Farewell, Eric

Our friend Eric passed through the city two weeks ago, on his farewell tour. After 13 months at the New Netherlands Institute in Albany, he had his tickets home, to the Old Netherlands. Margaret wanted to make Tomato Risotto, with her own homemade tomato sauce, a dish Eric had eaten and loved in Old Chatham. Since my birthday was also on the calendar, we invited Ellen and Mercer over and made a party of it. Ellen would bring a Barolo. On that foundation, risotto and Barolo, we built our menu.

Start with the last bottle of J. Lassalle Brut Préférence, our premier cru grower champagne from Chigny-les-Roses on the Montagne de Reims. A blend of all three varietals, roughly 60% Pinot Meunier, 20% each Chardonnay and Noir, this champagne has an earthy fruit quality, and a soft nutty taste at the finish that has replaced the lime notes that once were so prominent, many bottles ago.

On to the Risotto and 2009 Cascina Luisin Barbera d’Alba. Dan of Martin Brothers called this wine “the best Italian red in the shop.” Since it too was from the Piedmont, I thought it would make a good warm-up to Ellen’s Barolo; after all, Barbera is what the Piedmontese drink while they’re waiting for the Barolo to be ready. But no second class quaff this, rather a powerful mouthful of cherries, good acidity and enough structure to keep everything in balance.

And what meal bidding farewell to a vegetarian would be complete without lamb chops? Mercer supervised the broiling and they came out bloody rare, just the way he liked them. I poured out Ellen’s contribution, 2000 Rocche Dei Manzoni Barolo, from the Vigna Cappella di Santo Stefano vineyard. I don’t put too much stock in vintage ratings, since a good winemaker will know what to do with what he’s got, but it must be noted that 2000 was as good as it gets in the Piedmont (2002 as bad).

With an hour or so of breathing, the wine gave off a delicate nose of fruit and earth. On the palate, it had a beautiful balance of red and black fruits, with a touch of tar, licorice and oak, and a sweet and sour finish that wouldn’t quit. The tannins were soft and complex. Ready now, who knows what another 5 years might do for it. Eric, who prefers white wine, or better yet, beer, did not say no to a second glass.

With the Barolo gone, and we still chomping on salad and cheese, I pulled out another red I had in reserve, our old favorite Chateau Picque Caillou. It was from the 2009 vintage, a case of which we’d just picked up from Zachys. A 50-50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, it was young, bright and altogether delightful, but no match for the Barolo, or, for that matter, the Barbera. Floral and full-bodied now, this wine promises to get better and better over the years.

Dessert was chocolate mousse, made with the Dutch chocolate we’d brought home from The Hague in the fall, when we spent a week in Eric’s apartment in Leiden. This wine pairing was automatic, Brachetto d’Aqui, specifically 2011 “Braida” from Giacomo Bologna, also from the Piedmont. A bit more expensive than the Banfi effort, Rosa Regale, sweet, bubbly red is my go-to choice for chocolate, perhaps because it reminds me of Hoffman black cherry soda, a staple of my grandmother’s table. In any event, it brought the meal to a close, and at 5.5% alcohol did not do any significant further damage to our brain cells.

The next day I heard from Mercer, who declared our meal among the best he’d ever had.

Kicking Back in Ipswich

Margaret and I motored the length of the Mass Pike last week to visit with Carol and Ken. We arrived at cocktail hour and you know the rest. Stacking the fancy fat bottles in the fridge, I saw that Ken had laid in some beauties. With lobster on Friday, we lined up a trio of grower champagnes.

First a premier cru, Aubry, from the western part of Montaigne de Reims, in the village of Jouy-Les-Reims. Our champagne was an unusual blend of pinot meunier and chardonnay; it felt rather untamed, without the structure provided by pinot noir. The Aubry twins grow all seven permissible champagne grapes in their vineyards, and make a special cuvee that includes them all, Chardonnay, the ancient varietals Petit Mesilier and Arbanne, along with Pinots Meunier, Gris, Blanc and Noir. Almost alone among champagne makers, Aubry uses concentrated must instead of sugar in its dosage, giving the wine a fruit-centered sweetness.

Dosage, of course, is the penultimate stage of champagne making, between disgorgement and the cork. To replace the frozen wad of sediment that shoots out of the bottle when the crown cap is removed, a mixture of wine is added, along with some amount of sugar that determines the style of the wine, from Extra-brut to Doux. The label on our Aubry indicated disgorgement was in April, 2011, so the wine had had lots of time to rest.

We followed the Aubry with two grand cru blanc de blancs, both from the Côte des Blancs, where chardonnay rules. The first was Vazart-Coquart, from Chouilly, disgorged on 27-Aug-09. I generally steer away from blanc de blanc; I find them rather edgy, like nails on slate, but this one was nicely rounded, perhaps due to so much time in bottle. Just because it’s non-vintage doesn’t mean it has no age.

The last bottle of the night was Varnier-Fanniere, from Avize, disgorgement date unknown. This is a tough position for a champagne to compete in, especially after two such charmers, and at first taste it lacked the roundness of the Vazart and overall interest of the Aubry. As it warmed, however, the wine softened, and it was possible to make out hints of newly sharpened pencil, characteristic of Avize.

We went to bed rather late.  In the morning, I noted that we hadn’t quite drained the bottle, and looked around for orange juice.

We went to a party on Saturday, which I’ll circle back to later, because there is more champagne to talk about.

On Sunday, while Ken put the steaks and peanut chicken on the grill, I opened another grower, Chartogne-Taillet, disgorged in November, 2011. Margaret and I have been working through our half case of this one: it was the lead champagne last time we partied with Carol and Ken and made a good baseline for comparison tonight. From Merphy, in Montagne de Reims, the wine is 60-40 chardonnay to pinot noir, very dry, with a hint of ginger and chalk. It was easy to remember why we liked it so much.

Gonet-Medeville is a premier cru from Bisseuil, a few km from Epernay, made with 70% chardonnay, 25% pinot noir and 5% pinot meunier. The bottle had a pink label that indicated rosé, but in fact it was a gorgeous straw color, nicely balanced with hints of peach and anise. This was well-made champagne, as good as any grower champagne we’d been drinking.

Ken opened a 2009 Côte de Nuits Villages Closerie des Alisiers to drink with our grilled meat. The negociant Stephane Brocard makes wine under this label in Marsannay, in the extreme northern climes of Burgundy. Buying grapes from local farmers, he vinifies and bottles it under the Côte de Nuits Villages appellation, the single regional appellation used by small villages to bring their wine to market. The wine was dark, of medium weight, fruity and fresh with solid cherry berry flavors.

We ended the night with Banfi Rosa Regale, the Brachetto sparkler from the Penn Club. Carol didn’t like it; Ken could live without it; Margaret and I had had it.

Now back to Saturday’s party. It was at the home of David and Patty, Ipswich friends of long standing. We first met when the kids were small and ran from house to house during the course of a weekend. Later I bought a Saab from David, then a second one. By then they had moved from next door to about a mile away, overlooking the salt marshes that spread for miles at the mouth of the Ipswich River.

Before leaving for the party, Carol, Ken, Margaret and I gathered for a festive tipple of Nicholas Feuillatte Rosé. It had a racy acidity, and smelled of berry, flowers and white stone fruit. At the party, where we met up with two more friends, Bill and Ellen, Ken opened a Perrier-Jouët. PJ was our first baseline champagne, replaced in the 90’s with Veuve Cliquot, which itself was replaced by the recolte manipulants in the aughts.

After the house and garden tour, we took our seats at the sumptuously set dining table.  David brought a glass of red wine and handed it to me.  “I hear you know something about wine,” he said.

“A blind tasting, is that it?” I accepted the challenge.

“This can’t go well,” said Margaret.

I guessed old world, it was new. I guessed syrah, cab, cot, it was pinot noir. It was, in fact, Sea Smoke Ten, a huge brew from the Santa Rita Hills of Santa Barbara. Intense fruit, solid tannins, a long, velvety, oaken finish: the essence of the international fruit-bomb style. I didn’t catch the particular vintage, but it felt old enough to have matured in bottle and to have developed a soft side.

Patty had prepared a meal of cod with shiitake mushroom sauce, so out came a magnum of Sea Smoke chardonnay, called Gratis. This wine, in this format, according to David, was never sold to the public, rather it was given to Sea Smoke’s most favored customers. No guessing required here; this was a recognizable California white, fresh, intense. There was a creaminess imbued by new oak and 100% malolactic fermentation, yet instead of a mouthful of buttered toast, the wine presented crisp apple and pear, saved from flab by the cool ocean fog that clings to the Santa Rita Hills, and gives the vineyard its name.

Carol was the designated driver. She navigated the short voyage through dark streets to bring us safely home again.