A May Miscellany

Memorial Day weekend in Old Chatham with Carol and Ken starts tomorrow. There’ll be a dozen or more wines to review, so before I fall too far behind, here is a quick rundown of some of the bottles we’ve drained in the last two weeks.

It’s been a rainy spring in the country. After an hour or two in the muck and mire, yanking up weeds, raking out beds, planting, transplanting, we strip off our clothes, check each other for ticks, shower, then meet for dinner in the back room. These are informal meals, often consisting of items from the pantry. Like two weeks ago when we ate pasta with Margaret’s homemade tomato sauce, and pulled the cork on a 2009 Terredora Dipaolo Aglianico.

This fine varietal, roughly meaning Greek vine, thrives in the Campania and Basilicata regions of southern Italy, and has earned the nickname, Barolo of the South. In Roman times, it was the principal grape in Falernian, Rome’s equivalent to the cult wines of Napa, although the Roman’s wine was white, and was typically aged for a decade or more in clay amphorae, resulting in an oxidized Madiera-like brew.

Modern Aglianico is deep red, powerful and tannic, especially in Campania’s DOCG version, Taurasi, and Basilicata’s only DOC, Aglianico del Vulture. Our IGT version from Campania, at $15, was medium bodied, smelling of berries and violet. It made for easy drinking. Exhausted by our garden labors, we were in bed by 10.

During the week, Sandy came down with a lemon meringue pie. When she went back upstairs, half of it was gone, having been greedily consumed along with a bottle of 2010 Biancospino Moscato D’Asti. This is the same wine served during the September Wines Dinner at the Penn Club in February. We love the cleansing balanced freshness of moscato. At 5.5% alcohol, there was no excuse not to enjoy this light, sweet sparkler in mid-week. Sandy, who is always conscientious about giving her students the best she has to offer, allowed herself full measure, and reported, the next day, she was none the worse for it.

Last weekend, in Old Chatham, we opened a bottle of 2008 Anne Pichon Roussanne, a vin de pays du Vaucluse that we picked up at Chatham Liquors for $20. Roussanne is a southern Rhône varietal that is usually blended with other grapes in white Côtes du Rhône. This was our first taste of the unblended varietal, and we were not displeased. The wine smelled of apples and anise, tasted of wet stone and light oak, and had a long toasty finish.

On Tuesday, our friend Rikki took us out to dinner at Meridiana, our local Italian restaurant, where the food is wonderful, the wait-staff overworked and the wine list execrable. Nevertheless, we managed to put together a wonderful meal, consisting of various pastas and an appetizer special of Roman-style artichokes drowned in olive oil and garlic. After some negotiation with our waiter, we settled on a wine that was also off-menu, 2010 Babich Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

This wine is one more in a long list of perfectly acceptable New Zealand whites that show bright citrus notes, particularly grapefruit. At $9.99 at Martin Brothers, it is about as cheap as wine gets, and is far better than we have any reason to expect. Rikki called the next day to get the name; I think she has identified her summer quaff.

Dinner with Joe at the Penn Club

I attended another wine dinner at the Penn Club last night with our friend Joe. Since we were both suffering with knee injuries, we took the elevator to the dining room. When the doors opened, we were greeted by Tony Kontos, the Restaurant Manager. Introducing Joe, I explained that Margaret was indisposed this evening.

“Nothing serious, I hope,” he asked, then, assured that she would be fine, Tony handed us flutes of Pasqua Prosecco Treviso. The wine was dry, crisp and fresh, with floral notes, good acidity and lively effervescence.

We continued with the Prosecco through the first course, Foie Gras Torchon with grilled peaches and truffled honey. Ordinarily, I would have chosen something sweeter, like a sauterne, to accompany foie gras, but the persistent acidity and cleansing bubble action of the Prosecco worked well with the rich starter.

Oh, and about the varietal, prosecco: in 2009 the name was changed to glera. It seems that Prosecco, the grape, grows in DOC-designated areas (Conegliano and Valdobbiadene), as well as in more far afield IGT areas, in the northeastern Veneto region of Italy. When seeking DOCG status, Prosecco the wine was confused with prosecco the grape, so the grape was renamed glera, an old synonym. This solution, no doubt satisfactory to the Italian authorities, strikes me as akin to renaming the Triborough Bridge; it will take a generation or more to catch on, if it ever does.

For our second course, Potato Crusted Sea Bass Fillet with fava bean purée and port wine jus, we drank a Chilean sauvignon blanc, 2010 Viña Casablanca Nimbus Estate. This single vineyard wine arrived far too cold to appreciate at first, but as it warmed it seemed to expand in the glass, becoming a fulsome expression of the varietal, more in the old world tradition, with a grassy nose and distinct minerality, rather than the new world, all grapefruit and melon.

Lucy Lombardi Molinaro, the wine rep who hosted the dinner, called our attention to a hint of jalapeño, although I can’t say that I detected it. Joe, sipping with intensity, perhaps to be polite, agreed that something was there that might be jalapeño. Of the four wines we drank, the Chilean sauvignon blanc was Joe’s favorite.

The meat course of Grilled Lamb Chop and Leg of Lamb Ragout with wild mushroom gnocchi and wild arugula called for a big red, and that’s what we got with a 2007 Famiglia Pasqua Amarone della Valpolicella. This was my favorite. Although a decade or more too young, the wine was elegant and full-bodied. It had a deep cherry color to match its cherry nose, along with a flavor of plums and olives. Joe wasn’t sure about the olives, thinking that perhaps it was oak I tasted; he may very well have been right.

Amarone, like all Valpolicella, is a blend of corvina, rondinella and molinara grapes, with some allowable variations. In this case, the molinara was replaced by corvinone and negrara. Amarone is made by first drying the hand-harvested grapes in the sun, or in drying houses, for about 3 months, thereby raising the sugar content by 25% or more. In January or February, the grapes – or more properly, raisins — are pressed and fermented for a month or more, usually attaining upwards of 15% alcohol. The mash is pressed again and racked into stainless steel, where it undergoes malolactic fermentation. From there, the wine goes into small oak barrels where it ages for almost 2 years before bottling.

Thrifty Italians use the mash from Amarone production, consisting of skins, pulp, seeds and stems, to make another variety of Valpolicella called Ripasso. In this process, partially aged Valpolicella is brought back into contact with the Amarone mash. The sugar in the mash feeds a second fermentation, adding tannins, color and alcohol to the wine.

Dessert was a Rhubarb Tarte with macadamia nut gelato. The dessert wine was another Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, 2008 Santa Carolina Late Harvest. Light-bodied, and medium sweet, the wine had aromas of peaches and honeysuckle. Making the rounds, Lucy informed us that there was 13% gewürztraminer in there, not a grape I ordinarily associate with Chile.  It was fragrant and delicious, albeit the least successful of the four wines of the night — a tribute to the high quality of the selections.

Joe and I pushed ourselves away from the table, bid goodnight to Tony and Lucy, then limped downstairs to catch a cab home.

Nebbiolo Night at Martin Bros.

A woman walked into the wine store on Friday. “Last time I came in I took your recommendation, and it was great. I don’t remember what it was, but I’d love to have your help again.”

“Delighted,” I said. So far, it had been a slow night. I’d been trying to find a comfortable position for my painful knee, watching the clock on the wall move toward the time I could go home and ice it; nevertheless I sprang into action for a happy customer. “What are you eating?”

“Lasagna.”

We started together toward the Italian section. “Meat or vegetarian?”

“Sausage,” she said, “and mushrooms.”

“Hmm,” I pondered, taking longer than I really needed. “Let’s talk Piedmont.”

While it’s undoubtedly true that most rules of food and wine pairing were meant to be broken, that a medium-bodied red can be wonderful with a fatty fish, or that a crisp grüner veltliner complements a schnitzel just as well as a spätburgunder, nevertheless, I tend toward the traditional. If a customer asks for a cab to go with his lamb, I’ll recommend a syrah instead; chablis with oysters; sauterne with foie gras. And for lasagna with cured meat and mushrooms, the noble nebbiolo from Piemonte.

We stopped in front of a Barolo, the biggest and most complex wine of Italy. “This wine,” I said, pointing to a 2006 Manzone Castelletto, “is deep and rich. It’s made in the international style, so you don’t have to wait until winter to drink it with old, smelly cheeses. My colleague, John, tasted it a few weeks ago, and reported it is drinking beautifully: medium-bodied, well-balanced, redolent of spice and violets and earth, and, if you’re really good, white truffles.”

We stepped down the row and I put my hand on a Barbaresco. “If Barolo is the king of Italian wine, Barbaresco is the queen. It’s a little lighter, typically, but these days, with advanced winemaking technology, who knows? Also 100% nebbiolo, an elegant, classy wine, that goes great with food.”

The Barolo was priced at $45, with a 25% discount; the Barbaresco at $32. Thinking that perhaps the price was a little steep, I stepped out of the row and pulled a bottle off the shelf. “This wine, Nebbiolo d’Alba, is grown in sandier soil, so it’s a little softer and more approachable. At $20, you’re still getting 100% nebbiolo.”

“No,” she interrupted me, “let’s go back to the king and queen.” I watched her look from one bottle to the other, finally settling on the Barolo.

We walked back to the counter together, all smiles. As I rang up the sale, she said, “Thank you so much. I just love coming into this store, it’s so much fun.”

To paraphrase Groucho, say the magic word, win a hundred readers on a blog called Fun with Wine.

Of Screw Caps and the 2011 Rosé Derby

We returned to Old Chatham on Sunday. On the way, we stopped in Hudson to have a late lunch with Debby at Baba Louie, a wood-fired pizza joint on Warren St. We started with a simple green salad, shared among us, followed by individual pizzas. Margaret ordered her favorite from the menu, Dolce Vita, which features spinach, figs, gorgonzola and prosciutto, along with the usual tomato and mozzarella. Debby chose Cole’s Creation, with onions, garlic, arugula, feta and balsamic vinegar. I had a Queen Margharita, to which I added spinach and anchovies.

Naturally, we ordered a bottle of wine, 2008 Bastianich Rosato, thus inaugurating the great rosé hunt of 2011. Our waitress presented the wine, so I could confirm it was what I ordered, gave the screw cap a twist and handed it to me, then proceeded to pour a taste in my glass. I tasted and nodded my approval, whereupon she filled the ladies’ glasses before filling mine. Clearly, she had been well-trained in the sommelier arts.

But what about that screw cap, still in my hand? Were it a cork, I would examine it to see if there was any leakage, sniff it for scents of mold, fungus, or the wet newspaper aroma of TCA, trichloroanisol, signaling that the wine is “corked.” About 10% of all cork-stoppered wine has this flaw, so the development of the screw cap has been a boon to the wine industry.

Screw caps are wonderful for wines meant to be drunk young. They preserve freshness and color, although there may be problems with reduction, the opposite of oxidation, in which the aroma is lost, or worse, is replaced by a sulfurous stink. For cellar-worthy bottles, which like a little oxygen permeating the cork, a screw cap is not appropriate. After about 10 years, the plastic in the cap breaks down and lets air in, spoiling the wine.

Since there is nothing for the customer to inspect, sommeliers are best advised to stick the screw cap in their pockets, leaving all other wine service rituals precisely as our waitress performed them.  As it was, I played with the screw cap until it slipped from my fingers and rolled under the table.

Our rosato was from Friuli-Venezia Guila, in the northeast corner of Italy, and was made from 100% Refosco. It seems that every time I order an Italian wine I’m discovering a new varietal. This one was praised by Pliny the Elder and was a favorite of Livia, Augustus Caesar’s second wife. The rosso wine – which I’ve never had — is said to be deeply colored, with high acidity and flavors of spicy plum and almond. In its rosé form, the wine was a rich salmon color and moderately acidic, with only a touch of plum. Like most rosatos, it had good tannic structure that gently cleansed the palate between bites of my anchovy-laced pizza.

Retailing for under $15, this rosato is definitely a contestant in this year’s rosé derby, especially for meals with light meat components, like veal or chicken. Only the first week in May, and already the hunt has begun.