2004 Grgich Hills Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon

What makes a wine very good?

"Seamless" is a word I read or heard about a fine wine recently, and it strikes me as a good word to describe very good wines. Wines that aren't clunky or spiky or busy with cherries and brambles and barbecue, wines that don't make you anxious to identify everything you are tasting, or think you should be tasting. Wines that are simply all they could be, and very pleasantly leave the need for language behind.

I am sipping Grgich Hills cab for the third night, and it seems to be getting better, more -- seamless. The first night there was smokiness and a tad too much acidity and even that hint of green pepper which, I have heard winemakers say, is not something they strive too eagerly for. I even read somewhere that a big dose of it can indicate underripe grapes. (But Grgich Hills is the place run by the nice man legend who made the Chateau Montelena chardonnay famed for winning that blind "Judgment of Paris" tasting in 1976. His grapes, underripe? Surely not.)

Tonight the wine seems to me relaxed, soft, not particularly berry-like or chocolaty or leathery or anything, but so very seamless and sophisticated and well, so very good. Last night, its second, it "stood up to" a platter of fettucine Alfredo and asparagus -- red wine and asparagus is a revelation, you must try it, but only in that order -- and now it just stands by itself.

Grgich Hills Cellar, Rutherford, CA. Retail, yes, about $65.

Champagne Henriot, rose brut

So delicate, so light, so biscuity in the aroma, so dry and tingling and refreshing and beguiling, and all that champagne is. And so softly pink. We had it at a little party, along with the little old- fashioned pecan muffins called "marguerites." My, but it did slip right down.

Retail: about $60

Champagne Henriot, Reims

2008 Porta Sole pinot grigio

The pinot grigio is not the most exciting grape in the world, and it is not, as far as I know, uniquely made into something else as other bland grapes are -- as trebbiano is made into cognac, or as the several native varieties of Spain or Portugal eventually reach the dignity of sherry or port.

What many people have come to consider the (budget-friendly, but) gold standard of pinot grigio, Santa Margherita, tastes in my opinion like water in which a block of wood has been enthusiastically steeped. This seems to be the main problem with pinot grigio: its fruitiness is so delicate that any time the wine spends in an oak barrel is too much, yet no time in an oak barrel at all results in a potation that struggles to be sourish -- "crisp" is the politer word -- and doesn't do much else.

However, when it's serviceable or better, a glass of it is certainly pleasant enough with a simple meal, or just for sipping while watching Star Trek, as Hugh Johnson so nicely puts it, "writing letters, reading, or watching television." (He is speaking, in How to Enjoy Your Wine, of a whole category of undemonstrative, quaffable white wines, even including the "Mountain White or whatever" that only someone of his stature would have the confidence to mention.) And, for simple quaffability, this 2008 Porta Sole is a pleasant surprise. The balance seems just right -- a little fruit, a little body, a little vanilla in the aroma and taste to counter that pinot grigio crispness.

What I don't understand is the fine print on Italian wine labels. Perhaps it is more a question of Italian wine production. At the risk of being both repetitive and too cute for words, I still say they all sound as if they are made by a wholly owned subsidiary of James Bond's evil nemesis, SPECTRE. Of itself, Porta Sole announces, "Terre degli Osci, Indicazione Geografica Tipica, bottled by Cantine Galasso SRL, Loreto Aprutino, Pescara, Italia."

That's the back label. The fine print on the front label reads "Viticoltore Ettore Galasso Loreto Aprutino." Somewhere in there, I think, is someone's name, Ettore Galasso, and of course even I understand the back label's "Italia." Indicazione Geografica Tipica, sometimes abbreviated I.G.T., means this is a sort of middle-tier effort, produced according to stricter standards than a "table wine" simply saying it's from Italy, but looser standards than one proudly trumpeting it is D.O.C. or, even better, D.O.C.G. -- guaranteed to be from a certain exclusive little place (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) or guaranteed to be from that certain place and have certain fine characteristics seen only there (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita).

To clarify how special a D.O.C.G. wine is or should be, it helps to consult Ron and Sharon Herbst's New Wine Lover's Companion. There you will find a list of the first five regions of Italy granted D.O.C.G. status. They are Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and Chianti. Wines all, to be sure; but places first, places with more than a whiff of wine legend about them. (It all gets rather circular.) Imagine being able to drink something and tramp its roads.

You can't do that with pinot grigio, but you can enjoy this one. The roads we would tramp to find its origine, by the way, will lead us to the town of Loreto Aprutino in the Abruzzo, in east central Italy on the Adriatic coast.

Ozark pudding

Ozark pudding, a simple fruit and nut custard which emerges from the oven looking a bit humble, is nevertheless pleasantly dry, crispy, and delicious, especially accompanied by whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Why it is called "Ozark pudding" is a mystery; if you look it up online, you will find it included in websites devoted to Southern cooking or linked with the name of Bess Truman, a native of Missouri (land of the Ozarks).

This version is from a fine old cookbook called Thoughts for Buffets ("the companion volume to Thoughts for Food"), published by Houghton Mifflin in 1958. There it is presented as the dessert to follow a Deep Dish Dinner of Poulet au pot (chicken in the pot), Matzo dumplings, and Wilted Lettuce. It's a forgiving recipe: you can bake the pudding in a pie plate as well as a 9 inch square pan, and certainly you may simply chop one apple rather than measure out a half cup of apple. You may find also that this pudding stealthily persuades children who don't like fruit or nuts to devour large quantities of each.

Ozark pudding

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and grease well a 9 inch square pan or a pie plate. Have ready 1 chopped apple, and 1 and 1/2 cups chopped nuts.

Beat 1 egg until frothy. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar, and beat until smooth. Sift together 2 Tablespoons flour, 1 and 1/4 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Fold into the egg mixture. Add the nuts, apple, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Blend well. Pour into the pie pan, and bake for 35 minutes. "Do not be alarmed," Thoughts for Buffets warns, when the pudding rises and then settles after baking.

Would it be equally delicious folded into a crepe for a more elegant presentation, perhaps drizzled with a bit of maple syrup? Or perhaps it is best left as humble as it is.

A tiny word of warning: if you live in the Northern hemisphere, May of course is hardly the time for apples. I declare, the apples I have been deluded enough to buy lately have tasted just like the cardboard boxes they have presumably been sitting in since harvest last October. But if you live in some other hemisphere -- well, it's possible -- why then, indulge by all means.

Sunday meme: vintage liquor ad

Life magazine, March 1947. The wine was scuppernong, it seems; the company still exists and now makes flavoring extracts.



From Vintage Ads and Stuff

1997 Terra Valentine cabernet sauvignon

Appellation, Napa valley, Spring Mountain district, Wurtele vineyard.

Decanting this was a mistake. Roughed up the wine and made it sour; aroma like body odor, taste all acidity (though cabernets are acidic).

Poured straight into glass, much better --
still youthful mulberry color,
fascinating, faintly prune-like -- lush and meaty smell and taste
tannins and acids cool and silky

Kevin Zraly, Windows on the World: fine California cabs can age 15 years or more, esp. from a great harvest, which '97 was ("don't drink for 5 years, age ten more after that"). So just about right on target ....

Terra Valentine

A word on tasting notes

When sampling wine I tend to think and write about smell, then taste, then conclusions, which is why my notes end up looking like bad haiku. The one thing I ignore is color, which is not very professional of me since a wine's color, "la robe" as the French so elegantly put it, is an important part of its identity. Color not only gives you aesthetic pleasure but will tell you about the varietal, about age and body and, if you are very experienced, perhaps about decisions made in the winery. On wine-judging points scales, correct and pleasing color contributes to the wine's final score.

All well and good, but my difficulty is that I am running out of new words for dark red, pink, and very pale yellow. For a writer the search for these words should be a healthy challenge, and up to a point it is. Allow me, in fact, to challenge you. Next time you look at something colorful, a sunset for instance, try to precisely name all the tints you see. Beyond red and orange. Try naming various shades of gray. Is that lovely cloud oyster, or gunmetal, or mother of pearl? The real pros at this color game are the fashion industry marketers who name eyeshadows, lipsticks, and hair dyes. The people who name car colors are not far behind. I especially love it when they don't cheat and name something "razzle dazzle," but really pin down the shade, often in subcategories like "mattes," or "velvets" or "sea foam." It's endless. One can only bow the head in awe.

But wines? They come in that small array of reddish-purple, pink, or very soft, silvery-gold tones, either opaque or not. Fabrics have more variety. Anyway if the reader already knows enough about wine for the color in his glass to speak to him, it doesn't follow that he needs to know exactly what the color in my glass spoke to me. It's different with eyeshadows and cars. Enchanting and a propos color descriptors there at least help sell the product.

One obvious exception: a glaring color problem will tell you about a flaw in the wine, especially a white. A pinot grigio turning brownish may be well past its best. (I'd be pleased to learn how color could so instantly demonstrate a flaw in a red.) But as for everyday, good, well-meaning wines and well-meaning tasting notes, -- well. Garnet and mulberry, or the "pale straw" so often repeated, pretty much sum it up. Unless we encounter something extraordinary, shall we take all as read, and move on to our usual haiku?

2004 Artesa tempranillo reserve, Alexander Valley CA

black red color
leather -- cloth -- (clean cloth)
gentle smoky blueberries
-- later -- the moist end of a piece of plum cake
light tannins, nice late acids
delicious
-- later -- vanilla barbecue -- still good

How to make breakfast

Now you don't need me to tell you how to make simple blueberry pancakes, and anyway I don't care for the whole knee-jerk, holiday-cooking-and-celebrating-requirements thing, a la "it's Mother's Day and therefore you must (a) do something special like (b) have brunch and, better yet (c) have brunch AND make mimosas." A few days ago, judging by consumer purchase patterns, the command seemed to be "It's cinco de Mayo and therefore you SHALL drink margaritas." Traditions are fine and special festive foods and drinks are fine, but somehow, when that imperative tone sneaks in, I get disgruntled. Traditions are naturally going to be much the same for everyone, and so the ritual yammering on about them in newspapers, magazines, blogs, and cable cooking shows is going to quickly pall. As for all those brunches and consumer purchase patterns, well, who am I to complain? -- but are we really having a good time, or are we trying too hard? Don't margaritas taste good at other times of the year, too? The puzzlement of the uniform holiday ....



Still. If you happen to have blueberries on hand, and you feel like making pancakes and you also have some bacon to fry, some real maple syrup, and some chocolate-flavored specialty coffee, by all means crack open your favorite go-to cookbook and make breakfast. It's Mother's D-- I mean, it's all so tasty.

Blueberry pancakes (adapted from Marion Cunningham's Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 1986)

1 cup milk
1 egg
2 Tbsp melted butter
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Beat the milk, butter, and egg in a small bowl (or use a 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup, so you can pour the batter from there if you like big pancakes). Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a separate small bowl, and add all at once to the milk mixture. Stir to blend, and fold in the blueberries.

Lightly grease a heavy frying pan, and pour on spoonfuls of the batter when the pan is hot. Bake (strangely enough, pancakes really do bake on the stovetop) until little bubbles show through the batter, then turn and bake the other side.

Rice and pecan loaf with onion sauce

Two simple-looking recipes from Marion Cunningham's Fannie Farmer Cookbook (1986) enclose layers upon layers of preparation, and end in sheer deliciousness -- this is possibly among the top five tastiest special foods I've ever made. Lots of everyday things are tasty too, but I do think Rice and Pecan loaf with Onion Sauce is something you want to save for an occasion.

Over the years I have cooked this often enough to have learned how to break down the work into a convenient order. But first, let's look at the recipes, "utterly simple," as Marion Cunningham says. In a way, they are.

Rice and pecan loaf

1 and 1/2 cups brown rice, cooked
1 and 1/2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
1 and 1/2 cups cracker crumbs
1 egg, well beaten
1 and 1/4 cups milk
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 Tbsp melted butter
1 recipe Onion Sauce (follows)

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and butter a 2 quart loaf pan. Mix all the ingredients except the melted butter and the Onion Sauce. When everything is well blended, turn the mix into the pan. Pour the melted butter over. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, and then serve with the sauce.

Onion sauce
3 medium onions, chopped
4 Tbsp butter
1 recipe White Sauce (see below)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt to taste

Bring a pan of water to a boil, and add the chopped onions. Cook for 1 minute. Begin melting the butter in a separate pot. Drain the onions, and then toss them in the melted butter. Cover them and cook them over low heat, tossing so they do not burn, until they are softened, 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 350 F. Put the onions in a shallow baking dish, add the white sauce and the nutmeg, and stir to blend. Cover the dish with tin foil, and bake 30 minutes, until the onions are mushy. Remove from the oven, and push through a strainer into a clean pot. The sauce will be very thick, so now add the cream and salt, and heat through without boiling. Serve with the rice and pecan loaf.

**

Utterly simple, isn't it? Marion Cunningham also says this is "an old Southern tradition." Somehow, I don't doubt it. Slave labor in the kitchen would help with this one.

Here is how you break down the work. Allow yourself a nice long afternoon, please. From start to finish it takes about three hours. But then, most good dinners do.

***********

Step 1: Make the white sauce in which you will bake the onions; cook the brown rice; chop the pecans.

White sauce

4 Tbsp butter
4 Tbsp flour
2 cups milk
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a small heavy saucepan. When it bubbles, stir in the flour. Cook and stir the flour to make a bubbly paste. Then, add the milk, gradually, until you have a gently bubbling thick creamy sauce. Add salt and pepper. Cover and set aside.

For the brown rice, put 1 cup rice, 2 cups water, and 1 Tbsp butter into a medium sized heavy bottomed pot. Stir to blend, and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for about 35 minutes, until all the water is absorbed and the rice is tender.

***********

Step 2: Blanch the onions in the water, and then cook them in butter, covered. Crush the crackers.

***********

Step 3: Butter the loaf pan. Mix the rice and pecan loaf. Preheat the oven.

***********

Step 4: Bake the onions in the white sauce (30 minutes) and bake the loaf (1 hour).

***********

Step 5: While the loaf is still baking, remove the onions from the oven. Strain them through a fine mesh strainer into a clean pot. Add the cream, heat through, and adjust the salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the loaf from the oven, and let it cool and solidify a little before attempting to turn it out onto a plate. Otherwise, your "loaf" might be a delectable mush, hardly worth photographing except in extreme close-up, and possibly not then. But so tasty.

Dinner is served.

*************

Notice all the things you need for the two recipes -- mostly, a lot of butter. Normally recipes start with ingredients lists, as these of course do, but this pair requires you to think backwards through it as well, as you assemble your shopping list. In total, you'll be using:

1 cup raw brown rice
1 and 1/2 cups pecans
1 and 1/2 cups cracker crumbs
1 egg
3 and 1/4 cups milk
11 Tbsp (1 stick plus 3 Tbsp) butter
3 onions
1/2 cup cream
4 Tbsp flour
1 tsp plus more salt
1/2 tsp plus more pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg

There, an encouraging picture to get you started. Did we mention the whole butter thing?

An image for the gallery

From Wine Label World, a lovely label to add to our PREWIAKDS collection. The image, I believe, is of rose hips, the seed pods, or more correctly the fruits, of roses left on the bush after the rose itself blooms and falls away. (Who knew that rose bushes bear fruit? But, as with all plants, the point of the rose's growing is to flower and then bear.) The wine is a Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi DOC, a white from Italy's Castelli di Jesi region in the Marches. With this we are in east central Italy, on the Adriatic. According to The New Wine Lover's Companion, the main grape used here, verdicchio, is usually blended with small amounts of trebbiano and malvasia to create a typical crisp and light style; there are many "verdicchio dei castelli de Jesi(s)," as there are many rieslings from Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, or many cabernets from Napa Valley.



However, the usual pattern of grape-blending does not apply in this case. Le Giuncare is, of all things, a late-harvest, 100 percent verdicchio, hand collected from low yield vines in late October. (Hence the label's rose hips, gentle proof that summer is long past.) The juice is given careful treatment both in oak and stainless steel, plus six months keeping in the bottle before release. It is a "serious wine," if it may say so itself, and both it and its "merchant," the UK-based Boutinot -- distributor, would we say? -- have won some serious awards.

Le Giuncare may not show up on your liquor store shelves anytime soon, but a little exploring, perhaps at a larger retailer, should bring to light a Verdicchio dei Castelli de Jesi. " 'appy voyaging."

Sunday meme: vintage liquor ads

Selling Smirnoff, 1966. Who knew Woody Allen ever did this?



From Found in Mom's Basement, via lobstar28's Flickr page.

Good news! Eggs are the new olive oil

"The emphasis on cholesterol has overshadowed the greater impact of saturated fat. The fat of the egg is relatively unsaturated, or the raw yolk would be solid. A calculated iodine value (measure of unsaturation) of egg yolk is about 72, which is not much below that of olive oil."

"Eggs," David Kritchevsky; Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, ed. Solomon H. Katz, vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003, pp. 558-562.

Or the raw yolk would be solid. There. A little bit of investigative journalism for you, to start your weekend. Enjoy your eggs.