Chris Coad
Chris Coad
All the planets have aligned this fine October evening: Lisa and I have managed to clear enough time from our turbulent schedules to make a rare midweek guest-star turn at Chteauneuf-du-Joe, SFJoe's aerie of earthly delights in downtown Manhattan.
When I cross the threshold there is much consternation among the assembled faithful that I'm in striped-shirt officewear mufti instead of my usual floral pattern. I patiently explain that I've come straight from work, and, since I don't run a P.I. service, alohawear is frowned on in the workplace. Besides, now that we Hawaiians have seized the levers of power we've decided it would be wise to dial back the outward displays; might seem a bit like gloating. And no, despite the rumors, the new administration has no plans to enforce the replacement of Thanksgiving turkey with luau pig; I have this on very good authority. Of course, true trendspotters have already made the switch, haven't we, turtledoves?
Anyhoo, the occasion? Beats me. Someone ("Sharon"?) is apparently visiting from Mauritius or Paris or somewhere where they speak French, along with her new husband ("Arnaud"?), who may or may not be Mauritian or French; rumors to that effect vary wildly. I'm exhausted and sleep-deprived, so I gratefully accept our host's offer of a glass of Huet Vouvray Petillant Sec 1964, which has been known to banish all cares. It's a medium amber-gold color, and it smells heavenlyhoneyed almond paste laced with bergamot, paraffin and tangerine hints. A sip, and it's very lightly fizzy, the gentle bubbliness serving to herd the flickery-layered flavors across and under my tongue. A beguiling blend of calmness and vibrancy, it's certainly developed but has much of youth about it as well. Charming, complex, pretty, supple, gone. Gone? Oops, must save the last pour for Lisa, who will arrive after she's finished healing the sick and curing the afflicted.
There's good ol' Brad Kane standing by the kitchen counter, but before I can say hello he lifts his head from his glass, pauses, clears his throat, announces: "This wine has stonefruity undercurrents and a very fine bead, with a hint of bergamot." Kane has this cute way of making pronouncements as if there were a roomful of reporters waiting to scribble them down. He looks around for the reaction to this newsflash, but nobody's paying attention, so we'll probably hear that one again later. Wouldn't want to waste a trenchant usage of bead.
I spot Jay Miller across the room; he too looks exhausted. I gravitate towards him, happy to be in the company of someone equally sleep-deprived. I plop myself down and we sit in commiserative near-silence, occasionally grunting cheerless inanities at one another, gratified to be relieved of the pressure of coherent interaction. "So who are these people?" I ask, aware of Jay's propensity to know things like that. He enumerates the guestsSharon Bowman, Arnaud somethingorother, Ben Sherwin, Michel Abood, good ol' Brad Kane.
In return for this knowledge, Jay asks me to give sherry another shot. He pours me an Equipo Navazos 'La Bota de Fino' NV. Ick, tastes like sherrysour and nutty, although this is a fairly fleshy, medium low acid version. No, no, no. Fail.
"It's sour," I say, grimacing. "It's like drinking nut juice that has gone rancid."
"It's NOT sour," Jay counters emphatically, rolling his eyes in exasperation at my Kaneish ways.
Okay, it just tastes sour. "At least I tried it," I murmur sheepishly. I know, I know, I'll never be given the keys to the executive winegeek washroom until I can learn to like, or at least not gag at, sherry and its sweaty cousin, vin jaune.
Ah, here's the cure for sherry, a Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Touraine 2007. Medium-light coppery-pink color. Soft and light, cherry-strawberry-earthy and ethereally pure, just evanesces on my tongue. Easygoing, fairly low acidity, quite charming and delicious. A smaller, lighter version of the lovely '02, without that version's lapel-grabbing focus. "Wine of the night," sighs Jay, "I don't care what comes after, this is the wine of the night."
I make my usual perfunctory offer of kitchen assistance to our host, but to my astonishment, this time Joe actually accepts. Can this be true? After ten years of being forbidden to cross the Line of Death and enter into the Holy of Holies, I'm finally deemed worthy of joining the elite brotherhood of SFJoe sous-chefs? I am momentarily dumbstruck. Eyes twinkling, Joe hands me a paring knife and leans in close: "Why don't you chop up some cauliflower for me?"
Whoah. I mentally thank my lucky stars for the cauliflower prep class I took in my all-too-brief Learning Annex phase.
I stammer my thanks and, hands trembling, cast about for the object of my assignment. Aha! Thar she veggies, a cauliflower head, in a bowl over by the sink. I advance on it fixedly, but wait, there's that Sharon chick, she's chopping cauliflower too, she has one head over by her and is eying me warily as I approach the second.
"No, no, I've got it," she says.
No... wait, what? I have my paring knife, I have my orders, I have my destiny. "But Joe asked me... Joe really wants me to chop this up. He said so. Ask him." I wave my knife in Joe's general direction, hoping she'll move away from the uncut head.
"I've got it," she repeats insistently, not budging. We glare at each other. Who is this chick, anyway? I make a grab for the unclaimed head, but she's too fast, damnit, and snatches it away, chef's knife waving menacingly in my general direction.
Damn, the woman's a control freak! My mouth works soundlessly, and I cast a pleading eye towards our host, who seems slightly alarmed at the notion of a knife fight breaking out in his kitchen. He places his hand on my shoulder. "Let it go," he whispers. "After all, she's the guest of honor."
I lower my paring knife and turn to face my tormentor. "Fine. Fine. No problem. Go rogue, see if I care," I snap. "But don't come crying to me if there's a cauliflower-related crisis of some kind." I slink back into the *********** to sulk and plot my revenge. This shall not stand, o my brothers, this shall not stand.
For consolation I turn to a Nikolaihof Riesling Wachau 'Vinothek' 1990, which is rather aromatically shylight hints of vinyl, honey-lemon and pineapple, not showing like I remember. Tastes firm and broad-beamed, with a gently fleshy patina, the nice elements are all there and I keep waiting for it to come together, but it's just not hitting on all cylinders. A bit disjointed and quite distractingly tannic, not showing well. Or perhaps it's just the bile that I can't quite choke back. I peek into the kitchen, and you-know-who is still there, chopping away gaily, not a care in the world. I wrench my eyes away from her happiness, which tastes like gall and wormwood. Or maybe that's the Nikolaihof, I can't be sure at this point.
For reasons that escape me, Joe has a tome entitled Diseases of Leisure out on the kitchen counter. A little light reading, eh? I thumb idly through it. Damn, cats are filthy critters. Why did I let Lisa bring two more of these vile plague-vectors home this past week? We're well on our way to becoming the crazy disease-ridden cat family.
Oh yeah, that's right, the whole cute & cuddly thing.
Speaking of Lisa, here she is now at the door, having traded in her scrubs for basic downtown black. Damn, she's gorgeous. I pass her the final pour of Huet fizz that I've been jealously guarding for her; in return, she lends me a pen that works. Immediately behind her is the esteemed Asher Rubenstein with a young woman I don't know, who is soon introduced all around. It's Deborah. She seems nice. Hi Deborah!
Here's a pinkish fizz, a Jean Vesselle Champagne Brut Ros 'Oeil de Perdrix' NV. Pale coppery-salmon-pink color. Very frothy, a mouthful of boisterous bubbles at first, then a bready yeastiness, a kind of bouillon spiciness, and cheerful cherryosity. Happy stuff, exuberant and fun.
I turn just in time to see Deborah bolting out the front door and Asher returning stag, spinning a yarn about a babysitter crisis of some kind. I pretend to buy this because I understand completelyI often have the urge to flee when confronted with a roomful of winegeeks. I lean in to SFJoe, "She must've used her panic word."
He nods thoughtfully. "Can you blame her?"
I can't, no, although this seems a less threatening crowd than usual, with at least a couple other women present to marginally lower the doofus factor. But then I spot Kane looking around, scanning the room for a hapless victim that he can use the word 'bead' on. I quickly look away. Can't make eye contact, he'll just charge across the room at me.
What's this? Jambon & gruyre? No wait, it's just a Philippe Jambon 'la Grande Bruyre' Vin de Table Francais NV. Gently tropical-smellingpineapple, yellow apple, asian pear hints. Wide and hot, with a flash of vodka spiritousness, seems like a bit of a sport. It's big and weird, but I don't mind it. At least it's not overoaked. It's apparently chardonnay, which explains a few things. Given that initial handicap, it does okay for itself. There's some secret-handshake way to divine the vintage here that Sharon the Empress of Cauliflower shows me, but I forget. On purpose. Cause, really. You know?
Speaking of which, I manage to corner the cauliflower-snatching gloryhog while she's tending the stove and can't escape. "So," I say evenly, "What's your story?"
She stops stirring. "What do you mean 'my story'?"
"You know, where are you from, what do you do, all that good stuff." She elaborates, I take mental notesKnow thine enemy is my first commandment. Then she offhandedly mentions that she doesn't like chenin blanc. Yes, she actually utters these five words, in this precise order: "I." "Don't." "Like." "Chenin." "Blanc."
"Excuse me?" I must've misheard. This can't be right; how would Joe even have let her through the door? But, believe it or not, it IS true. Has Joe stopped vetting his houseguests? Who IS this chick?
"Well, what do you like about it?" she asks sweetly. "Do you like it dry, demisec, sparkling, sweet...?"
She's toying with me, the minx. It's high-stakes poker. Don't give her much, play 'em close to the vest. "Yes."
"See, well, there you are, I don't like sweet wines."
So here's the Omega to Kane's Alpha. I ponder the implications for a second. "Don't get too close to Brad, you might make contact and explode," I suggest. "No, really, it's very interesting that we've found the other end of the continuum. You don't like anything sweet, he'd drink vinegar if it had enough sugar in it. Most of us lie somewhere in the middle, and even he's evolving, if at a rather glacial pace."
I pause, savoring the moment, "Perhaps one day down the road your tastes will mature. Until then, you'll be in our prayers."
That's it, Coad, now retreat, live to fight another day. I feel her eyes on the back of my head as I make my way into the ***********. Or at least I think I do, I was never really good with that kind of non-sight sight thing.
Here's a Huet Vouvray le Haut-Lieu Demisec 1962. Medium gold color, ambering lightly at the rim. Lightly woolly apricot-laced yellowfruit-leather aromatics, smells kind of... typical. Tastes similarly typical, light hint of sweetness, stoney underpinnings, um. Well. Um. Everything seems in order, but the overall effect is a bit leaden. Seems a bit understuffed at the same time as seeming rather heavy, and comes off as decidedly middling middle-aged Vouvray. I want this to be better, so as to refute the visiting dignitary's peculiar worldview, but it's not cooperating. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Kane spends a good part of the evening running around trying to pump up enthusiasm for it ("HERE! [shoves glass under your nose] Try it now! It's bloomed! Smell that! SMELL THAT!"), but it's not showing well tonight, although either air or Kane's PR campaign does seem to help marginally after awhile.
Joe is making quesadillas with some weird black bloppy stuff from a spam tin, looks like something you'd scrape out of a Jersey Diner's grease trap. In response to my puzzled protestations, Arnaud brings me a book, apparently a fungus field guide, and points happily at a photo of some similar black goo dripping from a corn husk. "Corn smut?" I exclaim. "I go out to dinner and they feed me smut?"
Turns out smut is messy stuff, disinclined to stay contained within the confines of a tortilla. Soon there is smut all over my fingers, smut in my lap, smut on my chair, and smut on the floor. Others are having similar luck, and soon we're a very smutty crew indeed. Sponges and towels are requisitioned and a thorough desmutting commences while we drink a Coche-Dury Meursault 1996, which, it turns out, is wine to de-smut by, as its flaws will distract you from any lingering smut in your ears or on your socks. Really, this smells like popcorn and gunpowder dusted with lemoncream, it's lost the taut composure it had a few years back. "A movie theater in Beirut!" exclaims Ben. Crisp, taut, medium bodied and firm, but the firecracker/popcorn flavors swamp any potential fruitiness. Chardonnay gone bad; undrinkable. And if you know me, that's saying a lot.
I'm shocked at how icky this tastes, I remember it being significantly more not-icky when it was young. Perhaps some weird chemical flaw? "Joe, Joe, what's going on with this? What's happened to this wine?"
Joe shrugs. "It fell in the popper?"
Makes sense to me. Okay, time to sit down now, pass the chicken and let's get to work.
First up is a Williams-Selyem Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Hirsch Vineyard 1999. Whoops. Corked.
Good thing we've got a backup, a Williams-Selyem Pinot Noir Russian River Valley Rochioli Riverblock 1998. Plenty of cola here, clove too, earth and plum-cherry underneath. Medium-lightbodied pinot noir (or, as the kids say, "pinot"), there's an earthy streak that I find appealing. New world all the way, it's a gentle, feathery wine that soothes me and tickles gently at my sensitive spots. I find it pauseworthy and contemplativeworth.
Here comes the risotto, followed quickly by OH MY FUCKING GOD, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!
As the platter goes around the room people lean in, gasp with astonishment. "Holy shit," I breathe, "This cauliflower is cut in HUGE, IRREGULARLY SIZED chunks. What in the world...?"
Tumult. Uproar. I try to catch my breath, but it's coming in desperate gulps. "More wine," I sputter. "Need. More. Wine." Something powerful, something with the guts to wash down football-sized chunks of pale vegetable matter. Wait, Compaa Vinicola de Norte de Espaa (CVNE) Rioja Gran Reserva 'Via Real' 1981 is all we've got? Cool, whatever, just pour it. Medium ruby color, bricking out to a hint of amber at the rim. Smells sweetly cedary and richly complex, crushed brick and leather notes, muted dried-cherry redfruit, real nice to sniff. A sip, and it's soft and plush, medium-bodied, fleshy and layered, charmingly easygoing. You could argue that it's a bit lacking in mouthgrab and focus, but that would seem meanspirited in the face of such amiable slatternliness. Silky, rich, very easy to drink.
Sharon points a camera at me. I scowl. Scowling makes me feel good. What's with all the damn cameras? Flash flash flash, all night long.
The healing continues with a Chteau Musar Lebanon 1988. Wow, lots of yummy smellies heresweet cedar, iodine, crushed brick, muted cran-cherry, peat moss, someone says, and that's right too, and there's a touch of cinnamon. And yamskin. Oh, and other things too, more than I'm eager to list. I could smell this all night. Plus, there's a strange lack of VA. What's up with that? Tastes rather shyer than it smells, lean and firm at the core but pleasantly decayed and expressive as well. Very pretty, layered and complex wine.
Ben asks about the origins of Wine Disorder. "Oh," says Joe, "It's mostly a group of nomads who were refugees from Wine therapy, who were refugees from the Wine Asylum, who were refugees from the old WLDG, who were refugees from alt.food.wine."
"Splinter factions," I add. "Malcontents. Troublemakers. Wretched refuse of teh interwebz's teeming shores." I stumble over the pronunciation of 'teh,' having never spoken it aloud.
Here's the younger sibling, a Chteau Musar Lebanon 1991. Ahh, there's our nail polish remover, nice to see you back where you belong. Along with the VA there's leathery redfruit, yamskin, earth, bookspine, happy happy smellies all the way. Tastes smooth and layered, sweetly muscular redfruit after the lighter '88, almost balletic in its strength. Fine focus, just awfully complete and satisfying on many levels. Six levels, at least, maybe seven if you count intellectual.
The twin Musars have calmed the crowd, the cauliflower hysteria is passing. It's time to take the high road. "Actually," I declare, "the raggedly-cut, almost freakish size and shape of the cauliflower chunks is really allowing the innate cauliflowerishness to manifest itself. Sharon, with her unorthodox methods, may well have unintentionally stumbled onto something here."
The crowd seems to agree. The bloodlust subsides. A Gaillard Cte-Rtie 1998 is corked.
Ben says he's finally starting to understand that nobody on Wine Disorder really understands what's going on most of the time. "I used to think it was just me, that I wasn't getting the in-jokes. Now I see NOBODY gets the in-jokes."
"I think that's the ultimate in-joke," I point out. "It's very meta. Personally, I understand what people are talking about maybe one-third of the time."
"I'm up near fifty percent these days," Jay chimes in.
"But you're smart," I point out. "And well liked. And that's another thing, I feel like I hardly know anybody on that board, like it's a whole new crowd from the therapy days."
"Oh, you know them," says Sharon, "just not by their real names."
A light dawns. CauliflowerGirl is right, by cracky!
"That's true!" I exclaim. "I keep finding complete strangers talking to me like we've known each other forever, and I'm like hey, why so familiar, unknown stranger-man? Then I realize it's got to be MirabileDictu or AngryBottleMonkey or Georgia Jamal or ClownyHole or one of the many other whimsically-named characters I chatted with for years but who never seemed real. Problem is, I can never figure out which one... what's Virginia Guadaloupe going by on the board these days, anyway?"
Silence. No one seems to know. Anyone?
Okay, here's a Domaine du Moulin Vin de Pays du Loir et Cher "Pivoine" 2006. Cherry-blackberry aromatics, smells juicy-jammy, lightly toasty. This is ct, or so I'm told, and it's a kinder, gentler kind of ct than we're used to. Or perhaps dumbed down? No, that's not entirely fair, actually it's a juicy, happy little wine that doesn't say much of anything but says it very amiably. It's Kane ct, and Brad responds appropriately. Bradley likes a wine made from ct! Our little one is growing up! I watch proudly until he inexplicably pulls out a camera and proceeds to photograph his plate of food from eight or nine different angles. My skin starts to crawl. What fresh fetishism is this? It's making my eyes hurt.
"Please stop," I ask. He looks at me, keep flashing. Flash flash. Ow. Ow.
"Please stop," I say again. Flash flash. It's like talking to a brick wall.
"I'll break it if you don't stop," I suggest. Flash flash, flash flash. Jesus fuck.
Must channel rage into drinking. Here's a Massolino Barolo Vigna Rionda Riserva 1995. Faint cherry-tar hints are all I'm smelling here. Tastes angryungiving, sharp, and abrasively tannic. Hard to judge, a waste to open now.
Ben looks over at me and says, "Hey, you really DO have a Hello Kitty notebook! I thought you were making that up."
This has been happening a lot lately, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. "Why would I make up something like that?"
"I don't know, I just thought it was... a thing."
I frown. I suppose I should take the notion that I have a fertile imagination as a compliment, but I pride myself on my accurate reportage and transcription-under-fire skills. Why can't my public see me for the gritty combat reporter that I am?
"Do you have young nieces, or are you just a seven year old girl inside?"
Oh now really, this is beyond the pale. "You don't have to be young to love Hello Kitty," I point out. "She's a universal symbol of love and compassion, and she has no mouth!"
He seems satisfied with that. And, in fact, having no mouth would come in handy should someone happen to pour you some Jacques Selosse Champagne Blanc de Noirs 'Contraste' NV, which lives up to its name by standing in stark contrast to every other Selosse fizz I've tasted. Smells toasty-flinty and kind of... unusual. Hard to nail down. Similarly strange tangerine-flinty flavors, abrasively flavorful, really. Heavy-tasting, awkward and clumsy. Even were I able to parse this, I'd say there's not much to like here.
There's a brief silence while we consider the odd bubbly, and Kane finally spots his opening: "This wine displays a very persistent bead, and it smells like peanut butter," he announces, smilingly looking around for reaction.
"No, it doesn't," replies Sharon. "Are you crazy?" Ah, nicely done. She's catching on.
Here's a second SFJoe birthyear wine, a Chteau Beycheville St. Julien 1962. Medium-light ruby color. Smells of stewed tomato, cedar and a gentle woodsy-tobacco spiciness. Tastes loose and feathery-earthy, faded and on the soft side, quite foursquare but appealing nonetheless. Decent little St. Julien, nicely layered and just past its best days. Drink up.
Snippet: "What is the reason we can't get good epoisses in the United States?"
"Pasteurization."
"Culture."
"Pussiness."
"All of the above."
The last of the cauliflower goes around. I can't help it, I mutter something under my breath about the peculiarly large portion sizes, but Asher catches my mutter and points: "Ooh, look again: is it too large, or too SMALL?"
I take another look, and by gum, he's right! The mudflap-sized pieces had apparently been covering a nest of rabbit-pellet cauli-shrapnel. I daintily pick one up between thumb and forefinger and marvel at its netsuke perfection, a perfect lilliputian cauliflower fragment.
"It's... it's beautiful," I admit. "So tiny, so perfect. A snowflake. Except, well, smaller."
Yet another SFJoe birthyear wine makes the rounds, a Chteau du Breuil Coteaux du Layon Beaulieu 1962. Except, er, between you and me, Joe's seen a vintage or two more than this bottleapparently he's been misrepresenting himself online as a younger, more vital man, for reasons that are his and his alone. Of course, I'm down with that kind of thing, sin and the first stone and all that, you know, so let's have a taste. Medium gold color, smells nicely rich, light honey and apricot, a nice dose of sheepiness, smells broad and unsubtle but quite happy. I take a sip, and the flavors follow the template set by the smellies, broad and friendly and also maybe just a bit tired in the middle. There's a hint of vervelessness, a certain lack of vim that's nagging at me as I genuinely enjoy drinking this stuff. I shake it off, though, as it's hard to be cranky when it's this late and I'm this lit. Gimme some more, willya please?
An interesting evening. Perhaps we ought to make more of an effort to get out on weeknights. And by the end of the night the entirety of the cauliflower debacle was forgotten and Sharon and I were fast friends. The lion lay down with the lamb, and all was well once more in the basement apartments beneath the brightly-lit towers of winegeekery.
Sleep now, o best beloveds, and dream of chenin blanc.
When I cross the threshold there is much consternation among the assembled faithful that I'm in striped-shirt officewear mufti instead of my usual floral pattern. I patiently explain that I've come straight from work, and, since I don't run a P.I. service, alohawear is frowned on in the workplace. Besides, now that we Hawaiians have seized the levers of power we've decided it would be wise to dial back the outward displays; might seem a bit like gloating. And no, despite the rumors, the new administration has no plans to enforce the replacement of Thanksgiving turkey with luau pig; I have this on very good authority. Of course, true trendspotters have already made the switch, haven't we, turtledoves?
Anyhoo, the occasion? Beats me. Someone ("Sharon"?) is apparently visiting from Mauritius or Paris or somewhere where they speak French, along with her new husband ("Arnaud"?), who may or may not be Mauritian or French; rumors to that effect vary wildly. I'm exhausted and sleep-deprived, so I gratefully accept our host's offer of a glass of Huet Vouvray Petillant Sec 1964, which has been known to banish all cares. It's a medium amber-gold color, and it smells heavenlyhoneyed almond paste laced with bergamot, paraffin and tangerine hints. A sip, and it's very lightly fizzy, the gentle bubbliness serving to herd the flickery-layered flavors across and under my tongue. A beguiling blend of calmness and vibrancy, it's certainly developed but has much of youth about it as well. Charming, complex, pretty, supple, gone. Gone? Oops, must save the last pour for Lisa, who will arrive after she's finished healing the sick and curing the afflicted.
There's good ol' Brad Kane standing by the kitchen counter, but before I can say hello he lifts his head from his glass, pauses, clears his throat, announces: "This wine has stonefruity undercurrents and a very fine bead, with a hint of bergamot." Kane has this cute way of making pronouncements as if there were a roomful of reporters waiting to scribble them down. He looks around for the reaction to this newsflash, but nobody's paying attention, so we'll probably hear that one again later. Wouldn't want to waste a trenchant usage of bead.
I spot Jay Miller across the room; he too looks exhausted. I gravitate towards him, happy to be in the company of someone equally sleep-deprived. I plop myself down and we sit in commiserative near-silence, occasionally grunting cheerless inanities at one another, gratified to be relieved of the pressure of coherent interaction. "So who are these people?" I ask, aware of Jay's propensity to know things like that. He enumerates the guestsSharon Bowman, Arnaud somethingorother, Ben Sherwin, Michel Abood, good ol' Brad Kane.
In return for this knowledge, Jay asks me to give sherry another shot. He pours me an Equipo Navazos 'La Bota de Fino' NV. Ick, tastes like sherrysour and nutty, although this is a fairly fleshy, medium low acid version. No, no, no. Fail.
"It's sour," I say, grimacing. "It's like drinking nut juice that has gone rancid."
"It's NOT sour," Jay counters emphatically, rolling his eyes in exasperation at my Kaneish ways.
Okay, it just tastes sour. "At least I tried it," I murmur sheepishly. I know, I know, I'll never be given the keys to the executive winegeek washroom until I can learn to like, or at least not gag at, sherry and its sweaty cousin, vin jaune.
Ah, here's the cure for sherry, a Clos Roche Blanche Pineau d'Aunis Touraine 2007. Medium-light coppery-pink color. Soft and light, cherry-strawberry-earthy and ethereally pure, just evanesces on my tongue. Easygoing, fairly low acidity, quite charming and delicious. A smaller, lighter version of the lovely '02, without that version's lapel-grabbing focus. "Wine of the night," sighs Jay, "I don't care what comes after, this is the wine of the night."
I make my usual perfunctory offer of kitchen assistance to our host, but to my astonishment, this time Joe actually accepts. Can this be true? After ten years of being forbidden to cross the Line of Death and enter into the Holy of Holies, I'm finally deemed worthy of joining the elite brotherhood of SFJoe sous-chefs? I am momentarily dumbstruck. Eyes twinkling, Joe hands me a paring knife and leans in close: "Why don't you chop up some cauliflower for me?"
Whoah. I mentally thank my lucky stars for the cauliflower prep class I took in my all-too-brief Learning Annex phase.
I stammer my thanks and, hands trembling, cast about for the object of my assignment. Aha! Thar she veggies, a cauliflower head, in a bowl over by the sink. I advance on it fixedly, but wait, there's that Sharon chick, she's chopping cauliflower too, she has one head over by her and is eying me warily as I approach the second.
"No, no, I've got it," she says.
No... wait, what? I have my paring knife, I have my orders, I have my destiny. "But Joe asked me... Joe really wants me to chop this up. He said so. Ask him." I wave my knife in Joe's general direction, hoping she'll move away from the uncut head.
"I've got it," she repeats insistently, not budging. We glare at each other. Who is this chick, anyway? I make a grab for the unclaimed head, but she's too fast, damnit, and snatches it away, chef's knife waving menacingly in my general direction.
Damn, the woman's a control freak! My mouth works soundlessly, and I cast a pleading eye towards our host, who seems slightly alarmed at the notion of a knife fight breaking out in his kitchen. He places his hand on my shoulder. "Let it go," he whispers. "After all, she's the guest of honor."
I lower my paring knife and turn to face my tormentor. "Fine. Fine. No problem. Go rogue, see if I care," I snap. "But don't come crying to me if there's a cauliflower-related crisis of some kind." I slink back into the *********** to sulk and plot my revenge. This shall not stand, o my brothers, this shall not stand.
For consolation I turn to a Nikolaihof Riesling Wachau 'Vinothek' 1990, which is rather aromatically shylight hints of vinyl, honey-lemon and pineapple, not showing like I remember. Tastes firm and broad-beamed, with a gently fleshy patina, the nice elements are all there and I keep waiting for it to come together, but it's just not hitting on all cylinders. A bit disjointed and quite distractingly tannic, not showing well. Or perhaps it's just the bile that I can't quite choke back. I peek into the kitchen, and you-know-who is still there, chopping away gaily, not a care in the world. I wrench my eyes away from her happiness, which tastes like gall and wormwood. Or maybe that's the Nikolaihof, I can't be sure at this point.
For reasons that escape me, Joe has a tome entitled Diseases of Leisure out on the kitchen counter. A little light reading, eh? I thumb idly through it. Damn, cats are filthy critters. Why did I let Lisa bring two more of these vile plague-vectors home this past week? We're well on our way to becoming the crazy disease-ridden cat family.
Oh yeah, that's right, the whole cute & cuddly thing.
Speaking of Lisa, here she is now at the door, having traded in her scrubs for basic downtown black. Damn, she's gorgeous. I pass her the final pour of Huet fizz that I've been jealously guarding for her; in return, she lends me a pen that works. Immediately behind her is the esteemed Asher Rubenstein with a young woman I don't know, who is soon introduced all around. It's Deborah. She seems nice. Hi Deborah!
Here's a pinkish fizz, a Jean Vesselle Champagne Brut Ros 'Oeil de Perdrix' NV. Pale coppery-salmon-pink color. Very frothy, a mouthful of boisterous bubbles at first, then a bready yeastiness, a kind of bouillon spiciness, and cheerful cherryosity. Happy stuff, exuberant and fun.
I turn just in time to see Deborah bolting out the front door and Asher returning stag, spinning a yarn about a babysitter crisis of some kind. I pretend to buy this because I understand completelyI often have the urge to flee when confronted with a roomful of winegeeks. I lean in to SFJoe, "She must've used her panic word."
He nods thoughtfully. "Can you blame her?"
I can't, no, although this seems a less threatening crowd than usual, with at least a couple other women present to marginally lower the doofus factor. But then I spot Kane looking around, scanning the room for a hapless victim that he can use the word 'bead' on. I quickly look away. Can't make eye contact, he'll just charge across the room at me.
What's this? Jambon & gruyre? No wait, it's just a Philippe Jambon 'la Grande Bruyre' Vin de Table Francais NV. Gently tropical-smellingpineapple, yellow apple, asian pear hints. Wide and hot, with a flash of vodka spiritousness, seems like a bit of a sport. It's big and weird, but I don't mind it. At least it's not overoaked. It's apparently chardonnay, which explains a few things. Given that initial handicap, it does okay for itself. There's some secret-handshake way to divine the vintage here that Sharon the Empress of Cauliflower shows me, but I forget. On purpose. Cause, really. You know?
Speaking of which, I manage to corner the cauliflower-snatching gloryhog while she's tending the stove and can't escape. "So," I say evenly, "What's your story?"
She stops stirring. "What do you mean 'my story'?"
"You know, where are you from, what do you do, all that good stuff." She elaborates, I take mental notesKnow thine enemy is my first commandment. Then she offhandedly mentions that she doesn't like chenin blanc. Yes, she actually utters these five words, in this precise order: "I." "Don't." "Like." "Chenin." "Blanc."
"Excuse me?" I must've misheard. This can't be right; how would Joe even have let her through the door? But, believe it or not, it IS true. Has Joe stopped vetting his houseguests? Who IS this chick?
"Well, what do you like about it?" she asks sweetly. "Do you like it dry, demisec, sparkling, sweet...?"
She's toying with me, the minx. It's high-stakes poker. Don't give her much, play 'em close to the vest. "Yes."
"See, well, there you are, I don't like sweet wines."
So here's the Omega to Kane's Alpha. I ponder the implications for a second. "Don't get too close to Brad, you might make contact and explode," I suggest. "No, really, it's very interesting that we've found the other end of the continuum. You don't like anything sweet, he'd drink vinegar if it had enough sugar in it. Most of us lie somewhere in the middle, and even he's evolving, if at a rather glacial pace."
I pause, savoring the moment, "Perhaps one day down the road your tastes will mature. Until then, you'll be in our prayers."
That's it, Coad, now retreat, live to fight another day. I feel her eyes on the back of my head as I make my way into the ***********. Or at least I think I do, I was never really good with that kind of non-sight sight thing.
Here's a Huet Vouvray le Haut-Lieu Demisec 1962. Medium gold color, ambering lightly at the rim. Lightly woolly apricot-laced yellowfruit-leather aromatics, smells kind of... typical. Tastes similarly typical, light hint of sweetness, stoney underpinnings, um. Well. Um. Everything seems in order, but the overall effect is a bit leaden. Seems a bit understuffed at the same time as seeming rather heavy, and comes off as decidedly middling middle-aged Vouvray. I want this to be better, so as to refute the visiting dignitary's peculiar worldview, but it's not cooperating. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Kane spends a good part of the evening running around trying to pump up enthusiasm for it ("HERE! [shoves glass under your nose] Try it now! It's bloomed! Smell that! SMELL THAT!"), but it's not showing well tonight, although either air or Kane's PR campaign does seem to help marginally after awhile.
Joe is making quesadillas with some weird black bloppy stuff from a spam tin, looks like something you'd scrape out of a Jersey Diner's grease trap. In response to my puzzled protestations, Arnaud brings me a book, apparently a fungus field guide, and points happily at a photo of some similar black goo dripping from a corn husk. "Corn smut?" I exclaim. "I go out to dinner and they feed me smut?"
Turns out smut is messy stuff, disinclined to stay contained within the confines of a tortilla. Soon there is smut all over my fingers, smut in my lap, smut on my chair, and smut on the floor. Others are having similar luck, and soon we're a very smutty crew indeed. Sponges and towels are requisitioned and a thorough desmutting commences while we drink a Coche-Dury Meursault 1996, which, it turns out, is wine to de-smut by, as its flaws will distract you from any lingering smut in your ears or on your socks. Really, this smells like popcorn and gunpowder dusted with lemoncream, it's lost the taut composure it had a few years back. "A movie theater in Beirut!" exclaims Ben. Crisp, taut, medium bodied and firm, but the firecracker/popcorn flavors swamp any potential fruitiness. Chardonnay gone bad; undrinkable. And if you know me, that's saying a lot.
I'm shocked at how icky this tastes, I remember it being significantly more not-icky when it was young. Perhaps some weird chemical flaw? "Joe, Joe, what's going on with this? What's happened to this wine?"
Joe shrugs. "It fell in the popper?"
Makes sense to me. Okay, time to sit down now, pass the chicken and let's get to work.
First up is a Williams-Selyem Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Hirsch Vineyard 1999. Whoops. Corked.
Good thing we've got a backup, a Williams-Selyem Pinot Noir Russian River Valley Rochioli Riverblock 1998. Plenty of cola here, clove too, earth and plum-cherry underneath. Medium-lightbodied pinot noir (or, as the kids say, "pinot"), there's an earthy streak that I find appealing. New world all the way, it's a gentle, feathery wine that soothes me and tickles gently at my sensitive spots. I find it pauseworthy and contemplativeworth.
Here comes the risotto, followed quickly by OH MY FUCKING GOD, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!
As the platter goes around the room people lean in, gasp with astonishment. "Holy shit," I breathe, "This cauliflower is cut in HUGE, IRREGULARLY SIZED chunks. What in the world...?"
Tumult. Uproar. I try to catch my breath, but it's coming in desperate gulps. "More wine," I sputter. "Need. More. Wine." Something powerful, something with the guts to wash down football-sized chunks of pale vegetable matter. Wait, Compaa Vinicola de Norte de Espaa (CVNE) Rioja Gran Reserva 'Via Real' 1981 is all we've got? Cool, whatever, just pour it. Medium ruby color, bricking out to a hint of amber at the rim. Smells sweetly cedary and richly complex, crushed brick and leather notes, muted dried-cherry redfruit, real nice to sniff. A sip, and it's soft and plush, medium-bodied, fleshy and layered, charmingly easygoing. You could argue that it's a bit lacking in mouthgrab and focus, but that would seem meanspirited in the face of such amiable slatternliness. Silky, rich, very easy to drink.
Sharon points a camera at me. I scowl. Scowling makes me feel good. What's with all the damn cameras? Flash flash flash, all night long.
The healing continues with a Chteau Musar Lebanon 1988. Wow, lots of yummy smellies heresweet cedar, iodine, crushed brick, muted cran-cherry, peat moss, someone says, and that's right too, and there's a touch of cinnamon. And yamskin. Oh, and other things too, more than I'm eager to list. I could smell this all night. Plus, there's a strange lack of VA. What's up with that? Tastes rather shyer than it smells, lean and firm at the core but pleasantly decayed and expressive as well. Very pretty, layered and complex wine.
Ben asks about the origins of Wine Disorder. "Oh," says Joe, "It's mostly a group of nomads who were refugees from Wine therapy, who were refugees from the Wine Asylum, who were refugees from the old WLDG, who were refugees from alt.food.wine."
"Splinter factions," I add. "Malcontents. Troublemakers. Wretched refuse of teh interwebz's teeming shores." I stumble over the pronunciation of 'teh,' having never spoken it aloud.
Here's the younger sibling, a Chteau Musar Lebanon 1991. Ahh, there's our nail polish remover, nice to see you back where you belong. Along with the VA there's leathery redfruit, yamskin, earth, bookspine, happy happy smellies all the way. Tastes smooth and layered, sweetly muscular redfruit after the lighter '88, almost balletic in its strength. Fine focus, just awfully complete and satisfying on many levels. Six levels, at least, maybe seven if you count intellectual.
The twin Musars have calmed the crowd, the cauliflower hysteria is passing. It's time to take the high road. "Actually," I declare, "the raggedly-cut, almost freakish size and shape of the cauliflower chunks is really allowing the innate cauliflowerishness to manifest itself. Sharon, with her unorthodox methods, may well have unintentionally stumbled onto something here."
The crowd seems to agree. The bloodlust subsides. A Gaillard Cte-Rtie 1998 is corked.
Ben says he's finally starting to understand that nobody on Wine Disorder really understands what's going on most of the time. "I used to think it was just me, that I wasn't getting the in-jokes. Now I see NOBODY gets the in-jokes."
"I think that's the ultimate in-joke," I point out. "It's very meta. Personally, I understand what people are talking about maybe one-third of the time."
"I'm up near fifty percent these days," Jay chimes in.
"But you're smart," I point out. "And well liked. And that's another thing, I feel like I hardly know anybody on that board, like it's a whole new crowd from the therapy days."
"Oh, you know them," says Sharon, "just not by their real names."
A light dawns. CauliflowerGirl is right, by cracky!
"That's true!" I exclaim. "I keep finding complete strangers talking to me like we've known each other forever, and I'm like hey, why so familiar, unknown stranger-man? Then I realize it's got to be MirabileDictu or AngryBottleMonkey or Georgia Jamal or ClownyHole or one of the many other whimsically-named characters I chatted with for years but who never seemed real. Problem is, I can never figure out which one... what's Virginia Guadaloupe going by on the board these days, anyway?"
Silence. No one seems to know. Anyone?
Okay, here's a Domaine du Moulin Vin de Pays du Loir et Cher "Pivoine" 2006. Cherry-blackberry aromatics, smells juicy-jammy, lightly toasty. This is ct, or so I'm told, and it's a kinder, gentler kind of ct than we're used to. Or perhaps dumbed down? No, that's not entirely fair, actually it's a juicy, happy little wine that doesn't say much of anything but says it very amiably. It's Kane ct, and Brad responds appropriately. Bradley likes a wine made from ct! Our little one is growing up! I watch proudly until he inexplicably pulls out a camera and proceeds to photograph his plate of food from eight or nine different angles. My skin starts to crawl. What fresh fetishism is this? It's making my eyes hurt.
"Please stop," I ask. He looks at me, keep flashing. Flash flash. Ow. Ow.
"Please stop," I say again. Flash flash. It's like talking to a brick wall.
"I'll break it if you don't stop," I suggest. Flash flash, flash flash. Jesus fuck.
Must channel rage into drinking. Here's a Massolino Barolo Vigna Rionda Riserva 1995. Faint cherry-tar hints are all I'm smelling here. Tastes angryungiving, sharp, and abrasively tannic. Hard to judge, a waste to open now.
Ben looks over at me and says, "Hey, you really DO have a Hello Kitty notebook! I thought you were making that up."
This has been happening a lot lately, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. "Why would I make up something like that?"
"I don't know, I just thought it was... a thing."
I frown. I suppose I should take the notion that I have a fertile imagination as a compliment, but I pride myself on my accurate reportage and transcription-under-fire skills. Why can't my public see me for the gritty combat reporter that I am?
"Do you have young nieces, or are you just a seven year old girl inside?"
Oh now really, this is beyond the pale. "You don't have to be young to love Hello Kitty," I point out. "She's a universal symbol of love and compassion, and she has no mouth!"
He seems satisfied with that. And, in fact, having no mouth would come in handy should someone happen to pour you some Jacques Selosse Champagne Blanc de Noirs 'Contraste' NV, which lives up to its name by standing in stark contrast to every other Selosse fizz I've tasted. Smells toasty-flinty and kind of... unusual. Hard to nail down. Similarly strange tangerine-flinty flavors, abrasively flavorful, really. Heavy-tasting, awkward and clumsy. Even were I able to parse this, I'd say there's not much to like here.
There's a brief silence while we consider the odd bubbly, and Kane finally spots his opening: "This wine displays a very persistent bead, and it smells like peanut butter," he announces, smilingly looking around for reaction.
"No, it doesn't," replies Sharon. "Are you crazy?" Ah, nicely done. She's catching on.
Here's a second SFJoe birthyear wine, a Chteau Beycheville St. Julien 1962. Medium-light ruby color. Smells of stewed tomato, cedar and a gentle woodsy-tobacco spiciness. Tastes loose and feathery-earthy, faded and on the soft side, quite foursquare but appealing nonetheless. Decent little St. Julien, nicely layered and just past its best days. Drink up.
Snippet: "What is the reason we can't get good epoisses in the United States?"
"Pasteurization."
"Culture."
"Pussiness."
"All of the above."
The last of the cauliflower goes around. I can't help it, I mutter something under my breath about the peculiarly large portion sizes, but Asher catches my mutter and points: "Ooh, look again: is it too large, or too SMALL?"
I take another look, and by gum, he's right! The mudflap-sized pieces had apparently been covering a nest of rabbit-pellet cauli-shrapnel. I daintily pick one up between thumb and forefinger and marvel at its netsuke perfection, a perfect lilliputian cauliflower fragment.
"It's... it's beautiful," I admit. "So tiny, so perfect. A snowflake. Except, well, smaller."
Yet another SFJoe birthyear wine makes the rounds, a Chteau du Breuil Coteaux du Layon Beaulieu 1962. Except, er, between you and me, Joe's seen a vintage or two more than this bottleapparently he's been misrepresenting himself online as a younger, more vital man, for reasons that are his and his alone. Of course, I'm down with that kind of thing, sin and the first stone and all that, you know, so let's have a taste. Medium gold color, smells nicely rich, light honey and apricot, a nice dose of sheepiness, smells broad and unsubtle but quite happy. I take a sip, and the flavors follow the template set by the smellies, broad and friendly and also maybe just a bit tired in the middle. There's a hint of vervelessness, a certain lack of vim that's nagging at me as I genuinely enjoy drinking this stuff. I shake it off, though, as it's hard to be cranky when it's this late and I'm this lit. Gimme some more, willya please?
An interesting evening. Perhaps we ought to make more of an effort to get out on weeknights. And by the end of the night the entirety of the cauliflower debacle was forgotten and Sharon and I were fast friends. The lion lay down with the lamb, and all was well once more in the basement apartments beneath the brightly-lit towers of winegeekery.
Sleep now, o best beloveds, and dream of chenin blanc.
