Joullian Cabernet Sauvignon

Posted on June 12, 2020 by thewineraconteur

As I was unpacking our latest wine club shipment from “A Taste of Monterey,” I am noticing some changes.  I think that the extended lockdown is still officially on for a couple of more days, but people are going back to work, as I can see more traffic in my subdivision.  The market is still erratic and that is alright, it has been that way for the many years that I have watched it.  Years ago, I always determined how business would be, from the market, if it was up, people were more willing to spend and if it was down, they were a bit hesitant, even though deep down they knew it was only on paper, unless they sold it.  I called my barber to make an appointment, I am probably one of the few people that have their barber’s personal phone number, but that is another story for another time.  We are talking about booking some trips and some reservations; and the morning paper was back to being heavily political.

This is the fourth bottle of wine that we have received from Joullian Vineyards, Ltd.  over the years, we have had two different Chardonnay wines and a Syrah.  Joullian Vineyards was created by the Joullian and Sias families of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma with the goal of producing world class estate crafted wines and early on engage Ridge Watson for his expertise.   In 1982 they purchased six-hundred-fifty-five acres of hillside benchland at an elevation of 1400 feet in the heart of the Carmel Valley.  After contouring and terracing the land they planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, as well as the first to plant Zinfandel in the valley.  Then they planted various clones of Chardonnay and the winery was completed in 1991. In 2015, Joullian Vineyards, Ltd. was acquired by the Hammler Wine Corporation and are committed to maintaining the brand.  In 2017, Ridge Watson retired after working at the vineyard for thirty-five years.

The Joullian Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Carmel Valley 2015 was the earliest ripening in two decades, brought on by a three-year drought.  The heat was so intense that they actually hand harvested the fruit twice with a ten-day interval to pick the sunny and shaded fruit and they claim the extra labor was required and appreciated.  The wine is a blend of eighty-four percent Cabernet Sauvignon, thirteen percent Merlot and three percent Cabernet Franc.  The wine was aged for nineteen months in French Oak, of which fifteen percent was new.  They made a little over thirteen-hundred cases with an additional seventeen cases of magnums and they claim that there is an aging potential of eight to ten years.  The tasting notes supplied promises an inky, dark garnet wine with a nose of blackberry, cassis, anise and cedar.  The taste follows those descriptors and has a nice finish of tannins, truffles, terroir and cedar.  The Wine Enthusiast awarded this wine with 89 points.  I think that this wine will do well with some additional cellaring.  

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Galante Petite Sirah

Posted on June 10, 2020 by thewineraconteur

The world is shifting again, I got a wine shipment from A Taste of Monterey and it is Day 84 of the lockdown.  I haven’t booked my appointment for a haircut, and even though they are still illegal, the Supreme Court of Michigan sided with a barber who just wanted to eat and save his business and home.  So, I guess the issue is rather moot, if one barber can work, I guess the others can as well, including the hairdressers.  Restaurants and bars can open with new regulations and are only allowed to do half of their business.  Of course, since our hypocrite governor was seen and photographed in the newspapers not practicing Social Distancing, will the restaurants and bars use that as ammunition to get their businesses back running as normal; or does the virus from China recognize that a governor is safe and immune from the disease.  The main thing is that potentially life is getting better and I can write about some new wine. 

The first bottle I pulled out of the carton was selected because it was a short and squat bottle as opposed to the classic European style bottles that one normally associates with wine.  It was a bottle of Galante Vineyards Petite Sirah Olive Hill Carmel Valley Estate Bottled 2017.  The Galante family has a long personal history in the Monterey County of California.  Jack Galante’s great grandfather, James Frank Devendorf, was the founder of Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1900, and later built the Pine Inn and the Highlands Inn (which we have enjoyed a couple of times).  In 1969, Jack’s parents purchased a seven-hundred-acre cattle ranch in what was then rustic Carmel Valley.  In 1983, the Galante family began growing premium wine grapes on the property, specializing in Cabernet Sauvignon.  In 1994, Jack Galante built a winery and used his grapes to produce his estate bottled wines.

While Galante Vineyards are known for their Cabernet Sauvignon, they also have limited estate grown Malbec, Petite Sirah, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and a few more, as well as some blended wines.  This particular wine, the fruit is hand harvested from two different elevations in the same vineyard.  One section is at one-hundred feet in elevation and the other vines are at eighteen-hundred feet in elevation, and hence the fruit is growing in different soils and at different temperatures for the season.  They are suggesting an aging potential of six to eight years.  They describe the wine as having a nose evoking violets and roses, and flavors of bright cherry and sweet vanilla with a light tannic backbone. It sounds interesting and it is a varietal that is usually found blending with others.  I venture to say that this wine may have a short stay in the cellar, just because of its uniqueness. 

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Street Somm

Posted on June 8, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“Bread…that this house may never know hunger.

Salt…that life may always have flavor.

And wine…that joy and prosperity may reign forever.”

While everything is still waiting for the dust to settle and things start to loosen up in the gulag, I got a message on one of my Social Media sites asking about my wine cellar.  They were getting ready to buy a new home in Las Vegas and thought I could be of some assistance.  I gave them my phone number and, in a few minutes, I was deep in a wonderful conversation with some one that prior, I only had a typical Social Media association with. I guess that it was presumed that I live in Vegas, because I periodically write about it, but I have memories of there for years, plus two of our children and five of grandchildren live there.  We were discussing restaurants and locations and of course wine shops.  He was going to convert a spare bedroom into a wine cellar to hold about four thousand bottles and I said that it made perfect sense to me, because there are no basements in Las Vegas, the city is built in a dessert, so it would be cost prohibitive to try to dig a cellar there. 

He or his wife must have remembered that I have wrote that I had built my own cellar, in a vacant corner of my basement.  I constructed it, using two by four lumber, of course I am old school.  The two outside walls have no insulation and the inside walls and the ceiling and the joists of the main floor of the house are packed with insulation.  I then used basic plywood as paneling for the room, because I then applied all the wooden wine crates that I had saved over the years, I am a pack-rat, by taking the crates apart and then using them as the finished paneling.  When I finally ran out of wine crates, any other walls that were barren were “wallpapered” with all of the labels that I had removed from bottles, knowing deep in the back of my brain that I was going to do this project one day.  I then found a company that advertised in the back pages of the Wine Spectator magazine.  I contacted them, gave them the size specs of the finished room and they made and delivered to me a huge collection of pine framing that was precut and ready to be assembled like “Tinker-Toys” for an adult.  I also put a floor down, before the racks were assembled and for extra security, I also anchored some of the framework to the two by four construction. 

It was a labor of love, I guess, I only wish that I had taken photos along the way.  I told him how I had built the cellar to hold nine-hundred bottles, but by buying some other smaller racks, usually at charity events, I can now cram about fifteen-hundred bottles in there.  We also discussed about how pretty the wine cellars look that are built under staircases, but I told him that when I was a kid, just learning, I was always told not to ever build a cellar under stairs, because the vibrations could ruin fine wines.  I also said that because of how I built my cellar, I didn’t require any additional cooling system, as the cellar is always about fifty-five degrees.  He was going to have installed one those individual room heat-pumps for that room only and rely on the ambient house temperature of the other rooms to keep it at a steady temperature. Since it is wild temperature fluctuations that can cause problems for the wines. 

During the conversation, we were discussing wines and the old days before a bottle of wine could be the price of a used car.   We were discussing wine tastings and events and even suggested that perhaps we could do a tasting the next time that I get to Vegas.  I told him that I am not a Sommelier and that I have no accreditations.  He joked and said he was the same way, and that his friends out in Vegas, and many of them are Sommeliers, have conferred upon him the title of Street Somm, and I like that, and I think I may use it.  As an aside to the accompanying photos, you can see that I have some empty spots as I moving white wines to a wine vault and I have cases of reds that need to be put away. 

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“Is it Safe?”

Posted on June 6, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“Oh, please don’t worry. I’m not going into that cavity. That nerve’s already dying. A live, freshly-cut nerve is infinitely more sensitive. So, I’ll just drill into a healthy tooth until I reach the pulp. Unless, of course, you can tell me that it’s safe.”

That seems to be the Twenty-thousand-dollar question and there is nothing guaranteed.  It is Day 78 of the lockdown for me and I still feel like a caged animal.  First the whole state was shut down, because of a virus that originated in China.  Then there was an unfortunate and tragic death that has shaken the whole country.  This caused “peaceful protests” as well as ensuing riots, vandalism, injuries and more deaths and looting.  Now our governor has decided that it is safe to start opening up the whole state with restrictions and still no chance to enjoy a haircut.  My Bride and I are of mixed emotions about this next phase.  I am glad to start having my freedoms back, but we have not had any carry-out dinners, even from our favorite restaurants.  First, I feel that it is more like having leftovers, because, by the time we get home, the meals will have to be reheated.  Second, she is still concerned about the virus, if it hasn’t dissipated by now, and that has kept her from wanting carry-outs.  The other concern, is that our governor still has time to add more lockdown days as we get close to the day of potential liberation.

As it stands, we are still enjoying our time together, as she hasn’t shot me, for being me.  Since it appears that I have gained a pound after seventy-eight days, the quality and the quantity of food is still stellar.  She is still much more adept at making meals, quickly and efficiently, compared to me, as I still require all day to make a sandwich and soup and probably dirty a dozen dishes in the process.   She knows the way to make me happy and content as she did when she made Shrimp Piccata, the dish would also be great with Prawns, but I am happy that we still have Jumbo Shrimp, the greatest oxymoron of all time for food.  When you add in some starch and some vegetables, you have a complete dinner. 

Well almost a complete dinner, I had to find a bottle of wine, and that hasn’t been too difficult of a job here, though we may have to fill in some holes shortly.  Each week now, since we are home all day, when the Recycling Truck comes to our house, our house is always quite noisy, as there is probably a dozen empty bottles clanging together as they leave the orange bucket to enter the truck with all the other recyclables that have already been amassed.  Either the men think that we are having illegal parties constantly or our livers are shot, neither of which are true, I have just had the free time, to finally start removing the labels off of bottles from past articles for my scrap books.  I found a bottle of Clos LaChance Bronzy Inca Chardonnay Monterey County 2007.  In 1987, Bill and Brenda Murphy planted a few rows of Chardonnay in their backyard, both for landscaping and for dreams of being vintners.  A few years later, they had a product good enough to sell and by 1992 they had their first vintage and in the next fifteen years they would go from two-hundred cases a wine to eighty-thousand cases; from three-quarters of an acre to one-hundred-fifty acres and a multi-generational family business.  The hummingbird is their logo and part of them since the first vintage and the winery is in San Martin, California.  The fruit for the Bronzy Inca Chardonnay is sourced from Monterey County.  I could not find this particular wine on their website, but if their other wines are made as well as this win, they are golden.  For a thirteen-year-old Chardonnay the color was still soft golden shade with nose giving a trace of vanilla.  The wine was still crisp with a touch of honey and lemon and a nice medium length finish with a tinge of flint or limestone.  A very pretty wine, that was even excellent a couple of days later.  It is safe in the house. 

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Another Zoom Sunday

Posted on June 4, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: One man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic. Five million people desperate for fuel will destroy a city.”

Sunday has become our day of rest, kind of like the simpler times when I was growing up.  There is no place to go, no one to visit.  The party has made sure of it.  We can still buy groceries, cigarettes and alcohol and even an abortion, because the state has deemed it essential.  My Bride calls one of her girlfriends and they are connected by cellphones and they both watch the same Mass on their own computers, because the churches are closed.  Her girlfriend is even such a good friend that she encourages my Bride to sing louder.  Once a month, my Bride would even go to a Senior complex and give Communion, because she is a Eucharistic Minister for the Roman Catholic Church and she hasn’t been able to do that either.  We make sure that we get our daily walk, we have a Brunch and then an early dinner, because then we have about a three hour Zoom session and sometimes the monitor looks like we are watching Hollywood Squares. 

We started off the day with some coffee and then it was up hill from there.  We had a breakfast of Lox, Bagels, Cream Cheese, Onions and Capers along with Poached Eggs.   Perhaps not breakfast at Brennan’s, but certainly not at the Big Boy.  I am spoiled and I am the first to admit it, my Mother always had an egg poacher at the house and we have one as well, because I am not a fan of fried eggs; the less egg white I see, the better and yes I do know that the white is the healthier part of the egg.   Her dinner menu was a new version of one of her favorite dishes.  We had Salmon. But this time we had it with Pesto Butter.   We had a medley of Roasted Baby Potatoes (Idaho, Redskin and Purple Majesty) and Steamed Asparagus (which is in season and hence one can never have enough).  She also made Chocolate Pudding with Whipped Cream for dessert.  She has had great success with her Weight Watchers program that she started before we went into lockdown mode and she has lost twenty-five pounds, while I have been having the same menu as she, just not measured out have gained one pound during the same period of time. 

It is almost a sin, if we don’t stop at Mawby Sparkling while we are up in the Traverse City area of Michigan.   You can find Mawby out near Suttons Bay and whether you know it as L. Mawby Vineyards or M. Lawrence, one thing is for sure you will have a fun time visiting the winery and tasting/drinking the wines.  I have probably written about Mawby the most of all the wineries in Michigan and part of that is because my Bride has fallen in love with their products.   In 1973 Larry Mawby founded Mawby Vineyards with a small parcel of land.  He had a passion to make wine and that passion led him to now only making sparkling wines from the Nineties on to date.  In 2009, he began a partnership with the Laing Family; but I have often heard with respect from the other wineries that Larry Mawby is considered the “Godfather” or the “Dean” on winemaking in the region.  In conversations over the years with winemakers they all hint at, but never describe the heart and largesse the man has, as well as his love for the local wine industry.  I opened up a bottle of Mawby Us NV was a classic blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, aged in Stainless Steel, then later blended with some reserve wine, aged and with an added dosage to maintain a certain finish and bottled.  I would recommend this wine to anyone that likes a nice traditional tasting sparkler with some fruit in the finish, but dry and crisp.  Actually, it may have been over-kill for Mimosas, but it was excellent and because I had forgot to put in some Mimosa grade bubbles in the refrigerator.  It was really delicious and quite heady, because we only add a tincture of Orange Juice for color, especially because we wanted to enjoy this wine.  As for the Salmon, I went down to the cellar to look for something different and that probably needed to see the light of day.  I found a bottle of Indigo Hills Pinot Noir Mendocino County 1996.  Indigo Hills was located in the North Coast (Sonoma, Mendocino, Napa, Lake and Marin Counties, but it appears that they either closed or were bought out without the name, as it seems that I could find any mention of them since 2003.  There was still a retail tag on the bottle for $19.00 and that was probably a decent price back then.  The wine was opened about an hour and it was delightful.  A soft nose promising some fruit, the tannins had softened, the finish was on the short side, but for its age, it held up, quite well and my Bride will be upset, that we cannot get more wine from this winery.

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Gloppitta-Gloppitta

Posted on June 2, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“I cold-bloodedly then fed her into a tomb of goop from the gloppitta-gloppitta machine! I ask you to acquit me! Acquit me on the grounds of justifiable homicide.  And not for my sake…for yours.”

When I began writing my little articles or memories, who would realize that I would be so enveloped by the current situation that I didn’t realize that I had missed my Eighth Anniversary of writing.  To some it is a trifle, but to me, in my own mind it is quite monumental; the first year I wrote an article every day for publication, just to get used to writing again and then I allowed myself to get lazy and only publish every other day.  I call myself The Wine Raconteur, because raconteur is an old word that I fell in love with, when I was in grade school and was learning how to read, at first I kept mistaking it for racketeer, because Eliot Ness and The Untouchables was a major show on television back then.  Actually, a raconteur is a story teller, from the early days of Myron Cohen to Buddy Hackett and brought to the big screen in The Big Fish, men that tried to weave a yarn.  That is the conceit of my writing, if I can claim a conceit, is that I write how wine enhances the moment.  Some of my friends always complain that I bury the lead, an old journalism expression, because I never get to wine until the third paragraph or beyond.  I like to set the scene for the moment, so who expected that I would be in lockdown for seventy days, especially when we were told thirty days.  For thirty days I figured I could skate through, but the quotes and the scenes were getting grimmer and grimmer, not because my house and setting are terrible, on the contrary, I love my house and of course my Bride, but the story teller in me is getting pressed harder and harder to paint an idyllic setting under the tyranny of a moving deadline of confinement.

As I am thinking of the Roast Beef dinner that we had with Armenian Pilaf and steamed Asparagus, I kept drifting to the elaborate meals that Terry Thomas, the butler would serve to his employer Jack Lemon, who was a cartoonist in the style of Modesty Blaise, Mandrake the Magician, Steve Roper et al. The difference was that the entire story board was first photographed by Terry Thomas, while Jack Lemon’s character went about saving the world.  The public knew that everything witnessed in the strips were actually done prior by a raconteur who employed pen and ink.  This was the gist of the film “How to Murder Your Wife” and before you think that because my Bride and I have been cooped up under lockdown, all is great.  The film culminated with a classic court room scene that Jack Lemon commandeers.  I remember seeing that film in 1965 with my parents and I was in awe of Bash Brannigan and his penthouse and lifestyle. 

Now as we ease into the third paragraph, one of my duties is to find a wine that will compliment the dinner, as I look for forgotten or misplaced wines in the cellar.  Trust me, there are plenty of misplaced bottles, because I get lazy and don’t feel like shifting maybe thirty bottles to fit one bottle in properly and I tell myself that I will remember. Azienda Agricola Ciccio Zaccagnini is one of the leading producers in the Abruzzo region of Italy, with around seven-hundred-forty acres of vineyards. The bottles are always adorned with a small remnant from a vine and a great marketing image.  I found a bottle of Cantina Zaccagnini il vino “dal tracetto” Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2012, one of my favorite districts for good dependable easy drinking red wines from the Montepulciano grape.  The winery was established in 1978 and has steadily grown and they now produce over three million bottles of wine, and seventy percent of the production is now divided among forty-five countries.  The wine production for each vintage takes about two years to complete and this eight-year-old still maintained a deep ruby red color, the nose had softened and so did the tannins, but still a very flavorful layered wine of the old school. My partner in crime was very pleased with the wine, and so was I.  And before I bid you Ciao this evening, I will tell you that both in the artistic frames of the comic strip, and in the film, the cement mixer makes the noise of gloppitta-gloppitta and is an important “character” in the script.

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The New Abby Normal

Posted on May 31, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“Wait Master, it might be dangerous…you go first.”

I am becoming more and more a curmudgeon, when I am constantly bombarded with the message of a “new normal.”  I am sorry, I had to listen to a constant message that the country was down in the dumps and that we would have a lousy economy for the rest of my life, and that was going to be the “new normal.” I have lost respect and favor for so called “journalists” ever since I saw a man that had covered the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, decide that he was more important then the story, when he was interviewing the President of the United States of America.  I am sorry if there is no respect for that office, then petty positions like governors should even be held in lower esteem.   Living in a lockdown confinement is not normal, for Americans who have heard of how we waged a revolution over taxation without representation and won our freedom to be independent.  I was just reading that currently in another fiefdom called Nevada, if we wanted to go visit the children and grandchildren there, we would have to go into voluntary quarantine for fourteen days, before we can see the family.  I am sorry but after being in quarantine for seventy-two days, that is insanity.  Instead of fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror, there will be a mask, and not for robbing banks; and there will be medical latex examination gloves in the glove box. Now perhaps “journalists” and “politicians” don’t have families anymore, so the concept of family is lost on them, but to everyone I know and respect, there is still family. 

Since, this is about Abby-Normal and not Hans Delbruck, even our dinner was different at home.  We had a Botana, probably more a Tex-Mex creation with spicy ground-round in a chili poured on Nacho Chips then covered with cheese and baked and toss in some Jalapeno Peppers as well.  Let us nor forget to have some Spicy Guacamole and some Salsa as well.  Now normally we go out for a dinner like this, but now in Abby-Normal times we have to get it to go, and then reheat it once we get it home.  It loses the appeal and we may as well have it fresh and hot the first time around, as left-overs and reheating are also part of the new Abby-Normal.  Though I really have nothing to complain about, because we are eating like Royalty, but that is because my Bride can cook and I feel sorry for people that have to rely on Microwave meals that are loaded with Sodium that will cause issues later on, depending on how long they endured a steady diet of such “food.”

We will also take a break for Abby and rather than having wine, we will have what we normally get when we go out for a meal like that and get a Margarita.  Now, our favorite eatery prior to what has happened, used to make a huge batch in the morning and let the flavors mingle and steep for the day and they were wonderful, actually my Bride used to think that they were too lethal and she would only have one, after her first encounter with two of them.  We just so happened to have a bottle of Jose Cuervo Margaritas, which is a premixed ready-to-drink cocktail, while it might not be for the purist, it works for the few times that we feel like a Margarita at home.  It is made with Cuervo Tequila and Triple Sec, all you need is ice, but since we keep it in the refrigerator, we drink it neat and neither of us find it lethal, and it is easy to enjoy and really worked well with the Botana. 

“Soitenly. You take the blonde; I’ll take thee one in the toiben.”

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Memorial Day 2020

Posted on May 29, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Memorial Day should have been a big family day with twenty to thirty gathered together for a good time, good food and good beverages.  We always looked forward to the holidays for something special, instead we are still in lockdown, unable to be with family and friends.  Part of our state was recently opened up for people to start resuming a life, if you live there.  We were admonished not to dare travel there, because it should only be for the locals, that is fine, let them iron out some of the details on a smaller scale, without outsiders contributing extra concerns.  Our first family had to be up there, since it seems that their cottage made the cut for opening up, but they don’t live there, but it is now fine for people to visit their second home, which was illegal only a couple weeks ago.  Same thing with boats, you could only use a boat, if it had no engine, and then surprise, boats with engines were allowed, just in time for the boating season. It was a blessing for the small marinas who were backed up at least three weeks, because it was illegal for them to do their work, but I guess the surfaces of motor boats are now safe from germs.  A company that gets boats launched up north, was suffering and then working overtime to get things taken care of, and a man called and had the audacity to want to have his boat opened up first, and when told no, he then mentioned that he happened to be married to the governor, and was told that it won’t happen.  The owner of the company put a notice on his Facebook page, because he was all upset, the notice went viral and he had to take the notice down, because his staff was kept busy answering about the truth and not getting all the boats launched that they should have been doing.  After a couple of days of stonewalling, the truth came out, and the husband was just attempting to be funny, she asked for forgiveness I wonder how often that “funny” may have worked in other situations?  Don’t ask me, I can only talk to family members by telephone or Zoom sessions.  Memorial Day was also the Day 70 for us to be in lockdown and in five days after that I will have been clean of a potential bug for five cycles.  I will let you in on a little secret as well, we don´t wear masks in our own house or when we are out for our daily walks in the fresh air in our subdivision. 

My Bride wanted to know, what I had the feeling for, for Memorial Day.  I jested and mentioned that since it was only the two of us, maybe we could have Brats and Beans, something that we might have offered as one of the many sides to accompany the main dishes for everyone to enjoy.  She thought it was a good idea, but then she said that we don´t have any Brats, so she substituted Smoked Kielbasa, which I think she said was the end of the links in the refrigerator.  She made a dish of sautéed Kielbasa with Red Peppers, Onions and Sauerkraut in one big pan.  She then made a pot of Baked Beans and she also made some Corn on the Cob.  It kind of had a holiday feel to the meal. I have to admit that she is trying to make the most of the situation, as she tries to keep me perked up, but she is hearing that I am not the only one that is tired of being in a lockdown situation.

Another one of the lone individuals that were being neglected in the cellar, found it was their time to be selected.  I tried to find something that would be chilled and not to fussy with the foods that we were having.  I found a bottle of Enrico Marcato ¨La Giareta¨ Pinot Grigio delle Venezie IGT 2011.  Enrico Marcato is the winemaker for Family of Wine, that has been in the wine industry for about a hundred years.  This wine is aged for three months in Stainless Steel and they produce around thirty-five thousand bottles of this wine a year.  Pinot Grigio accounts for seventy percent of the production in the Delle Venezie IGT and the remaining thirty percent is a long list of sanctioned wines.  This nine-year-old Pinot Grigio was very pleasant and just an easy drinking wine that did not fight with any of the assorted flavors of the dinner. I am hoping that by Father´s Day, the state may see some easing on the lockdown, if not by the Fourth of July, so that we can celebrate freedom and independence.

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Memorial Day Weekend 2020

Posted on May 27, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“Suppose they gave a war and nobody came.  Then war will come after you.”

Is often attributed to Bertolt Brecht as he wrote about the rise of the Democratic Socialist Party of Germany after the First World War and the Depression that followed.  I feel the same way about the holidays that have been missed and Memorial Day was very sad.  There were no parades, no pomp and circumstance and even for the children that are not taught the meaning of the holiday except that it is usually a long weekend and there is a barbeque.  A very tragic accident occurred in my state, a private dam that was in the midst of going from private ownership to the state could not contain the water and several communities were destroyed and thankfully no one was killed.  It turns out that the attorney-general, an elected official demanded that the dam, raise the water level to protect some fresh-water mussels, not only are the mussels gone, but so are homes, possessions, communities, schools, places of worship etc., etc., etc. I am sure that people that lost everything are going to appreciate that the mussels were so important.  It also shows that the attorney-general’s knowledge is minimal concerning dykes and engineering.

It was a very quiet day, just like every other day has been and my Bride has done the most to make our Sundays special.  We started out with a brunch of lox, capers, onions, poached eggs, bagels and cream cheese.  Just like what we might have ordered out at a restaurant, if you remember that word and what it means.  Then we had an early dinner of Roast Beef, with Peppers and Onions, Mashed Potatoes and Corn on the Cob, followed later on by Chocolate Pudding. The food is great and so is the company, I might add.  Though it would be nice to see some other walls and let someone else cook, and clean up; and perhaps one day it may happen.  After our early dinner, we then had another marathon three-hour Zoom session that was fun, and my Bride was very animated and it was good to see those that showed up.

It was another day to enjoy the labors of the cellar.  I think it would be a sin to use Dom with orange juice, so we used Korbel California Champagne, which is produced in the time-honored way of “Methode Chanpenoise” and it is a blend of Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, French Colombard and Pinot Noir. A perfect way to start off the day and Korbel is one of those houses that have been grandfathered in using the term “California Champagne.”  We now make them in the steakhouse method that we discovered in Las Vegas, which is to fill the glass with Bubbles and a tincture of Orange Juice.  While I was in the cellar earlier, I found a bottle that I thought needed to be liberated as well, a bottle of Barton & Guestier Roi Chevalier Saint-Emilion 2001.  Barton & Guestier or in the old days, when the labels said B & G is the oldest wine house in Bordeaux.  They are a negocient with over two-hundred winegrower partnerships, as well as their signature Chateau Magnol in the Haut-Medoc.  The company began in 1725 when the Irishman Thomas Barton settled in Bordeaux and became a wine merchant.  In 1802, his grandson Hugh joined forces with Frenchman Daniel Guestier and a partnership was created that is still going on today.  The current version of this wine is a mix of eighty percent Merlot and twenty percent Cabernet Franc with about three months of aging in oak.  Since the 1900’s, the Saint-Emilion has been named Roi Chevalier, in reference to Edouard III, King of England and Duke of Aquitaine at the beginning of the 14th Century.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I am happy to report that the wine was perfect, though I had to decant, because even with The Durand, the cork crumbled a bit.  The color was still good and the nose offered some fruit still, and so did the taste.  The tannins and the fruit had mellowed a bit, but still a perfect pairing for the Roast Beef, and the bottle kind of evaporated during the course of the Zoom session.

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A Good and a Bad

Posted on May 25, 2020 by thewineraconteur

“Springtime for Hitler and Germany”

With apologies to Mel Brooks, a movie, a play, and then another movie.  A farce based on the concept of staging a theatrical production on one of the worst parts of the history of mankind and the ugliness of when you give petty people places of prominence.  One could substitute perfectly the name of a governor that wishes to be a vice-president consideration by using hob-nail boots to keep the populace locked down and then substitute the proper state in place of a country.  I am rewriting this introduction, because last night after business hours this harridan who is trying to compete with other governors extended our lock down, as everyone in the state was counting the days for some additional breathing room.  Then she had the audacity to leave to her cottage which just so happens to be in the part of the state, where she had just loosened up, she also has allowed doctors and dentists to begin practicing their profession; as I am sure that her husband will be glad to get out of the house with her and start working, just like everyone else in the state would like to.  She also has kept a clamp on barbers and hair salons, but dog groomers are allowed to open, and I guess she needed to get a trim.  Felons are being let out of prison, but citizens are being threatened with jail time, if they try to help themselves   

I guess we have been very fortunate that no one that I know has gotten this cold virus that originated in Wuhan, China. I am also glad that we have had the good fortune to be able to pay our bills, eat and drink while we are in lock-down mode.  I do miss the restaurants, and to be frank, even after the governor claims victory over smiting and vanquishing the virus, we may be hesitant about venturing out, but that is our right to decide.  We started off one meal the other day after having a nice tossed salad, and had Center-cut Pork Chops with Potatoes and Onions and Corn on the Cob.  My Bride has really been trying to mix up the menus, so that we don’t get tired of any particular entrée, especially since we will be enjoying it again as left-overs on the next day or so. 

I have progressively been moving the whites from the cellar into a wine vault, so that we will make sure that the white wines are drank in a timelier manner.  I was able to make room and get a couple of bottles in the refrigerator.  I was really looking forward to trying this one white wine that I found, that I don’t remember buying or getting as a gift, so I am going to have to watch myself.  I opened up a bottle of Pierre Boniface Domaine les Rocailles Apremont Vin de Savoie 2004.  Savoie is a wine region all by itself and seldom seen here, especially in Michigan, the region is the eastern edge of France near Lake Geneva and bordering Switzerland.  The white cross on a red background is both the flag of Switzerland and Savoie.  Three quarters of the region is planted with white grapes, because of the unique soil and growing cycle, three grapes are most successful.  The Jacquere which is planted the most, the Altesse known locally as Roussette and Roussanne locally known as Bergeron. The Vin de Savoie AOC was created in 1973 and is the core value of the region and can be used for all types of wine produced.  The terroir of the region, and most of the vineyards are planted on steep, south facing slopes and the ground is basically limestone, which retains the heat of the sun for longer periods of warmth each day, as there is very little water retention in the soil, so the grape production is small, but the quality is up for the struggling vines. The village of Apremont is the most known of the region and is predominately planted with Jacquere.  Its name means Bitter Mountain and that is because there was a terrible landslide in the mid-13th Century killing thousands and it wasn’t until the 18th Century that the area was begun cultivating vineyards. The wines are known for being typically light and dry with floral, mineral characters.  Alas, this was the first wine since I began raiding the cellar that had not cellared.  It had a synthetic solid cork that was a bear to remove, but the wine had totally oxidized and it had neither a complimentary nose or taste and it was relegated to the sink for proper disposal and I was really looking forward to it.  I did have a backup in the refrigerator.  I opened up a Mission Trail Vineyards Friars’ Reserve Chardonnay Paraiso Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands 2008.  There was very little about this wine, when it was issued and the winery used the “Champagne” method of pressing the grapes to lessen the potential bitterness and aged in mixed types of French Oak barrels, both new and used for a creamy blend.  This wine had a very small production, as the 2015 only produced one-hundred-fifty cases.  What an awesome bottle of wine, for a twelve-year-old there was still floral notes, with a nice buttery, oaky taste that was very mellow with a finish that had some vanilla spice and terroir.  It was delightful, and my Bride threw caution to the wind, as she is counting points with the Weight Watcher regimen, an had a second glass, it was that notable.  There has to be some good news to offset the bad. 

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