Blame it on Rioja

I guess Dr. Vino and I are not the only ones with outdoor summer drinking on the brain. I woke up this morning to find an article in the New York Times about just that, called, summerily enough, “Ah, the Heat, the Crowd, the Park, and the Booze.”

“New York City is somewhat of a drinker’s paradise year round,” reporter Cara Buckley writes on the first page of the Metro section, “but a certain extra layer of permissiveness seems to infuse the city in the summertime, along with a wellspring of opportunities to get sloshed, slightly or mightily.”

Although I don’t remember seeing the following paragraph in the print version of the article this morning, a parenthetical disclaimer of sorts touches on the legality question we discussed yesterday:

“The official line from the city’s parks department is that alcohol cannot be brought into city parks, though in the summer of 2003, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg suggested that drinking wine at concerts in Central Park was O.K. At Bryant Park on July 7, a security guard said he turned a blind eye to booze on movie nights, ’so long as it is covered, like in a bag.’”

I remember a Swiss friend of mine in Spain making fun of having seen gainfully employed Americans carrying open bottles of wine in brown paper bags at outdoor events to elude the authorities, “like the hobos you see in the old movies, ahahaha…”

Laugh all you wish, Hans. Tonight, as I settle in to watch Bamako at the Socrates Sculpture Park Outdoor Cinema Series in Queens, and pop open a paper-shrouded bottle of 2001 Sierra Cantabria Gran Reserva whilst digging into a plate of lamb tagine cooked up by the folks at Mundo Cafe in Astoria, the summer sun setting over the East River and a nearly full moon on the rise behind me, I’ll drink a toast to you, my good man, wherever you are.

Writing from the 14th floor of the Chancellor Hotel near Union Square in San Francisco, on day five of a ten-day West coast trip. It’s been surprisingly brisk here for the past few days, a biting kind of cold especially at night that gets under your skin and just stays there. Or maybe it’s just that I didn’t pack enough layers….

There’s always a special joy that attends one’s first meal after a long journey. Last time I was here it was an exceedingly satisfying grilled steak burrito from Taqueria Papalote (http://www.papalote-sf.com/home.html) in the Mission, known for its smoky salsa and fresh ingredient-driven and vegetarian-friendly menu, and a six-pack of Negra Modelo with my brother Patrick’s family in the Mission.

This time it was also in the Mission, but even more “California-style”: lunch at Café Gratitude (http://www.cafegratitude.com/) at Harrison and 20th Street, a charming little organic, quasi-raw food corner café with a great vibe and a surprisingly tasty fresh vegetable and whole grain-based menu. My vegetable “Biryani” over red rice had little mountains of super-sweet snap peas, raw cashews, avocado, cucumber, carrots, cilantro, etc., etc., so much so that I couldn’t finish it. I was full, but it was a really happy kind of full, made even happier with a lemon and ginger infusion spiked with a little cayenne (why don’t I do this at home after every meal?!?) If ever food alone could get you high, this high-quality, earth-friendly cuisine is it. (Kudos to young Ms. Caroline B. for turning me on this place.)

Dinner at Beretta’s (http://www.berettasf.com/) the next evening was the first time all three generations of my family have been together in over 7 years, and they were kind enough to accommodate a huge group of us on a Saturday night. The all-Italian wine list was reasonably priced (Planeta’s tasty Cerasuolo di Vitorria was $40), the service was extremely patient and kind, and the Northern Italian-inspired food on the whole did not disappoint.

My only quibble was that the pizza crust could have been crispier, a bit more speckled with char; and my brother Patrick rightly pointed out that carciofi alla guidia (a Roman fried artichoke dish that originated in that city’s Jewish quarter) on our check did not accurately describe what was served.

But as with all special occasions, especially this one, my dear Mother’s “Sgt. Pepper” birthday, as long as a restaurant’s heart is in the right place, whatever’s wrong with an evening can be easily eclipsed by what’s right about it. It’s easy to miss magical moments when you’re spending too much time worrying about why the magic didn’t arrive exactly as you scheduled it.

More to come, including late-night taqueria excess, tapas and Palacios Remondo Placet on the water, and the best spicy scrambled eggs I’ve had since a stop in Austin, Texas in the summer of 2003.

SINGLE OLIVE TREE, SINGLE VINEYARD: Jesus Madrazo’s Viña del Olivo at CVNE’s Viñedos de Contino, Laserna, Spain, September 13, 2007. Photo: José Guerra.

Late last week, an email newsletter from the East Village Spanish wine shop Tinto Fino alerted me to an article that recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal monthly, SmartMoney: “Is Spain the New Bordeaux?”.

James B. Stewart’s “SmartSpending” piece chronicles an informal blind tasting he recently organized in which wines from two top Bordeaux properties, Cheateau Pape Clement 2004 ($80) and Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2004 ($275), were tasted alongside a broad range of ten Spanish wines selected by Tinto Fino’s Mani Dawes, the idea being to test Spanish mettle against a category of French wine that’s quickly becoming a stand-in for both inflated pricing and a weak dollar.

“The results confounded our expectations,” Stewart writes. “Of the many tastings we’ve done, this was perhaps the most humbling — and enjoyable.” Once the panel determined their top four wines, the labels were revealed. Viñedos de Contino’s powerhouse Viña del Olivo Rioja 2001 was the overwhelming favorite: “We couldn’t get enough of this. We found its nose elegant and its taste rich, full, a bit tannic; it boasted a long, velvety finish. It won two votes as a Bordeaux, but others found it a little too extroverted to qualify. Though steep in price [$125 for a 750ml bottle], it’s still a bargain by first-growth-Bordeaux standards.”

Next came El Bugader Montsant 2004($63), followed by Valbuena Ribera del Duero 2001 ($125). Pape Clement, the panel’s number four pick, was the sole Bordeaux to place.

Admittedly, young wines from a problematic vintage* do not a great property define. One must also consider the fact that the instant Mr. Stewart decided to ask Ms. Dawes to select the Spanish entrants, France was at an immediate disadvantage; few in the business know Spanish wines like she does, and her palate judgments, if the wine selection at Tinto Fino is any indication, are impeccable.

Still, I suspect that this is not the last time we hear about the wine cognescenti looking south towards Spain for wines that offer stunning quality without the ‘dollar hangover.’

As Spanish winemakers keep ratcheting up quality and wine consumers continue to educate themselves about killer wines made south of the Pyrenees that won’t break the bank, new and established brands in Rioja and beyond will start looking sweeter and sweeter to serious wine collectors and consumers alike.

We very well could be at the beginning of a paradigm shift. In many ways Spain has already trumped France in the world of gastronomy. Could the world of wine be far behind?

*NOTE: After the exuberant New World drink-me-now ripeness that attended the hot vintage of 2003, 2004 in Bordeaux returned to what many have called a more classic style, which is to say, one that needs years in the bottle to develop. See Jancis Robinson’s lucid comments on the matter.

Among my colleagues on the restaurant side of the wine trade, it’s become fairly axiomatic that writer Matt Kramer is the best (some say only) reason to read Wine Spectator Magazine. If you aspire to an advanced understanding of the aesthetics of wine connoisseurship, look no further than Mr. Kramer’s Making Sense of Wine, a fine example of essential reading that’s also a pleasure to read.

In this month’s Wine Spectator, devoted to the editors’ 100 most exciting wines of 2007 (Rioja shout-outs: #11,Torre Muga 2004; and #16 LAN Edición Limitada 2004), Kramer writes about his “reverie wines” of 2007 (subscription required). In typically passionate, readable prose, he explains just what he means by reverie:

(more…)

Conspicuously missing from this already truncated list are two Long Island vineyards that at one time or another have been represented on the Chanterelle wine list: Schneider Vineyards and Wolffer Estate, whose Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay, respectively, have enjoyed critical accolades for years. Wolffler, located across the Peconic Bay near Sagaponack, was just too far away for us. And according to the extremely helpful map and leaflet put out by the Long Island Wine Council, Schneider is not open to the public, although their wines are available for sampling at the Tasting Room in Peconic.

Averages were taken of the points awarded by each judge for each of the five categories: wine (40pts), service (20), facilities (20), value (10), and crowd (10). The final score is the sum of those averages. (more…)

The wines of Long Island are not, for the most part, mood-altering studies in humankind’s ability to harness great soil and microclimates to make wines of great character; to my taste, Long Island wine is too often underripe, over-oaked, and lacking in the structure–the “oomph”–to merit its inclusion among the world’s greatest wines.

Still, we must remember that Long Island winemaking is still in its infancy, especially relative to long-established traditions found in Spain, France, and Italy. All along the North Fork, a narrow peninsula on the eastern tip of the island with hundreds of acres of unspoiled farmland and easy access to mind-quieting coastal headlands, are vineyards occupying land that not so long ago yielded potatoes rather than juice to quench the thirst of city weekenders. I can think of very few places within three hours’ driving distance of Manhattan that offer such a soothing combo of serenity and eco-sensitive agricultural ambition. (more…)