Chris Coad
Chris Coad
Jay Miller moves a lot.
No, I don't mean he's a victim of the sweeping epidemic of Restless Leg Syndrome. Rather, it just seems that in the past few years I've attended an awful lot of moving and housewarming parties where he's been the guest of honor. Speaking as someone who's changed addresses exactly once in the last twenty-two years, I find this rootlessness enviable.
So it is that, after various travel crises involving, among other things, an unattended suitcase at the PATH station being swarmed by machine-gun toting National Guardsmen, I arrive in central downtown Jersey City and make my way across town to Jay's brand new swingin' bachelor pad. I follow the crowd noise down the winding mazelike hallway and ring the doorbell just as I hear someone on the other side say "Where's Chris?"
"I'm right here!" I sing out, ringing a few more times, then finally just banging with my fist until hey, here's Jay after all! And behind him there's a festive crowd of familiar and semi-familiar faces. There's Wine Baron Joe Dressner with Baroness Denyse Louis. Over in the far corner I spot Jeff Grossman and Jim Sampson, the Squires of Beaucoin, chatting with Brad Kane, the Marquess of J-Date. Even Royal Archivist Don Rice has seen fit to make an appearance, and good lord, there's the reigning Earl of Wine-Soaked Rock n'Roll, Tony Fletcher, returned to us from his banishment to the upstate hinterlands!
Kane shoulders his way through the crowd, thrusts a bottle of something pink at me. "You've GOT to try this! Wine of the night!" Behind him, Denyse is pulling a sour face and shaking her head.
I peer at the bottle, it's something called Red Ass, complete with a drawing of a ruddy donkey. I take a closer look at the label. "It's made of raspberries and rhubarb?"
"Yeah," says Kane. "And best of all, it's sweet! You've gotta try it!"
Denyse pipes up, "If you do try it, you'll have to get a new glass. Everything I've tasted since tastes like raspberries and rhubarb." I politely decline, instead grabbing a glassful of Vilmart Champagne Brut 'Couer de Cuve' 1993 (magnum). Mmm, smells rich and complex, light yellow pear mingled with vanilla-marzipan and baked bread ints. A sip, and it's medium bodied and layered, just lightly fizzy, flickery-rich and smoothly delicious. I'm not the biggest fan of non-chenin fizz, but I could actually go back for another pour of this. And, since it's such a big, full bottle, I do. Then I go back for a third. It's really lovely, I could just ignore the rest of the wines in the room and drink this all night, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Okay, there are other fish to fry. I pull myself away from killing the magnum of Vilmart and pour myself a glass of Jacques Lassaigne Champagne Brut 'Blanc de Blancs' 2000. It's light and frothy-stony, yeasty and lemon-applestonily tart. Lean, fresh, crisp and cheerful. Probably suffers a bit from being tasted after the Vilmart, but it's a vivid little fizz, happymaking in its own simple, slightly stern way.
Here's a change of pace, a Mller-Catoir Riesling Haardter Burgergarten Sptlese 1998. Very rich smelling, lots of vinyl-laced yellow apple and pear-peach aromatics. A sip, and it's broad and mouthfilling, crisp and medium-sweet, slightly glossy-textured. Kane moans about "searing acidity" eating his tongue, but he's nuts, it's firm but no more. Very nice.
Here's a Domaine de la Ppire Muscadet Clos des Briords 2000. It seems to be moving along nicely, the tense freshness of youth is receding, replaced by a gently honeyed quality that sits lightly on the stony-seashell-limeskin frame. There's a sense of looseness, of relaxation, that I don't recall from earlier tastings; the tight nervosity isn't apparent now, but it's equally drinkable. Very tasty, developing slightly faster than I'd have thought, but very nice nonetheless.
Word goes out that there's a pretty sundown to watch, so we go out to the miniature golf course (there's a great view of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty) and discuss darkness. How it never gets really dark anymore. When that runs its course, we discuss stripes. The invention of stripes, the connotations of different kinds of stripes, prison stripes, even herringbone, which isn't a kind of stripe at all but somehow enters into the discussion.
Something non-stripely offbeat here, a Les Champs Libres Vin de Pays de l'Ardeche 'Lard, des Choix' 2006. Muddy medium garnet color. Smells agreeably funky, light band-aid hints over a base of gentle strawberry-rhubarb redfruit, then freshly-turned sod underneath. Medium-bodied, tastes crisp and earthy and rustic. Not complex, but offbeat and rougueish and cocky, just dares you not to like it. A puckish little wine, tough to put down. What is this cartoon animal on the label? It's a long-snouted beastie with lots of teeth, a shaggy body and a ratlike tail. To my mind it looks exactly like an opossum, but Denyse swears it's something called a 'field rat.' Is someone importing possums to Europe and renaming them to make them more palatable to diners? Is "field rat" the new "sea bass"?
Upon return from the golf course, I'm surprised to find that there is a semi-birthday slant here for me and Dressner. I got a Brady Bunch balloon! And chocolate cake! Awesome! Dressner is moved as well. I clap him on the shoulder, "Happy sixty-fifth, old man." He smiles the smile of venerability.
Here's Don with what he's dubbed the Big Purple Bruiser, the Jol Taluau St. Nicolas-de-Bourgueil Vieilles Vignes 1996. It is much as I recall it; i.e., rather just barely medium-sized, not at all purple and quite un-bruiserlike. Medium ruby color. Gentle cran-cherry aromatics, oregano and pine-resin-infused redfruit laced with gravel, tobacco leaf and mud. A sip, and it's a medium-lightbodied bruiser, vividly bright acidity but still kind of shy and clenched at the core. Vibrant wine that probably needs another ten years before it'll be ready to unclench, but the glimmers of possibility are clear tonight.
To continue the Loire '96 experimentation here's a Domaine de Chevalerie Bourgueil 1996. Medium-dark ruby color, darker than the Taluau. Smells darker, too, smoky cran-cherry laced with licorice and toast. Tastes kind of flat, earthy, lifeless. The acidity is there, but the fruit has a flattened quality, and after the vivid Taluau this bottle seems a little tired, dull. Others assure me that the wine has showed better elsewhere, and that this might well be a damaged bottle.
Here's a gentle change of pace from red Loires, a Ridge Vineyards California 'Monte Bello' 2005. Smells like Coppertone, coconut meat and vanilla dominating the aromatics. Medium bodied, firm and meaty-tasting, but very woody. There's some nice matte red-blackfruit under the carpentry, firm core of acidity, rich meaty frame overlain with suntan lotion. I've only been tasting Monte Bellos on release since the 1995, but this is by a fair margin the most oak-marked young Monte Bello I've tasted. It's a little discouraging, frankly. Not an utter cuckoo failure like the '98, but a wine that seems to have had a lot of promise before the barrel regime took over. I dunno, we'll see down the road, but I wouldn't open one of these for a good long time if you're oak-averse.
Political aside: Jeff is going on about a speaker at the recent Democratic convention named Barney Smith. He's convinced the man was found only to fit his closing line: "We need a government that cares more about Barney Smith than Smith Barney!"
I nod agreement. "Sure, but that guy was only a last-minute replacement. The original speaker was a Franciscan Friar, Brother Lehman." Gentle applause. I curtsy deeply, gratified at the reception to my topical bon mot. I point out that when we finally get a Hawaiian running things I'm going to expect some serious sucking up from everyone around here.
Roagna Barbaresco Paj Riserva 1998. Taut, tart cherry-anise-tar aromatics, tastes bright and cheerful but very tight. Nice hint of laurel on the finish, nervy and tart wine that seems very very young, very tannic, and not terribly expressive at the moment.
Jim and Jeff are doing a hypothetical redecoration of Jay's apartment, mentally moving furniture around, really opening up the space. Eyes opened, I blink uncomfortably at the current arrangement. What the hell was Jay thinking?
Capercaillie Shiraz Hunter Valley 'The Ghillie' 2000. Medium translucent garnet color. Ripe-smelling, boysenberry-raspberry aromatics, hints of tarriness and toast. It's big and a little bumptious, but has a charming honesty about it, like a riper, smokier version of everyone's favorite geek zinfandel. Nothing of complexity here, just a hefty juicy goofy thing. Everyone besides Grossman and me seems to hate it, driven batty by ripeness, but that's cool. More for us.
Alesia Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Kanzler Vineyard 2004. Sweetly ripe cherry-cola aromas, plum and black cherry fruitiness. Cheerful, innocuous new world pinot noir that's pleasant enough in a rather generically tritonal way. There's a gentle fleshiness, a looseness and diffusion that isn't entirely disagreeable, but doesn't make me think this is a wine to age. Plain, soft, flavorful pinot noir, nice enough but nothing to write home about.
Domaine Michel Juillot Mercurey 2005. Smells delicately cherried, lightly spiced. Tastes delicately cherried, lightly spiced. Medium-lightbodied, crisp and racy with a nice core of tart cherryness. Fresh, bright and jovial, this seems to be taking what the last wine was trying to do and doing it right. There's a brightness to the aromatics, a flickery quality that lends a bit more of a sense of complexity than the richer, heavier Alesia. Winsome Mercurey, expressive and supple. Not a Major Superimpressive Vinous Edifice For The Ages, but very nice sliding down my confused cakechute.
Hey, here's a Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 'Vintage Selection Lot F1' 1974. Muddy brown color. Smells like tea-laced pondwater, madeirized, even deader than the '68 of a few months ago. Someone says that it showed a little bit of life immediately after the bottle was opened, but I'm not sure when that was, as I found it sitting here on the counter just now.
Seven Hills Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla Valley Seven Hills Vineyard 1999. Dark blackcurrant-licorice-dill-vanilla aromatics. Ripe and crisp, but somewhat flat and uninspiring. Middling acidity, fleshier than I might prefer, it's got the cabernet sauvignon by-the-numbers groove on. Nothing to complain about, really, but nothing terribly interesting either.
Jay bustles by with a platter of prime rib. "Hot platter, coming through!" Mmm... prime rib....
Bodegas Muga Rioja Gran Reserva 'Prado Enea' 1995. Nice whiff of volatility right up front, balsamic vinegar-soaked leatherberry. Medium bodied and velvet skinned, seems to be opening up, nice composure, expands a bit in the middle, spreading out gently and blackfruitily on my tongue. Finishes strong, some fine-grained tannins, nice red-black smoky hum fades slowly away. I like this more than I have before, it seems to be coming into a nice place, although it's not the most unique or distinctive Rioja. Good, solid showing, chewy and dark and well balanced stuff.
Jay bustles by again, back into the kitchen with the same platter full of prime rib: "Hot platter, coming back through!" We watch him go back into the kitchen. Whence the beefy perambulations?
Domaine Henri Gouges Nuits-St.-George Les Perrieres 1996. White pinot noir? What's next, white merlot? Smells spicy and applejuicy, sort of an old-chardonnay/muscat vibe. Rich and broadbeamed, flattened out in the middle and rather dull-tasting, with an abbreviated finish. Note to self: when picking a pinot noir, stick with the red ones.
Brad announces he's leaving and everyone piles out after him. I mean EVERYONE, except me, Jay and Tony Fletcher. Kane must've rented a bus. Are there that many people willing to risk their lives just to avoid taking a train or two? Astonishing, the priorities, really astonishing. Ah well, it gives me time to pick over the leftovers.
The Smith Woodhouse Porto Colheita 1976 is pleasant, but pretty simple, albeit nicely aged. Toasted marshmallow, almonds and maple/caramel flavors, sweet and rich and rather lifeless.
With just the three of us here, Jay opens an '05 Chinon from a producer I don't know, Chteau de Coulaine Chinon les Picasses 2005. Quite rich, chewy and smokily cherry-berried. Seems a bit, um, on the large side, bordering on Big International Red Wine territory. I don't know, for me this is nice enough in itself, but it speaks very little of Chinon, at least as I think of it.
That's all for tonight, kids. See you at Jay's next housewarming in March!
No, I don't mean he's a victim of the sweeping epidemic of Restless Leg Syndrome. Rather, it just seems that in the past few years I've attended an awful lot of moving and housewarming parties where he's been the guest of honor. Speaking as someone who's changed addresses exactly once in the last twenty-two years, I find this rootlessness enviable.
So it is that, after various travel crises involving, among other things, an unattended suitcase at the PATH station being swarmed by machine-gun toting National Guardsmen, I arrive in central downtown Jersey City and make my way across town to Jay's brand new swingin' bachelor pad. I follow the crowd noise down the winding mazelike hallway and ring the doorbell just as I hear someone on the other side say "Where's Chris?"
"I'm right here!" I sing out, ringing a few more times, then finally just banging with my fist until hey, here's Jay after all! And behind him there's a festive crowd of familiar and semi-familiar faces. There's Wine Baron Joe Dressner with Baroness Denyse Louis. Over in the far corner I spot Jeff Grossman and Jim Sampson, the Squires of Beaucoin, chatting with Brad Kane, the Marquess of J-Date. Even Royal Archivist Don Rice has seen fit to make an appearance, and good lord, there's the reigning Earl of Wine-Soaked Rock n'Roll, Tony Fletcher, returned to us from his banishment to the upstate hinterlands!
Kane shoulders his way through the crowd, thrusts a bottle of something pink at me. "You've GOT to try this! Wine of the night!" Behind him, Denyse is pulling a sour face and shaking her head.
I peer at the bottle, it's something called Red Ass, complete with a drawing of a ruddy donkey. I take a closer look at the label. "It's made of raspberries and rhubarb?"
"Yeah," says Kane. "And best of all, it's sweet! You've gotta try it!"
Denyse pipes up, "If you do try it, you'll have to get a new glass. Everything I've tasted since tastes like raspberries and rhubarb." I politely decline, instead grabbing a glassful of Vilmart Champagne Brut 'Couer de Cuve' 1993 (magnum). Mmm, smells rich and complex, light yellow pear mingled with vanilla-marzipan and baked bread ints. A sip, and it's medium bodied and layered, just lightly fizzy, flickery-rich and smoothly delicious. I'm not the biggest fan of non-chenin fizz, but I could actually go back for another pour of this. And, since it's such a big, full bottle, I do. Then I go back for a third. It's really lovely, I could just ignore the rest of the wines in the room and drink this all night, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Okay, there are other fish to fry. I pull myself away from killing the magnum of Vilmart and pour myself a glass of Jacques Lassaigne Champagne Brut 'Blanc de Blancs' 2000. It's light and frothy-stony, yeasty and lemon-applestonily tart. Lean, fresh, crisp and cheerful. Probably suffers a bit from being tasted after the Vilmart, but it's a vivid little fizz, happymaking in its own simple, slightly stern way.
Here's a change of pace, a Mller-Catoir Riesling Haardter Burgergarten Sptlese 1998. Very rich smelling, lots of vinyl-laced yellow apple and pear-peach aromatics. A sip, and it's broad and mouthfilling, crisp and medium-sweet, slightly glossy-textured. Kane moans about "searing acidity" eating his tongue, but he's nuts, it's firm but no more. Very nice.
Here's a Domaine de la Ppire Muscadet Clos des Briords 2000. It seems to be moving along nicely, the tense freshness of youth is receding, replaced by a gently honeyed quality that sits lightly on the stony-seashell-limeskin frame. There's a sense of looseness, of relaxation, that I don't recall from earlier tastings; the tight nervosity isn't apparent now, but it's equally drinkable. Very tasty, developing slightly faster than I'd have thought, but very nice nonetheless.
Word goes out that there's a pretty sundown to watch, so we go out to the miniature golf course (there's a great view of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty) and discuss darkness. How it never gets really dark anymore. When that runs its course, we discuss stripes. The invention of stripes, the connotations of different kinds of stripes, prison stripes, even herringbone, which isn't a kind of stripe at all but somehow enters into the discussion.
Something non-stripely offbeat here, a Les Champs Libres Vin de Pays de l'Ardeche 'Lard, des Choix' 2006. Muddy medium garnet color. Smells agreeably funky, light band-aid hints over a base of gentle strawberry-rhubarb redfruit, then freshly-turned sod underneath. Medium-bodied, tastes crisp and earthy and rustic. Not complex, but offbeat and rougueish and cocky, just dares you not to like it. A puckish little wine, tough to put down. What is this cartoon animal on the label? It's a long-snouted beastie with lots of teeth, a shaggy body and a ratlike tail. To my mind it looks exactly like an opossum, but Denyse swears it's something called a 'field rat.' Is someone importing possums to Europe and renaming them to make them more palatable to diners? Is "field rat" the new "sea bass"?
Upon return from the golf course, I'm surprised to find that there is a semi-birthday slant here for me and Dressner. I got a Brady Bunch balloon! And chocolate cake! Awesome! Dressner is moved as well. I clap him on the shoulder, "Happy sixty-fifth, old man." He smiles the smile of venerability.
Here's Don with what he's dubbed the Big Purple Bruiser, the Jol Taluau St. Nicolas-de-Bourgueil Vieilles Vignes 1996. It is much as I recall it; i.e., rather just barely medium-sized, not at all purple and quite un-bruiserlike. Medium ruby color. Gentle cran-cherry aromatics, oregano and pine-resin-infused redfruit laced with gravel, tobacco leaf and mud. A sip, and it's a medium-lightbodied bruiser, vividly bright acidity but still kind of shy and clenched at the core. Vibrant wine that probably needs another ten years before it'll be ready to unclench, but the glimmers of possibility are clear tonight.
To continue the Loire '96 experimentation here's a Domaine de Chevalerie Bourgueil 1996. Medium-dark ruby color, darker than the Taluau. Smells darker, too, smoky cran-cherry laced with licorice and toast. Tastes kind of flat, earthy, lifeless. The acidity is there, but the fruit has a flattened quality, and after the vivid Taluau this bottle seems a little tired, dull. Others assure me that the wine has showed better elsewhere, and that this might well be a damaged bottle.
Here's a gentle change of pace from red Loires, a Ridge Vineyards California 'Monte Bello' 2005. Smells like Coppertone, coconut meat and vanilla dominating the aromatics. Medium bodied, firm and meaty-tasting, but very woody. There's some nice matte red-blackfruit under the carpentry, firm core of acidity, rich meaty frame overlain with suntan lotion. I've only been tasting Monte Bellos on release since the 1995, but this is by a fair margin the most oak-marked young Monte Bello I've tasted. It's a little discouraging, frankly. Not an utter cuckoo failure like the '98, but a wine that seems to have had a lot of promise before the barrel regime took over. I dunno, we'll see down the road, but I wouldn't open one of these for a good long time if you're oak-averse.
Political aside: Jeff is going on about a speaker at the recent Democratic convention named Barney Smith. He's convinced the man was found only to fit his closing line: "We need a government that cares more about Barney Smith than Smith Barney!"
I nod agreement. "Sure, but that guy was only a last-minute replacement. The original speaker was a Franciscan Friar, Brother Lehman." Gentle applause. I curtsy deeply, gratified at the reception to my topical bon mot. I point out that when we finally get a Hawaiian running things I'm going to expect some serious sucking up from everyone around here.
Roagna Barbaresco Paj Riserva 1998. Taut, tart cherry-anise-tar aromatics, tastes bright and cheerful but very tight. Nice hint of laurel on the finish, nervy and tart wine that seems very very young, very tannic, and not terribly expressive at the moment.
Jim and Jeff are doing a hypothetical redecoration of Jay's apartment, mentally moving furniture around, really opening up the space. Eyes opened, I blink uncomfortably at the current arrangement. What the hell was Jay thinking?
Capercaillie Shiraz Hunter Valley 'The Ghillie' 2000. Medium translucent garnet color. Ripe-smelling, boysenberry-raspberry aromatics, hints of tarriness and toast. It's big and a little bumptious, but has a charming honesty about it, like a riper, smokier version of everyone's favorite geek zinfandel. Nothing of complexity here, just a hefty juicy goofy thing. Everyone besides Grossman and me seems to hate it, driven batty by ripeness, but that's cool. More for us.
Alesia Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Kanzler Vineyard 2004. Sweetly ripe cherry-cola aromas, plum and black cherry fruitiness. Cheerful, innocuous new world pinot noir that's pleasant enough in a rather generically tritonal way. There's a gentle fleshiness, a looseness and diffusion that isn't entirely disagreeable, but doesn't make me think this is a wine to age. Plain, soft, flavorful pinot noir, nice enough but nothing to write home about.
Domaine Michel Juillot Mercurey 2005. Smells delicately cherried, lightly spiced. Tastes delicately cherried, lightly spiced. Medium-lightbodied, crisp and racy with a nice core of tart cherryness. Fresh, bright and jovial, this seems to be taking what the last wine was trying to do and doing it right. There's a brightness to the aromatics, a flickery quality that lends a bit more of a sense of complexity than the richer, heavier Alesia. Winsome Mercurey, expressive and supple. Not a Major Superimpressive Vinous Edifice For The Ages, but very nice sliding down my confused cakechute.
Hey, here's a Charles Krug Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 'Vintage Selection Lot F1' 1974. Muddy brown color. Smells like tea-laced pondwater, madeirized, even deader than the '68 of a few months ago. Someone says that it showed a little bit of life immediately after the bottle was opened, but I'm not sure when that was, as I found it sitting here on the counter just now.
Seven Hills Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla Valley Seven Hills Vineyard 1999. Dark blackcurrant-licorice-dill-vanilla aromatics. Ripe and crisp, but somewhat flat and uninspiring. Middling acidity, fleshier than I might prefer, it's got the cabernet sauvignon by-the-numbers groove on. Nothing to complain about, really, but nothing terribly interesting either.
Jay bustles by with a platter of prime rib. "Hot platter, coming through!" Mmm... prime rib....
Bodegas Muga Rioja Gran Reserva 'Prado Enea' 1995. Nice whiff of volatility right up front, balsamic vinegar-soaked leatherberry. Medium bodied and velvet skinned, seems to be opening up, nice composure, expands a bit in the middle, spreading out gently and blackfruitily on my tongue. Finishes strong, some fine-grained tannins, nice red-black smoky hum fades slowly away. I like this more than I have before, it seems to be coming into a nice place, although it's not the most unique or distinctive Rioja. Good, solid showing, chewy and dark and well balanced stuff.
Jay bustles by again, back into the kitchen with the same platter full of prime rib: "Hot platter, coming back through!" We watch him go back into the kitchen. Whence the beefy perambulations?
Domaine Henri Gouges Nuits-St.-George Les Perrieres 1996. White pinot noir? What's next, white merlot? Smells spicy and applejuicy, sort of an old-chardonnay/muscat vibe. Rich and broadbeamed, flattened out in the middle and rather dull-tasting, with an abbreviated finish. Note to self: when picking a pinot noir, stick with the red ones.
Brad announces he's leaving and everyone piles out after him. I mean EVERYONE, except me, Jay and Tony Fletcher. Kane must've rented a bus. Are there that many people willing to risk their lives just to avoid taking a train or two? Astonishing, the priorities, really astonishing. Ah well, it gives me time to pick over the leftovers.
The Smith Woodhouse Porto Colheita 1976 is pleasant, but pretty simple, albeit nicely aged. Toasted marshmallow, almonds and maple/caramel flavors, sweet and rich and rather lifeless.
With just the three of us here, Jay opens an '05 Chinon from a producer I don't know, Chteau de Coulaine Chinon les Picasses 2005. Quite rich, chewy and smokily cherry-berried. Seems a bit, um, on the large side, bordering on Big International Red Wine territory. I don't know, for me this is nice enough in itself, but it speaks very little of Chinon, at least as I think of it.
That's all for tonight, kids. See you at Jay's next housewarming in March!