Chris Coad
Chris Coad
I have broken my vow. After ten years.
It's ten o'clock on a Sunday night, and I'm clutching my knees in the passenger seat, knuckles slowly turning white as the car swerves and dodges up the dark, rain-slicked FDR drive, screeching past the timid, leaving the faint of heart in our weaving wake. I've been counting the traffic laws we've broken on the way, and stopped counting at six, deciding ignorance was bliss and my life was in the hands of fate.
Yes, I've gotten into a car with Brad Kane behind the wheel, a fading wine buzz the only thing holding off the sinking terror that's clenching deep in my gut. I should've had more wine.
But let's begin at the beginning. We've arrived at Jay Miller's New Jersey redoubt for the yearly October potluck wherein he attempts to clear out his vast stocks of undrunk wine by pouring it down the greedy throats of anyone who can be persuaded to show up with foodstuffs.
I make the trek, find myself pushing open the door and greeting the assembled geeks, bow deeply to Jay and Arnold, unload my potato-cheddar-chive torpedo loaves and grab me a glass of Vatan Sancerre Clos La Néore 2010 to wash the road dust away. Mmm, light, bright lime-chalky smellies, hints of gardenia sweetness. A sip, and it's rather ethereal right up front, settles down into a more substantial middle, turns a little spiritous on the finish. Focused, clean and pure, but not as cohesive as past vintages, a little unexpectedly disjointed.
Sweet fancy Moses, I've arrived just as the lamb is being doled out. Good timing, Coad, good timing.
But there's some catching up to do with whites first, namely a Alzinger Grüner Veltliner Loibner Steinertal Smaragd 2004. Smells curious, an odd roasty-cauliflower note with a dash of white pepper. Good heft, mouthfilling and broad. Medium acidity, nice concentration, muscular and friendly. Rich, flavorful, unsubtle wine. I could drink this. And, as if to prove my sincerity, I do.
I talk a bit of baking, and Eden pulls Scott over. Turns out he's been a past disciple of my same baking bible, Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. We swap bread stories for like half an hour. Gluten percentages, steam blasts, him chasing the perfect baguette, me chasing the perfect pizza crust. Simpatico.
Jay hears us breading our bread bread talk and offers me a bread tome that he apparently has no use for. Door prize! I tuck the weighty volume away in my bag so I don't forget and leave it behind in a late-evening drunken haze.
Here's a new one to me, a Huet Vouvray le Mont Demisec 1981. A big whiff of sheepiness right up front, wool, lanolin, hints of quince and lemon curd. A sip, and BOOM, big flavor: lemon curd, white honey, almond, good structure, sec-tendre sweet, then I feel it just sliding away into oblivion in my piehole, the flavors just fall off my mouthcliff. Anti-finish. Very strange, and I go back to it again and again to see if this is just a transient thing, but no, it keeps happening. Half of a very nice wine, quite the outlier for this producer, though. Peculiarly short for a Huet wine.
Jayson Cohen announces that he has always had a nostril gap while wine tasting. Apparently his left nostril is faulty and insensitive, while his right one is acute and heavily depended on to tell the truth in the face of his left nostril's duplicity. Several of us chew over this notion, but can come up with no similar experiences. What say you, gentle readers? Is the nostril gap a matter of consequence?
Ooh, shiny, it's a Müller-Catoir Riesling Haardter Burgergarten Spätlese 2001. Pale lemon-straw color. Slightly firecrackery at first, lemon cream notes mingle with hints of vinyl and peach, shy nosality. A sip, and it's a little more brawny tasting, lightly sweet, good balance, the overall impression is one of prettiness and composure, a very easygoing wine.
Next up is a Rhys Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains Alpine Vineyard 2009. Medium lemon-gold color. Lightly butterscotchy over a quiet pineapple-pear base. Fits the flavor profile of California chardonnay nicely, has some nice balance and is quite flavorful, avoids the excesses of the genre, but leaves me cold. I can admire it intellectually, but I don't want to drink much of it.
Hey, it's tuna salad! I dig tuna salad. With pasta things, too. Score!
Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Orango 2000. Medium-pale coppery orange color with salmon-pink highlights. Gentle pomander spice hints, tangerine, shallot. But sippage belies nosage; this is hard, ungiving wine, very little to enjoy here. Revisit in twenty years when the flavors have caught up to the smellies.
Ah, Jay has been kind enough to arrange a display of fireworks over the harbor. This man, he is a fine host. The crowd oohs and aahs at the shiny yawps of multicolor off in the middle distance.
Here's an old soldier, a Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1974. Very tertiary: shoyu, tea, pipe tobacco, over a base of muted bricky faded redfruit. Quite tangy to sip at, good structure, fairly forward for all its development. Faded, clearly past its best days, but rather charmingly decayed and meditative wine, built to last.
And a not-so-old soldier, a Clape Cornas 1995. Mmmm, smells flickery-velvety, some pretty eucalyptus-laced blackberry-raspberryness tickles the old noseholes, both right and left, teasing them with a touch of iodine and a light funky-animal hint. Nostrils akimbo. Tastes nervy and subtle and strong, medium-lightbodied but imposingly flavorful and rich. Super yummy. Just great wine on every level.
And a young soldier, a Jasmin Côte-Rôtie 2004. Quiet, shy, delicately floral and peppery-meaty, with a light lactic note. The aromatics are quiet but beg you to poke your nose in further to listen more carefully. Light bodied, elegant and rather dreamy wine. Not really showing a lot, but has a gentleness and small-framed charm, a little musicbox of a wine that plays a tiny tune that you have to lean in close to hear.
And not a soldier at all, but some kind of shiftless hippie, an Edmunds St. John Syrah El Dorado County Wylie-Fenaughty 2001. Medium-dark garnet color. Dark blackberry-raspberry, black olive and black pepper. Tastes smooth and rich and ripe, but comes off as a bit syrupy after the much lighter French wines. Gently smoky middle, seems heavy and overly dense. I try to shake it off, this is a context problem, I know. I like this wine. A lot. But after the Clape and the Jasmin it seems broad, syrupy and clumsy. I should come back to it later. But I don't. Boo me.
Instead I move on to a Coudert Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvée Tardive 2009 (magnum). Quite muted and charmless at first, with some air a light strawberry-rhubarb begins to emerge, with a light smoky-sod note underneath. With air and time it continues to bloom, medium-bodied and lithe, the sea change bringing out the silkiness and gently sultry quality. Hold, hold, hold.
Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin Combe aux Moines 2001. Gentle hints of cherry-horehound, touch of beetroot. Stony-spicy flavors, good duration, good sustain. I've always liked this wine's delicacy, its small-framed precision and unassuming assertion of self. And tonight is no exception. Charming.
Lisa is having a doctor crisis, something about all her underlings not showing up at all tomorrow. I keep looking around and not seeing her. Finally I wander out onto Jay's courtyard and find her furiously engaged in iPhone struggles. She's disgruntled, she has to leave posthaste. I haz a sad as I wave goodbye; she trudges back towards the PATH train.
Robert Pecota Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1991. Well, here's some Napa cabernet. Blackcurrant reduction mingled with light cedar and tarry notes, kind of like a scorched sauce of creme de cassis. Rich, robust, nondescript. Not unappealing, but not distinctive in any sense. Seems like generic post-points-guy California cabernet.
Whoa, here's Jay's coq au vin and bisquits. I loves me some coq, but it's the bisquits that really light my fire. I just keep nibbling and nibbling and end up putting away about five of them.
Urp.
Now is the very sweeting time of night. First a La Bota de Pedro Ximenez No. 25. Yup, PX all right: raisins, dates, figs, maple, everything you'd expect in a PX nosing. Tastes rich and vivid, but surprisingly restrained, just as sweet as you'd expect from a PX, but a bit thinner in texture, not like motor oil, crisper and less cloying. Very nice.
Eden has her usual dessert show-stopper, a dense chocolate cake festooned with fertility symbols, with schlag on the side. I take a tiny sliver; a little bit goes a long way. It's very rich, and very fertile. I feel my masculinity blooming with every bite.
SZT Tamas Royal Tokaji 6 Puttonyos 1999. Medium amber-red color, smells richly honeyed, scorched brown sugar mingling with a bright rainwatery freshness. Sweet, but not very sweet. But pretty sweet. Sweeter than medium sweet, but far from syrupy, with a good sense of layered complexity. Very tasty.
People are clearing out. It's a Sunday night, early leavers. "I can take you to the upper east side, to the F train, if you like," says Kane, leering at me like a swabbie on shore leave.
My wine-addled senses see some logic in this. Lisa is gone, it's only my life in danger. I could die on the PATH train, too, right?
"Okay," I lie.
It's ten o'clock on a Sunday night, and I'm clutching my knees in the passenger seat, knuckles slowly turning white as the car swerves and dodges up the dark, rain-slicked FDR drive, screeching past the timid, leaving the faint of heart in our weaving wake. I've been counting the traffic laws we've broken on the way, and stopped counting at six, deciding ignorance was bliss and my life was in the hands of fate.
Yes, I've gotten into a car with Brad Kane behind the wheel, a fading wine buzz the only thing holding off the sinking terror that's clenching deep in my gut. I should've had more wine.
But let's begin at the beginning. We've arrived at Jay Miller's New Jersey redoubt for the yearly October potluck wherein he attempts to clear out his vast stocks of undrunk wine by pouring it down the greedy throats of anyone who can be persuaded to show up with foodstuffs.
I make the trek, find myself pushing open the door and greeting the assembled geeks, bow deeply to Jay and Arnold, unload my potato-cheddar-chive torpedo loaves and grab me a glass of Vatan Sancerre Clos La Néore 2010 to wash the road dust away. Mmm, light, bright lime-chalky smellies, hints of gardenia sweetness. A sip, and it's rather ethereal right up front, settles down into a more substantial middle, turns a little spiritous on the finish. Focused, clean and pure, but not as cohesive as past vintages, a little unexpectedly disjointed.
Sweet fancy Moses, I've arrived just as the lamb is being doled out. Good timing, Coad, good timing.
But there's some catching up to do with whites first, namely a Alzinger Grüner Veltliner Loibner Steinertal Smaragd 2004. Smells curious, an odd roasty-cauliflower note with a dash of white pepper. Good heft, mouthfilling and broad. Medium acidity, nice concentration, muscular and friendly. Rich, flavorful, unsubtle wine. I could drink this. And, as if to prove my sincerity, I do.
I talk a bit of baking, and Eden pulls Scott over. Turns out he's been a past disciple of my same baking bible, Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. We swap bread stories for like half an hour. Gluten percentages, steam blasts, him chasing the perfect baguette, me chasing the perfect pizza crust. Simpatico.
Jay hears us breading our bread bread talk and offers me a bread tome that he apparently has no use for. Door prize! I tuck the weighty volume away in my bag so I don't forget and leave it behind in a late-evening drunken haze.
Here's a new one to me, a Huet Vouvray le Mont Demisec 1981. A big whiff of sheepiness right up front, wool, lanolin, hints of quince and lemon curd. A sip, and BOOM, big flavor: lemon curd, white honey, almond, good structure, sec-tendre sweet, then I feel it just sliding away into oblivion in my piehole, the flavors just fall off my mouthcliff. Anti-finish. Very strange, and I go back to it again and again to see if this is just a transient thing, but no, it keeps happening. Half of a very nice wine, quite the outlier for this producer, though. Peculiarly short for a Huet wine.
Jayson Cohen announces that he has always had a nostril gap while wine tasting. Apparently his left nostril is faulty and insensitive, while his right one is acute and heavily depended on to tell the truth in the face of his left nostril's duplicity. Several of us chew over this notion, but can come up with no similar experiences. What say you, gentle readers? Is the nostril gap a matter of consequence?
Ooh, shiny, it's a Müller-Catoir Riesling Haardter Burgergarten Spätlese 2001. Pale lemon-straw color. Slightly firecrackery at first, lemon cream notes mingle with hints of vinyl and peach, shy nosality. A sip, and it's a little more brawny tasting, lightly sweet, good balance, the overall impression is one of prettiness and composure, a very easygoing wine.
Next up is a Rhys Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains Alpine Vineyard 2009. Medium lemon-gold color. Lightly butterscotchy over a quiet pineapple-pear base. Fits the flavor profile of California chardonnay nicely, has some nice balance and is quite flavorful, avoids the excesses of the genre, but leaves me cold. I can admire it intellectually, but I don't want to drink much of it.
Hey, it's tuna salad! I dig tuna salad. With pasta things, too. Score!
Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Orango 2000. Medium-pale coppery orange color with salmon-pink highlights. Gentle pomander spice hints, tangerine, shallot. But sippage belies nosage; this is hard, ungiving wine, very little to enjoy here. Revisit in twenty years when the flavors have caught up to the smellies.
Ah, Jay has been kind enough to arrange a display of fireworks over the harbor. This man, he is a fine host. The crowd oohs and aahs at the shiny yawps of multicolor off in the middle distance.
Here's an old soldier, a Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1974. Very tertiary: shoyu, tea, pipe tobacco, over a base of muted bricky faded redfruit. Quite tangy to sip at, good structure, fairly forward for all its development. Faded, clearly past its best days, but rather charmingly decayed and meditative wine, built to last.
And a not-so-old soldier, a Clape Cornas 1995. Mmmm, smells flickery-velvety, some pretty eucalyptus-laced blackberry-raspberryness tickles the old noseholes, both right and left, teasing them with a touch of iodine and a light funky-animal hint. Nostrils akimbo. Tastes nervy and subtle and strong, medium-lightbodied but imposingly flavorful and rich. Super yummy. Just great wine on every level.
And a young soldier, a Jasmin Côte-Rôtie 2004. Quiet, shy, delicately floral and peppery-meaty, with a light lactic note. The aromatics are quiet but beg you to poke your nose in further to listen more carefully. Light bodied, elegant and rather dreamy wine. Not really showing a lot, but has a gentleness and small-framed charm, a little musicbox of a wine that plays a tiny tune that you have to lean in close to hear.
And not a soldier at all, but some kind of shiftless hippie, an Edmunds St. John Syrah El Dorado County Wylie-Fenaughty 2001. Medium-dark garnet color. Dark blackberry-raspberry, black olive and black pepper. Tastes smooth and rich and ripe, but comes off as a bit syrupy after the much lighter French wines. Gently smoky middle, seems heavy and overly dense. I try to shake it off, this is a context problem, I know. I like this wine. A lot. But after the Clape and the Jasmin it seems broad, syrupy and clumsy. I should come back to it later. But I don't. Boo me.
Instead I move on to a Coudert Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvée Tardive 2009 (magnum). Quite muted and charmless at first, with some air a light strawberry-rhubarb begins to emerge, with a light smoky-sod note underneath. With air and time it continues to bloom, medium-bodied and lithe, the sea change bringing out the silkiness and gently sultry quality. Hold, hold, hold.
Fourrier Gevrey-Chambertin Combe aux Moines 2001. Gentle hints of cherry-horehound, touch of beetroot. Stony-spicy flavors, good duration, good sustain. I've always liked this wine's delicacy, its small-framed precision and unassuming assertion of self. And tonight is no exception. Charming.
Lisa is having a doctor crisis, something about all her underlings not showing up at all tomorrow. I keep looking around and not seeing her. Finally I wander out onto Jay's courtyard and find her furiously engaged in iPhone struggles. She's disgruntled, she has to leave posthaste. I haz a sad as I wave goodbye; she trudges back towards the PATH train.
Robert Pecota Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1991. Well, here's some Napa cabernet. Blackcurrant reduction mingled with light cedar and tarry notes, kind of like a scorched sauce of creme de cassis. Rich, robust, nondescript. Not unappealing, but not distinctive in any sense. Seems like generic post-points-guy California cabernet.
Whoa, here's Jay's coq au vin and bisquits. I loves me some coq, but it's the bisquits that really light my fire. I just keep nibbling and nibbling and end up putting away about five of them.
Urp.
Now is the very sweeting time of night. First a La Bota de Pedro Ximenez No. 25. Yup, PX all right: raisins, dates, figs, maple, everything you'd expect in a PX nosing. Tastes rich and vivid, but surprisingly restrained, just as sweet as you'd expect from a PX, but a bit thinner in texture, not like motor oil, crisper and less cloying. Very nice.
Eden has her usual dessert show-stopper, a dense chocolate cake festooned with fertility symbols, with schlag on the side. I take a tiny sliver; a little bit goes a long way. It's very rich, and very fertile. I feel my masculinity blooming with every bite.
SZT Tamas Royal Tokaji 6 Puttonyos 1999. Medium amber-red color, smells richly honeyed, scorched brown sugar mingling with a bright rainwatery freshness. Sweet, but not very sweet. But pretty sweet. Sweeter than medium sweet, but far from syrupy, with a good sense of layered complexity. Very tasty.
People are clearing out. It's a Sunday night, early leavers. "I can take you to the upper east side, to the F train, if you like," says Kane, leering at me like a swabbie on shore leave.
My wine-addled senses see some logic in this. Lisa is gone, it's only my life in danger. I could die on the PATH train, too, right?
"Okay," I lie.
