A couple days ago, on one of the pages of Facebook that I belong to; there was a mention of Greektown and the casino. I typed a message that I preferred Greektown in the old days before it became commercial. The reference made me think back to my high school days and the joys that old Greektown held for me. Even before I got there, Greektown was part of the Detroit lore. The old Grecian Gardens restaurant and the police raid on the premises, just a block or two from Old Precinct Number One of the Detroit Police Department. There were restaurants like the Laikon, Pegasus and the New Hellas. There was a bakery, where for years my family would order paklava for the holidays at Stemma Confectionary.
I remember tagging along with some of the men, more contemparies of my Father, then of my age. They would take me out for dinner, drinks and belly dancers. It was such heady days, when the dancers would throw their veil over my head and dance for me. It was all clean and pure fun, but exciting non-the-less.
On a different note, that made an indelible mark on me, one night after hours in Sero’s Coffee Shop. I was sitting with some of the men, and an old black man came into the shop in ragged clothes, unshaven and reeking of cheap alcohol. He came to our table, looked at me and said “hello” in Greek, to which in my laidback attitude of the moment, I replied “fine” back in Greek. That was about the extent of my knowledge of the Greek language. The man looked at me at started to speak in fluent Greek and wanted to have a conversation. I replied in English that I was not Greek and could not speak the language. I shall never forget the next couple of exchanges we had. He looked me right in the eye, and said “if yous be here, now, yous must be Greek.” I replied “no,” and then he said “what yous be, if yous be here.” I answered that I was Armenian, and he looked at me and mumbled “Harmenian, Harmenian.” All of a sudden he counted from one to ten in Armenian, then chanted the Armenian alphabet, and then began talking to me in the Armenian language. I was amazed and at a loss for words. Then out of the blue the manager of the shop came and escorted the old man out of the building. The manager came back to our table and asked if there were any problems. I said no, but asked almost rhetorically how an old drunk black man could talk to me in both Greek and Armenian. The manager just should his head and said that the man had once been a professor of languages, but that alcohol had ruined his life. I still get a bit of a shiver when I relive that moment.
We are here though to talk of wine. I looked everywhere to find some wine labels that I thought for sure that I had. They were not in my scrap book, nor in my loose files, nor could I even find them by removing bottles out of my rack, looking at the labels that are the wall paper in my cellar. I had to go online to get the labels, and I feel that I am cheating you, but I have drank many of these wines that I am going to discuss. That is why some of my labels that I show are not pristine, but I do want to show that I have drunk the wine, and I feel that it is my best proof.
Even back in the days of Homer, wine was written about, and there are three wines that are usually encountered to be paired with Greek cuisine. The first is Retsina, a white wine that has been flavored with pine resin during fermentation. Some people are put off by the nose and taste; some have even thought that it was turpentine. Once you get over the initial taste, you find this oily wine tends to work well with a lot of the dishes. There is red (rose) version of this called Kokinelli. The next wine is Roditis a dry red wine, and sometimes found as a rose. This wine has more body and more of a true wine taste then Retsina. Depending on the winery you may find this wine as Demestica, and even a white version called Hymettus. Finally there is a wine called Mavrodaphne, which may be the most famous of the Greek wines, but it is more of a dessert wine, and does not pair well with dinner.
