July 6, 2009
The bar at Clobar
The Negress is in her cousin’s dining room after having found (and hopefully getting) a good apartment in a great building in North Bethesda. Before coming down here on Sunday, she headed out on a goodbye trip to some of her favorite places in New York. First stop was the Whitney Museum for Claes Oldenburg and Dan Graham. You can’t go to the Whitney without a pumpkin muffin and a omelet at Sarabeth’s so that was required. Then it was a few blocks over to the Met on Fifth Avenue. Took a leisurely stroll through the Francis Bacon centenary exhibit, then headed over to an ’80s images show featuring some of my old faves like David Salle, Robert Longo and early video of Eric Bogosian. Finished up with the Model as Muse fashion exhibit, which was like a nice dessert after it all.
My MOMA membership is inexplicably paid up through through next May, but I wasn’t in the mood. However, the bar at The Modern is always convivial and it’s right next door. So I stopped in for a couple of glasses of Momo Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and a decaf latte. The server recommended a book (Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer) and only charged me for one of the wines. Only in New York.
Before heading to my evening French tutorial, I stopped in at the Time Warner center to visit Clo, a wine bar with a serious gimmick. All the available wines (and one or two that aren’t available any longer) are projected on the bar, which has a motion-sensitive screen you activate by moving your hands and fingers. I had a Malbec and a Rhone and could easily have spent more but wisely stopped. Once you find your wine, the bar babes take your credit card and give you a swipe card with the bar logo. You stick this card in the wall in the bank where your wine is located, and take the glass they’ve given you and it gets filled for you. One of a kind experience but human bartenders can often be more generous methinks.
I also took one of my favorite bike rides along the waterfront in Liberty State Park in Jersey City. I stopped for a few pictures to remember the place. When the breeze blows off the Hudson and everyone is out flying kites, fishing or hanging out, it’s lovely.
Well, goodbye to this and hello North Bethesda. Wine tonight at Chef Geoff’s in downtown DC with an old friend.
New Jersey's view of the ass end of Liberty
Posted in Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged Clo, Malbec, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Sarabeth's, The Modern, Whitney | Leave a Comment »
June 30, 2009
Things are happening and leaving little time for writing them down. The Negress will post later about a truly fabulous Italian wine dinner some months back. So let’s catch up. On June 7, The Negress took the Foreign Service exam, which includes, sections on pop culture, English usage, biographical information and a written essay. Even using the full 30 minutes allotted for the written essay, the Negress was finished with the exam in an hour and 40 minutes. All this on an empty stomach. The Negress gets the official results in about two weeks, but is feeling pretty good about her chances. The rest of the selection process can take as long as a year. To make that easier, the Negress is moving to the DC area is and heading down to pick a place to live next week. Her home is spotless and up for sale. There is now a 5 by 8 storage space somewhere in Hudson County crammed with everything the Realtor made me take out of the house. It’s a very weird feeling, like my home is now some elegant bread and breakfast. The Negress keeps expecting homemade muffins to turn up on a doily in the kitchen some morning. It hasn’t happened yet.
To keep the stress of moving at acceptable levels, the Negress has been breaking out the white wines. We loved a 2008 Crios Torrontes that was crisp and fruit with a soupcon of sweetness. The Negress also felt virtuous quaffing 2008 Step by Step Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. Each bottle boasts that a portion of the sales price goes to health care for the vineyard workers. Oh, and the wine is tasty, with the expected citrus on the palate but a calm citrus, not a spiky, aggressive puckering citrus. We also broke out a 2006 Crauford Sauvignon Blanc we hadn’t had in a while, and it was also delightful, with a nice balance of fruit and acidity. Another surprise was the 2007 Smoking Loon Viognier, which was lush and playful. The Negress sometimes refers to Viognier as the unruly teenager of grapes. Well, the Smoking Loon was more of a teen dressed for prom night, posing quietly for the parents’ camera.
It’s not like we’ve gone off reds entirely. We loved the 2007 Bin 91 Zinfandel, which was pleasingly jammy but delightfully restrained. We also went back to an old value favorite, the 2007 Wolftrap Mourverdre Syrah Viognier blend, which is one of favorite summer reds.
Posted in Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged Bin 91 Zinfandel, Crauford wines, Foreign Service, Smoking Loon Viognier, Step by Step Sauvignon Blanc, Torrontes, Washington DC, Wolftrap Syrah Mourvedre Viognier | Leave a Comment »
June 12, 2009
The babes over at Gonzo Gastronomy probably won’t mind that this post is a bit late but the Negress will bring it to their extremely wandering attention. This is an easy task since the best wine does play melodies in your mouth. Think of the fruit as a soaring melody, a bit of oak as a percussive accent and the balance of acid and tannin as the skilled hand of the orchestra’s conductor. If the melody becomes overpowering, you have cloyingly cheap sentiment. Too much percussion and there’s a headache coming because you can’t hear anything else. If one section of the orchestra sticks out, the conductor is clearly not paying attention.
OK. The writer and the metaphor are exhausted. While the Negress loves contemporary composers and the work of the American Composers Orchestra, recent events have persuaded her that her wine needs to rock. No, we’re not talking a lot of minerals on the palate. We’re talking leather pants, drinking too much, singing loudly and thrusting a lighter (or a cell phone if you’re younger than the Negress) into the air. To celebrate her ongoing obsession with the LA band Airborne Toxic Event (all Don DeLillo fans are permitted to smile here), the Negress cracked a bottle of 2004 Trentadue Petit Sirah. Before that, she been keeping time with docile, agreeable whites, the kind of wines you bring home to Mother. The Trentadue is as mannered as Mikel Jollet’s writing, but you could easily see it drinking too much and calling you too late. The worst part is, you would answer the call, put on clothes, and head over there even though you know better. Petit Sirah is an indie rock kind of wine, shyly staring at the stage, leaving the bravura to emo and metal. But, like the Shins, a good Petit Sirah can change your life.
While the Trentadue is excellent company, we stocked our wine equivalent of our Ipod with some different kinds of tunes. We have some 2005 Bordeaux waiting for the end of the world, and we swore we would not buy more wine since we are moving in a couple of months. But our favorite wine store only had two bottles of this insanely fabulous wine from Montsant made by a girl winemaker, 2007 Can Blau, which reminds us of Elvis Costello and XTC for its spiky smarts. We have the six years of the Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon, which is like having a Metallica boxed set (Metallica is the perfect metaphor for Cali cabs. Big stuff, no?), some Chilean and Argentinian favorites including a Sauvignon Blanc where part of the sales prices goes to health care for the vineyard workers. In my everyday life, I can’t live without Calle 13 (all right, ellos son de Boricua, not South America) so having some everyday wine with a Spanish accent seems righteous.
Other things have happened in the month since the last WBW and we’ll have posted about all of them by Monday.
Posted in Wines of the world in danger | Tagged Airborne Toxic Event, Calle 13, Can Blau. Montsant, Elvis Costello, South American wines, Spring Mountain Winery, Trentadue Petit Sirah, Wine Blogging Wednesday #58 | 2 Comments »
May 13, 2009
Thanks to the proprietors of Good Grape, the Negress is musing about a lasting California wine experience in honor of the late Robert Mondavi, who created more than his share of them. In my case, I was in Los Angeles in January 1998 to compete on a game show in a tournament. I had done well enough on the game show during the regular season to qualify for the tournament and was excited about it all. I ate a kosher meal on the trip out on the plane ( this becomes important later) and made plans to dine with a super-smart friend who has an MD and PhD and speaks fluent Portuguese. He was (maybe still is) tanned to the marrow. We went to dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant not far from the home of the Golden Globes, which is where I was staying. I was on a Merlot kick at the time, in my innocence, and suggested we try a St. Francis Merlot. I think it was a 95 (the year. I didn’t know from ratings back then). Dinner slid down my increasingly sore throat as my friend and I reminisced about school days and he caught me up on his travels (this guy’s family does some of the best vacations). I also pelted him with questions (better than bread) about my newly minted chronic state. So the talk turned to drug protocols and experimental treatments. We did, at various moments during the conversation, stop long enough to remark on how much we liked the wine. We liked its softness, the calm balance of fruit and tannin, the texture like raw silk. For someone who was used to El Gato Negro and some early Texas wine follies, I was impressed. I had just left northern California a year earlier where I made so little money that I couldn’t afford to go to Napa and Sonoma or any other wine region there. But I was living higher on the swine in New Jersey so I made plans to go to this St. Francis on an upcoming trip back to Cali.
Well, the tournament went well. I lost in the semifinals, made $10,000 and then went back to New Jersey with a sore throat and other icky symptoms. The week the tournament aired on television, I was in a hospital in Paterson with a salmonella-filled abscess on my thyroid and a computer as I wrote about it for my former employer (either a strong work ethic or symptoms of madness). The chronic condition and the immunosuppresants I was on to combat it combined with the airline kosher chicken (the only thing I ate that no one else I ate with on the trip ate) to have me end up in isolation at a level one Trauma Center for about 10 days. I welcomed insulin, needles and one more hilarious tip (don’t inject insulin into an orange and then eat the orange. Inject insulin into your body) into my life. I staggered through a music conference in Austin a month later with needles in my purse and a fear of eating anything where I hadn’t interrogated anyone and everyone who had come in contact with all the ingredients. I drakn because I could.
All right, it’s kind of a grim story. But there is a happy ending. The summer of that same year I was at the St. Francis winery, marveling at the beautiful canopy road I had driven to get there, grateful I was off insulin and only had a small scar on my neck. I bought some more Merlot and some of their Cabernet Sauvignon. I ate at Auberge du Soleil, had delicious strawberry freezer jam at the B&B I called home while I was in Napa, and discovered Italian varietals and the Viansa winery on the same trip. Next week I’m doing an Italian wine dinner in Queens. I wouldn’t be going if it hadn’t been for the St. Francis Merlot, the game show money and everything else in between.
Posted in The Chronic life, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged salmonella, St. Francis Merlot, Wine Blogging Wednesday #57 | Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2009
It’s possible to knit manically once you’re onto something. The Negress had picked on a pattern called “Amelia” from the spring 2008 edition of the online magazine Knitty. The item is a seamless cardigan and it’s knitted together with the sleeves being joined to the body raglan style. The yarn in question? Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk Aran. Much of this has been worked during the end of hockey season and the first round of the playoffs. The Devils have been playing in bipolar fashion, crazy with energy and forechecking one minute, lazily moving up and down the ice with no purpose the next. Through it all we knit.
But then, after a last second loss to the Hurricanes that tied the series at 2-2, we looked down at the sweater and realized something was very, very wrong. The simple explanation: I would have to reattach one of my arms to the middle of my back to wear it. One misplaced marker resulted in one misshapen garment. So, while various iterations of HGTV and “Law and Order” played in the background, the ripping commenced. The sleeves were detached, the markers were placed after triple checking the counting. This time we started the raglan shaping as soon as the sleeves were attached.
This relates to the Devils because they lost the game with .2 seconds left on a goal tat got by Martin Brodeur, who was interfered with but also had no defenders around. He smacked his stick against the boards angrily. The Negress felt his frustration too. A pile of squiggly yarn, sore teeth and much use of crochet hook to fetch dropped stitches? I was so there.
Posted in Knitting, New Jersey Devils | Tagged hockey, Knitting, Knitty, New Jersey Devils | Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2009
After many weeks of knitting and sending out resumes, the Negress reconnected with Helio San Miguel and the tastings at the Cervantes Institute. The wines of April 16 were intriguing and unusual and some of them are worth recommending. Pagodel Vicario has a 2008 Blanco de Tempranillo that’s rich with notes of peach and honey. At $30 or so a bottle, it’s not an everyday wine but it’s worth seeking. I also liked the 2005 Gaintus, a wine from Penedes with 100 percent Sumoll grapes. Redolent of black fruit and some oak that calms down after some air has passed through, this wine won’t be easily found here in the States. Of the three sweet wines that were poured, the 2005 Alta Alella Dols Mataron (that’s Mouverdre to most of you) was a restrained, complex wine with a hint of eucalyptus on the nose and flavors that kept opening up over time.
There were two wines that are Musts to Avoid. The Maria Casanovas 2004 Pinot Noir Rose Cava was absolutely ghastly with a lingering bitterness on the finish. If you can find Lloprat do it, but skip this. Pagodel Vicario may have scored with the white Tempranillo, but the 2004 Merlot Dulce was syrupy and medicinal.
Helio said the throughline for this tasting was “Recovery,” “Discovery” and “Innovation.” Some of the wines poured featured obscure varietals from Spain such as Moristel, Prieto Picudo (the grape actually comes to a point), and Bobal.
All of these wines were memorable, even if some for all the wrong reasons. However, after many over extracted, fruit bomb wines that all blend together, this was a bold group of wines that would never be mistaken for the usual suspects.
Posted in Wines of the world in danger | Tagged Cervantes Institute, Pagodel Vicario, Spain, Tempranillo, wine | Leave a Comment »
April 12, 2009
The Negress would like to think she had something to do with Jeff Beck’s induction to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame this past week, but one vote does not make for a wide swath of influence. Beck showed up at the shindig in Cleveland and also did a few Stateside dates in connection with that. The Negress and her pal, the Pet Pasha, caught the show at Foxwoods on April 12. Before the show we revisited Craftsteak and found some great wines. The first of those was Llopart Rose Cava Brut from Penedes. A lovely wine with light fruitiness but enough backbone that it made nice with a bit of filet mignon with horseradish creme fraiche. The real star of the evening was the 2005 Rousanne from Ciel du Cheval Vineyards of McCrea Cellars in Washington. This Rhone-style white features 86 percent Rousanne and 14 percent Viognier. The wine is silken, with bright fruit and a nice heft that doesn’t veer into unctuousness. It paired quite well with the filet mignon (the Pet Pasha gets migraines from red wine). As for dessert, well, who could turn down a Tokaji? Especially the 2005 Cremor rated at 5 puttonyos. Not the Negress. Here is a wine with pear, honeysuckle, apricot and other intriguing flavors that become more present with each sip. The server was kind enough to let us finish the bottle, pouring the last bit for the Pet Pasha, who is coming to understand why the Negress likes dessert wines so much. For Lent, the Negress had kicked meat and sweets to the curb with not fatalities or injuries. It was nice to welcome them back in such a spectacular way.
And, on top of that, Jeff Beck played an astonishingly efficient but jaw-dropping set at the theater at Foxwoods. Beck barely speaks, other than “Thank You,” band member introductions and a dry “I guess you didn’t have anything better to do tonight” aimed at the fervent audience. He played superbly from the opener “Beck’s Bolero” to a rousing take on the theme from “Peter Gunn” that closed the night. Unlike some of his fossilized contemporaries, Beck is hungry for new collaborators and ideas. It was a treat to see Beck, who at 64 can still inspire detailed impure thoughts, playing with skill and wit. There are a few more dates left on this tour and then it’s back to the hot rods for him. Most of the shows are sold out, but you can check the itinerary here.
Posted in The Chronic life, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged Cava Rose, Jeff Beck, McCrea Cellars | Leave a Comment »
April 2, 2009
I’m a big fan of Natalie MacLean and figured I would share her wine and food pairing suggestions with some of the hungry and thirsty people who read this blog. MacLean is Canadian (big plus in my book) and the author of “Red, White and Drunk All Over.” Take a look and let me know what you think.
Posted in Wines of the world in danger | Tagged Natalie MacLean, wine and food pairing | 1 Comment »
April 1, 2009
Kerry Edwards looks like you might have gone to your high school. Her blond hair and freckles make her look younger than her 30 years. But her eponymous winery is all abuzz on wine blogs and in chat rooms everywhere. The winery has devoted its production to American grape varieties. Edwards’ first release (the label is featured here) was made from Concord grapes. No less an authority than Robert Parker ranked the wine with 97 points, calling it “bold and fruity with hints of jamminess that are pleasing and seductive.” Edwards plans future releases of Scuppernong and Catawba but said she felt compelled to launch her winery with the Concord release. “I just couldn’t imagine a more American grape than Concord,” Edwards said. “I know people were skeptical you could make wine associated with jelly and grape juice, but it was my mission to do this.”
Purple America
Edwards also felt that the wine’s deep purple was symbolic of the country’s divisions being healed. “I know there are two Americas — the red and the blue,” says Edwards, echoing the former Senator from North Carolina whom she has denied is her father. “Purple wine brings us all together.”
Because Edwards expected resistance from the wine industry, she took the precaution of bringing the Negress to the winery blindfolded using a circuitous route so her location would remain secret. “You can’t be too careful,” Edwards says. “I come from a family who made moonshine. Given the inequity of the wine laws in this country, you must be cautious when you’re being defiant.”
Kerry Edwards 2007 Concord wine
New mode of distribution
Because of the convolutions of state laws regarding direct shipping from wineries, Edwards employs a novel distribution technique. ‘There may be two Americas, but both of them love ice cream,” Edwards says. “I’ve signed agreements with Mister Softee and Good Humor to bring the wine to the people. While the kids are buying ice cream, Mom and Dad can pick up a bottle of wine. With warm weather coming, we are very optimistic.”
She is also fulfilling some orders by having employees drive the wine to customers as their travel plans permit. “There’s no law against bringing wine to a friend as a favor,” Edwards says. “If that friend gives you a check for your trouble, it’s only fair.” Employees who accept gratuities are asked to donate 10 percent of the amount to the winery.
“Wine is like a religion to me, so having the employees tithe makes perfect sense,” Edwards said. “If you believe in something, you put your money where your beliefs are.”
Edwards’ Scuppernong and Catawba releases will be available on Feb. 29, 2010. Let the countdown begin.
Posted in Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged Concord, Edwards, Kerry, Scuppernong | 1 Comment »
March 30, 2009
Watch this blog for a major announcement on Wednesday of a new winery with an interesting pedigree. To find out about other such mischief, click on the image below:
Wine bloggers unite for a good cause
Posted in Wines of the world in danger | Tagged Dregs Report | Leave a Comment »
