Eden Mylunsch
Eden Mylunsch
Maybe not on your planet, but on my planet this wine is pretty great. Granted, it’s not in a lineup festooned with 1989 Gentaz or 1991 Chave or any vintage of any Syrah made by Sine Qua Non, but with its bacon and black pepper and more than a hint of mint and just a bit of barnyard and perfect balance, it’s tasting pretty damn good to me right now. Balanced and light on its feet despite its 14.2% alcohol, it’s pushing the right buttons on the ol’ sensory Univac tonight.I don’t know how much to ascribe its showing on the fancy newfangled Reidel Syrah glass a friend recently gave me. It’s got that muffin-top thing happening with it where it’s got that roll down at the bottom of the glass bell, not unlike when I cinch my belt real tight and my belly kind of flops over the top and I’ve got to wear my shirt untucked so it doesn’t look like I’m some fat old cow who’s been eating too much ice cream and going AWOL from the Pilates classes. I guess there’s some science behind this weird hitch-in-the-getalong of the svelteness of this glass—apparently it was originally developed by the guy who founded Zalto (his new company is called Josephine) but Reidel’s version is just different enough to avoid getting the patent attorneys involved.
But the main thing is that this wine tastes better in this glass than it does from my usual stemless Flintstone’s jelly jar, even from just a 375 ml bottle maybe would a 750ml bottle would taste twice as good? The Baker Lane Sonoma Coast Cuvée was made from fruit grown in Sebastopol, CA for an owner who knows the difference between wine-that’s-good-to-drink-with-food and wine-that-scores-big-points. It was made by a winemaker who was pretty good but has a reputation for being a little eccentric -- the last I heard, he’d moved to a bunker in Mendocino County with a cache of gold bullion to live off the land and await the presumptive takeover by the commies and socialists (and this was years before the rise of Trumpism and the ensuing prevalence of Caymus and Josh Cabernet on the retail shelves.)
And in a not-unrelated subject, I’ve been listening to a lot of Pepper Adams lately. A fair amount of Leo Parker too, and it’s interesting to debate the merits of either baritone saxophonist with other people who care (um, both of them?) and I find that, even discounting Harry Carney’s contribution to the instrument’s Q-Factor (he was a goddamn big-band player, after all), that I fall firmly in the Pepper Adams camp. His work with such a broad array of musics (salsa and the decaying entrails of hard bop is exceptional) is impressive, to say the least, while Parker was a little mired in his expansion of the old-school section players (see Harry Carney’s oeuvre). But ultimately, when the topic is baritone sax, someone is going to bring up Gerry Fucking Mulligan. (does someone maybe wanna get David Lillie on the line for this discussion?) Jeru was an a mazing, barrier-breaking horn guy for sure, but in the long run, will he be remembered for blowing into a big curved hunk of brass or for his arrangements and compositions and coming up with the idea of leaving the piano player at home? Same question about Charles Mingus and this bass vs. composer thing, and by the same token, even Jaco Pastorius, whose bass work absolutely changed the way we bassists think about our instruments exponentially more than Mulligan did with the bari sax, but Jaco was quite the composer too, whether despite or because of his bipolar problems. In 200 years, music’s going to be all about synthesizers and AI composition, so people like Mulligan, Mingus and Pastorius will likely be remembered more for the way they sequenced notes into memorable melodies than for the way they manipulated notes out of their instruments. But does the absence of other qualifiers lessen the impression of quality found in one example of a semi-crowded field? Can a chimpanzee be a pretty great ape if you’re ignoring the 600 pound gorilla in the room?
In the absence of other really expensive, profoundly unobtanium wines on my table from the likes of Chave, Gentaz, and Steve Edmunds, this wine, on this night, and in this glass, was the greatest wine on the planet. And did I mention that it was a really marvelous accompaniment to an Olympia Provisions Käsekrainer? (on sale at Whole Foods this week, but they’re three to a package, not four like their hot dogs, which are also amazing). Not to muddy the waters further, but I prefer my Käsekrainer hot- dog style with mustard and catsup, and a little pickle relish. They don’t do relish at Bitzinger’s stand in Vienna, but I’M NOT IN VIENNA, AM I? and you can’t have everything, can you? Good version of the sausage though, and while dining on sausage and Syrah I’m leafing through a book on Tony Duquette instead of ascending the stairs to see what’s playing at the Albertina this week.
-Eden (and speaking of muddying the waters, I’m listening to “Muddy Waters, Folksinger” tonight. This MoFi LP is ungodly real-sounding, like some old guy set up to play in your ***********, and it sounds real enough to scare the hell out of both cats and send them running from the room when he starts singing. And this is on a upper mid-fi system if I had the kale for a serious stereo it’d probably sound like Jesus was playing in his backup band)(well, it might be said that He already does, given the esteem with which I hold bassist Willie Dixon, who plays on a couple of tracks)
But the main thing is that this wine tastes better in this glass than it does from my usual stemless Flintstone’s jelly jar, even from just a 375 ml bottle maybe would a 750ml bottle would taste twice as good? The Baker Lane Sonoma Coast Cuvée was made from fruit grown in Sebastopol, CA for an owner who knows the difference between wine-that’s-good-to-drink-with-food and wine-that-scores-big-points. It was made by a winemaker who was pretty good but has a reputation for being a little eccentric -- the last I heard, he’d moved to a bunker in Mendocino County with a cache of gold bullion to live off the land and await the presumptive takeover by the commies and socialists (and this was years before the rise of Trumpism and the ensuing prevalence of Caymus and Josh Cabernet on the retail shelves.)
And in a not-unrelated subject, I’ve been listening to a lot of Pepper Adams lately. A fair amount of Leo Parker too, and it’s interesting to debate the merits of either baritone saxophonist with other people who care (um, both of them?) and I find that, even discounting Harry Carney’s contribution to the instrument’s Q-Factor (he was a goddamn big-band player, after all), that I fall firmly in the Pepper Adams camp. His work with such a broad array of musics (salsa and the decaying entrails of hard bop is exceptional) is impressive, to say the least, while Parker was a little mired in his expansion of the old-school section players (see Harry Carney’s oeuvre). But ultimately, when the topic is baritone sax, someone is going to bring up Gerry Fucking Mulligan. (does someone maybe wanna get David Lillie on the line for this discussion?) Jeru was an a mazing, barrier-breaking horn guy for sure, but in the long run, will he be remembered for blowing into a big curved hunk of brass or for his arrangements and compositions and coming up with the idea of leaving the piano player at home? Same question about Charles Mingus and this bass vs. composer thing, and by the same token, even Jaco Pastorius, whose bass work absolutely changed the way we bassists think about our instruments exponentially more than Mulligan did with the bari sax, but Jaco was quite the composer too, whether despite or because of his bipolar problems. In 200 years, music’s going to be all about synthesizers and AI composition, so people like Mulligan, Mingus and Pastorius will likely be remembered more for the way they sequenced notes into memorable melodies than for the way they manipulated notes out of their instruments. But does the absence of other qualifiers lessen the impression of quality found in one example of a semi-crowded field? Can a chimpanzee be a pretty great ape if you’re ignoring the 600 pound gorilla in the room?
In the absence of other really expensive, profoundly unobtanium wines on my table from the likes of Chave, Gentaz, and Steve Edmunds, this wine, on this night, and in this glass, was the greatest wine on the planet. And did I mention that it was a really marvelous accompaniment to an Olympia Provisions Käsekrainer? (on sale at Whole Foods this week, but they’re three to a package, not four like their hot dogs, which are also amazing). Not to muddy the waters further, but I prefer my Käsekrainer hot- dog style with mustard and catsup, and a little pickle relish. They don’t do relish at Bitzinger’s stand in Vienna, but I’M NOT IN VIENNA, AM I? and you can’t have everything, can you? Good version of the sausage though, and while dining on sausage and Syrah I’m leafing through a book on Tony Duquette instead of ascending the stairs to see what’s playing at the Albertina this week.
-Eden (and speaking of muddying the waters, I’m listening to “Muddy Waters, Folksinger” tonight. This MoFi LP is ungodly real-sounding, like some old guy set up to play in your ***********, and it sounds real enough to scare the hell out of both cats and send them running from the room when he starts singing. And this is on a upper mid-fi system if I had the kale for a serious stereo it’d probably sound like Jesus was playing in his backup band)(well, it might be said that He already does, given the esteem with which I hold bassist Willie Dixon, who plays on a couple of tracks)
