mondosapore

Happy New Year to My Fellow Perps

If you are looking for Liev Schreiber photos, go here.

 NB: Perp = gergo americano per 'sospetto', 'criminale'

By the time this is posted it will almost be 2007.  I will still be in Paris.  I'm not sure how much posting I will be able to do while I'm there, so I wanted to make sure I wished a happy, safe and prosperous new year to all my fellow perps.

And by that I of course mean all the people who have made this past year of blogging so interesting and instructive for me.  All of you who are truly collaborators in this (ahem) modest effort.

There are too many to name individually, but, since I am still sitting here in my underwear, procrastinating until I absolutely have to get ready to leave, here are a few anyway.  I'd provide the links but I feel you already know where the others live, blogging-wise.

Paris when it fizzles

OK, I'm to blame. 

I've been sick almost since the moment we arrived (couldn't get out of bed all day Wednesday). I'm getting tired of the food.  I'm preoccupied with returning to a job I loathe. 

Well, maybe some of it is Paris.  It's been as gloomy as London and maybe chillier.  Many things are closed for the holidays, including a number of our favorite or recommended eateries.  L'Ami Louis, which Ken raved about, was very expensive and not terribly special, or good.

The wine, thank God, has been lovely, all of it, even the plonk in the little dives where I eat when I'm on my own.  A bottle of Eric Guigal Hermitage 2004, redolent of lavender and thyme, was almost enough to redeem the costly experience that was L'Ami Louis. 

Tonight we are off to Maceo, recommended by Mike Tommasi and by Time Out.  And for New Year's Eve, La Cuisine.  I probably won't be able to report till I get home. 

Ken will be dismayed if he reads this but, on the whole, I'd rather be in Italy.  Or even New York.

Quickie: Lemaire, Richmond

Last night we took my daughter to Christmas dinner at the restaurant of the venerable Hotel Jefferson in Richmond.  The main restaurant there is called Lemaire.  It's a beautiful, elegant space, broken into several rooms so that you tend to feel that you are in an intimate setting that is conducive to conversation. Last evening it was packed.  From the first course of the special holiday tasting menu ($65 without wines, $100 with), it was easy to see why. The food was inventive, strong on local and regional ingredients, and exquisitely prepared and served.

I haven't much time -- we must check out and run back over to the Jefferson for brunch (not much else is open today) before I drop my daughter at home and get to the airport.  But I must tell you the wine/food pairings were occasionally brilliant and sometimes, to me at least, very off.  Two standouts for me: the Piper Sonoma bubbly with the first course and the Matson Old Vines Zinfandel with the memorable duck course. I'll need a copy of the entire menu to do this experience justice, which I will try to get today.

I don't know when I will be able to post again, but I promise, half-heartedly, to take notes when I'm in Paris.

Richmond isn't what it used to be

I'm at the Sheraton West in Richmond, Virginia, killing time till we go get my daughter for brunch.  A few musings about how this town has changed since I first moved here in 1971, when my daughter was expected and my late wife and I were fleeing unemployment in New England.  (Richmond was her hometown.)

1. It used to be a matter of black and white. 

No longer.  The influx of Vietnamese, Cambodians and other Asians began in 1975, just after the fall of Saigon.  Marcia taught English to many of the refugees.  Their children have prospered, and there are all sorts of Asian markets and restaurants in the area now.

In the past decade or so there has also been a huge immigration of Mexicans.  Latino markets and restaurants are everywhere, and they get bigger and nicer each time I visit.  We went to a really good, authentic place called Casa Grande last night.  It's a local chain, our very gracious young waitress told us, and it's run by a group of friends from Mexico.  The food was delicious, the portions were enormous, and it was cheap.  Only problem: the wine list sucked.  It had to be margaritas.  (Potent!)

2. People really are friendlier here.  It's not all phoney, as so many Northerners claim.  Not all.

3. People all up and down the East Coast are calling this the "first global warming Christmas."  I doubt it.  It's cold and traditionally snowy way out West.  But here in Richmond yesterday it was sunny, about 70 degrees (20C) and we were walking around in shirt sleeves.  I'm not complaining.

Buon Natale / Merry Christmas

Christmas, an early lesson in myth-breaking

The following is a little narrative I wrote this fall as I recalled my first brush with disillusionment.  And the first time I practiced the fine art of kicking myself.  "A Christmas Carol" it is not.

Merry Christmas.  Or is it bah humbug?

La tristezza della Saturnalia

Ecco questa stagione "lieta", merry. Ecco i ricordi del passato, di quelli che hai amati con tutto lo spirito e tutte le forze, assenti per l'eternita'. Mai piu' la loro mano calorosa o il tocco gentile.  Svanito il soffio che ti sfiora la guancia. 

Stagione difficile per me e per molti, ma credo che l'origine della festa "delle luci" fosse sempre piuttosto triste -- notti lunghe, freddo crescente, l'accartocciarsi dell'anima.

E' forse troppo frenetica e malconvincente la lietezza ufficiale di Natale. 

Era senza dubbio lo stesso anche quando il sole moriva durante i lunghi secoli romani,

Notte: NYC dalla mia finestra

Vignaioli italiani: Hit the bricks

The other day I wrote a post on the need for Italian winemakers to do wine evangelism in this huge, varied market that is known as the US of A.   To hit the bricks and press the flesh.  To get out there and educate the restaurateurs and retailers and consumers.  A hard job, no question.  A necessary one, no question.

I thought it was worth calling out two of the many excellent comments.  One is by The Italian Wine Guy, Alfonso Cevola. The other by an engaging young winegrower of the Tuscan Maremma, Gianpaolo Paglia, whose own efforts on behalf of his Poggio Argentiera's wines are tireless.

Both men tell the same basic story: if you want to succeed in the American market, get out there and tell your story again and again and again.  And be prepared for a whole lot of frustrations along the way.  These guys are worth listening to -- they're deep in the business and their experience is about as real-world as you can get.   Plus they're pretty real themselves, good people.

Gianpaolo Paglia

Italian wine in the USA: Time for a reality check

A recent press release on a prominent Italian web site tells us what we already know: Italian wines are increasing market share and dollar value in the American market, besting Australia yet again.  The release attributes the edict forbidding wood chips as a positioning factor in this trend, which I find laughable for several reasons.  (For one thing, the trend antedates the edict by, oh, a few years.)

Certainly, though, the American linkage of good Italian food with good (Italian) wine is a driving force in the rising consumption and prestige of wines from lo Stivale (the Boot).

If you ever look at this blog, you'll know that these trends are clamorously evident here in New York City, which has become a new Italian culinary capital, perhaps one of even more importance than Torino or Bologna; as the still-reigning media center of the world, whatever happens here has an immense amplifying effect.  Young inventive chefs and sommeliers, straight off the plane and sometimes right out of the top culinary institutes of their homeland, are changing our eating and drinking habits, and for the better. This systemic change is slowly, but slowly, working its osmotic way into the heartland of America and, of course, around the world.

All well and good.  You know how much I love Italy and everything about it, at least as far as eating and drinking and conviviality go. (Italy's a lot like New York City: sometimes you love it because it's such a challenge to deal with.)

And yet.  And yet

Taste, memory: Tuscany in New York

Ken read the article I published in Italian a few days ago and said to me, "Why did you write the thing in Italian?  Write it in English too!"

So.  Here we are. 

We couldn't wait very long to try the wine and the oil we bought at Le Fonti last August.  The stuff had hardly been unpacked and we tore into it like kids on Christmas morning.  For a good reason: we were celebrating our friend Courtenay's 32nd annual 26th birthday. 

One question hung over our heads: would the stuff taste as good as it did on that splendid summer afternoon, deep in ye swooning Tuscan countryside amid the memorious murmur of innumerable bees?  Or would it be another instance of rash, costly and downright dumbass impulse buying?

Ken certainly set the scene for a great evening.  He planned a four-course menu of pate', salumeria, fish and fruit, each with its own wine.   

1. Pate' -- with a Maconnais that we like very much, the Emilian Gillet of Jean Thevenet.  The pate' came from Ideal Cheese, which is just down the street.  They have good eats even if their prices are high and their service attitude is, uh, like being at an Italian government office.

2. Salumeria -- excellent prosciutto and salami served with one of the Le Fonti wines, the rich red Vito Arturo de Le Fonti. This wine was perfect with this course, and as good as we remembered.  Rich with flavors of smoke, earth, tobacco.  Even Courtenay, the white wine lady, drank two glasses.  As only she would have said, "I love, love, LOVE this wine."

3. Fish course -- a beautifully delicate halibut, baked to perfection and served with a  Falanghina La Sibilla dei Campi Flegrei.  Plus we dressed it with the superb and flavorful olive oil from Le Fonti.

4. Fruit and cantuccini from Falai -- with our newly arrived vinsanto de Le Fonti.  As we remembered, the vinsanto was sensational, complex, di-vine. 

Perfect.  All of it.   We spent a great evening with a dear friend and we got to share some of the good things of Italy with her. 

And this time our imperfect memories had been true. The magic of Chianti had not let us down. It was real and palpable in the taste and aroma of the wine and oil that had finally made its way to our house. 

Our only difficulty now: restraining ourselves so that it all doesn't disappear by the end of January.

My most distinctive wines of 2006

Inspired by my friend in Verona, Aristide, I've decided to do one of those year-end articles.  You know.  The top 10 of something.  A ridiculous attempt to sum up or characterize, with the attraction of being able to pontificate.  The old pontificator, that's me.

Here my focus is on "distinctive" wines, which is to say wines that struck me as utterly individual and unmistakably of their place. Which is not to say "the best" or "my favorites".  When I say "distinctive" I mean exactly that. It may be weird, it may even be bad, but it's sui generis.  Or in the case of a New Jersey nebbiolo, sewer generis.  (Groan.)

And I have picked just 5 -- because, while there are many many delicious and worthy wines being made these days, not too many are truly knockout distinctive.  And the five I've picked are all wonderful in their distinctiveness, not like that toxic spill from Jersey.

The order in which they are presented is arbitrary and has more to do with what I thought of first than any supposedly objective criteria. (Objectivity?  In wine?  Get out of here!)

Ecco...
 

Alba a New York

16 dicembre 2006
 

It's the food, stupid

News item just off the CNN web site:

Health officials are seeking the source of nausea and other symptoms reported by Olive Garden patrons in Indianapolis, Indiana.

About 300 people have reported becoming sick after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant in northeast Indianapolis, a spokesman for the Marion County Health Department told CNN on Friday.

And don't get me started on their wine selection...

I vini neo-arrivati: nulla delusione

Ieri sera abbiamo festeggiato l'amica Courtenay, che aveva compiuto 26 anni (per la 32a volta).  Ken ha preparato un bel pasto di pate', salumeria, pesce e frutto, e con ciascuna pietanza un altro vino.  In ogni caso un ottimo abbinamento. 

1. Pate' -- e il Maconnais che ci piace tanto, Emilian Gillet di Jean Thevenet.

2. Salumeria -- il Vito Arturo de Le Fonti, appena arrivato in casa.  Perfetto, tanto buono quanto ci ricordiamo.  Ricco, sapori di fumo, terra, tabacco.  Anche Courtenay, la signora dai vini bianchi, ne ha bevuto due bicchieri.  Come dice lei, "I love, love, LOVE this wine."

3. Pesce -- un halibut (non so come dire in italiano) molto delicato -- una Falanghina La Sibilla dei Campi Flegrei.  L'incredibile olio d'oliva de Le Fonti ha abbellito il pesce.

4. Frutto e cantuccini -- anche il neo-arrivato vinsanto de Le Fonti -- sensazionale, complesso, divino. 

Perfetti, tutti perfetti.  L'incanto del Chianti non ci ha delusi, non e' stato falso.  Vive, si esprime nelle bottiglie che ospitiamo con gioia e gratitudine.

A painful correction from overseas: "Big Night" at Falai

For those of you who read my account of a recent feast at the Lower East Side's shining new star, Falai, this correction will be meaningful.

I wrote the wrong name -- utterly and inexplicably the wrong name -- of the California wine that was served.  Fiona Morrison, MW, pointed out my error in a very kind way.  This is "painful" to me only because it proves how completely fuddled I was at that point.

Read the corrected article, with Fiona's rather bemused note. 

Meanwhile, color me embarrassed.

Vinum est

It's here, baby.  The stuff I've been writing about for four months. The extravagant commemoration of a golden afternoon in Chianti.  Eleven cases, seven of which still are stacked in the "dining room." (Those who live in unTrumplike NYC conditions will understand why this phrase is in quotation marks). 

The hard part -- paying for it -- hasn't come yet. 

No, the really hard part will be giving some of it away as Christmas gifts. 

The fun part -- drinking it -- will wait till the wine has a chance to settle down a bit.  Well, maybe tonight, as we celebrate a friend's birthday.

Vin santo, Vito Arturo, the two grades of Chianti and Mattia -- plus a really tremendous olive oil.  All here.  I really do feel like Scrooge McDuck (Paperone, in Italy), and I envisage myself bathing in the stuff. 

Oh, I almost forgot.  Six cases go to Richard and Amy. Maybe they'll get too busy to pick it up...

Quickie: A Year on TypePad and Papa' Celso Dolcetto d'Alba 2004

Tonight I made a pretty good Bolognese sauce -- really a ragu' -- and served a Papa' Celso Dolcetto d'Alba 2004 with it.  Delicious, especially the wine, which is so characteristically Italian, so drinkable and so fine with food, just about any food.

But I'm really writing in a sort of musing mood -- big surprise, yes?  NO -- because I moved the early incarnation of mondosapore to TypePad just about a year ago.  I spent 2 months on blogspot, decided that wasn't so hot, and, partly at the urging of Aristide, ported everything over here, at a huge expenditure of time and trouble.  I looked at the original site today, and it really was shitty.

More than that, I looked at the first 4-5-6 months of this blog, and I saw how devoid those months were of the lifeblood of a blog.  That would be comments. The comments really started coming in March-April, especially with the trip to Turkey, and they've only increased in number and intensity. 

Keep them coming, friends.  It's a big, lonely world, and in our global but still shockingly provincial societies, a continuing "dialogue" with our cyberfriends far and near gives meaning to the blog and brings joy to the blogger. 

I'd play "Message in a Bottle" if I had a copy of it...

Quickie: Wine Notes at Falai

Warren treated us to dinner at Falai last night, where we had a tasting menu chosen by Alberto, the manager and sommelier, in collusion with Ken.  All different dishes from the last time, thanks to Alberto's encyclopedic memory. 

We sat in the display window, at the uncrowded and relatively quiet table for four.  (Discretion forbids me from mentioning who the fourth person was, but she was smart, charming and all-round lovely.)  It was another long long meal, from about 9:30 to 12:30, and the service was unflaggingly attentive and friendly.

Good as all that was (ottimo!), I wanted to bestir myself from my food-and-wine-induced torpor this morning to report briefly (?) on two of the wines we had.  No, make that three.

Terre di Nano: new Tuscan wines for American palates

Terre di Nano. This is the name of a wine producer and agriturismo in Tuscany, about halfway between Montalcino and Pienza.  They aren't exactly new, they're just new to the American winedrinker.

Danielle Pollack of Terre di Nano contacted me and asked if I would like to try a couple of the azienda's wines.  She was coming to the States and was hoping to drum up interest among importers.  Never one to turn down free wine, I said, "Sure."  But I did tell her that I'd only write about them on the blog if I liked them. 

Obviously, I did. 

I took two bottles over to friend Courtenay's last Sunday evening, where she was having a dinner party for seven, including some dear friends from South Carolina.  We were having a standing rib roast.  It turned out to be an inspired match.

What can I say?  The wines were a hit.  A huge hit.  We could have drunk more bottles, but I had wisely saved a couple for myself.  I'm drinking one now, finishing off a bottle we actually opened last night.  Some notes follow, but note that these are not Montalcino DOC wines.  One (Quericalsale) is an Orcia Rosso DOC and the other, the more expensive and ambitious Maclura, is a Rosso di Toscana IGT. (Sole criticism: note the low-res photos.  Why do wineries constantly post such crummy pix?)

The grape varieties are all local, however, with no Merlot or other such in the blend.  Sangiovese predominates in both wines, with various amounts of softening Canaiolo and Colorino (in the Maclura).

Here are some notes made at dinner. 

Quercialsale 2003 (14%)

Cherry, smoky, peppery and rather chewy. Tannins not too assertive, oak in balance.  A crowd pleaser when first tasted. Not too complex but a nice long finish.  I liked the acidity and liveliness of this wine, and I like it now, the night after the second bottle was opened and gratefully drunk with high-quality Italian take-out.  It's lost a little something overnight, but it's still a couple of cuts above the run of everyday reds we generally suck up.

Maclura 2003 (14%)

At first this far bigger and more ambitious wine seemed way too oaky for me, especially its nose.  But this impression subsided as the wine aired, and its big bold extracted American-style flavor profile came to the fore.  Rich cocoa and chocolate with an appropriately sweetish finish.  It faded for a while, then came back with a somewhat unexpected finesse, the richness balanced by a gentleness in the tannins and an emergence of the acidity that had seemed lost on first taste.  Maclura was the 4-3 favorite at the table.  I preferred the little brother, Quercialsale, but I admit Maclura was winning me over at the end.  And it paired superbly with the standing rib roast and fixin's.  I have another bottle of Maclura, which I'll open well ahead of dinner -- we'll see if the wow factor is still there.

These are lovely, rich, chewy wines, and they should be widely available in the US.  Unfortunately, they are not.  Importers wanted, nay, needed.