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Big Time at the Big Winery: Visiting Chateau Ste. Michelle
As you know, wine is my hobby – I don’t belong to the “wine trade”, but as a wine aficionado (oenophile and occasional snob), I’m an eternal student of wine (luckily, the world of wine happily offers eternal learning opportunities). How do you learn about wine? There are many ways, but tasting the wines and talking to the people who make them is probably one of the best – I just had a great learning experience which I want to share with you.
Chateau Ste. Michelle is located in the State of Washington, about 30 miles north of Seattle. While visiting Seattle not long ago, I realized that I have enough time before my flight back to the east coast to visit the winery and (yay!) try some wines.
The place looked pretty impressive as I drove in – I visited quite a few wineries over the years and Chateau Ste. Michelle probably was the biggest one I have ever been to. Took me a while even to realize that the big door was there with the purpose and not just a part of the old mansion. Here are a few pictures from you so you will get the idea:
Here is the door I was contemplating to touch:
From here on, this will be pretty much a picture report with some tasting notes, of course.
By the way, just to give you an idea of the size of this winery – look at this conveyor belt – there are between 7,000 and 9,000 cases (!) of white wine made there per day (!):
And those barrels? They all hold white wine, and there are 28,000 barrels in that room (!). And the smell alone in that room – ahh, you really should experience it for yourself – the magnificent Chardonnay aromas filling up the air – you really can enjoy this smell countless amount of time.
Wait, here are the tanks first:
And now, the barrels (no, you can’t see all 28,000 in this picture):
Now, let’s talk about the wine – no more “supporting pictures”.
The tasting was conducted in the library room, where I was surrounded by the wines I really (REALLY!!!) wanted to try – but I had to only look at them… Here are some of the wines I didn’t try:
1977 Cabernet Sauvignon:
Then I didn’t try this 1993 Meritage:
1994 Meritage? Nope, still nothing…
And I didn’t try this 1998 Meritage:
Another wine I missed on, 2000 Meritage:
2004 Meritage? I could touch…the bottle, that’s all:
Okay, that’s it. Yes, I just wanted to share some pictures with you, so it would mean that I didn’t take those pictures for nothing.
And now, let’s talk about wines I actually tasted.
The tasting started with Domaine Ste. Michelle Cuvee Brut NV. As a confession of the wine snob (wow! need to patent that – should be a great name for a series of posts) I have to admit that I always passed that sparkler in the wine stores. I will not make this mistake anymore! Perfectly balanced, with the nice notes of green apple, and fresh, clean, high note acidity (and the price of $11 or so), this can be your perfect everyday bottle of sparkling wine.
On a related note, I would like to also give you a mini-quiz (the answer will be at the bottom of the post) – below is a picture of the cork – what do you think those numbers mean and why are they there?
Next, we moved to the 2009 Canoe Ridge Chardonnay – it had a touch of butter and toasted oak on the nose, but was somewhat green on the palate – I was hoping for a bit more round profile on the palate.
Next wine was the 2008 Artist Series Meritage – 51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Malbec and 1% Petit Verdot – this was actually the first year for the whole period of Meritage production when all 5 classic Bordeaux varieties had been used. The wine was beautiful, perfectly balanced and reminiscent of a classic Bordeaux.
2009 Cold Creek Cabernet Sauvignon – single-vineyard Cabernet was perfectly clean with eucalyptus and earthy notes, soft fruit, and a long finish. As Renee ( my host) explained, this wine is usually not really welcomed by guests from California, as it shows much less exuberance compare to the traditional California Cab.
However, Washington Merlot, such as 2009 Ethos Reserve Merlot is fully redeeming the softness of Cabernet – this wine has broad shoulders, very big, powerful, with blueberries and blueberry jam, tobacco and dark chocolate notes – very impressive wine.
Last in that line of the tasting was 2006 Late Harvest Chenin Blanc, single vineyards from Horse Heaven Hills, RS 17.8% – this wine was perfectly balanced, with notes of honey and apricots, and clean, fresh acidity – very nice.
Do you think we are done? Nope. There are a few more wines to report: 2008 Stone Tree Vineyard Syrah Wahluke Slope was soft and supple, with a touch of spice:
And then there was 2008 Ethos Reserve Syrah, which I have to simply call Best of Tasting – it was a “wow” wine, perfect BBQ wine with the nose of smokey roast, perfect power, balance and beauty:
And… We are not done yet! Then I had an opportunity to try Col Solare wines, which are a product of the partnership between Chateau Ste. Michelle and Tuscany’s Marchesi Antinori. The winery is situated on the Red Mountain in Washington, a part of Columbia Valley appellation, and the vineyards and the whole winery are resembling sun rays – you can see it for yourself in this picture on the website.
The wines are done in the true Super Tuscan style, powerful but reserved. I had an opportunity to try 2006, 2007, and 2008, and as a common point, I can only say – these wines need more time…
Dense and a touch chewy, with nice dark fruit, cherries and plums, earthy notes and good acidity, very balanced. These wines are not easy to find, but worth seeking.
And for me – here is something again which I didn’t try:
Okay, your photo-torture is done. I’m taking complaints in the comment section. And I’m pretty much done with my report. Ahh, yes, almost forgot – that mini-quiz… Did you figure out those numbers on the cork? Of course, you did, it is a production date. But I managed to surprise even my host Renee, who didn’t know about that date being printed on the cork (I even surprised myself as I never saw it before and only read about it) – the importance of this information is that with this date, you can know how long ago that non-vintage sparkling wine was produced. And I don’t know if you tasted an NV sparkler that was laying around for 5-6 years – it tastes very different from the freshly made version. And with the date on the cork – now you know.
Now I’m done with this post for sure. Find the bottle of Chateau Ste Michelle wine and have a glass – if you managed to read up to this point, you definitely deserve it. And if you are visiting Seattle – well, now you know what you shouldn’t miss. Cheers!
Five Traps of Oenophile
Boy, did this post took a long time… I don’t even know why – I knew what I wanted to write – but no, it still took forever. Anyway, it is finally out, yay!
If you think about it, oenophiles have not only common traits (here is my take on them) – they also have common traps. Are there actually only five traps there, tripping over and under those who loses their caution? It depends on how you will count them, but I would think that these five are the most common ones. Let’s talk about those traps, and then you can tell me of you ever fell for any of them.
1. $100 is a new $10. How many of you out there started your love of wine with Yellow Tail or Frontera, for $5.99 or so? That wine was great, and the idea that you can buy a bottle of wine for more than $10 was completely foreign. What? $19.99? That must be for special occasions only, I can’t believe people spend that kind of money on the wine. See, I’m very happy here with my Frontera Cabernet.
Little by little this situation changes. Why this $6.99 Bordeaux tastes like you are chewing on the tree branch? This is Bordeaux, right? So it is supposed to be the best wine in the world? As you keep reading books and magazines, talking and listening to other people, and most importantly, trying wines which cost a little more and maybe a little more on top, you start hitting the ”aha” moment from time to time. More wines, more reading, more conversations, more experiences at the wineries and wine tastings, more appreciation for the wine and all the labor and passion which goes into creation of a great bottle of wine, and you start letting yourself to push your limit of ”appropriate and acceptable” a bit higher, and then may be some. Before you know it, what was unfathomable to you ($100 for a bottle of wine? What am I, crazy?) becomes … hmmm, let me think about it. No, I’m not describing a birth process of a wine snob (let me digress for a second – “wine snob” has both good and bad meaning, I’m referring to the bad one here) – I think as casual wine drinker becomes an oenophile, the entire outlook on fairness and rationale of the wine prices is changing, thus eventually leading to $100 becoming a new $10 (or may be even worse than that).
2. No cellar is ever big enough. No matter what size of your cellar is, it eventually becomes full – and you run out of space for the … wait for it… new bottles, right! And this is in the lucky case when you have an actual cellar (so you can probably squeeze in a little more). When you don’t have a cellar, the boxes start piling up all over the place, which … yeah, creates problems. You start opening the bottles just so you will get space for … new bottles. You wish that your friends will come over, so you can open more bottles and … create space for new bottles. Then some of your collection ends up at, let’s say, Benchmark Wine Company, and you get a lot of space in your cellar, so … you can fill it up again.
3. Buying of the wine becomes an obsession. We all buy things. Food, clothes, gadgets. Don’t know if someone can be obsessed with food (talking about buying, not actually eating) – may be, but let’s skip it. Let’s say someone is obsessed with gadgets. Very nice – so that someone will camp out by the store and wait for the whole night for the doors to open to be among first 10 blissful owners of iPhone 15. Some hundreds of dollars, and your obsession is satisfied for the next two years, until the iPhone 18 will come out.
When it comes to the wine obsession, situation is quite different. With the wine, oenophile is constantly afraid to miss something – miss on a big scale, miss irreparably and then regret. Ahh, 2007 was a great vintage in California, so I have to make sure I have enough 2007 in my cellar, because the time to buy is now. What if I will never see this wine again? 2009 was a great year, and this is a great producer – I have to get at least a few bottles of this wine. And that one. Ohh, and what if tomorrow this wine will disappear from the store? So there are only 200 cases of this wine made, and it has such a high rating, and, ahh – this price is incredible – should I get 3 or 4? Yes, yes, I know – I will get 5 and drink one now, but I will still have 4 left for the future, right? I can go on and on, but I think you got the picture.
4. There is never a right time to open that bottle. When it comes to deciding on which bottle to open, boy, does that creates a tsunami of thoughts? So I only have two of those bottles left… Should I open it today? But I think this wine is still evolving… May be I should wait for another year? But what if it will be past prime next year – that would be such a pity, this should be really great bottle of wine. Okay, okay – I will open it in a month, when Michael will come over – hmmm, but I think he really likes Pinot, and this is a Cab… Okay, no, I can’t decide. Let’s put it back. Do I still have any of that Chianti left which I got last week for $9.99? Yeah, I’m tired of this Chianti, but at least I will not destroy my precious bottle before its time… Again, I think this is pretty clear (tell me you never had an occurrence of this one, go ahead, lie to the world).
5. One becomes susceptible to the charm of clever and trusted wine marketing. What is the big deal, right? That what marketing is for – to make us buy something. Problem is that unless you are obsessed with something, most of the marketing generates “hmmm, this is interesting” reaction. Once we are talking about obsession, the reaction to the clever marketing is “I have to have it”. I can tell you that probably 8 times out of 10, I want to buy the wine described in the e-mails from PJ Wine (here is a link to the sample e-mail for you – judge for yourself). The need to pay for shipping really becomes a sobering factor here. Same story with the e-mails from Benchmark Wine Company – luckily (hope you sense the sarcasm), most of their offerings are priced out of the reach. A lot of e-mails from Wine Til Sold Out lead to the similar “I gotta have it” syndrome – I know people who unsubscribed from WTSO e-mails, just to avoid that permanent temptation.
I think I warned you enough – do you still want to be an oenophile (or a wine snob – in a good sense, of course)? If you are still reading this, there is a good chance that you already are – then I hope I armed you with something useful in a fight for preservation of the family money and free space in your house. If not – I hope I got at least a chuckle out of you. Last, but not least – I want to know what do you think! This is what comments section is for… Cheers!
Thank You, The Capital Grille!
Huge wine selection, also see the discounts on spirits.
This is not the first time I’m writing a happy post about one of my favorite restaurants, The Capital Grille – here are the links to the previous two posts, from 2010 and from 2011. This post will not be an exception – we had a great time [again].
Everybody in the family like steaks (okay, the oldest used to love steak – now she is trying to become a vegetarian) – but most of the time we make it at home. However, in August, we have a happy occasion, our wedding anniversary, which gives us a good reason to go to a restaurant – but this is not the only reason to visit Capital Grille. Two more reasons: Generous Pour program and Stamford Restaurant Week. I guess we are simply lucky, as The Capital Grille runs their special wine program, called Generous Pour, from July until the beginning of September – for $25, you can taste 9 different wines, specially selected by the Master Sommelier George Milotes. And The Capital Grille usually participates in Stamford Restaurant week, which typically runs for two weeks before the Labor Day- at participating restaurants, you can have a full dinner for about $30 per person! Do I need to give you any more reasons? I thought so.
As I usually do with the restaurant posts, I will give you mostly pictures and then of course all of my notes on the wines, which were quite good overall.
We had calamari as our shared appetizer (one of the kids’ favorite foods) – I don’t have a picture for you, but they were delicious. Then for the main course, we had 3 different kinds of steak. Kids opted for Fillet Mignon:
I had Kona-rubbed sirloin strip:
And my wife went for Tornedos – a cut of beef I can never remember, so here is the link for you if you need to know exactly what it is:
All the steaks were masterfully prepared and came also with the tasty sides, like creamy spinach, garlicky mashed potatoes and wild mushrooms – as empty plates look extremely unappetizing in the pictures, I will spare you that sight, but believe me the plates were clean.
Let’s talk about the wines now, and we will finish your [drooling?] session with the dessert.
The wine program was presented exactly in the order below, and wine was always available throughout the entire course – I should mention that we had great service.
Here are my notes on the nine wines we had:
NV Lunetta Sparkling Rose, Trentino, Italy – very nice, crisp, tiny fizz, strawberries, hint of cranberries, good acidity. Refreshing. Drinkability: 7+
2009 Gary Ferrel Chardonnay, Carneros – Beautiful, touch of sweetness, butter and vanilla on the nose, same on the palate with additional hint of peach. Very balanced. Perfectly complemented spicy calamari. Drinkability: 8+
2008/09 Simčič Rebula, Roriska Brda, Slovenia – Earth and lemon on the nose, literally not a touch of fruit. Beautiful and hard to describe on the palate, very pronounced “just ripe” strawberries (more of a wild strawberries). Perfect acidity, touch of salt and savory undertones. Drinkability: 8-
2009 Chateau du Pin, Bordeaux, France – Limited fruit expression on the nose. Nice cherries, soft, good acidity on the palate, tannins unnoticeable (should have more). This wine didn’t exhibit a sense of place – not the Bordeaux wine I would expect. Interestingly enough, it didn’t work with steak – probably due to lack of tannins. This wine was drinkable, but not memorable at all. My least favorite in the entire lineup. Drinkability: 7
2007 Villa Mt Eden Pinot Noir Reserve, Russian River Valley – Amazing. Pinot Noir at the next level. Nose of a Pinot, with earthiness, smokiness, spices, cedar box. More of the same on the palate with the addition of ripe dark plums. In a blind tasting, I could possibly confuse this wine with the Rioja. Worked perfectly with the steak. Best of tasting. Drinkability: 9-
2007 Conn Creek Anthology Napa Valley – Beautiful classic Cabernet Sauvignon – cassis, eucalyptus, touch of blueberries, soft tannins. Perfectly drinkable now, but will improve with time. Drinkability: 8
2008 Ferrari-Carano Mountain Reserve, Alexander Valley – Nice progression from the previous wine. If Anthology was a delicate Cab, this wine was in-your-face California Cabernet. Blueberry jam on the nose (but no alcohol burn!), very fruit forward – in a good sense. Beautifully balanced, dark fruit on the palate, dark chocolate and herbs. Drinkability: 8+
2009 Falesco Assini Rosso, Umbria – Beautiful toned down read wine, black cherries, perfect acidity, noticeable profile of herbs and spices, very complex. Drinkability: 8
2006 Kanu Kia Ora Chenin Blanc, Stellenbosch, South Africa – Light and effervescent, without overpowering sweetness. Apricot pit and apricot notes, very good acidity. Paired very well with cheesecake. Drinkability: 7+
And now – the dessert! In general, I’m somewhat indifferent to the cheesecake – yes, it is nice, but it would be one of my last choices in the restaurant. Except the Cheesecake in The Capital Grille – if you never had one, go to The Capital Grille near you, skip the steak and just order the cheesecake – it will be a divine experience. Okay, fine, don’t skip the steak, because it is really good – but whatever you do, leave some room for cheesecake. As they usually say, picture worth a thousand words:
That’s all I have for you, folks – sorry you had to live vicariously through this post, but you really shouldn’t – here is a link to The Capital Grille web site, find one near you. Cheers!
Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon Experience, And A Few Words About Food
If I’m not mistaken, last week was literally the first week in Connecticut when evenings became enjoyable – which also meant that we could have a family dinner outside!
Dinner outside is one of the little pleasures of suburban life, when you can get to enjoy the food twice. Not that cooking the food on the stove is not enjoyable – but somehow, doing it outside on the open fire creates the whole separate feeling. And then the whole process of having food outdoors also brings different level of pleasure – I don’t know about you, but whenever possible, in a restaurant I ask for the table outside, to be able to enjoy both food and the weather, and here I don’t even need to ask anyone to get the table outside!
Yes, I will get to the Waterstone cab in a second (after all, that should be the subject of the post, right?) – but let me talk about the food for a moment. Our local Fairway had jumbo shrimp and fillet Mignon on sale, so the menu was a no-brainer. Of course you have to have something green on the grill, so I think asparagus is one of the best greens you can grill:
I have a feeling that the recipes’ page is coming up in this blog – little by little, I learned to make a few dishes consistently well, so I think sharing the recipes makes sense (but let me sleep on it). One important thing about my recipes – more often than not, I don’t use the exact measure. I can’t tell you to use a quarter of teaspoon of salt, a half of it or the whole one – I just rely on a “gut feeling” for “enough or not”. For the asparagus, I use a dash of salt, black pepper, granulated garlic, olive oil and a splash of balsamic – mix it all together and let it “marinate” for 30 minutes or so. And then of course the key part is not to overcook the asparagus, so it will retain the crunch. I typically have a grill at 400°F and put the asparagus down for 1 minute, turn around, and keep it for another minute – and it is done.
I made shrimp on a skewer. You need to clean the shrimp, and marinate it for 30 minutes to an hour in the fridge (don’t marinate for too long, or it will become a mush). For the marinade ( considering I had 1 pound of shrimp) I used about 1/4 of a cup of olive oil, 4 -5 minced garlic cloves, juice of one lemon ( you can add wine vinegar also, if you want) and a couple of Penzey spices – I used Cajun and Lemon Pepper. About 2 minutes on each side at the same 400°F grill, and … voila:
This shrimp was probably one of the best I ever had ( and made) – I also think kids were in the violent agreement with me – no shrimp survived the evening.
And the steak – everybody can make steak on the grill, so there is not much to talk about – here is the picture for you:
Quite honestly, I should’ve used more salt – but this you probably can’t tell it from the picture. I rehabilitated myself the next day by generously using Montreal seasoning mix, but I don’t this is important in the context of this blog.
And then, of course, there was wine. First I read about Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon in the e-mail from the Benchmark Wine Company, where it was listed as one of the “stuff favorites”. Further checking on internet seemed to be hinting at connection between Harlan Estate, producer of one of the absolute top (“cult” is the word) California wines and Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon – the rumor which Jancis Robinson unequivocally dismisses.
Whether the rumor is true or not is not that essential – Benchmark’s recommendation along with unpretentious label was enough to build my expectations (okay, I’m lying about the rumor – of course I want this wine to be made out of Harlan’s juice, at about 1/30 of a price of the bottle of Harlan Estate). Interestingly enough, if you will read about the Waterstone Winery, which was established in 2000, it doesn’t own any vineyards, which means that grapes should be sourced from the other vineyards, so the whole idea of wine being made out of Harlan juice, entirely or at least partially, is not that impossible. Anyway, with all those expectations, I was still taking my time, until Zak (owner of Cost Less Wines) told be that he only has about 10 bottles left, so … (he took a pause after “so”) I realized that the time has come.
As you can see from the picture below, I approached entire matter of experiencing the Waterstone very seriously, using my “special occasions only” Cabernet set from Reidel (we have enough glasses for the regular use, and those Reidel glasses don’t last long):
Every time I use these special Reidel glasses, the first smell sensation I get is the one of a wet dog – I guess I don’t know how to use them properly… That smell has nothing to do with the wine, and it disappears after a few sips, but it sure gets in the way of your first impression. Well, let’s talk about the wine. This 2007 Waterstone Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley (14.5% ABV, $27.99) has 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Merlot, 3% Cabernet France and 1% Petite Verdot, and it was aged in french oak barrels for 22 months. The wine had a perfect nose of blueberries. Not blueberry pie or blueberry jam, but a clean, perfect, balanced nose of fresh berries. This was followed by nice dark fruit on the palate, luscious and round, with some eucalyptus and touch of licorice, excellent balance of tannins, acidity and fruit. Drinkability: 9-. It is interesting to note that the wine was a bit all over the place on the second day, and I had nothing for the third day ( while I expect that it probably would taste better). Here is an artistic rendering of the event by my daughter:
There you have it, folks. I think this is the wine to buy by the case, if you can find it, of course. If you tasted this wine, I will be glad to compare notes. If you didn’t taste it yet, try to find it – and then I will be glad to compare notes. Cheers!
P.S. you can also consider this post as an early contribution for #CabernetDay which is coming up on Thursday, August 30th.
Impromptu Reflection On My Favorite Subject – Amarone
This blog post was not planned for today – nope, had totally different ideas in mind. And then the comment arrived on one of my older posts (click here to see it). And the comment was more of a question, which definitely stroke a chord – someone was looking for that perfect Amarone moment, exactly the same way as I was trying to replicate mine…
Yes, I responded to the comment, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to reflect on the magic of Amarone – and practical impossibility of re-creating that magic “at will”. That full-bodied, perfectly dry but rich, voluptuous and perfectly balanced (you will have to forgive my use of double-perfect wording) which I experienced only once (I’m talking again about 1997 Le Ragose Amarone) – was almost never replicated in any of the wines I had. The only two which come close were 2001 Masi Mazzano Amarone Classico, and believe it or not, 2000 Carlisle Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. I have one wine on my “must try” list – Giuseppe Quintarelli Amarone – which must be magical based on what the others are saying, but this wine would really require a [very] generous sponsor…
Out of curiosity, I decided to check on the classic Amarone at the Wine Spectator web site – there are only 11 Amarone which have “classic” rating (95-100 points) throughout all the years:
| Wine | Vintage | Score |
Release Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michele Castellani Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Cinque Stelle | 2005 | 96 | $105 | |
| Romano Dal Forno Amarone della Valpolicella | 2004 | 96 | $NA | |
| Lorenzo Begali Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Monte Ca’ Bianca | 1997 | 95 | $NA | |
| Lorenzo Begali Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Monte Ca’ Bianca | 2004 | 95 | $70 | |
| Michele Castellani Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Cinque Stelle | 2003 | 95 | $64 | |
| Michele Castellani Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Cinque Stelle | 2007 | 95 | $75 | |
| Romano Dal Forno Amarone della Valpolicella | 1998 | 95 | $480 | |
| Romano Dal Forno Amarone della Valpolicella | 1997 | 95 | $370 | |
| Romano Dal Forno Amarone della Valpolicella | 2003 | 95 | $425 | |
| Masi Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Mazzano | 1999 | 95 | $120 | |
| Masi Amarone della Valpolicella Classico | 1988 | 95 | $NA |
As you can see, Wine Spectator is not much of a help…
Have you ever experienced the magic of Amarone? Do you have a favorite? Let me know! Cheers!
Traif! Small Place, Big Experience
Do you ever wonder how could we live without modern technology? For instance, how did we go about finding the good places to eat? Looking in Zagat? Calling a friend? Reaping and storing newspaper reviews and pages from the magazines, only to be never be able to recall where did we put them and what was the name of the restaurant? Despite being a techie, I can’t stop being amazed at what you can do today with such a “simple” tool as Google.
Couple of weeks back, we planned a weekend with friends in Brooklyn. Of course visiting the restaurant is a great form of entertainment, and as we do it pretty rarely with my wife, I really want to make sure that every visit would be a great experience. How can I do that? Two words: Google and Bloggers. You can use Google to get piles of relevant information. And then you can use Bloggers’ “labor of love”, their posts, in order to extract jewels from those piles.
Let’s go back to my restaurant search. Google faithfully produced a whole bunch of references when asked for the Brooklyn restaurant recommendations. One of the references attracted my attention – it was for the blog called Becoming Brooklyn, where I found the post with 5 recommended restaurants. Quick scroll through the relevant links and the decision was made – we are going to try the restaurant called Traif. Why? First, the menu looked interesting, and prices appeared to be reasonable. And the second reason? The restaurant offered chef’s tasting menu, priced extremely reasonably at $40 per person.
I love chef’s tasting menus. It gives you an experience instead of just a meal – and this is something which I would definitely prefer at any time. And so when we visited Traif this past weekend, chef’s tasting menu was our choice. To give you an idea of how was it, I need only one word – WOW! Taste, texture, presentation – everything was perfect. There was not a single dish we didn’t like. Every little morsel was absolutely delicious – this was really an Experience. The only way I can share it with you is through the pictures – I think they came out reasonably okay (just so you know, I’m rarely satisfied with the quality of my pictures) and you will get a feel for that experience. Of course the best thing you can do is to go and experience it for yourself, but meanwhile – here are the pictures.
Not shown – Gazpacho (sorry, I was slow at the beginning)
Butterfish Carpaccio with peach slices:
Not shown – blistered shishito peppers, canteloup, marconas, feta, mint, orange (sorry, people were too hungry! And I was slow again…)
dayboat scallops, creamy corn
spicy, bigeye tuna, tempura japanese eggplant, kecap manis:
crispy soft shell crabs, crushed avocado, pineapple sambal, red papaya:
seared foie, fingerlings, ham chips, sunny egg, maple, hot sauce:
sautéed veal sweetbreads, asparagus, bacon, snap peas, shiitakes:
strawberry-cinnamon glazed baby back pork ribs:
bbq, braised short rib sliders, sweet potato fries, smoked paprika aioli:
And for the dessert:
momʼs key lime pie, graham crust, pineapple:
bacon doughnuts, dulche de leche , coffee ice cream:
not shown – watermelon squares with molasses
I hope you liked my photo report, and I hope you are convinced that you need to experience Traif for yourself – believe me, you will not regret!
In case you wonder where is my favorite subject, wine, in this story – everybody were in the mood for cocktail or a beer, so I just had a glass of red Portuguese wine which was simple enough to not interfere with most of the dishes. But I have to note that wine list looked pretty good, diverse and reasonably priced.
Adding to the words of Iron Chef judges: Thank you Traif for the wonderful meal experience! Cheers!
Traif
229 S 4th St
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(347) 844-9578
From Wine and Books To Wine In Books
What do you take your wine with? There are few options, I guess. One (and most obvious) would be food. Another one would be a conversation (wine and conversation – a match made in heaven?). And then there is wine and the book – both get you in the mood, both complement and enhance each other and make the moment special (take your average week as an example – how many times per week you get to enjoy a quiet moment with book and the wine? What, zero? I hear you…).
Sometimes, wine even gets into the book – and I don’t mean by spilling it all over. Today is a Wine Blogging Wednesday #79, dedicated to Summer Reading, Summer Wine. The main question you are supposed to answer in your blog post is “What wine would your favorite fictional character drink?”.
I have two problem with this question – the same way as I can’t name my favorite wine, I can not name my favorite fictional character (there are many). And the second problem? Drinking wine (or any alcohol) is not necessarily a priority, no matter what the character is doing, therefore pinning it down is far from simple.
While I thought of a few different approaches ( including writing of the short essay about a character and the wine), advancing from thinking to the writing was not getting in sync with me. But then I thought of one of my all-times absolute favorite science fiction book. I can’t tell you how many times I read this book while I was growing up – 10, 20, 50 – I have no idea), but every time it was fresh and fascinating. This book was written in 1965 by two brothers, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (originally in Russian), and it is called Monday Starts on Saturday. It is a science fiction (border line fantasy) book, talking about a research institute where wizards, sorcerers and just researchers work on exploring of the meaning of life (anyone who read the book in the original – I ask for your forgiveness for such a representation of this book). If anyone cares to read it in English, here the link to the full English text – however note that a lot of charm might be lost in translation.
So I decided to do a simple check for what kind of alcohol was mentioned in the book (using the word “bottle” as an anchor and remembering some of the key scenes). Here is the list:
- Wine (generic term, nothing specific)
- Champagne (again, nothing specific)
- Vodka (after all, this is a Russian book!)
- Cognac (with the perfect string attached: “A human might be just an intermediate element of evolution necessary to build a masterpiece of creation – a glass of cognac with slice of lemon” – note that translation is mine).
- Amontillado (pretty good, huh? This type of Jerez was mentioned by the name!)
- Elixir of Bliss (clearly a magical creation, but based on the personal experience, I would approximate it to an extremely old Pedro Ximenez Jerez)
Of course I might be missing something, but I like the list even as it is.
There you have it, my friends. My major point here? No matter what the characters are drinking, wine and books go perfectly hand in hand – hope you can find the time to enjoy both! Cheers!
Serious Fun With Wines
In case you are wondering about the “serious fun” versus “not so serious fun”, somehow this title just got stuck in my head when I thought about this post, and I decided not to fight that. Also, when you have Gaja, Ornellaia, Turley, Bertani and whole bunch of other interesting wines, I think “serious fun” is a good way to put it. And to stress even further how serious the fun was, I’m even using different style of pictures for this post instead of usual “just label” style (and yes, you are right, I also use an opportunity to play with my new camera).
What is your first thought when you see the name like Gaja on the wine list? I don’t know about you, but in majority of the cases I would expect to see a red wine there. Yes, I can think of Gaja Chardonnay, and only because it typically looks at least as an affordable possibility on the wine list, as opposed to the Gaja red wines, which are not. So the wine we had was a white wine made out of …(wait for it)…Sauvignon Blanc!
2006 Gaja Alteni di Brassica Langhe DOC, Italy was a total surprise. Mineral nose, with wet stone, smoke and heavy grass. Touch of white fruit on the palate, more stone, touch of lemon, perfectly balanced. Finish lasted for 3 minutes, if not longer! Very beautiful wine. Drinkability: 9
The next wine we had was also coming from a very respectful Italian producer, Tenuta dell’Ornellaia. And the wine was…yes, white again! The grape? Yep, Sauvignon Blanc. 2010 Poggio alle Gazze dell’Ornellaia, Toscana IGT was simply delicious, with perfumed nose of lychees and white apple. Palate was exhibiting nuts and ripe apple. Very long finish with some tropical fruit notes coming in later on. Bright, round, amazing! Drinkability: 9
We continued our “whites’ extravaganza” with 2009 Ken Forrester The FMC ( (Forrester Meinert Chenin), South Africa. This wine was made out of the Chenin Blanc grape. While Chenin Blanc is one of the signature white French grapes from Loire, it also makes great wines around the world. It does particularly well in South Africa, where it is also known under the name Steen. This particular The FMC wine is a single vineyard flagship wine of Ken Forrester, one of the oldest producers in South Africa. This wine had a beautiful nose very similar to a typical chardonnay – nutty with some acidity, bright yellow color, very round. Drinkability: 8+
Done with whites. Before switching to the reds, we had a different, very unusual wine – as you can judge from the color above, this wine is not called “Orange” for nothing. Orange wine is one of the latest trends, where skin of the white grapes is left in the contact with juice during maceration. This imparts a nice deep yellow/orange color, hence the name, orange wine. This wine also was not some fly by night experimental plonk. 2008 Marani Satrapezo 10 kvevri, Georgia (100% Rkatsiteli grape, all coming from specific block of the Kondoli vineyard) was made in a traditional Georgian style with maceration for 20-25 days in historical clay vessel called Kvevri.
The wine had beautiful orange color. On the nose it had aromas of a bright fresh apricot. Palate was dry, full bodied, vegetative with enough brightness, touch of apricot but no sweetness whatsoever. After three hours in decanter the wine softened considerably – this wine definitely would benefit from a few years in the cellar. Drinkability: 8
Okay, we are finally switching to reds – with it’s own set of surprises. We started from 1997 Estancia Meritage Alexander Valley (Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot/Cabernet Franc blend). The wine had perfect color – dark, concentrated ruby red. Eucalyptus, wet stone, dust and raspberries on the nose. Bright red and black fruit on the palate with cassis, eucalyptus and licorice – perfect balance, nice, soft tannins. Drinkability: 8+
This was probably the biggest surprise of the evening – 1997 Toasted Head Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah California. Generally, Toasted Head makes simple everyday wines – which you generally are not going to age. This wine was simply lost in the cellar, and we opened it to taste but with the full readiness to dump it. To our astonishment (too strong of a word, but – why not), the wine had perfect acidity, bright youthful color, good black fruit, soft tannins and a touch of cassis. Drinkability: 8
The next wine was Giribaldi Cento Uve – but this will be a subject of a separate post, so I will skip my tasting notes for that wine. And the next wine was the one … we killed – it sounds way too strong, I know – but please read on. Amarone are typically big enough wines, so we decided to decant this wine – without even tasting it first (but the nose was perfect!). This was a [big] mistake. After 3 hours in decanter, the wine became barely drinkable. Another 30 minutes later, the fruit came back, both on the palate and the nose, only to disappear shortly after. Note to self – be careful with decanting. Considering this experience, I will not give this wine any rating – it simply wouldn’t be fair.
As you might expect, we didn’t just drink – we had a lot of good food as well. Just to give you an example, here is lamb kabob in the process of making:
To complement the lamb, we had 1996 Turley Duarte Zinfandel – nice fruit, raspberries on the nose and the palate, hint of jammy fruit later on, plus some eucalyptus. Very good overall balance for the wine at 15.4% ABV. Drinkability: 8-
And then of course there was a dessert – Clafoutis (no further comments, just look at the picture):
This was definitely a great experience. Pretty rare case when all the wines worked very well and were absolutely delightful – if I can only re-taste that Amarone… Well, may be one day. Wishing you great wine experiences! Cheers!
Daily Glass: 2009 Chorus Effect by Field Recordings
I have a question for you. Have you ever experienced a special bottle “today is the day… or not” effect? It is when you have a bottle you want to open, but you can’t decide if today should be the day, or you need to wait a bit longer? I’m not talking about special bottle which. let’s say, bears vintage year of your son or daughter’s birthday – those are easy, you only contemplate once a year whether to open the bottle or not. I’m talking about more of an everyday, reasonably priced wine, of which, let’s say you have only one bottle, and you know that you can’t get another one – this is the case in point.
Ever since I was blown away by the bottle of Fiction by Field Recordings (here is the link to my post about that experience), I wanted to try another wine made by Andrew Jones – Chorus Effect. I had the bottle for about half a year in “to use in the near term” place, and I can’t even tell you how many times I was in the “today is the day” mood, and … nope, I guess it was not.
And somehow it happened that the day was finally today, and the bottle was open ( one easy move, you know – those screw tops are perfect for easy opening).
This 2009 Field Recordings Chorus Effect Koligian Vineyard, Paso Robles ($26, 15.3% ABV, 249 cases made) is a Bordeaux-style blend – you can see the exact composition on the picture of the back label.
The wine had beautiful purple color, bright and fresh. Nose was showing sweet cherries, plums and a touch of spices. But the palate… If Fiction, which I mentioned earlier, had absolutely astonishing nose, this wine had the same on the palate. This was a textbook study of a red wine, all in one sip – not the Bordeaux specifically, but the red wine overall. Sweet cherries, ripe plums, blueberries, tar, sweet vanilla, licorice, violet, chocolate, pepper, tobacco, eucalyptus – you could easily taste each and all. At the same time, the wine was balanced, with soft tannins, without any jamminess which can be often observed at such high alcohol levels. I’m not sure if I’m ready to rate it – I really want to see what will happen with this wine tomorrow – but for now, I will put the Drinkability at 8-, mainly due to the alcohol burn which was not noticeable at the beginning but showed up couple of hours after the bottle was opened.
Did you open your special bottle today? Will be glad to hear your story. Cheers!
Wine = Art
The title of this post is not misleading. I plan to talk about wine as an art form, which is the way I look at it. Why all of a sudden? Couple of articles, both great in its own right (I mentioned both in the Meritage post a week ago), prompted this blog post, despite my claim that I’m not going to enter this debate. I don’t know why is that, but I have a habit of saying “No” where deep inside, as soon as I finish my full and long “no” sentence I already know that, “oh it will be a yes”. Anyway, this blog post is not about me, it is about wine, so let’s get closer to the subject.
In case you didn’t have a chance to read those two articles, they were both on the beaten up (badly beaten up, I have to say) subject of cheap wines versus expensive wines. The first article, published in the Forbes magazine, provided a number of illustrations to the fact that…there are many factors affecting perceived taste of wine – temperature, label, feel of the moment, critics’ opinion, rating and many more (I’m not going to cite a full article here – it is well worth reading if you are into the wine world). I believe that one of the points of the article was to suggest that for the most of us, we can’t distinguish between cheap and expensive wines anyway, so why bother – drink any wine, be happy (I’m oversimplifying, I know).
Then Steve Heimoff took the subject close to his heart and went on to explain that there is a very big difference in taste between $15 and $150 bottles of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, that more expensive wine is always better than the cheap wine and that the the whole premise of Forbes article in Steve’s words is “man bites dog” attempt at a cheap publicity.
Let me take step aside and explain the meaning of the concept “wine = art”. When you are at home, take a look around you. I would make a safe assumption that for absolute majority of people, your home is decorated in one way or the other. You might have pictures and photos on the walls, statues big and small, flowers live and not, little (or big) mementos and many other things which surround our lives with only one purpose – to give us pleasure, set the mood or may be create lasting connections between time and memories. Taking pictures as the simplest example, they can be your kids’ pictures, copies of the works of the famous artists, works of the completely unknown artists or may be they are actual original paintings. Those pictures can be mass produced and acquired at the neighborhood convenience store for $4.99. But they also can be acquired after a long battle at the auction, where you had to put down $4.9 million to beat another guy and get that painting you always dreamed of.
Now, when was the last time you read an article telling you that you are not supposed to buy any works of art more expensive than $19.99, because you are not capable of understanding the difference between $19.99 and $199 pictures? Or when was the last time you read an article telling you that expensive painting is always better than cheap print? I can bet I’m giving you a very taxiing memory-combing exercise which will yield no results.
So my question is – why wine is treated in any different way than any other works of art? Read (or talk) about the wines, read about vineyards and places, read about wine makers, grape growers, oenophiles, wine collectors – what do you get out of that reading or talking? Passion, obsession, emotions, feelings. We eat because we have to, but we drink wine because we want to, because of its ability to resonate with our beings, to create emotional response. This is my premise of “wine = art” statement. I believe that wine is a form of the renewable art, which also has a pretty unique advantage compare to a simple painting, for instance. Whatever you see on the painting will be exactly the same in 10 years or in 50 years. It will create different emotions on a different day, of course – but it will not change in principal. At the same time, even the simplest wine will change in the bottle. For better or worse, but it will change. Last weekend we shared a bottle of 1997 Toasted Head Cabernet Sauvignon/Syrah blend (probably $9.99 or less) – believe it or not, but this wine was outstanding – it evolved, it had beautiful fruit, great balance and nice finish. It was memorable, it solicited emotions, it created mental staples for that particular moment. If this is not art, I don’t know what is.
Where am I going with this? I don’t believe cheap versus expensive is a meaningful or useful argument for the wine world. Yes, there are many reasons for the wine to be expensive – best quality grapes with very low yield, state of the art facilities, manual processes, need for aging before release, market demand, reputation and many many other factors define the price and can drive it very high up. But if you will exclude snobbery, arrogance and blissful ignorance, price is simply one of many factors which affect your buying decision – nothing more and nothing less. Yes, $150 bottle will taste different than $15 – but can we say “better”? If someone is a Pinot Grigio drinker (and enjoys it very much), will you be able to prove to him or her that $150 Cabernet Sauvignon is really better that $15? I want to see that happening. When it comes to wine, “better” is a difficult category, as the definition of the best wine is 100% personal – the best wine is the one which tastes best to you. Yes, critics matter, ratings matter – but only as a reference, as food for thought.
Wow, did I bore you to death? I truly hope I didn’t – I think this post was brewing for a very long time, slowly ripening to the point of wanting to get out. These are my true feelings, this is how I see the wine world, and “wine = art” makes it so fascinating for me.
Is this arguable? Of course (comments section is down below and only a click away). I don’t pretend to possess the absolute truth – but “wine = art” makes me open a bottle of wine with hope and excitement. No matter what anyone said about that bottle, how much it costs or what the rating is – I hope you will enjoy it and I hope it will create a special memory, a special moment – just for you. Cheers!
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