding out the wines, we had a dull, disappointingly simple bottle of 1997 Schlossgut Diel Burgberger Riesling Kabinett, and a 2004 Albert Mann Pinot Gris Grand Cru which was so out of context that it showed like Rombauer Chardonnay. Well, that is a stretch; there was great depth of flavor, minerals, and rich, succulent pinot gris fruit, just that next to the more delicate, significantly lower in alcohol Riesling we had a tough time drinking it.

Jai Yun is a treasure. Go there with a group of folks and you'll go away not only sated, but with a sense of having been schooled as well.

The Thanksgiving Ingredients List

FOOD
One 14lb BN Ranch heritage turkey
cranberries
Red onion, red wine and thyme jam (thanks, Bittman)
8 lb potatoes
Half and half
Butter
Oregon white truffle oil
Parmeggiano Reggiano
Parsnips
Carrots
Kabocha squash
Frisee
Radicchio
pumpkin seed oil
sherry vinegar
shallots
pink lady apples
Cabot clothbound cheddar
1 pumpkin
Stuff that other people bring

WINE
2006 Raventos i Blanc "L'hereu" Reserva Brut Cava
2007 Domaine des Nembrets (Denis Barraud) "Les Chataigniers" Pouilly-Fuissé
1999 Lopez de Heredia "Viña Gravonia" Rioja
2008 Pascal Janvier Jasnières
2008 Evesham Wood "Blanc du Puits Sec" Willamette Valley
2007 Marcel Lapierre Morgon
2007 Domaine Cheveau "En Rontey" Saint Amour
2008 Benaza Mencía Monterrei
2005 Adega Algueira "Algueira" Ribera Sacra

LIQUEUR - Clear Creek Cranberry Liqueur (may mix with cava for cran-kir royale)

FELA!

Now the subject of a Broadway musical backed by Jay-Z, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Fela Kuti was one of the most important and influential musical talents in the latter portion of the 20th century, and a true original. Hope you enjoy this long clip of Fela performing.

The best wines that money can buy? EQUIPO NAVAZOS La Bota de....

If sherry is one of the wine world's few remaining under-appreciated values, then Equipo Navazos is its elusive crown jewel; a bit tougher to find, but worth the slightly higher cost and intensive search. Think of Equipo Navazos as the sherry equivalent of the criterion collection; just as CC carefully curates their classic films, Equipo Navazos is as choosy about the soleras with which they choose to work Fancy yourself a pop and world music re-release buff? Then EN is the Soul Jazz Records of sherry. They source the best quality product, put it in a classy package, charge a small premium but ultimately provide a most rewarding experience.

Equipo (translated as "team") Navazos is something of a sherry negociant. Their love of sherry motivated them to seek out the best, oldest soleras from their favorite bodegas and to bottle it for their own enjoyment. They expanded to the point where they had a small surplus to sell outside of Spain, and fortunately so for many non-Spaniards as we otherwise would have been deprived of such amazingly pure, rich, characterful interpretations of Sherry.

What makes these sherries so delicious and unique? Three key factors:

1. Relatively smaller, older soleras from smaller sherry houses
2. these smaller soleras are customarily used as reserve stock for the families who produce them (or alternatively, to improve the quality of the stuff in their larger soleras)
3. NO FILTRATION. Most sherries these days are filtered.

Here are the Equipo Navazos (La Bota de....) sherries I have enjoyed up until now:

Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla No. 16

This comes from a solera of Sánchez Ayala in the Pago Bilbaína. Color is a shade more intense and darker than most young Manzanillas, owing to the older average age of the wine. Delicious, brisk sea salt, marcona almonds and bright fruit aromas on the nose lead to a palate that is considerably more loaded than your basic, young, freshly bottled Manzanilla ( it's worth nothing that the most recent batch was bottled in January 2009, which is noted on the bottle). On the palate, the wine shows Manzanilla's classic salty quality, with a touch of smoke as well and initially, an unusual inner mouth chlorine aroma. I found that this dissipated after a day open in the fridge. In fact, whereas many Manzanillas fade after several days being open, this one seems only to gain more harmony and balance. It is a likely sign for future positive evolution in the bottle for at least a few years - unusual for a Manzanilla which usually is best drunk a year or so after bottling. Incidentally, I read on their website that this bottling is very lightly filtered.

Equipo Navazos La Bota de Fino "Macharnudo Alto" No. 15

This comes from a special twenty butt solera (compare with 143 for Lustau's current Almacenista Puerto Fino) from the venerable Valdespino, one of the best in Jerez. Macharnudo Alto is the most privileged section of the famed Pago Marcharnudo vineyard where the palomino grapes come from; it is one of the best crus in sherry country. This fino is the complete package: bright yet mouthfilling, bracing but substantial, a real beauty of a sherry that commands your respect. One of the best sherries and undoubtedly the finest fino I have yet to drink. The Navazos folks predict that this could improve in the cellar for a while.

Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla Pasada No. 10

This slightly rare style, the Manzanilla Pasada (aged Manzanilla) comes from a stellar solera at Hijos de Rainera Pérez Marín, producers of "La Guita" manzanilla, in the northwestern tip of the sherry triangle, Sanlúcar de Barrameda. By definition, any fino made in Sanlúcar is referred to as a Manzanilla. Beautiful, 18K golden hue, with rich nutty aromas, and a palate that is deeply satisfying in a way that very few wines, white or red, ever will be. The flavors linger on the palate a long while. This is a candidate for my favorite wine of the year.

Waiting in the wings is the La Bota de Palo Cortado "La Bota Punta" No. 17, a half bottle from a single butt which I look forward to enjoying at the appropriate time with the right company. More on that bottle later.

Thanks to Msr. Brooklynguy for his always insightful perspective on Equipo Navazos, as well as to Peter Liem, the noted champagne authority, riesling lover, and Chinese tea drinker, whose blog - over the course of several entries - first introduced me to a wide range of the inimitable Equipo Navazos sherries.