| dan perlman | ||||
| Dan Perlman has been in the food and wine business for most of the last three decades. A Chef, sommelier, food & wine writer, stand-up comic, Perlman has also written for Genre, Passport, QSF, Out and About, and now here on Outlet Radio. | ||||
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May 08, 2005
I’m getting ready to move. It’s a big move, leaving New York after nearly 23 years here. But I figure, I spent half my life so far in the midwest, half here in “the Big Apple”, I may as well split it in thirds and spend the next 23 years somewhere else. Then it’ll be time to go for splitting it in quarters, then fifths, then... I’m really hoping for some sort of cool longevity drug (as long as I get to keep my adorably cute looks).
Part of my move has been clearing a lot of, well, crap, out of my life. I sold off books that I never intend to read, or re-read. I sold furniture. I gave away things to friends and local charities. And then I had to confront my wine collection. Now, there’s no question I plan to keep some of it. But the idea of storing away and then carting cross-country or cross-planet (my future destination is a little murky at the moment) nearly 700 bottles of wine (yes, 700) was more than I wanted to contemplate.
A large percentage of what I had was made up of samples sent to me by various wine companies that I know I’ll never get around to trying before they go bad. I gave away those to a friend who holds casual parties and just needs cheap wine around. That left me with a little over 400 bottles. I auctioned off a whole bunch of them. Now down to about 240 bottles, it’s time to look at drinking a lot of them before I move. So, party time!
I suggested a Brunello party to a wine geek friend of mine (more about Brunello and what it is in a minute). He agreed, we decided to keep it casual, invite a bunch of friends, and order pizza. The pizza turned out to be just okay, but the wines, well, they certainly got us all talking and thinking.
I thought I’d take a look at the grape behind Brunello, Sangiovese, for this column. Sanguis Jovis, is the Latin that the varietal name comes from, literally meaning "blood of Jove" (an early name for the Roman god Jupiter). Believed to be indigenous to Tuscany, this grape has probably been growing there for nearly 2,000 years, though the first literary references to it don’t appear until the 1700s. The grape has been transplanted to various spots around the world, especially by early Italian immigrants to California, where it still forms part of the crop used in old “field blends” of red wine.
Probably the best known Sangiovese based wine is Chianti. Chianti is an area in Tuscany. Though the wine of the same name has been made there for centuries, it wasn’t until the late 19th Century that Baron Ricasoli (wines are still made from this estate and can be found in your local “bottle shops”) laid down the law and set out the “formula” for Chianti. Basically it involves roughly 70% Sangiovese with the blending of two local red grapes, Canaiolo and Colorino, and a white grape, Trebbiano. There have been changes made to the law since then, especially in the heart of the Chianti region, Chianti Classico, that allow for the use of the “international varietals”, Cabernet and Merlot.
Wine geeks will tell you that good Chianti tends to have flavors of black cherries and bacon fat or smoked salami, and that’s an apt description. It sounds strange in a wine, but indeed the flavors are there. Most of us think of Chianti as a classic match for red sauce pastas, and that shouldn’t be a surprise, since many of those come from the same region.
The two “big brothers” of Chianti in Tuscany are Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino. The former, the “noble wine” of Montepulciano (a town in Tuscany, not to be confused with the classic grape of the same name from Puglia in southern Italy), is a big, rustic wine that some might say combines the elegance of a good Chianti with the power of a Brunello. It is made from a specific clone of Sangiovese (there are 14 recognized clones) called Prugnolo Gentile.
Montepulciano is located in Southeast Tuscany. The flavor profile of a good Vino Nobile is much like that of Chianti, just with more depth and complexity. Vino Nobile traditionally was aged in chestnut casks rather than oak casks, and as the modern wine press began to push for bigger, richer, and oakier wines, Vino Nobile lost favor in the early 1980s. Many producers opted to switch to oak aging, and soon, unsurprisingly, many of them began to get good reviews from those who review. Personally, I like the different flavor profile that comes with the traditional style - if I want to drink Chianti or Brunello, I’ll get a bottle of one of those! There is a lighter, young, easy drinking style of wine from here called Rosso di Montepulciano as well.
Brunello di Montalcino is the true “big boy” of the Sangiovese world. From a town called Montalcino (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?), the Brunello clone produces the richest, darkest, and most complex of the Sangiovese based wines from Tuscany. Most of these wines require years of aging before they’re ready to drink, in fact, it can’t even be bottled, by law, until it has aged in cask for several years. Like Vino Nobile, there is a lighter, younger version called Rosso di Montalcino. Brunellos tend to be quite expensive!
Less well known is a wine called Morellino di Scansano. Another “kissing cousin” to Sangiovese, Morellino comes from the town of Scansano... another surprise, right? It is the local name for this particular clone. I tend to find that Morellinos have a touch more acidity to them than the rest of the Sangioveses, but at the same time have darker fruit flavors - although black cherry is still evident, there is more than a hint of black plum flavors and a bit more spiciness than the others. They are a bit harder to find, but as more folk discover them, the search is becoming easier.
I’m not going to get deeply into the world of “super-Tuscans” because, simply, they are not necessarily Sangiovese. The term super-Tuscan was coined by wine writers a few years back to refer to some of the truly special wines that were coming out of the Chianti area, were often in the writers’ opinions better than classic Chianti, but didn’t conform to the traditional blend and therefore couldn’t be called Chianti. They often were 100% Sangiovese, or included large percentages (or even completely) non-traditional grapes like Cabernet and Merlot. Some of them became quite famous - like Tignanello, Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Le Pergole Torte, and Massetto just to name a few. Unfortunately, the category has no standards, and now, anyone who makes a non-traditional blend feels like they have the right to call their wine a “super-Tuscan”, and many of those now produced are, basically, average swill.
Lastly, as I said earlier, Sangiovese was transplanted many moons ago to California. There are some fine ones produced there, though generally I find that they are too, shall we say, “California-ized”, i.e., too much time in new oak barrels, and too much extraction of flavor, resulting in what amounts to California Red Wine, indistinguishable from other varietals. There are also a few interesting Sangioveses coming out of Australia, though, often the suffer from the same problem.
So, order a good pizza or two, invite a few friends over, and get a line up of a few bottles of different Sangioveses to try. It’s a brave new world out there to explore beyond Cabernet, Merlot and Pinot Noir, but you can do it!
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March 20, 2005
James Bond roars across Europe in an Aston-Martin and tens of thousands of people rush to their local car dealer demanding to purchase one just like the one he drove. No? Make that Dr. No and let him mention Dom Perignon '53 (which he preferred to the doctor's '55), and the public rushed their local wineshops demanding the '53. The same scene is basically repeated in Goldfinger; yet in Thunderball, he goes for the '55, and in You Only Live Twice, the '59. Marilyn Monroe was a big fan of the '53. Various vintages of Bollinger champagne are featured as well... '69, '75, '88, and '90. The '34, '47, and '55 Chateau Mouton Rothschilds from Bordeaux make their appearances as well. (I won't get into all the rest, there's a great site for James' drinking habits at Make Mine a 007... I'm only using these to make a point... soon.)
Demi Moore offers Michael Douglas a bottle of '91 Pahlmeyer Chardonnay in the film Disclosure. Sales of Pahlmeyer wines, and not just the '91 Chardonnay, rocketed. It became "the" cult wine to get for a short time. Prices were raised.
And now, we have Miles in Sideways proferring pretentious wine advice on Pinot noir, Merlot, and what have you. Sales of Pinot noir have climbed, sales of Merlot have dropped. It will no doubt be temporary. But try getting your hands on the three featured wines in the film. Many retailers and restauranteurs (not to mention the wineries themselves) have raised prices or are doling them out in small quantities. Tourism in Santa Barbara has gone up (well it is beautiful).
I won't go on and on, though it's possible to, I'd rather get to my point. Starting back from my opening line, the point comes down to... hey folks, it's a movie. Some scriptwriter wrote it. Some director directed it. Actors were given scripts and lines to say. In many cases some winery, or at least their marketing company, horror of horrors, shockingly, paid for the product placement!
Now, I'm not disparaging the tastebuds of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Demi Moore, Michael Douglas or Paul Giamatti, or anyone else who appears in a movie. I haven't a clue. I haven't gone out to dinner with any of them. Some of them might have amazing palates when it comes to wine. But here's a little secret...
Sean Connery did not personally recommend to you that you go out and buy 1953 Dom Perignon. Really, he didn't. Paul Giamatti may play the pretentious wine snob well, but he did not personally recommend that you run out and buy Hitching Post's Highliner Pinot noir, Sea Smoke's Botella Pinot Noir, or Fiddlehead Cellars' Sauvignon Blanc. Really, he didn't either. And without knowing their personal tastes, even if they had, why would you run out to buy it?
Nonetheless, "the herd instinct is strong," as someone posted on one of the wine geek websites.
Now, I have to get back to explaining to my trekkie customers that the 2265 Dom Perignon (opening sequence of Star Trek VII: Generations) won't be produced, if at all, for another 260 years... and no, I cannot get them a sample bottle...
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February 18, 2005
I've just returned from a fantastic vacation in Buenos Aires! Two weeks of (mostly) good weather, an amazing city to explore, new friends met (including one quite special one), and all sorts of adventures to share. I'm going to try to encapsulate it, and include a proper dose of food and wine, in a few short paragraphs (which won't remotely do it justice, but such is life).
It's a long flight from New York, a solid ten hours, but I've done worse and I had two seats to myself, so being the petite sort, I curled up and went to sleep for most of the time. Arrival in Argentina, and ready to go. My guesthouse (more about which later, as I highly recommend it), had arranged a taxi to meet me, and so I was quickly whisked off to the neighborhood of San Telmo. As we pulled into the area, all I could think of was, I'm back home! It could have been the East Village/Lower East Side...there wasn't even that much of an increase in signage in Spanish (which says more about the East Village than about Buenos Aires).
At the guesthouse, LugarGay (literally "gay place"), I was welcomed with open arms by Nestor (center in the pic) and Juan, the two owners, and the current temporary "houseboy", Henry - about whom much more later! We stumbled along in my limited Spanish and Nestor's somewhat better English, got me settled, and then I was promptly greeted by several of the current residents. LugarGay seems perfect for those who like to travel, comfortable rooms, a quiet atmosphere, and a relatively sophisticated clientele. I spent the afternoon on my own exploring the immediate neighborhood, and then found myself in the company of a charming man from Finland, Tuomas, on the right in the picture (who thankfully spoke impeccable English...and French...and Spanish...and Italian...and Dutch...and Finnish...), for dinner. We were joined by another man, originally from Canada, who had fallen in love with a local guy a few months earlier and decided to move, at least part-time, to "BA".
Dinner at a local, very gay friendly (as is most of Buenos Aires) restaurant, La Farmacia, and then a good night's sleep. Breakfast with some of the guys in the house, at least those who had awakened, and I met yet another charmer, Pascal, from Paris. In fact, Pascal (left in the picture) and I spent a good portion of the next week exploring the city together.
Like any big city, there are tons of things to do. Museums and galleries, parks, monuments, cemeteries (one has to pay homage to Evita's tomb...), and loads of restaurants to sample. Argentinians, and especially porteños, as the denizens of BA refer to themselves, love to eat. And they eat a lot of red meat, especially beef. In fact, other than accompaniments of a bit of salad or the occasional sauteed green leaves, little shows up on plates other than slabs of beef. Argentinian beef is a bit leaner than what we see in the US, but I am still amazed that with the quantity (often a steak for both lunch and dinner) that is consumed, that porteños aren't all a bit on the hefty side. Dinner at a parrilla can often consist of several courses of meat - what is referred to as an asado, or as we might call it, a barbecue. Innards are quite popular, and I tried several new things (seasoned and grilled intestines anyone?), and a lot of old faves.
Meat is generally served with a sauce called chimichurri, a slightly spicy herb sauce, for which I've posted a recipe below. It's quite delicious!
Porteños also eat late by our standards. Most restaurants, other than those catering to tourists, don't open until 9 p.m. And no local would be caught in one before 10 - in fact, many folk go out to dinner at 11 or 12 at night, even on "school nights". How they manage to eat so late, and often go out to a club or bar or coffeehouse afterwards, and still get up for work in the morning, is beyond me.
Argentinian wines are to be found everywhere, and there is little else to be had other than in some of the swankier wine shops. Some Chilean and the occasional Uruguayan wine (again, more later, as I spent a couple of days in Uruguay exploring as well), and maybe a high-end French or Italian wine. Prices, by the way, are extraordinarily low, mostly based on the current exchange rate - nearly 3:1 to the US dollar. But even with the exchange, markups just aren't as ridiculous as they often are here. At fine restaurants, a bottle of a good reserve wine might go for 60-70 pesos, or about $25-30. The same bottle here might sell in a restaurant for $60-70, or more than double...trust me, import costs aren't that high. And meals are also inexpensive - lunch is available fixed price at most restaurants and is almost always under 10 pesos - $3-4. Dinner might, in the finer restaurants, run you 60 pesos, but more than likely not. Generally we ate for about 40 pesos apiece, including wine.
And last, for this column, but by no means least, I return to the aforementioned "houseboy", Henry. We hit it off immediately, and within a day of flirting we had quickly become an "item" around the guesthouse. He hails from Trujillo, Peru, and is adorable and my heart remains with him! We spent my entire vacation together, when he wasn't working, and who knows what the future will bring!?
Chimichurri
1/2 cup oil
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup white wine
1 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
1 scallion, chopped
1 small tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 small sweet pepper, finely chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper (or chili powder if you want spicy)
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves
2 bay leaves
Basically, mix all the ingredients together and let it steep for at least 12 hours before using. It should be used within a couple of days as the freshness of the flavors will fade quickly. This isn't my recipe, but comes from a local chef, and I may play with it a bit and re-post a new one down the road...
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