Wine Giques

First Night and the Sideways Bottle

"What are we doing tonight?"  I asked Jeffy, early on New Year's Eve.  Having just bounced off a plane as an escapee from Snowpocalypse 2010, for me, 2011's first night was not destined to be a raucous affair. 

"We're cooking," said Jeffy.  "And we're going to drink a Sideways bottle of wine."

That got my attention. 

As a wine lover and a movie lover, Sideways was something of a seminal moment for me.  More affecting, certainly, than Bottle Shock (although Chris Pine's wig certainly made an indelible impression).  It is true that, when you're a wine lover, your relationship with the beloved grape sometimes takes precedence over relationships with other, more minor things, such as -- say -- people.   At least, that is what Paul Giamatti's character would have us believe.

But who can forget the penultimate scene in the movie, when Giamatti drinks his prized bottle of 1961 Chateau Cheval Blanc, the one he was saving for his tenth wedding anniversary, from a foam cup in a fast food restaurant, by himself?  We all have our Sideways bottles, and the revelation is that they're not defined by their price points, but by the people we plan to drink them with. 

Jeffy's bottle?  Geyser Peak 2006 Block Collection River Road Ranch Sauvignon Blanc.  Compared to that Chateau Cheval Blanc, it's a lowly bottle, with a retail price of only twenty bucks.  But it was purchased on a romantic ramble through the wine country, with a love now lost.  We replaced that lost love with some Morbière cheese, a roast chicken, a bit of feline company, and lots of chatter, which almost seemed to do the trick:  there certainly was no wistfulness around the table as we ushered 2010 out the door. 

My bottle?  I actually have more than one.  Several that, like the Geyser Peak, were purchased to be consumed with lost loves, whose faces I sometimes see in my dreams.  But my foremost Sideways bottle?  A 2006 La Sirena Cabernet Sauvignon.  Made by Heidi Barrett (remember Chris Pine's wig?), a woman winemaker, and secreted away, to be uncorked with friends on an upcoming -- momentous-- birthday.   And, as lovely as the wine will be, its memory will be defined not by the moment when I drank it, but by the company I was keeping.  

Happy new year, my friends.   

¡Micheladas!

My friend Marissa turned me on to this NY Times article on my favorite summer drink, the michelada.  Both she and I seem to love the versions they make at ¡Lotería!, a local authentic upscale Mexican eatery, with locations in Hollywood and at Farmer's Market (and yes, you must use those explanation points when you refer to it). 

And, as usual, even though it's written up in the venerable Grey Lady, you've got to hand it to La-La Land for pioneering the trend ... most NY restaurants don't seem to have heard of this tasty concoction, as the author himself points out. 

Score another one for the Left Coast.  What's the talley now?  Eleven-eleven million to oh, six?  Manhattanites, feel free to respond.  But not before you hoist a michelada or two.  

Photo from the NY Times.

Noshing with the Native Napkin.

Da Wine Giques were in da house!  

Yes, Suenarita and her Own Personal Captain von Trapp™ came for a visit, and it was stupendously fun -- but the aforementioned Captain wrote about it much better than I ever could.  Since he also cooked the dinner, I'm going to give him his due props and just link right to his blog post:  

http://sorrynotmytable.com/2009/08/16/we-could-learn-to-love-la/comment-page-1/#comment-70

Suenarita and I were actually planning to do a joint videoblog that evening, but after reading this post, you'll understand that it was all we could do to drag ourselves to bed, while my Isaac Hayes channel on Pandora wailed away under the stars. 

The Cruelest Month

They say that April is the cruelest month, but I find that for me, it's July.  It's July because that's when I start fantasizing about chucking everything and running off to Italy or the south of France (with a detour through Paris, of course).  Yeah, I'm probably a little spoiled, a little too princess-y, if this is the stuff of my fantasies, rather than, say, pondering where my kid is going to college, or making the world a better place: but hey, we all have to dream, don't we?

I blame it on my friend Jo, who's such a connoisseur of sites like Italianvillas.com (it's real, check it out), and frenchvillas.com, that most summers, we find ourselves piled into a big old house in some bucolic spot, laden with wine,food and song, all for relatively little money.  That was in the days when we all had some money, of course.  

I'm not helping myself by reading books that take place in Provence (the lastest is a Grail thriller, called Labyrinth), which brings on spasmodic cravings for baguettes, unpasteurized cheese and figs, all washed down with a glass of Grenache. Or by marching over to the neighborhood farmers market armed with the stiped linen bag I bought in Siena, "Per il Pane" intricately embroidered on its front.  (I filled it with figs, cherries, tomatoes and corn today ... I already had the bread).  

So I try to cure it by cooking.  Given that I'm lucky enough to live in LA's delicious Mediterranean climate, it makes it easy for me to stand around in my kitchen and pretend that the knobs on the stove say chaud et trés chaud, and that I've got latte and grana stashed in the fridge.  Now, if I could just locate Marcello the pool boy ...

And the dish that always transports me?  Panzanella.  My friend and former partner in crime, Michael Chiarello, always described Italian food as "the cuisine of preservation," and nothing brings that to mind better than a salad made from old bread.  Ah, but such old bread!  When you combine it with the freshest of summer tomatoes, juicy, crunchy cucumbers, good olive oil and vinegar, and that most controversial of ingredients -- anchovies -- you have the essence of Italian summers, tossed in a bowl, right in front of you. 

So, today is a day for panzanella.  My favorite recipe comes from Savoring Italy by Robert Freson. which is one of those cookbooks that you drown in, it's so beautifully written and photographed.  Unfortunately, it's out of print, so you'll have to find it at a used bookstore, or drop by my place to look at my well-worn copy. (Say you're a Wine Gique and I'll let you in.)  Sara Moulton has a lovely recipe, as well.  

Wine pairing?  Well, given the weather, I'm always tempted to run down the street and grab a bottle of my favorite Luna Pinot Grigio, but for this dish, I feel compelled to be a little more authentic and drink something we'd really tote to the villa in Italy: 2007 Rocca di Montegrossi Chianti Classico.  And at $20 a bottle, it's a pretty cheap trip to Tuscany.

Buon appetito, i miei amici. Ci vediamo di fronte al Duomo, sarò quello con il vino.

The Pizza Oven

So, we’re blessed with both an engineer and an inveterate food-griller in our party at the Orvieto villa.  The engineer rewired the sound systems so we could put one by the pool and one on the back porch, with accompanying cables for the iPods.  (At last count, there were 16 iPods among the 12 of us, creating a substantial music library for our idyll. Thank you, Steve Jobs.  Although several of us work for handset manufacturers, so there's nary an iPhone in sight.) 

And the food-griller scored a tremendous find:  a wood-fired oven, built into a chimney on the back of the villa.  He carted wood from the storage shed and started heating the oven in the morning.  By late afternoon, it was ready to be loaded with food:  overripe apples, sliced and drizzled with fresh lemon juice and cinnamon; bulbs of garlic slathered in olive oil and a little pepper; chopped garden vegetables with rosemary.   We had a few butterflied chickens from the local coop and we put them in there, too, in a big roasting pan loaded with the transferred vegetables and the roasted garlic. 

The oven was hot, hot, hot.  You could smell the food roasting, and the feel the smoke, and imagine yourself living this way forever.  “What is your job?” someone asks.  “Oh,” you say, “I watch the pizza oven at the back of a villa.  It’s divine.” 

Eventually, it was time to eat, again.  We started with more bruschetta, toasted on the griddle in the center of the big stove.  We paired the chicken and vegetables with a big pot of lentils spiked with lemon zest.  And we drank acqua naturale and vino, naturally – this time bottles of Rosso di Montalcino from the Fattoria dei Barbi, a farmhouse, winery and restaurant in Tuscany, known for its velvety wines and dishes of roast boar.  (We graced the Fattoria with our presence a few years ago, where the maitre d’ kept handing the wine list to the guys, not realizing that in this entourage, it’s the chicks who do the wine buying.)

We’re already planning tomorrow’s pizza party, where everyone kneads their own dough and chooses their own toppings.  No pineapple and ham combos will be permitted, however.  This is, after all, Italy, and such a desecration of the tao of pizza would undoubtedly bring the saints from their reliquaries, denying us our heavenly visions of the perfect tomato pie.

Guess we’re going to have to buy some more vino to keep those visions going. 

Never Too Many Cooks

This villa is blessed with a fantastic orchard and a vegetable garden so laden with produce that we feel compelled to pick and eat as much as possible.  So far we’ve found vine after vine of fresh tomatoes, all the zucchini you could ever wish for, onions, lettuce, cantaloupe, watermelon, and an herb garden.   There are twelve of us here, and of the twelve, seven of us love to cook.  So an endless produce patch and fresh Italian air, not to mention the huge kitchen, are incredible sources of inspiration.  We spend the morning waxing poetic about lunch and dinner, dreaming of what we’re going to make.  It’s the making that consumes us – the eating is almost like an added value, an unexpected dessert.

The first night, that inspiration produced two big bowls of pasta with homemade spicy tomato sauce, preceded by bruschetta made from olive bread topped with mushrooms in oil and a local concoction of truffles, tomatoes and peppers.   

And the wine … we alternated between afternoon sips of Rosato (Vallesanto, 2005) and an evening draft of Arnalido-Caprai Montefalco Rosso (2004).  I’ll have to do a little research on the varietals*, but rest assured that the Montefalco has the perfect punch for a bit of spicy pasta – enough of a punch that we fired up the iPods and danced the night away to 80’s oldies (inspiring the teenagers among us to go to bed, embarrassed by our formerly hip dance moves).   

The Rosato went well with lunch yesterday, as well, which consisted of the leftover pasta and a Niçoise-inspired salad of tuna, olives, boiled eggs, fresh tomatoes, and lettuce, topped with a little olive oil and vinegar.  That, a great pair of strappy sandals, and an afternoon spent lounging by the pool, are all a girl could ever wish for.

*Montefalco Rosso is a blend of Sagrantino and Sangiovese grapes, with a dash of Trebbiano. It's mellow and smooth.  There's a sister wine, Montefalco Sagrantino, for which we're on the hunt.  More later.

From Your Local Friendly Mystic Saint

Umbria is called “the land of the saints,” and when I awoke with a start at 4:30 this morning to see the fog draping the hillsides, full moon aglow, hearing the distant tympani of cowbells and the soft bleats of the sheep, I understood saintliness at last. 

We’re staying in a villa outside of Orvieto.  Orvieto is known for its massive cathedral, its perch of a big table of tufa, its support for the papacy in the Guelph-Ghibelline conflicts, and, of course, its wine.

The wine is called Orvieto Classico, and it’s light, dry, a little fruity, and immensely refreshing as you’re pondering the possibilities of sainthood in the fading evening sun.  It’s incredibly hot here during the day, although a cooling breeze sighs through in the late afternoon.  Orvieto Classico is like that – a little cooling breeze on a hot summer day.

We’ve been drinking what appears to be a non-vintage production by Bigi, called Orvieto Classico Amabile.  “Amabile” seems to mean “friendly,” (okay, it actually means "less sweet") and this is definitely a friendly little wine, perfect with our afternoon snacks of bruschetta and insalata caprese.   A couple of glasses, and everyone becomes a little more kindly disposed, particularly towards the friendly, flea-bitten tomcat who seems to have come with the villa.  We give him a little leftover chicken, some cat food from the pantry, and a cup of milk, then sit back and enjoy the sunset, and understand where St. Francis came by his inspiration.  Pace, mi amici. 

Prose for Prosecco

So, I’ve spent two and a half days in Venice, and I’ve now consumed at least eight glasses of prosecco.  I’ve had a few glasses of other tasty vino as well, but they haven’t stolen my heart the way prosecco has.   Venice has stolen my heart, too, but I expected that.  What I didn’t expect was to find so much joy in a glass full of tiny, velvet bubbles.

Now I’m definitely a champagne drinker, but I’m one of those folks for whom champagne brings on instant giddiness, which is good or bad, depending on the handsome-ness of my drinking companion.  Champagne also has the effect of producing a rather nasty hangover for me, no matter how little I’ve consumed, or how many oysters I’ve consumed with it.  And, as I found out one New Year’s Eve, it’s deadly when I combine it with one tiny martini.  (You know who you are, my so-called friends!)

Prosecco is an entirely different story.  It’s light, and fulsome, and very smooth.  It’s good in the afternoon with all the gentlemen denizens of Le Bistrot de Venise, and it’s good in the evening at Bar Caffe La Piscina on the banks of the Giudecca.  It’s good at the Hotel Monaco, facing Santa Maria della Salute in the sunset.  (The Monaco is across the calle from Harry’s Bar, and it’s infinitely more restful and just as sophisticated.) I can have a couple of glasses and not become giddy – although the handsome-ness of the Italian waiters definitely warrants a little giddiness – and there’s no follow-on headache that makes me think I should give up drinking and go to Mass.  Plenty of places to go to Mass around here, though. 

Since internet connections are a little hard to come by here – they don’t seem to just float in the air as they do in California – I’ll have to wait to research prosecco’s availability at home.  But rest assured, these Venetians know what they’re doing.  And if you can find some excuse to come here and drink it, I highly encourage the endeavor.  It’s worth it.  That, and the cicchetti.  And sunset on the Grand Canal. 

Charlie’s Trots

So, here it is – my 12th or 13th “trip of a lifetime.”  (I’ve been lucky enough to work in the hospitality business, I’ve been to some fancy places in my life.)  Frankly, when I travel domestically, I limit my business to more egalitarian airlines (Southwest, Jet Blue, the upcoming Virgin America) because I can’t stand the class system the rest of them of them have embraced.  But when traveling internationally, I have to succumb.  American Express has a nifty service where you can buy airline tickets for points, so I forked over all my hard-earned bits and procured a business-class ticket to Frankfurt, then Venice.

So I got to check in faster, go through a special security line, and plop my bum in a huge seat.  I tried to enjoy myself, knowing that this was only a temporary reprieve from my usual status as a head of cattle.  I perused the little menu card they handed me.   It was decorated with tiny vine-enfurled “T’s.”  “What,” I said to myself, “Charlie Trotter made this food!  How nice.  I think I’ll have some.”  And indeed, I went for the Trotter-created menu selections, which included a sweet crab salad with fresh bok choy, and Thai barbecue organic boneless short ribs with more bok choy and caramelized pearl onions.  Amazing.   And bring on the wine!  They seemed to be out of the Cotes-du-Rhone, but they had a Chateau Donissan Haut-Médoc that was quite quaffable.   I curled up with my new Harry Potter book and looked forward to 8 to 12 hours of pure relaxation.

Well, I almost got my wish.  And the food was good, BTW.  Remarkable, in fact, for an airline meal.  (I can remember my friend Jacques Pépin – so appalled at airline food—packing crisp baskets of  French snacks for his trips. I wonder if he’s now consulting for one of them?  Oh, how quickly they sell out!)   But, three or four hours after I ate, the stomach rumblings began.   I finished Harry Potter, crying a little, and tried to sleep.  I passed on breakfast.  I was parched.  I got off the plane in Frankfurt and asked at least six people where I was supposed to go (the Frankfurt airport is a mess, but that’s another blog post).  All the while, suppressing the urge to hurl.   Got some Euros from the cash machine.  Bought acqua minerale non gassata (practicing my Italian food words).   Got to the gate.  Ran into the bathroom and threw up a little.  “No,” I’m thinking, “I can’t be doing this.  Not in this spanky-clean German airport bathroom.  What if they find out?  Will they make me leave the country?  ‘Those sloppy Americans!  Can’t even fly properly!’”

I managed to make it onto the flight to Venice.  Survived an hour in the air.  Survived an hour on the Alilaguna boat (a miracle!).  Survived 30 minutes of hauling my luggage across six or seven bridges because Alilaguna decided they weren’t stopping at Zattere that day.  (A Hungarian angel helped me, but that’s another blog post).  Luckily, my room was ready.  I flung my bag on the floor, ran into the bathroom, and exorcised the short ribs. 

The moral of the story?  Never trust chef-branded airline food, even if it’s from a chef whose restaurant is fantastic and who gives you free stuff when you go there.  It’s still airline food. 

Oh, and prosecco cures everything.  (But that’s another blog post.)