Resolutions

Not really one to look back, at least this year. The decade is over. Go to NPR's and BBC's archives for some perspective. Read your favorite alt weekly for some year end lists. If you care about today's cool music and what's cooler than the rest, go to pitchfork or something for the year's and decade's most highly regarded recordings.

Currently, on the fifth evening of the 2010th year, I'm looking at drawing up some New Year's resolutions. While it's far from an exhaustive list, I encourage you to hold me to some of these, or maybe even to join me in a few of these pursuits if any of them particularly resonate.

NOURISHMENT

Make stock twice a month until there is enough in the freezer to use for six months
Cook a large amount of soup once a week
Use sichuan peppers more often
Learn and prepare three new recipes a week
Bake the best pizza in California once a week

TEA

Drink all Chinese, all the time
Acquire a few more tea pots and improve brewing technique
Learn the various Chinese tea regions inside and out, their geography, topography, cultivation techniques, growing cycle, production process....

WINE

Give the Loire a rest - there's got to be a similarly diverse, value proposition elsewhere...Bulgaria? Georgia?
Cellar more Spanish wine (note to self: needs to include wines outside Rioja)
Cellar more Riesling

BEER

Drink more of it; pay the same attention as given to wine (or tea)

MUSIC

Carefully consider the vinyl and the turntable
Produce some form of personally recorded content at least once a week

BOOKS

Read them

THE COMPUTER

Limit exposure to

FRIENDS

More quality time with (FB does not count as quality time) and promotion of

FAMILY

Meet them in the streets of Baltimore and the avenues of Oakland

HOME

Share it more often

WISHES TO MY READERS

Occasionally extend them. Here's to a great 2010 to all of you. Happy New Year.

Toasting the life of Dan Ginsburg, 1956-2009

I did not know Dan Ginsburg, one of the two directors at Champagne De Meric, who passed away this August. As a wine drinker, Champagne enthusiast, and employee of a retailer which imports De Meric directly, however, I am familiar with his accomplishments in the world of Champagne. An American partner in the Aÿ based champagne house De Meric, Ginsburg was one of the very few foreigners on the production/supply side of the Champagne business. De Meric's neighbors include the illustrious and storied houses of Aÿ: Bollinger, Deutz, Gosset.

The region of Champagne is not typically a place for outsiders. Land is scarce and expensive, and often handed down generation to generation, vineyard holdings very slowly increased by the hectare or less. De Meric does not grow most of their own grapes; rather, they buy fruit from quality growers in Aÿ, Mareuil sur-Aÿ, Mutigny, Cramant, Avize and Oger. They ferment partially in older wood, including some very large, 4,000 liter oval oak foudres.

Away from their grape sourcing and partial implementation of traditional vinification, or perhaps better put as a result of it, the wines are delicious. Broad, soft and textural, but with plenty of vivacity, the Grand Reserve Sous Bois, currently based on the 2004 vintage complemented by reserve wines, is a delicious drink and a good example of the style, perhaps with a bit more brightness than usual given the 2004 vintage base material. For an example of De Meric champagnes at the high end, see the 2002 Cuvee Renée, produced from 100% biodynamically grown Pinot Meunier farmed by famed grower/producer Francois Bedel.

Dan Ginsburg was clearly a man of varied passions. A simple web search leads to his involvement in the SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), which he joined as a founding member at the age of 15. He also was a published author, having written The Fix is In on the history of gambling in baseball and The Art and Business of Champagne. Mr. Ginsburg held a residence in Washington, DC. I would not rule out the possibility that on at least one occasion he may have dined in the same restaurant as me as I was checking in on accounts during my three years working for a wine wholesaler.

On Christmas, I enjoyed a magnum of the De Meric Grande Reserve Sous Bois with my girlfriend and her family. New Year's Eve, I plan on doing the same with Natalie and some of our friends. I would be hard pressed to think of a more fitting, or more enjoyable, way to pay tribute to such a passionate advocate of small production Champagne.

Merry Christmas from OWOS and The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir

From spirituals to gospel, soul to neo-soul, carols to reggae to prog rock (yes, one of the songs had a prog rock bent to these ears), the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir rocked it tonight at Slim's. Full choir, bass, drums, Hammond organ and keyboard combined for one inspirational Christmas eve performance. I do believe I'll be returning next year.

Merry Christmas and I'll see you all next week.

'88 White Burg; '78 Rioja

I love surprises. And I love exploring older wines. The best way to approach these bottles, I find, is with a sense of exploration, even a sense of awe that an agricultural product produced from a single year's harvest, which may pre-date your year of birth, can still taste ok, occasionally great. Set your expectations somewhat low, do not pay more than you're comfortable with paying for something that you will not gain any further use out of after consumption, and you will be disappointed far less often.

Recently I had the good luck to enjoy a couple of stellar bottles which were drinking. And when I say drinking, I mean in their prime, strutting their stuff, no sign of slowing down anytime soon type vinous form.

The first bottle, chronologically speaking, was a 1978 Bodegas Riojanas Viña Albina Gran Reserva Rioja. Produced from 80% Tempranillo, 15% Mazuelo (Carignane) and 5% Graciano, this was everything you could want in a mature gran reserva: exotic indian spices intermingled with red berry fruit on the nose, aromas following through to the silky palate, tannins fully integrated, a hint of subtly sweet earthy savor, but not a savor which overwhelms the delicate, expressive fruit. I've only had a few other riojas from this year, '78 Lopez de Heredia Viña Bosconia Gran Reserva and '78 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia. 1978 Viña Albina Gran Reserva, at least this particular bottle compared to the two other LdH bottles, clearly takes the cake in this trio of '78s.

Bottle #2 was found in our closeout bin for the whoppingly low price of $6, a 1988 Pierre Morey Meursault "Les Tessons." I was taken aback by the fresh citric notes on the nose, and even more so by the stunning brilliance of the flavors on the palate. Clean, chiseled lemon, tangerine oil, just a hint of a peppery Meursault terroir kick. This is simply incredible wine that should drink well for a long time to come. Oxidation? Nope, not so much at all. Pierre Morey makes killer wine now, and apparently, he made some great wines twenty years ago as well. I give this wine my highest possible recommendation for a wine made of Chardonnay grapes that is not from Vertus, Avize, Cramant, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, or the Jura.

Two from 2002, left in the fridge

You can't keep a good man down. And with wine, sometimes you can't keep a good bottle down. Especially if you give the bottle some extra time to develop.

Such was the case with a bottle of 2002 Domaine de la Bongran Cuvee Tradition Viré Clessé produced by Jean Thevenet. The style is rich. Late harvested Chardonnay grapes (a small percentage botrytised?) grown in the northern Maconnais are pressed and then fermented for a much longer period of time than the norm. Then, aging in older oak barrels. Please excuse the vagueness, here. See Organic Wine Journal for an interesting Jean Thevenet post, and if anyone cares to fill in any gaps please go ahead and comment.

Initially, this wine bordered on blowsy to me: dense and rich, yes, but with some botrytis honey notes and not enough acid to balance. Minerality, hidden. As I suspected, a week of deep sleep in the fridge was needed to wake this wine up. It's still a bit outside of my usual taste preferences, but the difference in the freshness of the aromas, precision of structure, and emerging minerality is dramatic. I have one more bottle (I had originally purchased three, the first one was corked) which I will not be opening for another 5 years or more.

Another '02 French white wine which I enjoyed recently performed out the gate, a wonderful bottle of 2002 Domaine Cazin Cour-Cheverny Cuvee Renaissance. 100% Romorantin, also produced from late harvest grapes. There is an intensity to the interplay between this wine's crackling acidity, honeyed botrytised qualities and residual sugar that is quite thrilling. It's everything I always hope for, but seldom experience, in demi-sec Loire Chenin. I've two more bottles which will invariably improve for a while, but as delicious as they are now I might greedily guzzle them while listening to a Kraftwerk record, or watching a Criterion collection French film, or something geeky like that.

Please, don't beat me up. Otherwise, Ray Lewis will be waiting to tackle you at your work.

well worth checking out from The [Un]observed

I seldom promote the artistic and professional work of my friends here. However, perhaps I should do it more often as I know some incredibly talented people. Recently I have quite enjoyed the new online radio journal created and edited by my friend Tania Ketenjian. She has assembled a group of journalists to contribute content to this online cultural review, with an assemblage of streaming audio pieces related to music, film, photography, theater, dance, design and books. Of Tania's personal contributions alone, there are interviews with Steve Buscemi, John Waters and bassist Christian McBride; the content here is eclectic, well programmed and well worth a listen.

Check it out here and if you are enjoying the site please subscribe.

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.