Cymande - Listen Up

Cymande was a group of Jamaican and Guyanese emmigrants to England. Their music is tight, soulful, and timeless. I really enjoy the way this Cymande fan captures in his video the album art and shows a bit more of what the band was trying to accomplish with their music.

I drank a wine from the Jeffersonian era! Palo Cortado, pt. III

And it was not a Th J Lafitte counterfeit bottle. Rather, it was a real deal bottle of Hidalgo Palo Cortado Viejo V.O.R.S. OK, to be honest the solera was begun in colonial times, which might represent .3333333% of the contents in the bottle. But I'm still going to count it as the oldest wine I have tasted to date. It was phenomenal. Endlessly fascinating to sniff, this sherry showed incredibly complex, nutty, dried fruit flavors with great acidity, and a silken texture that only a whole lot of age can provide. For roughly $120 you can enjoy the same experience, as well as help to save a rare species of Spanish eagle. Now how could you pass that up?

Puzelat Pd'A and other fun stuff at Terroir

Saturday night I went back to San Francisco's premier spot for enjoying natural wines - Terroir. Once we had settled in and started browsing for a bottle to enjoy, Guilhaume gave us a taste of the 2005 Tissot Poulsard. It was nice - fresh berry fruit, light tannins, direct and simple, just what I expected. With a bit of direction from Guilhaume, we ended up starting off with a bottle of 2006 Thierry Puzelat 'La Tesniere' Pineau d'Aunis. It was their last bottle and they're unable to buy more for the time-being, so it was a generous and appreciated rec. The wine was very, very good. A mix of wild strawberries and bramble on the nose. More of the same on the palate, tremendous purity of fruit and terrific balance. The tannins though were certainly firm, but very fine. In fact, the power of the wine and the firm tannin structure brought Barbera to mind, as did the slightly resiny, stick to your gums quality of the wine. But the fresh, bright quality of the fruit was all Loire valley; 14.5% abv did not at all detract from this wine.

In the Burgundian - and opposite Billy Joel style come to think of it - we had a bottle of white following our red, a humble bottle of 2005 Dr. Burklin Wolf Estate riesling. It was bright, nicely dry, fleshy, with yellow stone fruit and a bit of flinty minerality. Throughout the evening, Guilhaume and a few others poured a few other wines for us to taste(thanks, guys!):

2003 Tissot Chardonnay - This was pleasantly funky for a Tissot wine; I've found their other stuff to be pretty straight ahead. It is a savory, slightly spicy number, sort of village Meursault like, without the mid-palate richness and heft.

2003 Frick Riesling - Biodynamic Alsace riesling, here. It is made in a slightly oxidized style. Broad and creamy, it tasted like Riesling grown in some heavily clay based soil.

There was a pretty '05 Mercurey and I don't recall the producer's name. Also someone very generously brought in a bottle of 1986 Macon Village from botrytized chardonnay grapes (?) I forget the specs on this one, but it sure was one rare bird.

On this particular evening, Terroir once again came correct.

Creative Expression vs Economic Opportunism; Comparing wine to '80s music

Call me an idealist, a business novice, or just an idiot. But whenever I engage in a form of creative expression, I do it mainly to satisfy my criteria of what I would enjoy listening to, reading, eating, or, if I were to make wine, drinking. This seems logical, right? With stories like this one about Adam Tolmach of Ojai, one wonders how many folks in California are truly guided by a sense of personal aesthetics in their winemaking. It is not fair to limit this question to California; however, many people would contend that a whole lot of winemakers in California are guilty of making wines which lack originality and, to not mince words, are boring, sweet, and just plain suck.

The tide here is obviously turning, though. I see it in what most critics write about wines and in what many of my customers enjoy drinking.

I see 1984-1991 in the music business in similar terms as 2000-2007 in the world of wine. There are certainly many interesting albums and wines in both periods. But just as many wines now taste similar and lack inspiration, a whole lot of music was watered down, all featuring the same new genre of synths, and the same heavy handed production. Look at the list of established artists who made terrible albums in the 1980's. At the same time, new genres, most notably hip-hop, were continuing to evolve. If you looked carefully, the beginnings of what would be the new pop rock in the 90s was forming from the underground rock of the '80s. To return back to the vinous side of our discussion, natural wines and grower champagnes have never been more popular.

It will be interesting to see when this particular chapter in wine tastes will close, but it appears to be doing so quickly.

Afu-ra - Equality

Hmmm...what ever happened to Afu? This track was something of a hit back when the album was released 7 or so years ago. DJ Premier's production and Kymani Marley's raspy sing-jay vocals help support Afu-Ra's decent, but largely forgettable, flow.

Battle of the Heavyweights: Nigl vs A. Fernandez

Well, this isn't much of a head to head competition here. Two very full-bodied, intensely flavored wines, however, hence the 'battle of the heavyweights.' The Nigl I had a few nights ago was a 2001 Kremser Kremsleiten Riesling, and the Alejandro Fernandez wine was 2004 Tinto Pesquera. OK, so clearly an apples and oranges comparison, actually more like apples and carrots: White vs red, Austrian vs Spanish, bottle aged vs current release. Both are very good wines from producers for whom I have an enormous amount of respect.

The '01 Nigl was a beautiful 18K gold color. Its nose was rich, honeyed, and showing a good bit more maturity than I had expected, with strong buckwheat flower honeyed notes, mandarins, apricot glaze, and some woodsy, floral aromas (maybe I should say 'manly flowers'?). Thankfully, the wine showed a lot drier than what the palate suggested, though the fruit was of such a rich and ripe character, that it was almost over the top for my taste. On the plus side there is just enough acidity to keep things balanced, and the finish is a very long one. Drinking this wine, you can taste what must have surely been a warm, sunny vintage in the Kremstal.

'04 Pesquera is of course a little baby. All of the classic Ribera dark fruit, licorice, and grip are on full display here, but with the added dimension of spice on the perfume that always make this bottle distinctive, and easy to detect if poured out of a brown bag. This spice and aromatic complexity is not yet on full display. It should begin to emerge after another 1.5 to 2 years in bottle. Drunk with a thick, grilled, Pittsburgh rare New York strip steak (to honor my recently deceased grandfather, Pepa), the '04 Pesquera was delicious and savored immensely with my immediate family.

Goodbye, Pepa.

Some people knew him as Dr. Copeland, others as Herb, Grandpa Herb, or Dad. To me he always was, and always will be, Pepa. He passed away this morning at 87 years old after what has been at least a 6 year battle with ALS.

Pepa was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, one of three children of Yetta and Herb Copeland, Sr, who were both from Odessa, Ukraine. He went on to serve in the army and start his own radiology practice at Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore. With his first wife Myra, he had two children: my mom and my Uncle Jack. After Myra passed away, he married Elaine Rogers, or my grandmother, Me-ma, who would fall ill with lung cancer and died in 1994. Pe-pa married Jeanne a few years later, and I do not recall ever seeing him as happy as he was at that time.

Playing catch in the backyard, appreciating a rare steak, going on a drive in his latest luxury car of choice (he gave me his old Lexus 3 years ago), and a fridge stocked with his favored Coors Light, are just a few of the things I will always remember fondly about Pepa. That and the sweet, easy-going, gentle manner he had of dealing with anyone who knew him.

I will repeat here what I told my grandfather, after saying goodbye to him for the last time this past July 4th holiday: Goodbye Pepa, I love you.