EMBURY COCKTAILS

Krimko on Wine: Hexamer Riesling & Patrick Leigh Fermor

Any Good Riesling:  Hexamer Riesling Quarzit, Nahe, 2011

It really doesn't matter what this particular wine is, even though it's a good one, because my intention when I bought it was to buy a good Riesling, and that was that.  I treat myself to good Rieslings now and again, when I want to drink the bottle myself and have a cerebral, visual experience.  All wine is synesthetic to a degree, but fine German Riesling conjures visions of sunlight streaming through conifers and the gold of day filtering down to stones beneath steady trickles of water.  It offers visual separation, if I can synesthetically borrow an audiophile's term: layers of colors that equate to flavors, each discernible in its own right, and in terms of the others that surround it.  

This bottle is not as delicate as some of the Mosels I've gone sublime for: even the entry-level Kabinetts from good producers, which will set you back between $20 and $25, can have this light-as-air quality that makes them feel like they were distilled from northern forest air.  Minerality is a big part of the draw too.  You can taste the ground, but cleanly.  These wines feel like they're beyond agriculture.

Nevertheless, this was enjoyable, if a little more muscular than I'd expected.  I should have known: at 11% alcohol, it pushes its 8%-10%, prettier cousins out of the way, and some of their poetry with them.  What it gains in return is, well, a little more alcohol, of course, and aggressive verve.  It wants you to know it likes you.  Who doesn't like to be liked?

But the real reason I wanted to drink a good Riesling, any good Riesling, is that I had just read the following passage in Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts.  The book is the fist half of an account of a journey, almost entirely by foot, from Holland to Turkey taken in the 1930s by a mischievous 19-year-old Englishman with literary ambitions.  It is written by the same Englishman, 40 years after the fact.  Sometimes wine isn't about what you drink or what you're eating, or who you're with, but a means of participation, a way of telling a story, and a means of satisfying a desire to explore that draws in equal part from the mind and the heart, passing always over the palate, and over and around the tongue, like language:

The plain bowls of these wineglasses were poised on slender glass stalks, or on diminishing pagodas of little globes, and both kinds of stem were coloured: a deep green for Mosel and, for Rhenish, a brown smoky gold that was almost amber.  When horny hands lifted them, each flashed forth its coloured message in the lamplight.  It is impossible, drinking by the glass in those charmingly named inns and wine-cellars, not to drink too much... simply by sipping one could explore the two great rivers below and the Danube and all Swabia, and Franconia too by proxy, and the vales of Imhof and the faraway slopes of Würtzburg: journeying in time from year to year, with draughts as cool as a deep well, limpidly varying from dark gold to pale silver and smelling of glades and meadows and flowers.

 It was reading the words "dark gold to pale silver and smelling of glades and meadows and flowers" that made me buy and drink this wine. The wine became an expression of them, carrying them back over the threshold into sensual life.  Stuart Krimko. (Other Krimko pieces here.)

Krimko on Wine (And Cheever)

(Editor's Note: This piece from Embury Wine & Food Editor Stuart Krimko has been amongst a backlog of posts I've had piling up to due to chronic modern urban distractedness and terrible sloth on my part. How backlogged? Check the original title: Back to School cocktail reading and listening. A thousand apologies to Krimko, whose other fine pieces can be read here. J.R.)

I've got some good drinking stuff on my to-do list for the upcoming school year.  Several of you have asked me to recommend wines from Trader Joe's, which is a noble task that I have been postponing for too long; I'll get to it soon, but in case you're thirsty this moment and reading this on your smart phone in the booze aisle of your local TJ's, pick up a bottle of VINTJS Sauvignon Blanc.  This is some of the best less-than-eight-dollar-a-bottle white wine I've had in some time, and I've had it several times since realizing this was so.  If you need more convincing, I'll do my best in my next post.

Now, onto slightly more literary topics.  Over the past few months I've enjoyed making my way through the New Yorker's podcasts.  They've set up a nice format: a writer who has published a story in the magazine chooses a story that another writer published in the magazine to read aloud.  The first in the series is John Cheever's "Reunion," read by Richard Ford, in which a boy named Charlie meets his father in Grand Central Station for an afternoon of Beefeater Gibsons.  I love Beefeater martinis, but I prefer mine with olives––I was going to say I prefer mine up with olives, but I've recently been delighted by Beefeater martinis with olives on the rocks.  Will martinis on the rocks come back into fashion soon?  Were they ever in fashion? 

Cheever, not Krimko

"Reunion" is heartbreaking and hilarious.  Richard Ford does a wonderful job of switching back and forth between the voices of the meek, embarrassed, wistful Charlie, who narrates the story, and his drunk blowhard of a father.  The story takes no more than a few minutes for Ford to read, but Cheever has packed much into those few minutes: underage drinking, the proper ratio of gin to vermouth, the echoing splendor of Grand Central Station, the everlasting battle between obnoxious customers and exasperated wait staff, and the distressing vagaries of the father-son relationship.  When Charlie tells us, at the end of the story, that this was "the last time I saw my father," we want to pat him on the back and pour him another drink.S.K.

New Yorker podcasts on iTunes

Krimko On Wine: Argentina

  

Argentina. It's been too long since I've been back.  I have no good reason to procrastinate: the trip was wonderful, and there was much good wine drunk.  Without further ado, then, a vinous travelogue of a month in Argentina in April-May 2010.

While Brigid and I did drink some wine during the first week we spent in Buenos Aires, it was not until we traveled to Salta, the northwestern-most province of Argentina, that wine was drunk with attention.  Perhaps this in itself is a lovely thing about places like Argentina, where wine is mostly procured in supermarkets and always accompanies a meal.  Though there isn't as much recreational drinking of it, wine in these places assumes a vigorous place in the minor and major celebrations of which almost all humans partake.  It is there, like air and water, or bread, or sleep, or love. 

I will say, however, that we picked up a taste for a concoction that is enjoyed in recreational fashion, Fernet con coca.  It's exactly what you'd imagine: a healthy pour of Fernet Branca over rocks, then topped off with Coke.  Half and half, basically.  The Coke takes on a particularly silky and frothy texture when served this way, and its caffeine provides a good lift for conversations in cafés or impromptu dance parties.

Back to wine, and Salta.  Home to Argentina's second-largest wine-growing region (after the well-known Mendoza), Salta has a high desert climate that makes specific, even nervy wines.  The specialty is torrontés.  Perhaps the best wine I had on the whole trip was Ciclos' late harvest torrontés.  It was sweet and light, reminded me of tropical fruits, and gave me a euphoric feeling.  Somehow I neglected to get a photo of the bottle, but it was enjoyed at the same table you see in the picture below, on the porch outside our hotel room in Cafayate.

Cafayate is the town around which most of the Salta vineyards are gathered.  It's about three hours south of the capital city (also called Salta).  We drank a number of other good bottles there, including the Don David torrontés depicted.  This was a 'normal' cuvee and cost about $5.00 or $6.00 USD.  The Ciclos late harvest wine was 'expensive,' and set us back $15.00.  There is fantastic value to be had.  I wonder if some of this has to do with the fact that it's almost impossible to fine non-Argentinian wine.

 
I didn't do any vineyard tours or anything, but we ate good simple food in Cafayate (above) and met some sweet street dogs.  There were some vineyards spied from the road.  In the photo at the top of the post you can see the desert environs.  Said roads take the tourist past incredible scenery: high, plain-covered mountains, candy-colored canyons, and an expansive salt flat, complete with fauna (below).  

We spent our last night in Salta at a pleasantly rundown hotel managed by a friendly woman whose son shared my birthday.  Out of gas, we ate a terrible pizza in our room and gave it a good friend in a bottle of Nanni tannat.  It's made from organic grapes and austerely dry, the way I like a quality table wine.  The plastic tablecloth, plastic cups, and wax paper plates were a classy touch.

Back in Buenos Aires, I finally visited Autre Monde (autremonde.com.ar), a self-styled 'boutique de vinos.'  This kind of store is rare in Argentina, for the reasons outlined above.  But Victor, the owner, is smart about wine and knows a lot about what is being made and drunk in Europe and North America.  He too only carries Argentinian bottles, but specializes in artisanally made wine, small-production vineyards, etc. 

Above you see three of them: La Madrid, a single-vineyard bonarda from Mendoza; 25/5 Merlot, made in the low desert province of La Pampa, and Jean Rivier tocai, also made in Mendoza.  Each was not what you would expect from Argentinian wine.

The bonarda was like no other single-varietal bonarda I have ever had, infinitely richer and more layered.  The desert merlot, perhaps the most interesting of these three bottles, was also rich, and rather dirty.  The tocai was light, drinkable, and easy to not attach a string of adjectives to: it was for drinking, though more interesting than a lot of the other white wine I bought in supermarkets, and much of the white wine one drinks, period.  In this photo the three bottles are posing with the remains of a roast chicken I ate.  The Argentinians grill and roast food expertly.  I found their diet of meat (really some of the best you will eat) and birds and coffee and beer and Fernet most agreeable.  The vegetables were not bad either, nor were the juices.

I didn't drink all of these three bottles at once, but looking back on the trip it's nice to imagine that I did.  Travel is like that.  In retrospect it can seem like a happy blur, a bit extravagant, not a little disorienting, capable of wearing you out.  And looking back at all the meals and occasions, it's possible to see them as one long feast, punctuated by toasts.  Stuart Krimko

Krimko On Wine: The New World: Headaches and Lamb Necks

Me:  Do you have any shanks?

Stoned Farmer's Market Dude:  Oh yeah, sure, we got shanks.

Me:  Good, it says on the chalkboard that you have shanks.

SFMD:  Yep, we got some shanks.  (Rustles around in a deep cooler full of lamb.)  Yep, some nice shanks right here.  (Pulls out part of lamb, definitely not a shank.)

Me:  That's not a shank.  A shank is part of the leg.  It looks like it's part of a leg.  What is that?

SFMD:  It's a shank, oh, wait, let me look at my inventory.  (Pulls out legal pad, scans it.)  Nope, you're right, not a shank.  Didn't bring any shanks today.  This is a neck.  You don't want that.  How about this nice rack of chops?

Me:  (Spying price on bag containing rack.)  Does that say $60.00?  How much is the neck?

SFMD:  $9.00

Me:  I'll take the neck.

I took the neck indeed, made a delicious stew out of it with potatoes, tomatoes, onion, carrot, and yogurt.  Threw in some of the strange (to me) new spices Brigid gave me for my birthday, in particular the beguiling asafeotida, or 'devil's dung,' harvested in Afghanistan from a flower and used as an onion/garlic substitute by Jainists, who apparently try not to cook with onions or garlic.  It's got some funky, mountainous Middle East umami thing going on.  Also lends a nice yellow color to a stew.

With the above we drank a bottle of Ojai Red from the Ojai Vineyard.  It's their 'Table Wine' cuvee, made from a slightly different blend of Rhonish grapes each year.  Made up in Santa Barbara County, this comes pretty close to expressing hometown terroir here in Los Angeles.  It's powerful stuff, up around 15% alcohol.  Those of you who have been following these posts have witnessed my conversion––I am officially a fan of big fat New World wines.  Something about the Los Angeles winter makes them particularly satisfying, sweet and good.

That sweetness and alcohol comes at a price, though.  Headaches are a little swimmier in the morning.  Like the price paid for most good things, they're worth it.

A few of you West Coast readers have asked about Trader Joe's recommendations.  I shall oblige in coming weeks. S.K.

Krimko On Wine: Birthday Flask, Legend Of Zelda

No wine this week friends.  Rather, in celebration of my own birthday, a snapshot or two of this lovely stainless steel flask, gifted to me by my even lovelier girlfriend.  I suppose one could put wine in the flask, but why would one do that?  As gifted, this flask came with some single malt scotch inside, the perfect tonic for a cold, clear night in Joshua Tree National Park, which was where I was when I received it.  Unfortunately the batteries in my camera were kaput, so we will have to put up with these pics taken at my workaday desk, but still, it is a pretty object, isn't it?  Kind of reminds me of something a magician would use to carry a magic potion.  Wouldn't be out of place in The Legend Of Zelda, maybe something you'd buy from a merchant in one of those secret caves.  I know that the flask comes from Bar Keeper in Silver Lake because Brigid and I had a conversation about the place a few days before my birthday.  Great store.  Lots of reasonably priced and stylish bar accoutrements.  Cheers to me!  Cheers to you! S.K.

 

For readers in the Los Angeles area, Stuart with be reading from his collection of poems, "The Sweetness of Herbert", this Saturday, February 27th, at 7:00 p.m, at the David Kordansky Gallery. Further info here

All Krimko posts here

Bar Keeper

Bardolino: Gloom, Perfume, and a little Xavier Renegade Angel

Why Italians Love to Talk About Food is a lovely book recently translated into English.  It's written by Elena Kostioukovitch, a Russian who has lived in Italy for many years and who translates Umberto Eco's books into her native language. Accordingly, it's wonderfully literary, so much so that I'm a bit saddened that FSG chose to produce and market it in a way that would convince some purchasers that it might be a cookbook or a coffee table book.  Yes, the color photographs of idyllic Italia are nice, but this is a book meant to be read more than looked at, and it's a little too square (shape-wise, not attitudinally) and glossy to be curled up with on the couch.  After all, Kostioukovitch peppers her short chapters on each of Italy's culinary regions with quotes from, and references to, Goethe, Stendhal, the Futurists, the Old Testament, and renaissance and medieval records.  These chapters are separated by short essays on miscellaneous topics including pasta, the Jews, Slow Food, and an incredible litany of 'preparation methods' worthy of Georges Perec.

            I bring up the book in this forum because it's got me hungering for all morsels and gulps Italian.  Last night I happily re-heated a Trader Joe's Quatro Formaggi pizza––made in Italy!

            I've long been a fan of the drinkable and mineral-driven wines from the Veneto, so I was pleased to read that Kostioukovitch describes Venice in the following way: 'Indolence, elegance and gloom: these legendary traits of Venetian life, celebrated in British, American, and Russian poetry, are reflected in the city's characteristic cuisine.'  If that's what the food is like, imagine how the booze must taste.

            Not only did I imagine it, I experienced it first hand the other night with Corte Gardoni's Le Fontane, a nice bottle from the Bardolino D.O.C. in the western part of the Veneto.  Red Bardolino is made of grapes similar to the more familiar Valpolicella (there are white and rosé versions too), but it's usually done in a lighter style.  This Kermit Lynch import was most remarkable for its perfume: both ethereal and slightly musky, it reminded me of drawing rooms, spring, midnight, and gently-rolling hills, in no particular order.  Its light body makes it good partner with all kinds of food; I was lucky enough to drink it with fava beans and feta cheese over barley with sausage, along with roasted beets and tender black kale grown by the South Central Grower's Co-op (all prepared, I must say with some pride, by my girlfriend Brigid). 

            The label depicts a beautiful landscape reduced to an arrangement of flat rhomboid and triangular shapes. It instantly reminded me of the first hilarious episode of Adult Swim's Xavier Renegade Angel, in which Burbury, Connecticut contracts a computer virus, rendering the entire town and its inhabitants, well, an arrangement of rhomboids and triangulars.  Unlike our hero Xavier, at least we haven't reduced ourselves to swallowing the stuff the Burbury ruffians spit at us. Stuart Krimko

  

Corte Gardoni, Le Fontane, 2008 Bardolino. $11.75 at your favorite enlightened wine shop.

Why Italians Love to Talk About Food

Xavier Renegade Angel

Adult Swim

Krimko On Wine: Back To California, Perfecta

After a productive, energetic, and exhausting two months on the East Coast, I'm back in Los Angeles. Good to go away, and good to come home.  One of the highlights of my time in New York was the Sand Paper Press book release party––I've got a new book of poems out from the Key West-based independent publisher; the reading we did was fun, but what pushed the evening over the edge was Embury Cocktails' tequila punch. I'm sure your fearless editor Jason Rowan will fill you in on its makeup in due time.  All I know is that my mom hadn't had tequila in some time, and one was enough to make her quite happy.

Anyway, back to sunny California.  Went by my local standby Silverlake Wines yesterday, in search of something cheap.  Being in and out of New York for eight weeks has a way of draining the pocketbook.  I found this Perfecta stuff, an Arroyo Seco red made up of mostly Grenache, and some Syrah.  Southern Rhone blend, over 14% alcohol.  At only $8, I wasn't expecting much.

I used a little of it to mix with a few tablespoons of miso paste and made a glaze for some chicken quarters that I roasted in the oven.  When they were finished and we sat down at table, I remarked to my cohorts as I tasted Perfecta, 'This isn't bad, for California.'  They laughed.  'We see you're ready to abandon France,' they joked.

No, France is still the standby for me for cheap, distinctive wine, but this stuff is good.  Jammy, perhaps a tad larger than its French cousin might be, but imminently drinkable and even (gasp) unique.  It tasted like earth, such a rare thing for New World wines, especially cheap ones.  Not sure about the Mucha-like lass on the label, but hey, could be worse.  Kind of fetching, draped over her bike like that.

The chicken quarters glazed with miso and Perfecta were quite good.  I also made some oven-roasted, thinly sliced potatoes and green beans.  Drizzled chicken fat over the potatoes.  Good to be home. S.K.

2006 Perfecta Arroyo Seco Red Wine, $8 at Silverlake Wines.

All of Stuart Krimko's wine writing here.

Krimko On Wine: Thanksgiving Edition; Lioco, Scalloped Potatoes, George Strait & Taylor Swift.

Can someone explain to me why I've been listening to nothing but George Strait lately?  And it's not only the King of Country himself; I've even been listening to other people sing songs George Strait has sung.  Does Embury count among its readers anyone else who has watched Taylor Swift sing 'Run' a dozen times on Youtube?

Perhaps someone can also help explain why I've been favoring big white wines lately.  This week it was Lioco, a Sonoma County Chardonnay (I've really been keeping my promise to myself to drink a lot of wine from California).  Lioco got some good press from Eric Asimov in The New York Times, but he drank Indica, their red Rhonish blend.

The Chardonnay is made in about as Burgundian a style as you can make in the Russian River Valley.  No oak.  Perhaps not as zingy as I might like, but there is a kelly green, minerally thing going on in the midpalate that I cannot remember tasting before.  Almost synthetic.  Probably would go pretty good with those scalloped potatoes on your Thanksgiving table.  $19.75, tax included, at Silverlake Wine; $17.99 at Astor Wines & Spirits. S.K.

Dinner With Krimko: "Killing"; Cheap Terroir; And Octopus & Bratwurst Stew

(Embury Wine & Food Editor Stuart Krimko will be taking us through his rock & roll dinners periodically.) People in Los Angeles are always killing things.  There are gang members, for instance, who kill other gang members––sometimes from the same gang!  Angelenos have gotten used to the Lakers killing the majority of their opponents.  (I'm a baseball fan, and the Dodgers got killed by the Phillies in the NLCS, but that's another story.)  And then there are all the comedians, actors, and musicians who are looking to kill their next performance:  'Dude, The Pixies killed last night at The Palladium.' Recently Silverlake Wine has been killing its selection of cheap wine with a bit bottle age.  Last week I bought a 2004 Mercurey 1er cru for $10.  It wasn't the most amazing bottle of Burgundy I ever had, but it was damned good and it had that thing that named growths have––I guess I should just own up to wine terminology and call it terroir.  Usually you have to pay for esteemed terroir, but sometimes you don't.  Esteemed terroir does not always mean good wine, and it rarely means good value, but once in a while worlds collide, cases fall off a truck, and a buyer for a particular store kills and makes a great purchase.  When this kind of killing is going on I like to stock up. A case in point: this 2001 Saint-Chinian 'Les Sigillaires' from G. Moulinier in the Languedoc.  Apparently 'sigillaires' are plant fossils, and there are a lot of them in Mr. Molinier's vineyard.  The wine probably has a higher percentage of Syrah than is typical for Saint-Chinian, and it is drinking very well; it's spicy, fresh, and deep.  And it only costs $11 at Silverlake, where it was described to me as 'textbook Saint-Chinian.' I must say that I killed the dish that I served with this wine last Friday night: octopus and bratwurst stew.

First you submerge a small octopus in water that's just below a simmer for about half an hour.  Do not boil the octopus, lest it toughen.  While the octopus is not boiling, slowly sauté a sliced bratwurst, onions, carrots, a mildly hot pepper or two and a bay leaf in a medium Dutch oven.  Once these start to caramelize, add a good dose of red wine (I used a cheap tempranillo) and scrape the bottom of the pan.  Now add more wine, and some tomatoes from a can.  Let them reduce, then add some more.  Then add some diced potatoes, a few more sliced bratwursts, some chili sauce, some soy sauce, etc.  Slice the octopus into 1- to 2-inch pieces, head and all, and throw them in the Dutch oven.  You should have poured about 2/3 of the bottle of wine in there by this point.  Keep it at a low simmer for about two hours, until the potatoes are soft and the octopus is no longer tough.  Serve the stew over slices of baguette toasted in olive oil, salt and pepper.  Garnish with a tiny dollop of chili sauce and toasted pepitas. If I'd stuck to the Saint-Chinian and the octopus it would have been a healthy and satisfying night of culinary murder.  But then someone put on Albert Ayler and I filled my wine glass with Jim Beam and things took a turn for the ruthless.

All things Krimko here.

Wednesday Wine: Candidus

(Ed. Note: Wine and Food Editor recently moved to Los Angeles, taking a brief hiatus from Embury. We are delighted to have him back in the mix.) The Santa Anas are blowing here in Los Angeles, where the wine landscape looks a bit different than it did in New York.  I feel somewhat obliged, not to mention aesthetically curious, to drink what is now the 'local' wine.  But proportionally speaking, I meet fewer New World wines that I like.  On the whole they just don't seem to be as dirty as the bottles from the Old World.  Candidus, a North Coast white from Malm Cellars in Healdsburg, is one of the exceptions that proves the rule.  Apparently Mr. Malm distributes the wine himself, selling the wine out of his truck to stores. 

This unknown blend of white grapes is big and burly and dirty, and it's sealed with red wax.  The wax crumbles and gets all over the place, but maybe it adds to the dirtiness I like so much.  At just shy of 15% alcohol, Candidus is a bruiser; the people at Colorado Wine Company, where I first bought it, described it as 'off-dry.'  I don't know that I'd go that far, but it's certainly not your crisp, zingy sipper.  That said, I've found that Candidus goes quite well with a wide range of food.  Plus, it gets you drunk about 25% percent faster than your average nimble muscadet.  Its slightly sweet front allows it to accommodate spicy food––there's a lot of that in Los Angeles.  But it's the intriguingly dirty, almost muddy, character beneath the sweetness that makes this stuff compelling.  $15 at Colorado Wine Company and Silverlake Wine. Stuart Krimko.