Orange Macabeo and inky Sumoll from Spain and Alice Feiring bids Texas adieu

October 26, 2010

Above: My super good friend Joe Pat Clayton (right) was as geeked as me and Tracie P to taste natural Spanish wines last night with Alice Feiring (right).

Alice Feiring hit the Groover’s Paradise like a Texas tornado. The few days she spent her with us were filled with honkytonking, two-stepping, great parties and great friends and lovers of natural wine, and a superb fish dinner prepared by Chef Esteban Escobar paired with a flight of Spanish natural wines last night at Vino Vino (the best little wine bar in Texas).

The two wines that impressed me the most were the Laureano Serres 2009 Abeurador Macabeo (above, 100% Macabeo grown in clay soils, vinified with 2 days of skin contact, no added sulfite [note by importer José Pastor]) and the Els Jelipins 2004 Sumoll (Sumoll with a small amount of Garnacha, grown in clay and limestone soils, whole-cluster fermentation in open-topped barrels, no added sulfite).

The Macabeo was rich and unctuous, tannic and chewy in the mouth and unbelievably delicious.

The Jelipins 2004 Sumoll was mind-boggling good. Impenetrably inky and viscous on the palate, a stilnovo sonnet with alternating rhymes of earth and fruit.

Chef Esteban’s excellent cooking has been reaching new heights lately but last night he took it over the top (especially considering the Herculean effort necessary to create a wine dinner using only Kosher fish and vegetables).

Kim and SO Alfonso also came down from Dallas expressly for the event.

Above, from left: Alice, Lewis Dickson (Texas Hill Country natural winemaker), Tracie P, Jeff Courington (owner Vino Vino), and Russ Kane (author of Vintage Texas, the top Texas wine blog).

And so this morning we took Alice to the airport (she stayed with us, of course). It was a great visit and we were sad to see her go. She certainly made a profound impression on the Texans she met. And I’d like to think that they also impressed her with the Texas-sized welcome they gave her.

We’ll miss her but somehow I think she’ll back sooner than later. Once you’ve danced to the rhythms of Dale Watson at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, there’s no turning back…

4 Comments | de austinopoli, de cibo, de musica, de rebus familiari, de vino | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi

Vega-Sicilia Unico 1960 (magnum) for Alice Feiring

October 25, 2010

Many wonderful bottles were opened last night in the home of our good friends Patricia Winston and Bill Head to celebrate Alice Feiring’s first visit to Texas.

But it was Alfonso who gave her the BIGGEST Texas welcome with an unforgettable bottle of 1960 Vega-Sicilia Unico in magnum (!) and original wooden case. I was blown away by how savory and rich the wine was, vibrant and with an acidity that I frankly wouldn’t have expected in a wine this old. A truly amazing — in so many ways — bottle of wine.

Patricia and Bill had assembled a who’s who of Austin-based winemakers, collectors, and wine professionals for the occasion. But it was Devon Broglie (right, with me, center, and Alfonso, left) who stepped up to the plate to extract the cork. Nice work, Devon!

Even Alice looks TALLER in TEXAS! That’s our good friend, journalist, author, and radio personality Mary Gordon Spence (right).

What a great night, great wines, and great folks…

There might just be a few spots left for a dinner to be held in Alice’s honor tonight in Austin at Vino Vino. In her words, the wines we’ll be tasting are “hard-core natural.”

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Posted by Do Bianchi

Tasting with Alice Feiring and Lewis Dickson, Cruz de Comal, Texas Hill Country

October 24, 2010

Vineyard walk and tasting with Alice Feiring, Russ Kane, Jeff Courington, and winemaker Lewis Dickson at the Cruz de Comal winery, Texas Hill Country.

Click image for flight tasted.

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Naughty with Alice Feiring in Austin

October 24, 2010

A schlub from Southern California had the very distinct pleasure and honor of escorting two very fine ladies out on the town in Austin, Texas last night.

After a quick stop at Vino Vino (where Alice will be speaking tomorrow night at a dinner in her honor, featuring unsulfured Spanish wines imported by José Pastor), we just had to head over to another one of me and Tracie P’s favorite restaurants, Fonda San Miguel, for some 1998 Tondonia Rosada by López de Heredia (hell yeah!). After all, didn’t Alice write the book on this winery and the wines that have meant so much to so many of us no matter where we eat, love, and pray?

Guacamole, queso fundido, corn tortilla chips fried in vegetable shortening, and huitlacoche tamales made for superb pairings…

Next came an intermezzo at an excellent Kentucky Bourbon and Virginia Ham party hosted by Boots in the Oven in the home of Erin and Nat (Alice didn’t eat any ham, for the record, in case you were wondering).

And what first visit to the Groover’s Paradise would be complete without some two-stepping at the Broken Spoke and honkytonking at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon?

Didn’t I read once in the New York Times that Austin is the type of town where “everyone gets home safe”?

Happily somehow, the schlub managed to ferry his precious wards back to tranquility and a roof over their heads.

We’re heading out early this morning for some Texas Hill Country wine tastings…

2 Comments | de austinopoli, de cibo, de vino | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi

Alice Feiring and Alfonso Cevola, two very special events

October 13, 2010

Tomorrow, I’ll pick up where I left off in my Tuscany-Veneto-Friuli trip but in the meantime I wanted to share some information about two very special events next week and the following here in Texas.

The first is an evening with our dear friend Alice Feiring, one of the top wine writers in the U.S. today.

On Monday, October 25, Alice is going to be joining us here in Austin, Texas for a dinner in her honor to be held at Vino Vino, the best little wine bar in Texas.

Tracie P and I will be there, of course, as will some other like-minded folks who believe that there is no great wine without love.

Anyone who knows me and/or follows my blog knows well that I consider Alice a mentor and an inspiration and one of the coolest people I know (and one of the super most funnest I know, too). We are simply thrilled that Alice is coming and you know that there is no way we are not taking her to Chicken Shit Bingo at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon!

The other wine event not to miss this month in Texas is a dinner and tasting to be led by another familiar face and dearest friend here at Do Bianchi, Alfonso Cevola.

On Wednesday, October 20, Alfonso will be speaking at one of my favorite Italian wine destinations in the world, Jimmy’s Food Store in Dallas. Jimmy’s has one of the best selections of Italian specialty products in the U.S. (I’m not kidding, folks) and the breadth of the Italian wine selection is truly one of the best in the country (and I would know a little something about Italian wine available in the U.S., wouldn’t I?).

Alfonso (or Ace, as Tracie P and I affectionately call him) does a lot of events at Jimmy’s but this particular evening is close to my heart: he’ll be speaking about the origins of Italian grape and wine names (ampelonyms and enonyms), using information gathered in part from my blog. I won’t be able to be there for the dinner but be sure to check out Alfonso’s post previewing this special evening.

With more than three decades working in the world of Italian wine, Alfonso is another mentor to me but he’s so much more. He’s my true inspiration for taking wine blogging seriously (and wow, what rewards that has brought for me!), he’s the reason why I met Tracie P, and he was the best man at our wedding.

Alfonso and I have traveled together in Italy and it’s next-to impossible to describe how much fun we have together and how hard we laugh when we’re just hanging out and shooting the shit and drinking a good bottle of wine. Of all the memorable evenings and meals we’ve shared together, my favorite has got to be a sandwich we ate in San Martino Buon Albergo after we got his blackberry fixed at the one electronics store open on Mondays in the province of Verona.

At both events and either or, you’ll meet two of the most special people in our lives. I can’t imagine a world without them…

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Two awesome (new world) wines we tasted at Alice’s

May 24, 2010

Tracie P and I had a short but delightful visit chez Alice on Sunday afternoon and what visit with Alice would be complete without a proper wine tasting?

I was entirely geeked to taste the 2002 Vat 1 Semillon by Tyrell’s and I was blown away by how good the La Clarine Farm’s 2008 was — especially considering how long the wine had been open…

But, more than anything else, I was entirely blown away by the fact that we tasted two new world wines at her house! And they were both delicious… (Note her tasting notes on the label of the La Clarine Farms… Okay, so I admit, I was STAR STRUCK!)

Thanks again, Alice!

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Posted by Do Bianchi

Barbaresco Pora 2001 Produttori del Barbaresco left me speechless

May 17, 2010

pora

Above: Every once in a while you open the right bottle at the right time with the right people on the right occasion. The 2001 Barbaresco Pora by Produttori del Barbaresco left me and Tracie P speechless last night.

Yesterday, on our way back from Orange, Texas (on the Louisiana border), where we visited with Tracie P’s family and celebrated most-likely-soon-to-be-family-member Clark Dean’s graduation from Sam Houston State University with home-smoked ribs and brisket (Clark’s dating cousin Katherine), we stopped in Houston for an impromptu wine tasting and spaghettata with the Levy clan and family friend Taylor Holladay.

Cousins Marty and Joanne and Neil and Dana (of the Levy clan) are so generous to me and Tracie P and have so warmly welcomed us into their lives: we wanted to do something special for them by means of a wine tasting and — by request — Tracie P’s spaghetti alla carbonara.

Five wonderful wines were opened and you can imagine which wines they were, since they often appear here at Do Bianchi (the theme was our favorite wines to drink at home). But the wine that eclipsed them all — the bottiglia signora — was the 2001 Barbaresco Pora by Produttori del Barbaresco.

pora

Above: After the tasting, the Pora was the wine that everyone wanted to drink for dinner. I just can’t begin to explain how much I love Produttori del Barbaresco — excellent price/quality ratio, honest and real wine, poop and fruit in a glass.

“Poop and fruit in a glass,” were Tracie P’s words: this nearly 10-year-old expression of old-school Nebbiolo, from one of the best vintages of our lifetime (delivered in a bottle I picked up at a close-out last year for $35!), left me (nearly) speechless (if you can imagine that!). A nearly perfect equilibrium of tannin, earth, fruit, and acidity, the right bottle, the right wine, opened with the right folks, at the very right moment.

Pora is arguably the “softest” of the Produttori del Barbaresco single-vineyard bottlings but this bottle surprised me with its impressive tannic structure, integrated nicely with the wine’s gorgeous fruit. I promise that one day soon, I’ll post my notes from tasting all of the winery’s crus with winemaker Aldo Vacca back in March.

In other news…

On Saturday, Taylor had been bamboozled by the behemoth of Texas wine retailers (and it’s not hard to guess who that is). He had visited the flagship store in Houston asking for a bottle of Produttori del Barbaresco (my recommendation) intended for his late-night date Sunday night. He was sold an under $30 blend of barriqued Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese from Bolgheri (in a very “naughty” bottle, i.e., deep punt, thick glass, etc.) by a salesperson who told him, “this is very similar to Produttori del Barbaresco. If you like that, you’ll like this.” Wrong grape, wrong region, and wrong style… Tracie P and I just couldn’t send Taylor on his mission with a bottle of tricked-out Cabernet! Luckily, I had a bottle of 2004 Rosso del Veronese (a classic blend of Corvina, Molinara, and Rondinella, vinified in stainless-steel and aged in large cask) by one of Quintarelli’s protégés Luca Fedrigo, owner of L’Arco.

How did the wine work out? “Great… It got me a kiss!!”

Available at the Austin Wine Merchant, under $20 (the wine, not the kiss).

In other other news…

If you haven’t yet read Alice’s “Modern Love” column in the Times… run don’t walk!

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Posted by Do Bianchi

Alice in the news, but not for wine (you’re not going to believe this)

April 22, 2010

Above: Alice, Tracie P, and I had dinner together last year in Paris and did some natural winebar hopping together.

One of the things I admire the most about our good friend Alice Feiring is that she’s a great writer — a great American writer, a great New York writer — and she writes about wine the way Philip Roth would write about wine if he wrote about wine. Her subject is non-fiction but she approaches it the way a novelist approaches narrative: like a fiction writer, she tells a story about wine — often personal, often drawing from her own life experience — to reveal truths about her subject otherwise lost upon the naked eye.

Alice was in the news this morning, but not for wine. She was one of the scores of women “persuaded to pose” for the “Dating Game Killer,” Rodney Alcala in the late 1960s. Here’s a link to the story that appeared today in the Daily News.

I’m just so glad that she’s okay… I just can’t imagine a world without her.

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Posted by Do Bianchi

Together again, naturally

April 21, 2010

breg

Above: Nothing to Breg about, to borrow Alfonso’s pun. Last night, he, Tracie P, and I shared a bowl of her slow-cooker cannellini beans and escarole in our home in Austin. Decanted and with a few hours of aeration, the 2000 Breg by Gravner bowled me over, in every sense of the word. Thanks, Alfonso!

Natural wine has been on my mind (again) lately. In part because of a recent appeal posted on the Slowine website (and brought to my attention by Italy’s top wine blogger, Mr. Franco Ziliani) calling for Italy’s “natural wine” fairs (namely, Vini Veri and VinNatur) to be incorporated into the annual Italian wine industry mega-fair Vinitaly. I stayed home this year and didn’t attend but when I posted event details for Vini Veri, a number of folks — including some high-profile industry types — weighed in on the side of consolidation.

slowcooker

Above: There’s just no other way to put this. Tracie P’s legumes were divine last night. Every bean was perfectly whole but then melted in the mouth. Did I mention that the beautiful lady behind the lens also has a natural gift for photography? She snapped the above.

Natural wine has also been on my mind because I’ve been following Alice’s truly excellent posts on the nature — semantic, metaphysical, and sensorial — of natural wine, the winemakers and movement(s) that support and profess it, and the new space it occupies in the language and the perceptions of the mainstream. The latest post, entitled “What is Natural Wine?”, may be the best, but I highly recommend the previous two posts (here and here) and the Washington Post article that prompted the series, “Natural Isn’t Perfect” by Dave McIntyre.

bacon

Above: Not only did Alfonso bring the Gravner last night, he also brought some awesome bacon from Robertson’s in Salado, Texas. @BrooklynGuy, you would love this stuff.

In other natural wine news, the excellent Italian wine blog Intravino posted a profile of natural wine trailblazer Joe Dressner and the blog devoted to his truly heroic battle with brain cancer (also brought to my attention by Mr. Ziliani and btw here’s a link to Joe’s blog).

In an email I received yesterday from Étienne de Montille, the famous winemaker wrote that “I should have left for Tokyo Sunday but… Nature has decided otherwise.”

Volcano or no volcano, the transatlantic dialogue moves forward as “natural wine,” however it is conceived or perceived, indelibly enters into the collective vinous consciousness. Only good can come of it.

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Posted by Do Bianchi

Impossible wine pairing? Chex Mix (stinky Jura wine and Cory’s thoughts on tasting notes)

January 10, 2010

Above: What to pair with Chex Mix? Stinky, oxidized Domaine de Montbourgeau 2006 Chardonnay (with a little Savagnin). What else? Now, how’s that for fusion? Photos by Tracie B.

Do you think that Dr. V minds that I borrow his “impossible wine pairing” schtick? I’m sure he doesn’t (do you, Dr. V?)…

Tracie B and I love this wine (which we paired last night with Mrs. B’s Chex Mix). It’s got that irresistible oxidized stinkiness that we love. Not everyone will like this wine (man, does it stink!) but at roughly $28 in our market it’s one of our favorite “Saturday night” wines. If I’m not mistaken, the first time I tasted this wine (probably the 05) was at a dinner in Los Angeles where wine guru Paul Wasserman was charged with picking a wine that Alice would like unqualifiedly. He chose it because it was “the most oxidized wine on the list” (we were at Palate)!

Above: It also paired extraordinarily well with Mrs. B’s pulled pork, topped with mayonnaise and sliced red onions.

Our far-out pairing of stinky oxidized wine from the Jura in France (an über-wine-geek wine) with some southern comfort seems all the more a propos today in the light of Cory’s excellent post from the other day On Tasting Notes. I’ve long maintained, borrowing a phrase from the great Italian twentieth-century writer Carlo Emilio Gadda, that tasting notes are the “lice” of wine writing. Just read the comment thread to the post: those who defend the obscene practice of fanciful, capricious tasting notes only prove Cory’s well-made point!

The best wine writing (in my book) is about context, people, and pairing: whom with, where, when, and why you opened a given wine and how it made you feel — not the supercilious virtuosismo of strong-armed tasting notes where certain wine writers and bloggers (and we all know whom we’re talking about) seem to thumb-wrestle the notes out of the wines they taste.

In other news…

Above: Tracie B took this photo with her new Blackberry!

Tracie B and I are in Orange, Texas for the first of her wedding showers. I’ve been itching to see more of Lousiana (yes, it’s Lou-siana ’round these parts) and so Tracie B had promised to accompany me across the border (which is also the city limit) to one of the gambling joints. I’d never gambled before in my life and it was fun to have a drink and blow ten bucks on video poker (although, man, it was smoky in there!).

Above: It’s illegal to transport beautiful Texan women (before marriage) across the Lousiana border but Rev. B gave me permission in this one case.

In the glow of our upcoming wedding, Tracie B is more beautiful than ever! To borrow the phrase that Franco has already taken to calling her, she is a simply gorgeous sposina. :-)

We’ve also been having fun planning our honeymoon. Guess where we’re going? You guessed it! MUMBAI! ;-)

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Posted by Do Bianchi

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