Thanks For Giving

It has been quite a long time since I've written anything here and I am loaded down with a tremendous amount of guilt and hesitation. I realize that by blogging, I am cultivating a friendship with those who are my followers. And like every other important personal relationship, one has to devote a good amount of time and attention to it lest it whither away and die. Now, my lack of blogging in the last couple of months is not due to a lack of interest or love. I haven't stopped caring. I was just basically overwhelmed with working on Suzanne and my LA Loves Alex's Lemonade fundraiser, and with preparing for the restaurants and myself for the holidays. I just did not have any time left in my day to focus on this particular relationship. Of course, after such a long time away, I find myself consumed with the inevitable self-questioning that further exacerbates getting back on track: "Has it been too long? Will they even want to hear from me? Do they even care?" Either way, I've decided to "pick up the phone" and re-initiate contact. Hopefully the friendship is not over.

To aid in this, I actually found that Thanksgiving gave me a reason to blog again. You see, I'm one of the lucky few in the restaurant business who get to take the last Thursday of November off to eat turkey with the relatives. And the perk for having twenty people over for dinner is the occasional hostess gift in the form of a bottle of wine that can come my way, something that I obviously greatly appreciate. A friend of the family brought me a bottle of 2008 Lioco, Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. This is clearly someone who knows my palate and penchant for delicate Pinot. I've been a longtime supporter of Lioco and because of this, I waited to open the bottle thinking that as I've had the wine before, there was no need to rush. In the end I didn't wait all that long, since I opened it up the very next day to drink along side my plate of turkey and stuffing leftovers. It was the perfect choice.

Lioco was started by Kevin O'Connor, the former sommelier at Spago and his friend Matt Licklider, a former LA import wine salesperson as a pursuit to create well-made wines that speak of their location. So often, people perceive California as a place of fruity, juicy wines that lack a specific regional expression. These guys have proved that idea as false with their series of elegant single vineyard, single AVA whites and reds. As lovers of old world winemaking, they take inspiration from traditional European methods, seeking out vineyard sites that make the vines work harder to survive, thereby producing higher quality fruit. They focus on using little or no oak in the aging process, fermenting naturally and over-delivering in terms of the wine and its price point.

This wine exemplifies everything I love in Pinot Noir with its tart red fruit notes, bright acidity, earthiness and the fact that this wine literally speaks of the holidays. On the nose, cranberry and cinnamon notes mix with touches of cassis, raspberry and candied yam. The palate manages to be lean and slightly fleshy all at once with red plum fruitiness, ginger and cardamom spice, orange peel and long finish laden with bacon fat. It's a wine that clearly represents its Sonoma Coast location with its cold climate and coastal proximity, resulting in Pinot Noir that tastes like Pinot, rather than some suped-up, Syrah imitator. It would have been the perfect pairing for my Thanksgiving turkey, especially since I follow my family's tradition of covering the top of the bird with bacon and basting it with butter. What better to cut the fat and marry with the bacon than this earthy, spicy wine.

I'm always in a quandary as to whether to immediately open a bottle of wine that a guest brings to dinner and drink it on the spot, or if I should save it for a later date. I never want to insult my guests by not drinking the wine with them, or by acting as though their selection isn't special enough to save for an important occasion. Fortunately, I was so distracted by the crazy family gathering taking place in my living room that I didn't even have time to think about what to do. This would definitely have been a great wine to drink with dinner that night, but I'm really happy that I saved it for the day after. That way, I didn't have to share a drop with all of those people.

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State of Grace

I have to say that my meeting with Angela Osborne was one of the more unusual interactions I've had. One day during lunch service at Lucques, this young woman approached me and asked me if she could shake my hand. Hmmm. I don't know if I've ever been asked that particular question before. Can I shake your hand....of course. Most people don't actually ask, so please go ahead.

After getting through that odd moment, Angela got to the gist of her visit. She is a winemaker, originally from New Zealand who came out to California to work with her favorite grape variety, Grenache. Angela said that she had considered the major Grenache producing regions of the world, Spain, Southern France, Australia and California and eventually settled on the latter. She was hired on as assistant winemaker at Lioco under Kevin Kelly and thus began her California career. She wanted me to taste her new release, A Tribute to Grace, from the Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard of Santa Barbara County.

I was honestly a bit worried about tasting her Grenache, particularly right in front of her because I'm not normally a big fan of the variety, especially from California. I find most Grenache made here to be too concentrated, juicy and rich for my palate. I was also dreading tasting the wine with a winemaker that I didn't really know for fear of not liking the wine. It makes me feel terrible when I'm in that position because I don't like disappointing people and I usually end up doing the polite/impolite thing of lying about my love of the wine then never ordering it.

The moment I saw the wine in the glass though, my interest was piqued. Rather than being a deep dark purple, the wine is the color of translucent ruby red, so faint in fact that it could be mistaken for a light Pinot or dark rosé. On the nose, high-toned cherry notes mix with elements of cinnamon and un-blossomed roses, resulting in an exotic, spice market aroma. On the palate, Grace is bright and fleshy in an elegant, feminine way, blending fresh and cooked red fruit notes, with cinnamon and clove spices and vivid acidity. It has hints of floral perfume and touches of savory herbs with a medium body, velvet-like texture and long finish. Even before I put the glass to my lips, I was reminded of Chateau Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe, another Grenache that goes against type, and that like this wine, drinks more like Pinot Noir than anything else. For me, this is a good thing.

Angela makes a tiny amount of this, less than 200 cases, and numbers each bottle individually. She named it after her grandmother who has been a source of inspiration and strength to her. To say that this wine embodies the idea of grace with its elegance, balance and finesse is an understatement. Angela herself seems to follow in the same mold with her delicate personality, wispy long hair and soft demeanor. I immediately bought a case for myself as well as one for the restaurant, both of which seem to be disappearing quicker than I expected. Everyone who I've introduced the wine to has fallen in love with it and come back for more. This is a wine that I will keep on my list at Lucques for as long as it is available, because I wholeheartedly believe that we all could us a little more grace in our lives.

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Blinded By the Light

If there is one thing in the realm of wine that I have always been completely scared of, it

is blind tasting. Nothing makes me feel like more of a vulnerable loser than having to identify a wine's variety, region and vintage from taste alone. I think it's because deep down I'm afraid of looking like I don't really know what I'm doing and in the end, coming off like a complete fraud. You see, blind tasting is a learned skill, one that takes many hours of practice, trial and error. Some of my colleagues do this on a daily basis. I do not. In the world of palate fitness, this is one type of training that I just don't do and like any unpracticed, untrained athlete, I'm pretty out of shape.

So, when Bonnie Graves, a Los Angeles wine gal contacted me to join a men vs. women blind tasting panel at the Taste of Beverly Hills event last weekend, I immediately told her that there was no way in hell that I would do it. The other people on the panel were going to be individuals who I completely respect and who get loads of practice tasting blind. I told her that I would provide a personally embarrassing amount of comic relief and would basically end up looking like a complete idiot. Of course, after about seven emails and even a personal visit at Lucques, Bonnie managed to persuade me to do it with promises of a fun, light-hearted event, a potential bottle of Krug for the winning team and loads of p.r. for the restaurant. And, like any savvy business person, I caved at the prospect of good dose of public relations for the restaurants, even at my own expense. Needless to say that from the minute I accepted her offer, I regretted it like crazy.

With only a week to go before the event and determined not to enter this challenge totally unprepared, I enlisted some of the staff members at the restaurants to indulge me in a few rounds of "let's see if Caroline can get this one" throughout the week. My employees were all to happy to indulge me, a fact that I actually found slightly unnerving. Richard, our new Lucques manager lined up five whites and five reds for me to taste on the first day, five of which stumped me and five of which I actually got right. As I had truly expected to get them all wrong, I felt a wave of confidence roll over me. In the back of my head, I heard a voice say, "Hmm, maybe I'm not so bad at this after all." Richard lined up eight more wines for me the next day, only three of which I pegged correctly. My batting average was going down...not good.

The next day, I asked Amy Christine, a good friend and Master of Wine candidate to come to my house for a tutorial. Amy literally blind tastes wine every morning in practice for the tasting portion of her exam. She's got so much experience in this, I figured that there was no one better to work with me. Her husband Peter filled seven or eight small bottles with a selection of white and red wines and packed them up for her so that not even Amy would know what they were. We went through each one, meticulously analyzing their colors, aromas and flavors. We discussed each in detail and came close to the same conclusion on all of them. We were wrong six out of eight times. In Amy's defense though, I think that it was my overly anxious self that led her down the path of failure that day. But really, how on earth did that Gruner Veltliner taste so much like white Burgundy?

With the days flying by and my newfound confidence waning, I headed to Tavern and a fresh group of wines by the glass to blind taste through. I told John our bartender to just hand me wines throughout the night to keep me on my toes. One after the other, small tastes were handed over the bar to me at moments that I least expected them. Let's just say that it wasn't my night, or maybe that I was just caught off guard, as one by one I failed to identify any of them but one. Since when does Bandol Blanc taste like California Sauvignon Blanc? Zinfandel that tastes like Meritage? After another round of low scoring, I was beginning to consider a last minute family emergency scenario to get me out of this predicament.

Now, to give me just a little but of credit, what I was experiencing here was an example of what happens when the international wine community strives to market themselves to the global population. Many of the world's great wines start to taste similar and regions and grape varieties lose their individuality. I play a role in this as well. I don't love a lot of the Zinfandels that are on the market right now, so I tend to buy the ones that are more restrained and subtle. The result is that the Zinfandel that I pour by the glass doesn't necessarily taste like Zinfandel. All of this is fine and well, until I need to blind taste it. Clearly, I've been doing myself a disservice here.

On the morning of the event, I awoke with a butterflies in my stomach, knowing that I was inching minute by minute closer to my fate as the laughing stock of the wine event. I figured that I was just going to have to just go for it and laugh it all off in good fun. Each team of four was given the same four wines to blind taste, so that a man and a woman would have to face off on each. I decided to rip this thing off like a band aid and volunteer for the first wine. To be honest, from the moment I smelled it I knew it was Sauvignon Blanc, so I knew I would be safe. I described in detail the notes of guava, passion fruit and grapefruit on the nose and the touches of deep meyer lemon-like citrus. The wine had bright acidity and tart freshness as well as a slight hint of green grassy herbs. I confidently identified the variety as Sauvignon Blanc, the region as Loire and the vintage as 2008. My male counterpart agreed wholeheartedly. The reveal: 2009 Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand! Of course, grapefruit and guava equals New Zealand. Urgh. Oh well, I earned the team one point. Could have been worse.

After three rounds of misidentifications from almost all of the members of the panel, and with a particularly embarrassing reveal of the 2009 Charles Shaw Merlot, I was starting to feel slightly better about myself. It was actually incredibly funny to see all of us flailing around in our search for the answers. We were basically all in the same boat. None of us was doing well and none of us cared. I think that our lightheartedness at being wrong was the most entertaining part of the whole thing.

In the end, we ladies redeemed ourselves with a totally right-on identification of a 2006 Rioja Reserva and won the match. We left the event holding our heads a little higher while laughing at ourselves a little louder. It was reassuring to know that we were all in the same boat, putting ourselves out on the line and having a ball. I'm now determined to blind taste at least once per week to hone my new-found skills, and to accept that I may not have all of the answers, but at least I'll have a good time trying to find them.

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A Habit I Clearly Can't Kick

Jeff Fischer is really on a roll. A few months back, he brought me a sample of a wine that he made, a Sauvignon Blanc called Habit, that he produced under the tutelage of California winemaker Doug Margerum. He's always had an intense love of food and wine and decided to follow his heart and dabble in the world of wine making. I loved that first wine the moment I tasted it, and clearly so did everyone else. You see, Jeff managed, on his own, to place that wine at some pretty impressive restaurants around the country, purchased by some of America's top sommeliers. This is a pretty amazing feat when one considers how hard it is to even get some of these people on the phone, much less taste and buy a wine from a newcomer to the business. In fact, when I called him to reorder a case for Tavern, he told me that he sold out of that charter vintage in a matter of months. As someone who has dabbled in wine making, I've gotta say that I'm a bit jealous.

Following up from that first wine, Jeff has just bottled his red, a Bordeaux blend under the same Habit label. This wine is a blend of 30% Cabernet Franc, 32.5% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12.5% Petit Verdot and 5% Malbec. The grapes for this wine are from the fairly new Happy Canyon AVA in Santa Ynez, which has a slightly warmer climate than other Central Coast areas, resulting in riper, richer fruit. It is precisely this warmer weather that separates Happy Canyon, the smallest AVA in California, from the neighboring Santa Barbara and Santa Rita Hills. Unlike these regions in which Pinot and Chardonnay thrive, Happy Canyon is the perfect place for these Bordeaux grapes, as well as Syrah and other Rhone varieties that really need the heat to reach their fullest potential.

I must say that I think he has another hit on his hands with this one. The wine is fleshy, rich and layered with a fine tannin structure and velvety texture. It has a classic elements of a meritage blend: iron-rich structure of Cabernet, the softening effect of Merlot, the complex earthiness of Cab Franc and the density of Petit Verdot. (Of course, I happen to be what I call a cabfrancophile, so the high percentage of Cab Franc in the mix makes me happy.) The thing that seems push this wine beyond though, is that small touch of Malbec in the blend that gives the wine a Mexican coffee like spiciness and exotic touch. It also surprisingly bright, a quality that sets this wine apart from those of the Napa Valley. Possibly the close proximity of Happy Canyon to the ocean allows for the wine to retain a certain level of acidity and acquire a unique maritime character.

Jeff hasn't yet figured out the pricing of this wine, not surprising since he literally just bottled it a week ago. I do know that he is focused on keeping the cost reasonable, a wonderful thing considering his relatively small production. He's created a true boutique project with very hands-on winemaking technique and time consuming attention to detail. In short, this wine is a crazy value.

I'm looking forward to the wine being released and getting it on my wine lists asap. I know I'm going to have a hard time keeping it in stock myself. In fact, that's the problem with this wine...there's just not enough of it to go around.

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Brdas of a Feather

It can't be easy being a wine rep. I can't say that I've ever done the job, so I don't know this for sure. But if dealing with me is any example, then this has got to be a job filled with uphill battles. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that I'm a difficult person, or that I'm horrible to deal with one on one. I just have quite a few people that I buy wine from and whose job it is to sell me as much wine as possible. I know that one of my jobs is to buy wine from them, but I never actually have the wine list space to buy everything they show me. It's really hard to say no to people who I consider my friends and I always worry that I'm hurting people's feelings when their tasting visit results in no sale. Obviously though, I don't always love what they bring me, which is what has been the issue with Stetson.

Stetson has been trying to sell me wine for a while now with very little result. He's already running against the wind with me because he specializes in Solvenian wine, something I haven't been that interested in so far. Week after week, he's brought a wine bag full of wines for me to try and I've disliked every one of them. It feels like this has been going on forever and I've been fairly convinced that meeting with him has been a waste of time, which is why when he walked in the door to Lucques the other day, I actually cringed a little. And then, something unusual happened. He poured a taste of wine for me that I actually liked. Let me just say that it came as quite a shock to the both of us.

The wine? 2008 Kabaj, Sivi Pinot, a Pinot Gris from Goriska Brda. The Goriska Brda is a range of hills in western Slovenia along the border of Italy. This is actually an ideal grape growing region that has a sub Mediterranean climate with mineral rich soils and an Adriatic influence. These hills are completely covered with vines, 55,000 of which belong to the Kabaj winery family. Kabaj belongs to Katja Kabaj Morel and her oenologist husband Jean Michel Morel, who previously worked in cellars throughout France and Italy. As their property had a long grape growing history, they decided to vinify and bottle their own wine, rather than sell off the grapes to others. They farm their vineyards sustainably, doing all of the work manually and focusing their efforts on the soils and tradition.

Jean Michel does the unusual thing of making his wine in qvevri, large sealed clay vessels in which the grapes ferment and age for nine months. After this, the wine and its lees are poured into large oak barrels and left to age for an additional year. The wine is then fined, filtered and bottled for yet another year of aging. This process is an ancient Georgian technique which Jean Michel feels connects his thoroughly modern wine to historical winemaking traditions.

This wine, made from 100% Pinot Gris shows delicate aromatics on the nose of green apple and white flowers. On the palate, this wine drinks a lot like a white Rhone blend in that it is dry yet rich, clean yet fleshy. It has a textural density with touches of exotic, talcum powder like spiciness and an ever so elegant minerality. Though it is not a fruity wine, the green apple notes are present along side a balancing acidity that is decidedly unaggressive, yet effective. This is just a really layered and complex wine.

I completely adored this wine and bought the last two cases available to put on the list at AOC. It is just seems perfect for our adventurous clientele and is so good that I'm sure it won't last long. I actually liked this wine so much that it ignited my interest in Slovenian wine and made me think that maybe Stetson wasn't so bad after all.

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Mid-Summer Night's Doldrum

I know. I know. Where have I been? Why haven't I been blogging?

Well, I'll tell you, I've been in what I call the wine doldrums. I've been tasting wine fairly regularly, but nothing has really excited me. It's not that I'm not trying, or that I haven't tasted anything good and drinkable, but it all just been basically kind of blah. Nothing has knocked my socks off. No pizzaz. No personality.

Of course, a lot of my attitude about the wine I've tasted lately has to do with my attitude in general. I don't know if I'm clouded by the lazy quality of mid-summer days, or by my general desire at this time of year to go on a three month vacation like my kids do. All I do know is that I'm not falling head over heals over much of the wine I've been tasting lately.

That is until yesterday, when my wine rep from Beaune Imports poured me a taste of François Chidaine's 2009 Touraine. François is very old fashioned in his attitude toward wine making, which fortunately includes his commitment to organic farming. Chidaine is a bit of a hero to me in this regard because not only does he produce outstanding, elegant wines, but he is also someone who walks the walk, rather than talk the talk. He has been farming organically for years and more recently moved to biodynamics. But rather than use this fact as a marketing tool, he doesn't mention any of it on his wine's labeling. Many people who go to effort of becoming certified organic, which in itself is a long and tedious process, tend to announce their certification to the world. Clearly, Chidaine farms this way because he believes that this is the way it must be done, and not because it is popular or commercially of the moment. The quality of his wines stand on their own merit.

I always find white wines from Touraine to be really interesting. Both Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc are grown there and although these varieties couldn't be more different, they always seem to take on each other's characteristics when bottled in this appellation. Chenin, to me, tastes like Sauvignon Blanc and vice-versa. In the case of Chidaine's wine, this 100% Sauvignon Blanc shows aromatic notes akin to Chenin Blanc, namely in its touches of talcum powder, glycerine and delicate citrus scents. On the palate the wine is strikingly fresh and tart with soft tropical touches and elegant acid structure. It has amazing minerality that results in a salted plum quality that is both savory and refreshing. This wine immediately brought me out of my wine funk and reawakened my zest for all things wine.

I could literally drink this wine everyday, especially since it's pretty affordable. And, since I'm putting it on my lists at Tavern and Lucques by the glass next week, I probably will.

P.S. We'll be pouring this wine at this weekend's Sunday Supper at Lucques. It will pair amazingly with the melon, proscuitto, mint and crème fraîche appetizer. Come by and join us!

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A Rosé By Any Other Name...

I know that I sound like a broken record, always rambling on and on about how much I like rosé, but I just can't help it. You see, one of the most exciting things to me about this time of year is the arrival of the newly released rosés into the market. It reminds me that summer is just around the corner and lazy weekend afternoons sipping rosé in the sunshine of my back patio are not so far away. I'm lucky because I actually have a pretty wide variety of rosés on my wine lists right now, so I'm a little spoiled for choice when it comes to finding one to drink. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the world seems to be in a rosé renaissance right now, with some pretty incredible and well-respected wineries producing outstanding pink wine.

To celebrate the season, our last Monday Larder Wine and Cheese Club featured four rosés from southern France that spanned the regions from Côtes du Rhône all the way down to Cassis. In fact, the highlight of the night, and my new favorite rosé, was the 2009 Clos Sainte Magdeleine, Cassis Rosé. Clos Sainte Magdeleine covers over 20 very special hectares of land that directly face the Mediterranean Sea. Most of its vineyards are planted on terraced slopes of Cap Canaille, an insanely beautiful rock formation that juts out into the water and is actually the highest maritime cliff in Europe. This is an amazingly picturesque area that is like a French version of Malibu's Point Dume, only covered with rows and rows of perfect vineyards. This place is so beautiful that I am dying to go visit just to experience it in person.

The Magdeleine estate itself has belonged to a Greek family named Zafiropulo since 1920, though wine growing in this area dates far back to antiquity. The winery makes only white and rosé wine from vines that average 30 years in age. They farm meticulously, picking and sorting by hand and de-stemming before fermenting and aging the wine in tank for 14 to 18 months. This wine is a blend of 65% Grenache, 18% Cinsault and 17% Mourvedre, a mix that seems to result in the perfect balance of fruitiness and acidity. On the nose, the wine shows notes of strawberry, melon and fully bloomed roses. It is bright and fleshy, bursting with bright red plum, tart acidity and long finish. Though the flavors are vibrant, the wine is clean and crisp, and manages to tame its fruity exuberance with a touch of salty minerality.

Rosé is one of those wines that I feel is under-appreciated in general, and is so often relegated to the afternoon aperitif role. Just like with Champagne, I could easily pair rosé wines with a multi-course meal, skipping white and red wine entirely. In fact, I re-tasted this wine last night with a variety of cow's milk cheeses that we are selling in the Larder at Tavern and was blown away by the wine's versatility. It worked with both the stinky and the mild, playing well off of the funky "animal" character and saltiness of the cheeses.

Fortunately, I bought the majority of the available Clos Sainte Magdeleine for Lucques and Tavern, so if anyone wants to taste it, you know where to get it...that is, if I haven't finished it off myself first.

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