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Participating Wineries
Bailiwick Wines • Burning Bench Cellars • Couloir Wines • DeLoach Vineyards • Dept C Wines • Dutton-Goldfield Winery • Easkoot Cellars • Kendric Vineyards • Cynthia Klock • McEvoy Ranch • Pacheco Ranch Winery • Pey-Marin Vineyards • Point Reyes Vineyards • Sean Thackrey • Skywalker

* Highlighted wineries use grapes grown on MALT-protected properties

Date: Saturday, May 11
Time: 3-7 p.m.
Where to Meet: Escalle Winery, 771 Magnolia Avenue, Larkspur. Map to the Escalle Winery.
Cost: $55. Price includes valet parking, wine and cheese tastings and wine glass.
Notes: Ages 21 and older.

Registration: Pre-registration recommended, but tickets may also be available at the door. Click here to register.

We bring this to you from our friends at the Austrian Wine Marketing Board and Austrian Trade Commission – a wine, food & music event hosted by world-renowned chef Lidia Bastianich and Andreas Grossbauer, first violinist of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra, on Monday, March 4th, at 7pm at the Del Posto restaurant in New York City.

The Austrian Wine Marketing Board and the Austria Trade Commission are proud to present the Philharmonic Taste – An Austrian Tasting for Ear and Palate. Guests will be served a pristinely prepared, 7-course menu featuring the culinary styling of Chef Bastianich at her Del Posto restaurant and the fine viniculture of Austria. Each course will be accompanied by a carefully-selected Austrian wine to be enjoyed while the quartet is playing; food will be served after each performance and the quartet will join the guests in dining.

This event is truly a one-of-a-kind experience and is a dream come true for any culture-enthusiast. Tickets are on sale for $425 a head, all inclusive, through this website. Additional details are below.

EVENT: Philharmonic Taste – AN AUSTRIAN TASTING FOR EAR AND PALATE.
WHO: A string quartet of members of the Vienna Philharmonics under the leadership of the orchestra’s first violinist and wine aficionado Andreas Grossbauer
WHAT: The night features a classic seven course menu, paired not only with wines from Austria’s best vineyards, but also with music chosen to reflect the personality and character of the evening’s fare.
WHEN: Monday, March 4th at 7 p.m.
WHERE: Del Posto Restaurant, 85 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10011
WHY: Try Austrian Wine paired with first class cuisine and music and the chance to dine with members of the Vienna Philharmonics. This is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.
COST: $425 including tax and tip for 7-course menu paired with wine and music.
MORE INFORMATION: www.philharmonictaste.com and www.austrianwineusa.com
PURCHASE TICKETS: http://dpphilharmonicdinner-eorg.eventbrite.com/#

So tomorrow night is opera: Parsifal at the Met, and while preparing myself for five hours of exquisite pleasure and spiritual renewal where normal folks would find only tedium and bellowing, I began to think about the last time I saw the work. Which was not quite a year ago, on Easter Sunday in Vienna. And I think about how many aspects of our lives carry cultural significance, and that they sometimes meet of an evening… and it’s got me to thinking about glassware.

After the opera in Vienna my friend and I walked briskly through the chill downtown toward the only port in this particular storm (fine restaurant still open at 11PM on Easter Sunday) and ended up in the bistro at Palais Coburg. Which offered access to the wine-cellar at large, where a bit of internet research had turned up a bottle or bottles of the 1975 Rauenthaler Baiken Spätlese from Schloß Eltz.

The Zalto Burgundy

Which, to my astonishment, the custodian of this most extensive wine cellar in the capital city chose to serve in a red Burgundy glass (we won’t say whose…) I raised an eyebrow at the notion of putting 37-year-old white wine into a large and airy glass, but the chap seemed to have done this before.

I had experienced my first Parsifal in Bayreuth at the same time I was getting to know German Riesling, which had then been the 1975 vintage—so it seemed appropriate to tie the two together. And I LOVE mature Spätlesen. This one was really tops. But that’s not what I came to talk about…

The other night, returning home rather late and having run low on whiskey, I rummaged around in the cabinet and found a tiny souvenir left from my months spent moonlighting on behalf of our colleague Martine Saunier—Audry XO Cognac.

And there was just barely enough to go around, but I spread it out three ways, into a reg’lar ol’ brandy snifter, a Zalto Burg stem (perhaps bigger is indeed better) and a Zalto Universal…

The Zalto Universal

Guess what?

Universal by far the most effective in channelling a balanced impression of this rather fine and very non-commercial Cognac.

The snifter provided a rather rounded impression of the beverage in question. And it’s fun to roll the stuff around and warm it in the hand…

The Burgundy bowl brought out all the things in the spirit that had nothing to do with the fact it had originally been bunches of grapes growing in the French countryside. Well, perhaps there was some terroir in there—but that’s more perceptible in Armagnac which comes out of the still with less alcohol, demanding less severe rectification—but loads of cask-tones here.

What the Universal managed was to present a coherent picture as well as the snifter, but at the same time highlight the highlights, and tone down the alcohol. Not as much fun as the brandy glass, but significantly more depth.

In addition to 2011 being a marvelous year for all three native reds of Burgenland (remembering now that Blaufränkisch was sensational in ’09, but some how Sankt Laurent and Zweigelt managed to frequently be more expressive under the leaner conditions of 2010), 2011 also marks the first vintage that Roland Velich has been able to send us nearly enough of the Moric basic Blaufränkisch Burgenland… A fellow as particular as our Roland is about his vineyards can add only slowly to the source material, for in every case, it’s got to be right—what was that old advert-slogan from the stoned-age—or was it the nifty fifties? …the quality goes in before the name goes on…

So faced with the familiar challenge of a good friend coming for dinner, and the need to do something with the mortal remains of a bottle of Moric I’d been showing to a couple customers, I hit upon the following. Do try this at home. Like nearly all of my recipes it’s nearly cook-proof…

And it’s not just nostalgia, but despite having a young jungle of Calphalon hanging in my kitchen—one piece of which even older than the name itself—it’s curious how much of my cooking I do with pans that I got handed down from my mother. And prominent among my skill set are several excellent examples of the good old cast iron skillet.

So one of the foremost capabilities of this wonderful fruit from off the Blaufränkisch bush involves its affinity for うま味, which seems to be the Japanese word for je ne sais quoi… But though stopping short of umami on this occasion, the admission of a slight Asian influence into the proceedings does much more good than harm, and so we go to market:

Ingredients
-2 large center-cut boneless pork chops (if I were obliged to feed from the flesh of but a single critter all my days, the pig would not fear any serious competition)
-2 large baking potatoes
-1 medium-sized vidalia onion
-1 medium-sized red onion
-1 acorn squash
-Brussels sprouts
-2 cloves of garlic (in German, garlic does not come in cloves, but rather in toes. Always found this quaint)
-Ginger, same size as the top joint of an adult male thumb
-Juice of half a lemon
-Equal amount of soy sauce
-Splash of olive oil
-Aceto balsamico
-Butter- unsalted please
-Brown sugar

A couple hours before kickoff, chop one clove of garlic rather fine, and do likewise to the ginger.
Juice half the lemon, and match it with an equal volume of soy sauce.
Poke the pork chops with a fork and pepper them good, both sides.
Put ginger and garlic in a sealable plastic sandwich bag and add the pork chops and a good splash of olive-oil, then pour in the lemon juice and soy sauce and seal the bag shut and agitate—leave it sitting out on the countertop, turning it over every half hour or so…

Preheat the oven to 400°

Clean the potatoes, and if the skins are truly disgusting, peel them.
But, if skins are relatively inoffensive, leave them be.
Cut each potato longways once then slice the halves rather thin.
Pile them into a cast-iron skillet with a splash of olive oil underneath, and on top of them goes half the vidalia onion nicely diced, as well as the remaining clove of garlic mashed or squoze, along with salt.
Cook on medium heat, not much of a challenge here, but stir frequently.
After half an hour or so, put a generous pat of butter on top of the potatoes and let it do what comes naturally.

Halve the acorn squash and scoop out the seeds.
Into each half goes a pat of butter and a teaspoon of dark brown sugar.
Half an hour in the oven on 400° should do the trick, either on a cookie-sheet or a sauté-pan if your cookie-sheet is as beat as mine.

Slice the red onion thinly; put a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a sauté pan.
Into the pan with the red onion slices, topped with a tablespoon of dark brown sugar.
Paying careful attention, incinerate the onion on high heat.

Clean the brussels sprouts, put into a little ceramic dish w/ glass top and a bit of water and put’em in the microwave.

Now the fun and James begins:
Pour one Bombay Martini (not too dry) into the cook.

Yes, here are 4. You can double the recipe.

Under another cast-iron skillet turn the burner on high.
When you can no longer touch the handle, it’s time:
throw the chops in, open the window and turn on the fan!
Four minutes per side, in course of which your smoke-detector will have a triple-O conniption, then five minutes in the 400° oven
remove from oven and set on platter, covered with tinfoil.

Microwave the brussels sprouts for six minutes while juices redistribute in the choppingtons.

Serve topped with the incinerated red onion, with potatoes and brussels sprouts alongside, acorn squash in a neighboring dish.
And of course you will want a large Zalto Burgundy glass for the Blaufränkisch…

Dark ruby/garnet—the first thing that happens in the aromatix is dried fruit, black cherries and blackberries, followed by a wonderful freshness on the palate—here’s where the red fruits kick in, vivacious and lively, peppery and spicy with a lot of finish in the finish. Lovely minerality, and seems to have just a hint of newer wood around the edges. It tips the scales at about 12.5% alcohol—and even the more prestigious cuvées from Moric do not have alot of alcohol; Blaufränkisch doesn’t need it in order to be expressive! And this wine LOVES ginger!

Ok- so we’re Winemongers. We import some pretty amazing wines from a lot of cool places and present them not only to you here on our website, but also get them onto the wine lists of some of America’s best restaurants and the shelves of some of your favorite brick-and-mortar wine shops. We are also the importer of the Austrian Zalto line of stemware, which includes not only the very best wine glasses on the market, but also a glass for beer. Ale. Pilsner. IPA. Lager. Stout. Marzen. Weissbier. Blonde Ale. Doppelbock.

Those last 7 terms are exactly what got us into trouble when we wrote up why the Zalto beer glass is the best beer glass on the planet. The fact is- we pretty much didn’t know our Baltic Porter from our Dunkelweizen, and basically said that the glass was just great for ALL beers. Now, if somebody came up to us and said “Check it out! This wine glass is the very best wine glass for dessert wines, Chardonnays AND Shiraz”– well, we’d probably politely point out that that just really couldn’t be the case. Which is what happened to us. A true Beermonger, one Mr. Hugh Crozier, read our description for the Zalto beer glass, and let us know the error of our ways (note: he is totally fine with us sharing here what he had to say, as well as some photos he took):

Hugh Does it Right

I posted a link to your page on twitter and as a result you have incurred the WRATH of antipodean beer-geeks!!
I’ve just been gifted a pair, so am quite looking fwd to trying them, and the link was more for ppl to see the glasses …but it was the accompanying text that drew fire:

Which is a fair point- I’m sure if someone came to you looking for a riesling glass, you’d not suggest the Zalto Burg, nor a flute for Blaufrankisch (hopefully?) and similarly, so to those who may in fact be in the market for a high end glass to accompany high end beers, it appears horribly inept to lump ‘beer’ together. I do note that the Zalto site is quite specific in recommending the beer glasses for Pilsen and Marzen styles, it may be a consideration to alter the product description for the sake of people who differentiate and comprehend beer styles. Unless of course Bud drinkers are your market, in which case it doesn’t matter what proper geeks think..

We very quickly thanked Hugh for showing us the light, and just as quickly changed the description about the glass. We then asked him if he had any other thoughts or advice about the beer stem, and here’s what he shared with us:

Well, Emily, they’ve joined the plethora of other glasses I have, and are a worthy addition indeed!

It’s All About the Nose

They are a funny kind of a thing, as the natural tendency with beer is to pour the whole bottle into the glass, which fills a Zalto (for a 330ml bottle) to about a 1/2 inch from the lip, eliminating any air volume in the vessel that might accumulate aromas, which is kind of the point with high-end glassware… doing so also feels awfully dangerous given how delicate it is, and it was pretty nerve-wracking the first couple of times; holding the base and putting faith in the one-piece design not to snap when tipping the full glass to ones lips, but the bowl and stem are still attached, and in fact the balance seems pretty spot on throughout the drinking experience.
Once there’s enough room to get your nose in, and ideally it’s only about 1/4 full, I found their strength was in highlighting the malt characteristics of any beer I put in them- though that’s only five or six at this point. Given this ability, and their similarity design-wise to other lager glasses I have, I can understand why the recommendation is for lager styles such as Pilsner and Marzen which are more malt-driven beer styles than modern pale ales which tend to be about hops, hops, and more hops. Interestingly, one beer that it really highlighted quite nicely was the Yeastie Boys Gunnamatta pale ale, which is an unusual brew in that instead of dry-hopping, Earl Grey tealeaves were added after the ferment, giving quite a heady nose with unmistakable Bergamot aroma alongside a smaller hit of hops. Good fun, if you’re able to get your hands on any (Yeastie Boys do export to the US with some regularity) I can highly recommend trying it!

Now I have to admit that, as of his last email, Hugh was not sure that these were yet his favorite beer stem…. but I’m hoping that by now, with more time spent using them, they are. Hugh?

If you’d like to follow the exploits of Hugh on twitter, you can find him here: http://twitter.com/hughthewineguy

Click on picture for better detail

And patience I shall beg of the reader right off, for this piece will seek to encompass both pro and con, and start by bemoaning and bebitching the fact that what is now the Mosel used to be the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. When I started with German wine, these were the green bottles, while the Rhine and environs were bottled in brown glass, and the color of the glass gave a hint as to the character of the liquid inside. Somebody recently decided that as of 2006 three names were too many—though certainly the Saar and Ruwer (these rivers being tributaries of the bevined Ms. M) offer wines just as distinguished, with characteristics just as distinguishable. So now just plain Mosel—although the wines at their best are anything but ordinary.

A retailer recently suggested in an emailed sales-pitch that a certain beloved and way-too-young-departed Austrian winegrower from Apetlon had made the best sweet wines in the world. I sent him a email right back: When did Egon Müller stop producing wine? When the late Luis Kracher brought Müller to NYC along with Baron Lur-Saluces from Sauternes and István Szepsy from Tokaji, presenting dessert wines blessed by the development of botrytis, even in this company the German stood out like a peacock in the hen-house.

der Scharzhof

I have personally always preferred wines from the Pfalz and Rheingau to the Mosel (-Saar-Ruwer). Not because they are better, for they are not. The reason for this is that the Mosel offers the greatest purity and spectrum of wine-for-wine’s-sake wines in the world. But I rarely drink wine without food on the table, and the greatest wines of the Mosel (-Saar-Ruwer)—which really doesn’t have much of its own culinary culture like the Pfalz does, or Franconia—are at their best and most expressive when drunk by themselves. I have a clear memory of one afternoon nearly ten years ago now when Wilhelm Haag took David Schildknecht and me to lunch, pausing to grab a 1979er Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenenuhr Auslese Goldkapsel from his cellar, which was ethereal, magnetic and magnificent—until it was murdered by the very first snail I consumed (and this was a local Weinbergschnecke in a transparently light cream sauce, not some highfalutin French escargot…)

Wehlener Sonnenuhr

Riesling is without the least shred of doubt the finest grape variety in Germany. And this is even more true of the Mosel, where the grape shows a startling affinity for the Devonian slate which is to be found in the wonderfully steep vineyards with their towering amphitheatres of vines. The slate comes in several different colors—red, grey and blue (all three can be found in Erdener Treppchen), and one unique vineyard, the Ürziger Würzgarten—the spice-garden—has a handsome amount of reddish rhyolite tuff on the hillside. It was here on the Mosel that viticulture in Germany had its beginnings, thanks to our old friends the Celts, some 500 years BCE. And the Romans—who certainly lacked not for love of wine—had their turn here as well. The 1800-year-old Porta Nigra in Augusta Treverorum is only one of many mementos left behind from a time when they thought and sought to civilize the neighborhood, with varying degrees of success…

Porta Nigra, Trier

The traditional comparison of the Mosel with the Saar holds that in tasting a young wine you sift through the baby fat of the fruit in the Mosel to find the acidity, while in a Saar Riesling you look through the acidity to get at the fruit. The Ruwer is known for wines light and fresh, very lively and graceful. On my personal weblog Wine ~ Wein ~ Vino ~ Vin, there’s a short and sweet revisit to the Ruwer from twenty years ago.

Wines of the Mosel are typically lower in alcohol than their fellows from over on the Rhine. I recall many a memorable bottling where there was 8% alcohol—and sometimes even less—in wines of great depth and expressive character. And although the Lower Mosel and Upper Mosel don’t quite have the same cachet as the Mittelmosel with its famous villages like Wehlen, Zeltingen, Ürzig, Graach and the like, they do contribute to a vast variety that is to be found within seemingly similar parameters.

Hochmoselübergang

For decades, the conventional wisdom has held that Mosel wines were finished with residual sugar in order to temper the ferocious acidity that lurked right at the surface—to an extent this may have been true, but in the past decade I have tasted many dry wines that showed lovely balance, which did not bite back violently when I sunk my teeth into them, from growers as stylistically diverse as Fritz Haag, Sybille Kuntz, Karthäuserhof and Schmitges. The fact remains, however, that residual sugar will exert an influence on the perceived aromaticity of the wine—I spent a fascinating afternoon with a very patient Klaus Neckerauer down in the Pfalz fifteen years ago, experimenting with the same base wine and varying degrees of Süßreserve.

…and then there’s all this whostruckjohn about the Mosel Bridge… the High Mosel Crossing, which will relieve congestion on old Route 50 to a certain extent, but will most certainly damage one-of-a kind vineyards, play hell with the neighborhood of Ürzig and just generally tear up the patch—seems that despite the best efforts of Stuart Pigott, Jancis Robinson, Katharina Prüm and Ernst Loosen, they’re going to build the damn thing after all…

My mouth is still bitter when I think of the trip to the winery of Giobatta Vio in beautiful Liguria, Italy. The birthplace of pesto– the land of artichoke. I think of the salted breezes and fresh seafood that comes with that scent, and the incredible bottles of Pigato, Vermentino and Rossese that were tasted. And of course, the meal: a five course feast featuring the wines and local bounty. And yes, I can still taste the bitterness.

Bitter, because I was not there.

Your Winemonger is a team, lead up by myself and my husband Stephan and then our various (spectacular) specialists who have lead us in our hunt for like-philosophied wines when we grew our portfolio beyond the borders of Austria. In Italy, that was Alessia Botturi (who has, sadly for us, since moved on to work at Antinori, but whose husband Diego Meraviglia has stepped in and about whom I really must write something about soon: he has more accolades as a sommelier and Italian wine specialist than I knew existed.)

Giobatta Vio in the kitchen

But back to Liguria. The story of the visit was already once gone over here in this post written by our Ms. Botturi, but when Jon Bonné, wine editor over at the San Francisco Chronicle published an article this past weekend about Vermentino and Pigato and highlighted the wine of Giobatta (Bio Vio), and even included a photograph taken by my husband, I was reminded of the trip not taken. And I knew that I needed to share what they ate on that day- seven (count ‘em SEVEN) courses, all featuring seafood, artichokes and basil, and all prepared by Chiara Vio (Giobatta’s wife and partner)

So this is what was laid out upon the table, all paired with the Pigato, Vermentino and Rossese wines:

Affatati MistiPescetti Fritti of AlborelleTortine di Carciofi FrittiTrofie al PestoPasqualina Ai Carciofi Baccala’ alla LigureCalamari con Ripieno di Pesto ai Carciofi

-A quick snack of affattati misti just to get the ball rolling
-Pescetti Fritti of Alborelle – wee little fried fishies
-Tortine di Carciofi Fritti – Fried Artichokes
-Trofie al Pesto – Trofie pasta (homemade, of course) with pesto
-Pasqualina Ai Carciofi – Artichoke Pie
-Baccala’ alla Ligure – Stockfish done Ligurian style
-Calamari con Ripieno di Pesto ai Carciofi – Calamari filled with artichoke pesto

-Recipe for Pasqualina Ai Carciofi (not from Chiara Vio)
For pastry:
500 gr flour
40 gr olive oil
1 glass of water
3 teaspoon of salt

For stuffing the pie:
12 artichokes
100 gr of grated Parmesan cheese
1 onion
5 eggs
300 gr ricotta
some fresh parsley and marjoram.

Preparations:
Prepare the pastry by mixing flour, olive oil, water and the salt. The result is soft dough; let it rest for 1 hour.

Prepare the artichokes by removing the outer leaves, cutting the stems and the thorns. Secondly, cut the artichokes into thin slices and place them, for a few minutes, in some water with a lemon (cut the lemon into 4 parts).

Meanwhile make brown slowly 1 onion, some parsley and marjoram. Then, add the artichokes, some salt and cook everything in a covered pan.
When all is cooked add eggs, parmesan, a pinch of marjoram, salt and ricotta. Mix everything with a spoon. Roll out the dough and with a rolling pin make 4 puff pastry. Place on a baking pan 2 pastry and then pour the artichokes mixture uniformly.

Finally cover the pie with the other 2 pastry and brush with 1 egg yolk.
Cook for about 45 minutes at 200 degrees.

Recipe for Calamari con Ripieno di Pesto ai Carciofi (also not from Chiara)
Ingredients (serves 4)
1.4lb whole squid, tentacles included and cleaned.
7.5oz peeled prawns
3 artichokes
1 small bunch of parsley (finely chopped)
1 medium bunch basil (minced)
2 cloves of garlic
1 glass of dry white wine
1 lemon
extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper

Preparation:
Pre-heat your oven to 390 F

Clean and prepare the artichokes, slice them very thinly and place straight into lemon water.

Begin gently heating the peeled garlic clove in some olive oil until garlic is golden but not burned, and then remove it from the pan.
Drain the artichokes of the lemon water and place them in the pan and increase to a moderate heat. Continue cooking till slightly tender.

While the artichokes are cooking, clean the squid and rinse well under running water.

Cut off the tentacles at the base of the body.
Chop the tentacles up finely with the prawns.
Add these to the pan with the artichokes and allow to cook through.
Add half a glass of wine to the pan and allow to reduce. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Place the contents of the pan, along with the basil, into a food processor and pulse a few times.
Stuff the filling into the empty cavities of the squids.
Use a toothpick to close the opening.

Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a non-stick pan and place in the stuffed squids and brown lightly on all sides.
Splash with the remaining wine and a handful of chopped parsley and place the pan in the oven to finish cooking for 30 to 40 minutes.

one of the finest of the finer things in life is an ensemble known as the piano trio…

I have a couple favorites, especially the Beaux Arts Trio. Most notably their performances and recordings of Haydn, Schubert and Dvorak. Haydn’s trios grew out of an earlier tradition, where a piano sonata might have its melody line written out separately, to be played by another amateur on the violin or flute—the young Mr Mozart wrote a couple of these when he was five years old that are still worth hearing. In the mature works of Josef Haydn—a longtime resident of Burgenland, btw (long-suffering as well; he worked for the Esterházy family)—the violin has evolved into a distinct voice, while the violoncello is still primarily occupied with doubling the bass-line, as in the baroque practice of continuo—it has not yet achieved the independence that one finds in Beethoven’s Ghost and Archduke trios.

Pressler

…the Beaux Arts Trio needs little introduction—throughout more than fifty years on the concert stage, Menahem Pressler has commanded the piano with drama, delicacy and grace, making a sound so lovely that you’d think he was playing the strings and not the keys. One does not think of this immediately, but the pianist is capable of exerting a substantial influence upon tone and the nature of sound by variations of touch.

Wilson

—and another brilliant ensemble comes quickly to mind: the Benny Goodman Trio. They were highly instrumental (sorry) in the birth of Swing, featuring flamboyant drummer Gene Krupa playing an impassioned contrast to classically-minded clarinettist Goodman, with the urbane and stylish Teddy Wilson on piano. Wilson’s voicings and melodic sense were extraordinarily elegant; his sound on the keyboard is just as lovely as Pressler’s. And although Bing Crosby had already appeared rather low-keyly on a couple Duke Ellington sides, Wilson officially broke the color-barrier in Jazz by becoming the first African-American musician to play in 1935 along with caucasians on the major stages, e.g. Carnegie Hall. Toward the end of his illustrious career, Wilson was asked about this; and when the interviewer ventured, “So doesn’t this make you the Jackie Robinson of Jazz?” Teddy flashed a brilliant smile and answered, “No, more like, that made Jackie the Teddy Wilson of baseball…”

And do we sometimes listen to great music with a glass in our mitt? …‘deed we do: music to the palate and its attendant surfaces — so here let’s look at another exceptional trio, the 2011 Grosse Gewächse from Gut Hermannsberg: Bastei, Hermannsberg and Kupfergrube. Among white varieties, Riesling has no competition in its ability to transmit the message of the soils in which it was grown to the taster. And with these three wines, Gut Hermannsberg has bottled marvelous insights into the wealth of variety to be found within a growing region, from vineyards located a couple hundred meters away from each other—that’s part of what makes the Nahe special; a sort of microcosm of German viticulture… Großes Gewächs is a contemporary designation for an (hopefully) elite class of dry German wine—and not only Riesling; Silvaner, Spätburgunder, Frühburgunder, Weisser Burgunder & Grauburgunder are eligible as well, depending on region. Unlike the recent traditional classifications based on sugar-ripeness—Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, etc—Grosses Gewächs is rooted (sorry) in the vineyard site, and seeks to approximate the Burgundian grand cru.

Traiser Bastei

GG Bastei 2011—alphabetically the first, and certainly the most approachable of the three—but also the liveliest of the trio when I reopened and revisited the bottles after nearly ten days in my refrigerator. This is a comparatively tiny site, only 1.2 hectares, situated at the foot of the steepest rock face between the Alps and Scandinavia, the Rotenfels in Traisen. Its soils are composed of a volcanic substance known as rhyolite; the Rotenfels is not just there for decoration, but also stores a significant amount of heat during the daytime, which warms the vines as they fall with evening into shadow. This wine has a particular herbal spice about it; very generous fruit, pear and pineapple tinted with citrus, affable and friendly but showing plenty of depth and length as well.

ye olde drawing boarde...das Terzett

GG Hermannsberg 2011—This is the estate’s eponymous monopole, and therewith their signature bottling; the wine knows it and shows it. A finely pointed minerality to this one, steadily showing stealthy traces of the slate in which it grew; pears spiced with white pepper and lime-zest in the nose. Fruit still playing a bit of peekaboo, nice emergent flavors of peach and yellow currant—the acidity sort of curls around the bicuspids and bounces off the uvula in search of lost tonsils… Beautifully structured, with a luxuriantly long finish.

GG Kupfergrube 2011—the old copper-mine, some 200 metres distant from the Hermannsberg; here the soils are markedly different—volcanic melaphyr, laid out in terraces and exposed due south. This is the most noticeably mineral-driven of the three, and the scents of spontaneous fermenation come occasionally to the fore. The bouquet shows vivid mineral salts, yellow fruit and a bit of charcuterie, then the wine blossoms on the palate; rather expansive and generous, with liquid stone, lemongrass and grapefruit tending toward tropical, along with some nice touches of fennel in the finish aromatix.

…and although I am just as likely to listen to the music of power trios — Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and their ilk — I am happy to say that this trio does not remind me at all of those trios. Plenty of elegance and delicate subtlety here, much more than like anything off of Wheels of Fire or Electric Ladyland…

~

editor’s note: While the three Grosses Gewächs bottlings from Gut Hermannsberg are currently available only at one of our retail partners in New York City**, we do have four of the estate’s other wines available here to order directly on the website:

— Gut Hermannsberg Estate Riesling trocken 2011 – $17.90
The diverse variety of rocky soils in these vineyards demonstrate their complexity in this wine, imparting exquisite aromaticity and a vivid mineral impression, to go with the generous fruit.
— Gut Hermannsberg Niederhäuser Riesling 2011 – $33.00
A Riesling which harmoniously unites the two worlds of fruit and stone, thus creating a very distinctive profile. The wine is produced exclusively from grapes grown in the Erste Lage site Niederhäuser Hermannsberg.
— Gut Hermannsberg Schlossböckelheimer Riesling 2011 $33.00
The grapes come exclusively from the Schlossböckelheimer Kupfergrube, and thanks to these volcanic soils, the Schlossböckelheimer Riesling shows off a captivating personality.
— Gut Hermannsberg Weisser Burgunder trocken 2011 $22.50
A juicy wine with a delicate structure and fresh minerality, noticeable density and creamy texture

**Crush Wine & Spirits (tell ‘em Winemonger sent you)

or: Ask your local wine shop in NY/NJ/IL/MA/MI/CO/WY/TX/WA to contact us (they likely already know their Winemonger Imports sales representative) and we can have these wines on their shelves in some cases within a day—or at least very very quickly.

What does ye do with a corked bottle? some situations can’t help but send a boy back to the ol’ drawing board…

ye olde Drawing Board...

So, well… the other night after dinner, my date was flailing about on the library floor (unfortunately not in ecstasy, but merely flailing about), when she upset the applecart, including a Moric Blaufränkisch—got red wine all over Hell and Creation… Instant carpet-first-aid arrived in the form of a horribly corked bottle of Coquillette Champagne, which, after having dejectedly sat upon the kitchen table for most of the evening, was poured upon the damned spot, where it performed the necessary until a Woolite carpet bomb could take over by light of day. That’s one thing to do with a corked bottle…

Most of our Austrian growers have passed beyond the need for stuffing Portuguese tree-bark (quercus edulis) in the throats of their bottles, but we have a couple holdouts that are numbered among the finest in the fleet. We brought in a couple pallets of 2009 Zweigelt from Rosi Schuster for our colleagues at Astor Wine—plus a few boxes that found their way to gastronomic destinations at Hearth, Seasonal, Craftbar, Gotham Bar & Grill, Trestle on Tenth, Anfora, and the Hotel Delmano.

And on my way the other day to visit a new account, I was glad I checked the sample bottle of Rosi Schuster Zweigelt before boarding commuter rail—it was a particularly virulent stinker. But the fact of the matter is, one can cook with a corked wine. The TCA burns off in the pan. So the bottle sat on the kitchen counter for a couple days, along with the remains of fixings for what had become a rather good Navarin d’Agneau last week. What do you do with leftover carrots, parsnips and celery?

Well, we all know that shoulder makes the best Navarin, because of the connective tissue in the cut, but here I had hedged my bets against a paucity of supply and still had a couple shanks waiting frozen in the freezer.

SO, Braised Lamb Shanks:

a couple of lamb shanks
a couple of parsnips, thinly sliced
a couple of carrots, slice coarsely vertical and thinly horizontal
a couple stalks of celery—I like the ones with lots of leaves. diced, please
a couple dozen pearl onions, skinned
half a dozen sundried tomatoes, cut into threes
1 big clove of garlic finely chopped or mashed
lots of fresh thyme, removed from the twigs.
a couple bay leaves
one Knorr’s beef bouillion cube
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 bottle corked Zweigelt (although the dish can also be prepared with Zweigelt that is not corked and undrinkable; you may wish to try this as an alternative.)

and you want to do this on a day when you’re going to be staying home, and can enjoy the way that the house begins to smell and then gets to smelling better all day long…

1. gradually pour one bottle of Schneider Weisse into the cook (since you’ll be making this too early to be drinking Gibsons…)

2. heat some olive oil in a heavy pan with a tightly fitting lid (even though there’s a lot of Calphalon hanging in my pantry, I prefer to use my mother’s ancient Magnalite)…

Mother's ancient Magnalite

3. sear the shanks until nicely brown around all the edges

4. remove shanks, add the garlic and stir

5. sweat the parsnips, carrots, celery and onions for three minutes or so

6. return the shanks to the pan and add the Zweigelt. Pour in the entire bottle. Don’t be shy—it’s going to be there for a while.

7. add the sundrieds and brown sugar, the bay leaves and thyme

8. crumble the Knorrs cube into the mix

9. bring the concoction to a boil, then reduce heat to the barest flicker of a flame, and cover pan with the tightly fitting lid.

10. leave this on the burner for the next five hours or so, checking-in every 30 minutes to regulate the level of liquid, adding water as needed.

11. just before serving, remove the lamb shanks from the pan and reduce the rest, pouring over the shanks as they are plated. Either wild rice or sautéed potatoes to go with, asparagus or okra…

and Drink This (just off the boat ) With It

a classic

Umathum Zweigelt 2011

and this wine will not be corked; its elegant glass stopper, called a Vinolok, is not 100% perfect, but rarely fails.
We’re just now starting to see the Elevens—and what a lovely bounteous vintage it was. It distinguishes itself from the very generous 2009 in that it seems to be equally good for St Laurent, Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch; whereas while the 09er Blaufränkisch had the advantage, somehow St.Laurent and occasionally Zweigelt seemed to do better in 2010.

From the Burgenland village of Frauenkirchen, not too far from the Hungarian border, here the flavors are nicely rounded with just the right admixture of well-ripened tannins to send the wine scurrying down the hatch with a smile on its kisser. Nicely spicy, with notes of cinnamon, sage and Ceylon Pekoe, the 11er Umathum weighs-in at a modest 12.5% alcohol—this is a wine to suit some of the wildest pairings, and we have not nearly gotten to trying out all of the obvious options.