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Off the Record Drinking
- Thread starter Chris Coad
- Start date
This is why I find the long-form Boston narrative school so appealing, and why I've slowly drifted away from reportage. Because if you just make everything up, there's no opportunity for preemptive or retroactive censorship.All my best material was retroactively censored or declared off limits.
Hemingway, at least.Also, occasionally spilling wine on the blank page. Is that how Steinbeck did it?
Yes, I suppose that for Brad, this would be an exciting thing.Brad's all bubbly about this one. "It's the biggest, richest pinot blanc I've ever had!" he burbles.
Eric Ripert is hot, for sure.
Who's going to volunteer to tell her about this internet thing? I fear someone has to, before it's too late and she pisses off a family of -- just to pull an example out of thin air -- Alsatian winemakers so much that they start complaining to everyone in New England about something she wrote on some besnickered wine forum?Sharon mentions being slightly freaked out by being greeted by the proprietor at Huet with a hearty, "So this is the famous Sharon Bowman who doesn't like chenin blanc!" She looks mystified. "I mean, what's going on here? How did he know that?"
Did I mention that I, um, totally made that example up from a pure void nothingness?
Come up here, or better yet to our smaller Vermont jeebs. It's there pretty much all the time.When was the last time you went to a cheese geek tasting and someone put out a nice locally-raised cheddar?
Well, I guess unlike SFJoe, I do taste enough Boxler to have a view, and I, um, "couldn't disagree more strongly" either. Could not possibly disagree more strongly.Boxler, based on the last 5-8 years, is a candidate for most overrated vintner, IMO.
originally posted by SFJoe:
BTW, Brad, you should look on your desk for the memo. Truffle oil is over.
Not to mention gross.
Claude Kolm
Claude Kolm
Kolm doesn't like rs in Alsatian wines.
Yes, I think that was the causal link. It's the synthetic watermelon flavor of the fungal world.originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by SFJoe:
BTW, Brad, you should look on your desk for the memo. Truffle oil is over.
Not to mention gross.
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Kolm doesn't like rs in Alsatian wines.
Isn't this a product of warming in general?
I agree that the wines seem bigger and maybe sweeter, but the last couple I've had have still been wonderful (well the Sommerberg rieslings at least, that's the one I gravitate to).
Kolm doesn't like rs in Alsatian wines.
But how does that make them "overrated?"
Deiss, for example, is overrated because the wines suck, not because of the residual sugar. Ostertag is overrated because his wines are clumsy and unfocused. Zind-Humbrecht is overrated because...well, whatever the status of their wines, no one can be as good as their reputation suggests (and anyway, you know we agree on ZH). Boxler's wines are brilliantly made and perfect reflections of their terroir. I can understand not liking them because of the rs, but not calling them "overrated."
Frank Deis
Frank Deis
While a lot of the wines people discuss here are made from grapes I have never heard of and producers whose wines I have never seen, I have a had several of Boxler's wines.
A friend of a friend married a French woman whose family came from Alsace, they actually had a castle there, with walls that were like ten feet thick. We would have dinners with them and he (George) would frequently bring along a couple of bottles of Boxler's wines. When this first happened I don't think Boxler was even being imported into the U.S. George and his wife would visit the estate and buy a couple of cases whenever they were over there, and bring them back. I really enjoyed the wines and kept my eyes open and of course nowadays they are not all that difficult to find. I remember telling George that I had bought some of the Edelzwicker. George surprised me by saying that he had never tasted it, he had heard that that was the "junk" wine made of all the "extra" grape vines around the estate, or something along those lines.
At any rate, another vote for Boxler.
F
A friend of a friend married a French woman whose family came from Alsace, they actually had a castle there, with walls that were like ten feet thick. We would have dinners with them and he (George) would frequently bring along a couple of bottles of Boxler's wines. When this first happened I don't think Boxler was even being imported into the U.S. George and his wife would visit the estate and buy a couple of cases whenever they were over there, and bring them back. I really enjoyed the wines and kept my eyes open and of course nowadays they are not all that difficult to find. I remember telling George that I had bought some of the Edelzwicker. George surprised me by saying that he had never tasted it, he had heard that that was the "junk" wine made of all the "extra" grape vines around the estate, or something along those lines.
At any rate, another vote for Boxler.
F
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
Oh, and glad to hear that the Sommerberg opened up with air. I think I still have one of those. Maybe.
Chris Coad
Chris Coad
originally posted by SFJoe:
I am shocked by the reception of the 2006 Texier. I worship that wine. I fear you guys may have had a bad bottle.
I too was shocked. But the poor reception was universal. I have no explanation, because I it was a roomful of fans who actively wanted to like the wine.
You are just messing with the Monkey here, right? Or are you being earnest when you say this will be more interesting in 10 years? Maybe you could throw in some code words like slurpable with the tasting note when you are busting his cajones, so the rest of us will know when you are jesting.
I never mess with monkeys, you could catch something. The wine is drinking nicely now, but it's still very primary, a comparative baby. Another ten years will give it some more complexity.
The first time I tried this wine it had a Riesling like petrol smell. Do these demi sec Romorantin go through an adolescent phase like Riesling where they have this flavor and then it disapears as they age a little more?
My experience with aging demisec romorantin is limited to pretty much this one wine, so I can't really say. But yes, there's certainly a whiff of what our English friends would call "petrol."
I had no idea. I know I've made the dish for you a couple of times before. Please send me a goddamn list of your dislikes already. I can't remember them all.
We've had the same argument at least three times now, which goes something like this:
CHRIS: I hate truffle oil. It tastes like chemistry. There's no truffle in it!
BRAD: Oh, there's the good kind, that has truffle in it, and the bad kind, that doesn't. I only use the good kind.
CHRIS: This "good kind" is a figment of your overactive imagination. NO TRUFFLES WERE USED.
BRAD: My kind uses truffles! Lots of them!
CHRIS: NOOOOOOO IT DOESN'T! IT'S OLIVE OIL AND CHEMICALS!
BRAD: LIES! LIES!
And so on. Ringing a bell now?
Zachary Ross
Zachary Ross
Are Dirler's wines worth getting excited about? Chadderdon imports them as well as Boxler, if I'm not mistaken.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
originally posted by Thor:
Who's going to volunteer to tell her about this internet thing? I fear someone has to, before it's too late and she pisses off a family of -- just to pull an example out of thin air -- Alsatian winemakers so much that they start complaining to everyone in New England about something she wrote on some besnickered wine forum?
Did I mention that I, um, totally made that example up from a pure void nothingness?
Such an interesting invention. Can we hear the rest of the story?
Steve Guattery
Steve Guattery
Sounds like it's time to the 1996 Cazin again.
Oh, and I'm neither Mark Lipton nor Chris Coad, but if you think Eric Ripert is hot, you should check out his stove!
Bah-DUM-dum.
Oh, and I'm neither Mark Lipton nor Chris Coad, but if you think Eric Ripert is hot, you should check out his stove!
Bah-DUM-dum.
They're nice, in general. "Excited"...depends on your excitement threshold, I guess.Are Dirler's wines worth getting excited about?
Maybe in person and about 2/3 of the way through bottle number three, but otherwise...I'd rather not. Sorry.Can we hear the rest of the story?
Claude Kolm
Claude Kolm
Well, I think you're splitting hairs, but if you want to put it another way, let's just say that Boxler is a producer who generally is held in very high esteem and from whom I've had many bottles that I did not like/disappointed me because of the residual sugar. Recent pricing, however, assures that I will not be having future disappointments.originally posted by Thor:
Kolm doesn't like rs in Alsatian wines.
But how does that make them "overrated?"
Deiss, for example, is overrated because the wines suck, not because of the residual sugar. Ostertag is overrated because his wines are clumsy and unfocused. Zind-Humbrecht is overrated because...well, whatever the status of their wines, no one can be as good as their reputation suggests (and anyway, you know we agree on ZH). Boxler's wines are brilliantly made and perfect reflections of their terroir. I can understand not liking them because of the rs, but not calling them "overrated."
Chris Coad
Chris Coad
This is why I find the long-form Boston narrative school so appealing, and why I've slowly drifted away from reportage. Because if you just make everything up, there's no opportunity for preemptive or retroactive censorship.
Sadly, I lack the imagination to make up characters as interesting and varied as the ones I meet at Kane's place.
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Boxler, based on the last 5-8 years, is a candidate for most overrated vintner, IMO.
I could not disagree more strongly with this opinion.
I'm with Levi and everybody else. I find Boxler to be among the best producers in Alsace.
originally posted by SFJoe:
I am shocked by the reception of the 2006 Texier. I worship that wine. I fear you guys may have had a bad bottle.
You and the vulgar redneck monkey are blinded by love, methinks.
originally posted by SFJoe:
BTW, Brad, you should look on your desk for the memo. Truffle oil is over.
Yes, I'd seen all the articles reporting that most truffle oils are actually artificially flavored, which is why I looked hard for a real one.
As for Dirler, nice wines, more solid than great. I can't recall ever having one that knocked my socks off, but respectably good.
Also, Meyer-Fonne's style really is not that similar to that of Olivier Humbrecht's. Felix actually models himself more after Olivier's father, Leonard, who made the wines in a much drier style than his son does. That said, he does make a big Pinot Blanc.