A Recent Wedding

Posted on November 17, 2016 by thewineraconteur

My cousin’s son just got married and it was quite the event. His Best Man called him a “walking encyclopedia” and I think that probably is as good of a description as there could be. He attended the Honors College at the University of Michigan, did a private study in China to learn the language, graduated as an attorney from Harvard School of Law, then was hired by a firm in Manhattan and now resides on Long Island. That is quite a list of accomplishments for one so young and his new Bride also has a litany of similar accomplishments.

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The wedding was held at St. Hugo’s of the Hills, a very stately and celebrated church. The wedding was held at the original church which is now called the Chapel and it is one of those architectural gems that I enjoy, because it is old school in design. While it is not a grand cathedral, it is still configured so that the main room is in the shape of a cross and not one large room, that is the preferred modern concept for houses of worship. The pipe organ was magnificent and the singing abilities of both the Monsignor and the soloist were, as we used to say, worth the price of admission. The weather obliged and it was wonderful to see the church full of everyone in their finery, as the couple wanted a “Black Tie” wedding. After the wedding, there were formal pictures taken of both sides of the family and the photographer worked to get all of our side to fit into one picture.

MI DAC MB
After the wedding, everyone had to drive towards the reception, which was being held at the Detroit Athletic Club in Downtown Detroit. The DAC is a seven-story edifice that is now located in the center of all that is on the upswing of what is happening in the City of Detroit. The reception began in two rooms of the main floor for a cocktail hour. The first room was actually for everyone to mingle and meet, and the second room showcased the wedding cake and a fully stocked bar. The waiters were working overtime to make sure that everyone had their fill of all the assorted hot and cold appetizers and there were so many that I could not keep track, but the Jumbo Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce garnered the most raves. My Bride started out with a “Dirty Martini” while I took advantage of having one of my favorites a “Vermouth Cocktail.” We then switched over to wine and in the reception area they were serving three different wines from Les Vignobles Foncalieu, their Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Les Vignobles Foncalieu Reserve Saint Marc Chardonnay 2014 is from the IGP Pays d’Oc which is roughly the entire southern part of France, known as Languedoc-Roussillon except for the areas that actually have an Appellation Controlee. The original terminology was Vin de Pays d’Oc, but to accommodate the European Union they know use IGP as the geographic protection, which really works out, because they can label the wines by the grape and is a great marketing tool in today’s approach to wine. The wine is not spectacular, but it delivers to me what a Chardonnay should taste like, especially compared to many wines that I have had that are Chardonnay in name only.

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Some New York Wines

Posted on November 15, 2016 by thewineraconteur

I can’t believe that I have not really had any wines from New York state except the one time that I had some Great Western Extra Dry New York State Champagne. In terms of production New York is the third largest state in the production of wine and they started wine production in the Seventeenth Century. In fact, Cornell University of Ithaca, New York is famed for their Viticulture and Enology department and they are known for their creation of hybrid grapes like Chardonel, Traminette and Cayuga. Some friends of ours took a vacation and roamed around the Finger Lakes region of New York in pursuit of scenery, dining, shopping and wine. I mentioned that if they found any interesting wines to pick me up a couple of bottles.

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The first bottle that I will discuss is the Shaw Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2008. If you are used to having wines from the West Coast or from the Continent, the idea of Cabernet Sauvignon from the colder climates like New York, seem strange, but since I am from Michigan and have had wines of this nature from here, Ohio and Ontario, Canada, I know that it can be done quite successfully. This particular Finger Lakes wine is aged in oak for four years before it is bottled and I am sure that when I open it, it will show the winemakers craft. As I did some research because I am blissfully unaware of wine making in the State of New York, I discovered that the major grapes used there are Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc, but one can also find Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and an Easter European grape Rkatsiteli, not to mention the American hybrids Niagara, Cayuga and Vidal.

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The other bottle that I will mention is Manitou 5 Grape Blend 2013 from Belhurst Estate Winery which pays homage to the five lakes of the region and the five tribes of the Iroquois Nation and of course five different grapes in this particular wine. This wine is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot. The fruit was harvested in 2008 and spent three years in oak and two years in the bottle, but it carries a vintage date of 2013. With all of the reference to the Finger Lakes, this wine actually carries a New York appellation, so I just ponder about the rules, but it is beyond my knowledge. All I know is that I look forward to trying these wines in the future and then I can say that I have had wines from seven states out of the fifty, and I guess I have to up my game.

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Dinner at Home

Posted on November 13, 2016 by thewineraconteur

I am quite not sure, how there are two distinct cooking methods at my house, but I am always amazed. When I cook, there are multiple sets of dishes that are used just in the prepping of the food and it is an all-day affair. I work up a sweat to try to achieve a dinner, for the most part successfully, but like I say it is a day in the kitchen. My Bride on the other hand creates dishes that are wonderful and totally efficient.

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The other day, she decided that she was going to make us some lamb stew. I am very partial to stews, especially in the fall and winter months, but I am just amazed at the speed that she accomplishes her goal. I think I would still be dicing and cubing the meats and vegetables while her meal is already half-way done. The other thing that always surprises me, is that she does it all with one pot and just a carving board, which would never work out for me. I guess that I just keep chopping and putting everything in separate bowls to make sure that I like the mix and balance before I start. Maybe time just slows down for me when I get in the kitchen. One great thing about stew, is that there is never any concern about plating the dish for presentation, it is pure and simply comfort food.

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I went down into the cellar to look for something different to try with the stew. Lamb tends to be a showy meat when it is roasted or made into kebabs. I find that the taste becomes more delicate when it is in a stew, so I was looking for something a bit more mellow and not something that we would normally have at home. I went and looked at some of the splits or half-bottles that we have accumulated over the years and found a wine that I thought should be ready for drinking, and hopefully I didn’t keep it too long. I opened up a bottle of Alexander Valley Vineyards Wetzel Family Estate Merlot 1997 from the Alexander Valley in Sonoma County. I like a good Merlot and I enjoy how it works so well with red meats. Now I sometimes forget about the splits that we have and I sometimes worry that they age quicker, but the cork gave me a battle and it came out totally intact with no crumbling at all. Immediately I could smell the Merlot perfume and I looked at the bottle and notice that there was a decent patch of sediment near the neck of the bottle, because the bottle has been resting in the same location probably since we purchased it, as there was a time when we were buying a lot more splits, but they do not seem as easy to find anymore. I didn’t bother decanting the wine, but just poured it directly into the glasses and watched to see if I saw any sediment and towards the end of the third glass I saw a little bit, so I stopped. I was a little concerned, because the wine had a bit of brown in the color, but the taste was excellent, the tannins and the fruit both had softened and it was a pleasure to drink this wine and it was so mellow with the stew.

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Jacobson’s

Posted on November 11, 2016 by thewineraconteur

As I was repacking one of the closets in the basement, there was a hat box and not mine from Jacobson’s. Jacobson’s if you weren’t aware of the chain was what one would call a “Carriage” store, meaning that they catered to a better clientele, not that they were that expensive, but they had a cachet that appealed to plenty of people. I was in the retail industry all of my life and there was an old adage “in three generations shirt sleeve to shirt sleeve.” What that meant was what the first two generations worked so hard to achieve, the third generation allowed it to fall away. I worked in a store that was in the middle of two Jacobson’s stores and they made for great competition.


Jacobson’s was a class act in their day and I remember getting those beautiful Rothschild coats for my favorite daughter when she was just a little girl. I didn’t need to shop there for men’s clothes, but I was probably there at least once a day and sometimes twice a day and that was to eat. They had a wonderful restaurant on the second floor and it was just perfect. It was always clean and the staff in the restaurant was just as attentive as the sales staff at the registers. I think that the restaurant was underwritten by the store to make the meals great bargains as a way to keep the customers in the store longer. There was always a fixed menu and a couple of specials for lunch and two specials for the two evenings that they stayed open late. It sure beat brown bagging lunch and when they had Braised Short Ribs as a special, I considered it a “Red Letter Day.”

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Some of the other Jacobson’s stores sold wine, but the one in Dearborn did not, and perhaps it was the politics of getting the license, which was an impossibility in the old days, as a liquor license carried a very hefty surcharge for anyone that wanted to secure it. For a short period of time, there was wine in the restaurant, they had about six different bottles to choose from; and the rumor was that the license was a resort license that was transferred from another part of the state, and like I say, it was only for a short time. One of the wines that I would enjoy during dinner in that short period was Chateau Roubaud. This particular wine from France carried the VDQS stamp, which stood for Wine Delimited of Superior Quality or a better “table wine” back in the day. The winery was established in 1900 in the southern most region of the Rhone and in 1950 they were one of a few wineries that were allowed to carry the Costieres du Gard on the label, which eventually changed to the Appellation Controlee of Costieres de Nimes. The winery grows Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Cinsault, Mourvedre, Roussanne, Clairette and Ugni Blanc and today the wine must be at least sixty percent of a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre. It was a most pleasant of wines and I have been partial to Rhone wines almost from the beginning of my wine appreciation days. Even after they lost the ability to sell wines in the restaurant I continued dining there until the end of their days. I guess that the current generation could not maintain the vision that they were given.

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Shamrocks

Posted on November 9, 2016 by thewineraconteur

I have never been to any of my high school reunions, only because my graduating class was huge, I mean like university size. I only basically knew my homeroom class from my curriculum, my school was immense as it was one entire city block in size and nine stories tall, and we were all from different parts of the city. I recently went to a high school reunion as a guest and this class was about thirteen hundred in size, but there were only about one hundred of the alumni that attended this reunion. I will not give the date of the class, but I went with my Bride and outside of the eight people at our table, I knew no one else and my Bride did not know that many more that were there. The funny thing is that one of her sisters also was attending her reunion for the same school, albeit a different year at another location, on that same night, so there were Shamrocks celebrating at another place as well.

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The reunion was held at De Carlo’s a catering hall within the general area of where she had grown up, though it was far enough away from where we now live, that we decided to get a hotel room for the evening. The reunion also had a disc-jockey who volunteered his services as he was also an alumnus of the class. The disc-jockey played the music of that year and even included a countdown of the top twenty songs of that year. Unfortunately, there was another party in the next room over and they played music their music so loud that the music in our room was almost drowned out, except when one was on the dance floor. There was a video of classmates that are no longer here and they had several drawings and the funny thing is that both my Bride and I had winning tickets. There was a dinner catered by the hall that evening and they had an open bar. The food was the standard array that catering halls live by and it was set up as a buffet in a side room to the main hall. There were several salads with assorted dressings, a couple of different vegetables and three entrée servings of chicken, pork chops and roast beef. After dinner, a sweet table was set up for dessert and coffee.

The bar area was one of the busiest spots that evening and the bartender seemed to keep everyone happy. We were in an upstairs hall of the complex and it was quite warm and it seemed to get even warmer after people started dancing. On occasions like this I tend to order white wine, because it is chilled and if there is no complexity to the wine the chill tends to mask it and make it more palatable, and it works no matter what I decided to have from the buffet line. My Bride and I were having Vista Point Vineyards Chardonnay NV from California and I am sure that it must be a popular winery for catering halls as it is probably a good profit enhancer. The wine had a slightly off taste at first, that seemed to disappear while having dinner and after dinner I just got acclimated to the taste and it was chilled. We attended not for the culinary or wine aspects of the evening, so all was good. By the way I discovered that the number two and number one songs of that year were:” Maggie May” and “Jeremiah Was a Bull Frog,” but that evening Jeremiah forgot to bring his very fine wine.

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“What a Great Job We Have Lucky!”

Posted on November 7, 2016 by thewineraconteur

That was a recent tweet that myself and many other bloggers received a couple of days ago on Twitter. Writing about wines and dinners may sound glamorous, or it may sound like boasting, but you have to remember that some of the memories go back to the late Sixties and not since I began having fun recording the days gone by. This is more of a self-exploration, because that tweet made me ponder my writing, especially my conceit of being at a table with another person having a glass of wine and chatting about that moment that I am thinking about. What I am doing on Twitter is a total mystery to me still, but I think that I am getting the hang of it. After I liked the original post and then retweeted it, the subject of the post kind of haunted me. I write a wine blog, but I am not a professional in the wine industry in any sort of capacity, and believe me when I tell you that my blog is not a job. I have no designations, I am not a sommelier, or even thinking of becoming one, hell in my day they were called wine stewards, if they even had a title back then. I write not to dazzle or to say “look at me,” rather I write in hopes that someone that has an interest in wine, might take that next step and go out beyond their comfort zone, as God knows we all can get cocooned into certain areas.

Ch Pichon Lalande 1964
All of the wine that I have written about, is from the “School of Hard Knocks” as they would say from my old neighborhood. The majority of my “knowledge” was from self-studies and from having the chance to have purchased some great wines over the last four decades or so. That is not to say that I haven’t had some great mentors and I tend to be an avid reader for all of my avocations. I could not even have made a great wine snob, because I started when I was a real student and not just a student of wine. You will have to pardon me for the fact that I do not write about wines with all of the descriptive words that most people use today, as even my mentors back then, did not use such words. We used “this is a great wine” or “this is a nice table wine.” When I was first taught how to taste wine, there was never even any mention of “spitting.” Perhaps this was because my mentors all had survived the Great Depression and that probably seemed like a wasteful extravagance to them.

Ch Ducru-Beaucaillou 1970
I have never solicited wine or received wine for reviews. Of course, the way I write about wine, I may never have to worry about that. I grew up with wine in a very eclectic way and I have drunk wines that most people might not even admit to have tried, to wines that I am still amazed that I have had the good fortune to have tried as well. I always try to look at the bright side of wines, though there are some that really don’t appeal to me, but maybe growing up like I did, the thought of leaving a partially filled glass of wine is anathema to me. In fact, there was only one time during a tasting that I did not finish some of my tastings, because I think the special tasting-tour that we paid for at one winery, we ended up tasting every bottle of wine that they produced and I really only paid for the special tasting to try their top of the line, that we bought, and it was worth it. I think of myself as a rank-amateur, but I have had some spectacular wines over the years and then I have written about wines that could make some bloggers shudder. I have had the chance to enjoy two of the greatest vintages from the last century, but I have never had the stellar 1945. So, for every 1921 Richebourg there have been hundreds of wines that I have recalled that are from catering halls and the corner market. With the upward spiraling prices of wines, I can guarantee that some of the wines on my bucket list will probably never be fulfilled, because they are now too dear and I am preparing to eventually retire, but there is still plenty of wine that is cellared and still many restaurants to try. So, if this is my fun job, I would say that I am very lucky indeed.

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Success (?)

Posted on November 5, 2016 by thewineraconteur

I think that I have found a way to remove the stubborn labels that refuse to leave a wine bottle. I know it sounds silly, but I like to save the labels to look back on, and they are great for writing articles about, as I often do. I was out in the garage cleaning, and discarding stuff; getting ready for the winter and I found a tool, that I thought might be beneficial. The tool was a Black & Decker High Speed Paint Stripper which is a heat gun with a couple of scraping attachments. As I lamented a few articles ago, I have a couple of cartons of empty bottles with the labels that refuse to budge, using the most popular techniques.

I put the push scraper attachment onto the heat gun and fired it up. I decided to try the highest setting and it was actually browning the paper label as it was being removed. I ceased and let the tool cool down a bit, as well as the bottle. I went to the lowest setting and I thought I was doing good, but I guess I was not and must have been impatient, as the first label ripped half way through, but I eventually got the second part off as well and then I taped the two parts together, and for my scrap book it will be fine. The first bottle that I tried was Chateau du Pavillon 2000 from Saint-Croix-du-Mont.

If you try using this tool, you will discover that it is a lot more work, then just heating up the label and peeling off the label. I have broken up concrete that was less straining. I then decided that perhaps I could combine two techniques together to see if that would facilitate the removal. So, I put a bottle into the oven at two-hundred-fifty degrees for ten minutes, hoping that it would at least soften up the glue some, as this label had defied boiling water from the outside and from the inside, as well as just the baking. After letting it bake, I then applied the heat gun and slowly got a toe-hold and just kept working back and forth. I now have a label from Clos Du Bois Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 from Alexander Valley. Every time and every label from this winery has ended up a total mess and flung into the trash can. I think that I have found a potential cure for the permanent label adhesive, but I will keep working on it, as you noticed, I started off with smaller labels and more affordable wines. The Opus One bottles have huge labels, and after doing two bottles, my right hand was actually sore; so, I shall have to pace myself. I guess it is time for a glass of wine.

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My Sneaky Trick

Posted on November 3, 2016 by thewineraconteur

My sneaky trick has nothing to do with politics, so you can breathe a sigh of relief. It is just something I do when we are traveling and staying at hotels. If one is in the wine country, this isn’t necessary to do, but everywhere else it is. I didn’t take my wine carrier with us, as I wasn’t sure how much time we would be able to enjoy a glass of wine in the room and I didn’t take a bottle of wine either, since the laws in Michigan about wine have changed. In the old days, if you had ordered a bottle of wine with dinner, you had to finish the bottle or leave it, and as you know I like to save the labels, and you could always take an empty bottle home with you. Nowadays in Michigan, if you don’t finish your bottle of wine, you can have your server recork the bottle and take the unfinished bottle with you. This is much better as you don’t have to worry about drinking too much. That and I always have a corkscrew in my grooming bag.

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I always like to stop and take a look at what is being offered in the little sundry shop that most hotels have these days, as sometimes I might want some Lifesavers or in case I forgot to pack something. I also take a look to see if there is any wine being sold to take back to the room. The first one that I stayed at, did not have any wine glasses and the only wine to be purchased was small individual drink size bottles of Sutter Home, so I passed.

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I then crossed the lobby and walked into the bar and asked if I could take a couple of glasses of wine up to my room and they said “yes.” So I ordered a couple of glasses of wine, and that is how I usually have wine glasses in the room for later, if we decide to have some wine before retiring for the night. I usually get a couple of easy drinking wines this way and this last time was no different. The first wine was Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay 2014. This California wine is found almost everywhere and it is always a safe wine to order. By the magic of the winemaker and grapes purchased across the entire length of the state, they can produce a wine that is rather consistent year after year with no surprises, and the odds are that the bottle of wine in the bar is always either brand new or just recently opened, because it is that popular. The second glass of wine was one that I have had often in several different vintages and it has also proven to be very safe. Caposaldo Pinot Grigio delle Venezie IGT 2015 is a Pinot Grigio grown in an area where it is not native to in Italy, hence the IGT designation. The Veneto area is known for Valpolicella, Amarone, Soave and Prosecco; so, anything else can either be a table wine or an IGT. So, there is my little trick to make sure that I have some wine glasses in the room and I can start the afternoon off with a wine that will not run afoul of whatever wine is chosen later to go with dinner.

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Butch’s Dry Dock

Posted on November 1, 2016 by thewineraconteur

After spending the day exploring and shopping in the downtown district of Holland, we were getting ready to have our dinner and celebrate the last night of our anniversary weekend. When I called to make the reservation, the young lady asked if there was an occasion and if we had been there before, and after answering her queries she informed me that they would give us an honored table. We were seated right in front at the window looking at the main street that we had spent all day shopping on and there was a handwritten message on our table saying Happy Anniversary that could even been seen by the people on the street. I was really looking forward to dinner at Butch’s as they are one of about eight hundred restaurants in the country that hold the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence. The restaurant carries about eight hundred different wines in stock.

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Butch’s Dry Dock has a very tight and concise menu that doesn’t ramble for pages, and there were a couple of special dishes for the evening. We started off by sharing a plate of Brussel Sprouts prepared with Kimchi and house made bacon. We each had the Local Garden Salad. My Bride had one of the specials of the evening Sirloin Tips in a rich sauce served on a bed of pasta, and I had thought of ordering it, but she had chosen it first. I had their classic entrée Filet au Poivre with Chippewa potatoes, turnips, carrots and green beans. As we were sharing tastings from each other’s plates we decided that we had made a wise choice for dinner. The restaurant offered us a complimentary dessert for the occasion, but we chose to share one order of Crème Brulee and thanked them for the kind gesture.

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Butch’s Dry Dock besides being a restaurant was also a wine retailer. The actual wine list for the restaurant was only a couple of dozen bottles and most of them were suggested as wine pairings for different dishes. The eight hundred different wines were either in racks or refrigerator cases and one could look at all the wines and choose. The selection was heavy into French and California wines, but there were also other wines from the Continent and some excellent Michigan wine selections as well. Since all of the wines were offered at retail, there was a ten-dollar corkage fee and I thought that was fair, since the wines were not marked up at the usual restaurant pricing. As I wandered the racks, I kept returning to the area where the Claret wines were and I decided on Chateau Pedesclaux Pauillac 2011. I mean one does not often find wines from the Pauillac and this wine was rated as a Cinquieme Grand Cru Classe from the 1855 rating that for the most part has still held up very well, and what it means is that it was a Fifth Growth. Chateau Pedesclaux was established in 1810 and has one hundred twenty acres and a very modern winery structure. The winery grows Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. They also have a second wine that is produced that is predominately Merlot called Fleur de Pedesclaux. The wine that we had was aged for twelve months in mostly new French Oak before bottling. Of all the wines of the Medoc, I seem to gravitate the most to Pauillac and Margaux and the wine did not disappoint. If and when we get back to Holland, I would make a point of dining here again.

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A Day in Holland

Posted on October 30, 2016 by thewineraconteur

What a wonderful way to spend the day. The downtown district of Holland was so interesting, not only for the mixture of shops and restaurants, but also so idyllic. The downtown district had pulled up all the sidewalks and had it replaced with paver stones, but before they laid the stones, the entire district had a system installed whereas the entire area has no snow or shoveling which makes it great for visitors. There were also little areas of statuary to accentuate the small-town flavor and make one feel at home. Most of the time I stayed on the sidewalk, people watching and appreciating the architecture and facades of the buildings while my Bride shopped. I think her shopping that day may have doubled the cost of our long weekend, but besides getting herself some new clothes, she also bought future birthday presents as well as some additional Christmas shopping. With all of the walking, we decided to have a quick bit for lunch, so as not to ruin our dinner plans.

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We started looking at the menus of some of the restaurants up and down the street, in hopes of finding some good wine as well. I mean why not, we were relaxing and had no time table to observe, other than our dinner reservation. We settled on a quaint spot and walked into their coffee and pastry shop and had to walk around to get a table for lunch. AlpenRose has been in Holland for twenty-five years at least and looking at the menu it seemed more Austro-Hungarian instead of Dutch, but that was fine. We both wanted to get a bowl of soup just to hold us until dinner and as I looked at the menu, if we ever get back to Holland, I think that I would like to have dinner there. Their French Onion soup was a blend of seven different onions, beef consommé, Swiss cheese, crouton and topped with haystack onions.

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The wine list which was not huge was well thought out and had some fine wines and none of them were on the list just for pretense, even the wines that were sold by the glass. My Bride had Gouguenheim Valle Escondido Tupungato Malbec Reserva 2012. Tupungato is a sub region of Uco Valley, the premier wine district of Argentina and where Malbec reigns. The winery was started in 2002 as the owners bought an old winery and brought it back to life. The Reserva is aged for eight months in French oak, whereas the basic wine is only aged for four months. For a new wine, this Malbec was very easy to drink and delivered what one would expect from that grape. I on the other hand ordered an old friend that I seldom see any more, so I was excited to try it, as we had bought a lot of their wines when we visited the winery. The St. Supery Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 was excellent. This wine was entirely made from their own vineyards in Napa Valley utilizing grapes from their Dollarhide Estate Vineyard and their Rutherford Estate Vineyard. While the wine was basically Cabernet Sauvignon it was blended with a small amount of Petite Verdot and Malbec. St. Supery was established in 1989 and we have fond memories of going there during harvest. This particular wine was aged for eighteen months in French Oak before bottling and it was wonderful. In fact, there was a table of women next to us that were ordering wine and a couple of them were thinking red, so I could not help, but interject and suggest the wine that I was drinking and when they tasted it, they thanked me for the suggestion. Then we were off for more shopping until dinner.

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