Category Archives: de musica

A favorite Prosecco and Panzanella del Prete

Posted on by

Yesterday evening, before heading out to see our friends play music in Bird Rock (La Jolla), Tracie P and I were the guests of the Reynolds, who live in the house where I spent my childhood years.

Mrs. Reynolds made a fantastic dish that I’d never had before, panzanella del prete (above), the priest’s panzanella, a “rich” version of the classic Tuscan dish of summer, panzanella, a summer salad made with leftover saltless Tuscan bread and chopped summer vegetables and herbs (basil, tomato, cucumber, red onion, etc.).

Mrs. Reynolds even baked the Tuscan bread herself, using a Marcella Hazan recipe. Her panzanella del prete (a traditional dish of Garfagnana, northwest Tuscany) had olive-oil packed tuna and blanched carrots, and tomatoes and thyme grown in her garden. Utterly delicious…

We paired the dish with what has become my favorite wine of the summer, the best Prosecco (IMHO) that you can buy in the U.S., Costadilà.

Made with ambient yeast, fermented in bottle, and aged on its lees (with no filtering), Costadilà Prosecco is the type of Prosecco I would drink when I was living and playing music in the province of Belluno during graduate-school summers. Each year, I’d drive down to visit with Nico Naldini (Pasolini’s cousin and collaborator) down in Solighetto in the heart of Prosecco country.

This wine isn’t for everyone: it’s cloudy and crunchy, salty and gritty… and man, it is UNBELIEVABLY good…

Dulcis in fundo…

I love seeing all my high school friends, like Michael Kornberg (left) and Andrew Harvey, who brought his baby girl to his gig last night. Andrew is a fantastic drummer (he plays with me in the Grapes, too).

The baby fever going around is contagious!

Eating, drinking, and loving well…

Posted on by

at Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego…

Many great bottles opened last night over a 5-hour dinner at Jaynes Gastropub last night, including this 2006 Bâtard-Montrachet by Pernot, unctuous and rich, rocks and fruit. THANK YOU ROBIN! :-)

Cory (left) was in town to visit his best friend who’s pursuing a graduate degree in communications at UCSD. A vibrant dialogue on Gramsci and his significance in the age of the internet undulated over the din of our munching. That’s Jon (of Jaynes) at the top of the frame and Yele (John Yelenosky) to the right.

How a schlub like me always gets to go home with the prettiest girl in the joint will always remain a mystery to me.

Post scriptum

Only because TWG has been objecting to my sartorial choices of late, I thought I’d include this photo from the gig the previous night at Zenbu (La Jolla).

A fav guitar: Fender ’62 reissue blonde olympic white Stratocaster

Posted on by

That’s my Fender ’62 reissue blonde olympic white strat with mint-green pick guard, one of my favorite guitars. The photo was taken a few years ago when I was playing with NN+ in New York. And yes, that’s a fake black-eye: we all dressed as injured tennis players for that particular Halloween show. ;-)

I’ll be playing that axe tomorrow night with my new Americana group the Grapes at Zenbu in La Jolla through my brother’s Fender Twin.

Owned by my highschool friends the Rimels, Zenbu is one of me and Tracie P’s all-time fav places for sushi. Hope to see you there! Should be a fun time. We start around 9 p.m…

Barolo confessions

Posted on by

It was delicious…

Above: I was cold, I was hungry, I was tired… and, yes, damn it, I sat in my lonely hotel room on a damp, cold evening in Asti and watched TV, ate takeout pizza, and drank a bottle of 2005 Barolo Ravera by Elvio Cogno.

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. I can already hear the E-Bobs and WineBerserkers wailing, “infanticide!” It was a very lonely evening for me in the heart of winter in Piedmont: the Barbera 7 had abandoned me in my hotel, just as Jeremiah’s lovers had “forgotten him.”

My only companion was a bottle of 2005 Barolo Ravera given to me by Valter Fissore of Elvio Cogno. I was cold, I was hungry, I was tired. So I ordered takeout pizza, popped the cork, and watched TV.

I don’t know where food maven Arthur Schwartz said this, but Italian cookery queen Michele Scicolone often repeats his chiasmatic adage regarding pizza: if you can’t be with the pizza you love, love the pizza you’re with. Well, honey, I loved me some pizza and Barolo that night and I lived to tell about it!

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest… Buon weekend, ya’ll!

I love you, yes I do

Posted on by

It was on the fourth Sunday of August 2008 that I got on a Southwest jetliner and came to Austin to take Tracie B on a date to dinner — our first meeting after nearly two months of emailing each other. Mole enchiladas at Polvos, dancing at the Continental Club to the music of Hey Bale, and a first kiss I’ll never forget…

Sit yourself down next to me
Let me hold you near
Sit by my side close to me
There’s something you should hear

If I have not made it perfectly clear
I love you girl
I love you girl yes i do

Before we met I was lost
On life’s carousel
Spinning around like a top
Never slowing down

I don’t recall how I got here at all
But I love you girl
I love you girl yes I do

There comes a time in your life
When you know it’s right
Dark comes before love arrives
With the morning light

So long ago when I was young I had a dream
That I would find my love find my love
So many years, so many tears it took before
I found my love when you appeared

If I have not made it perfectly clear
I love you girl
I love you girl yes I do

Jeremy P to Tracie P, August 22, 2010

97 Barolo, mole, and blues pair well in Austin, Texas

Posted on by

From the “damn, I love this town” department…

Our friends Mike and Magaret (whom we know because they come to nearly every wine tasting I lead here in Austin!) wrote the other day saying they had a very special bottle of wine they wanted to share with Tracie P and me: Guido Porro 1997 Barolo Lazzairasco (!!!). We were thrilled, of course…

Regretfully, not many places allow corkage in Texas (in part due to the fact that the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission discourages it, even though it’s not illegal). But working in the wine business has its perks: my friend and colleague Brad Sharp, wine director at one of our favorite restaurants in the world, Fonda San Miguel, allowed us to bring in this bottle, which Mike hand-carried back from Barolo in 2001. (Btw, whenever we BYOB we always buy a commensurate bottle from the list, in this case some López de Heridia, and we tip generously, keeping in mind that the bill is less than it would have been had we ordered a second bottle at dinner. Fyi, Fonda does not allow corkage.)

In Piedmont, summer months are for Barbera, Pelaverga, and other lighter-bodied red wines that pair well with the lighter foods of warm months. In Mexico, however, heavier foods like mole (a chocolate and chile sauce used to dress meats and enchiladas) are served all year. And so in the spirit of transnational culinary fusion, I paired with carne asada tampiqueña and a cheese enchilada dressed with mole sauce. The combination was FANTASTIC!

Like its brother cru Lazzarito, Lazzairasco (just a few hectares) is one of the great vineyards of Serralunga d’Alba, where some of the richest and most austere Barolo is produced by the appellations oldest subsoils (on the east side of the Barolo-Alba road which divides the “natures” of Barolo).

Although it was one of the indisputably great harvests of a remarkable string of excellent years in Piedmont, 1995-2001, 1997 is not one of my favorite vintages: it was the warmest (as was 2000) and while it was highly praised in the U.S. for its ripe fruit, it didn’t have the balance of, say, 1999 or 2001 (my favs).

Porro is one of the great traditionalist producers of Barolo and this wine entirely surprised us with its lip-smacking acidity and its wild berry fruit character. I knew we were going out on an organoleptic limb with this pairing but wow, did it deliver a sensorial treat — an usual pairing that rewarded us for our daring.

And in keeping with the Austin cosmic cowboy spirit, after dinner we headed over to meet other friends at the Gallery at the Continental Club, where Jimmie Vaughan was sitting in with Hammond B3 player Mike Flanigin. The Gallery at the Continental only holds 50 persons and the “guest” musicians are not advertised (you have to be in the know to find out about which super stars might be appearing on any given night).

Jimmie’s riding high these days, with an awesome new album (that we LOVE) and world tour. He’s also a super sweet guy and he took a moment out for me to snap this photo of him and Margaret.

The dude is a living legend. I mean, how many people in world once lent a wah-wah pedal to Jimi Hendrix?

If only they served Nebbiolo at the Continental Club…

Sognando Piemonte (Piedmont Dreamin’)

Posted on by

bricco boschis

Above: We got to drink a bottle of 2005 Barolo Bricco Boschis by Cavallotto last night. Photo by Tracie P.

As Tony Coturri told me the other day (and as Mama Judy mentions when we talk on the phone each week), California is having the coolest summer it’s had in anyone’s memory. Out here in Texas it’s H-O-T hot — not exactly what I would call “Barolo weather.”

But when our friend (and my client) Julio messaged and said he had a bottle of 2005 Barolo Bricco Boschis by Cavallotto that he wanted to share with us, we couldn’t resist.

And, man, what a treasure in this bottle. Here’s Tracie P’s tasting note: “bright cherry acidity with graphite minerality and a balance of earthiness, so balanced and savory and fruity; it just had everything in the right place…”

The wine is young and the curious thing was how generous it was with its fruit right when we opened and decanted it. But by the time we finished the bottle, it had begun to close up.

On a hot Texas summer eve, it made me dream of Piedmont and a few new-to-me destinations I can’t wait to visit when I return. Like the Museo dei Cavatappi, the Corkscrew Musuem in the town of Barolo.

paolo annoni

I was actually scrounging the interwebs for something else (for a consulting job) when I came across Paolo Annoni (above) and his amazing museum, which preserves more than 500 corkscrews from the eighteenth century to the present. As they say in Italian, this type of stuff is pane per i miei denti, literally, bread for my teeth, in other words, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it.

serralunga

Another destination at the top of my list is the Vinoteca Centro Storico in Serralunga. I literally drooled over my keyboard when I read about it in the excellent blog authored by McDuff, who possesses one of the palates I admire the most.

Check out his post for details. Just the thought of grower Champagne and carne cruda is enough to make the mimetic desire kick in (at 9 a.m. in the morning, I can literally feel my saliva glands working as I type). Auerbach anyone?

aaaaaaaa… Sognando Piemonte…

“Rock is no longer a dirty word in Austin”: The Armadillo at 40

Posted on by

Above: “On August 7, 1970, a new music venue opened at 525 1/2 Barton Springs Road in Austin. The city would never be the same. The Armadillo World Headquarters.” (“The Armadillo at 40,” KUT.org).

An article published by TIME Magzine on September 9, 1974, entitled “Groover’s Paradise,” recently came to my attention. Here’s the opening paragraph:

    Back in the good old days in Austin, Texas, say 1970, a guy could risk trouble for deriding country-and-western music, or merely hollering the words “rock ‘n’ roll.” This was, after all, the ancestral home of Texas Swing, where the Light Crust Doughboys had helped elect a flour salesman, W. Lee O’Danile, Governor in 1938. Even such talented native Texas as Singers Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter, blues rockers both, had been forced to head as far away from Austin as possible to make the big time.

That was just four years after the Armadillo World Headquarters opened in the Texas state capital, about a ten-minute drive from where Tracie P and I live now.

This week, KUT.org, the University of Texas at Austin radio station is playing every artist that ever played at the ‘Dillo (as it is affectionately known). And I’m here to tell you, people, that I’m glued to my radio, whether in the car or at home working on my computer.

You can find the stream by visiting KUT.org (9 a.m. – 3 p.m. local time).

My highlights for today were Jerry Jeff Walker’s version of “Mr. Bojangles” and his “London Homesick Blues” (and for guitar geeks out there, Eric Johnson’s early band The Electromagnets).

The title of the TIME Magazine article is culled from one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite Cosmic Cowboys, Doug Sahm, and it ends with a quote from him:

    The Armadillo is filled each night night with a curious amalgam of teenagers, aging hippe women in gingham, braless coeds, and booted goat ropers swigging Pearl beer and swinging Stetsons in time to the music. Doug Sahm, a 32-year-old fugitive of San Franciso psychedelia, who sings there regularly, says that “leaving Austin now is like climbing off a spaceship from a magic place.” As he put it in a song, the whole town is a groover’s paradise.

O, man, I can almost smell the doobage wafting up Lamar Blvd.!

Picking grapes with Tony Coturri in Texas

Posted on by

Above: The cowboy hat that Melvin Croaker gave me isn’t just for show. I can probably do more damage at computer keyboard than I can with pruning shears in the vineyards but this singing cowboy managed to fill a crate or two with Blanc du Bois in the Texas sun yesterday.

There are many mysteries in this big ol’ world and many of them leave me scratching my head. But one of the ones I find the hardest to fathom is why every single wine professional in central Texas doesn’t head down to Comal County to get a glimpse of natural winemaker Tony Coturri, who arrives promptly each year to harvest grapes and make wine with maverick winemaker Lewis Dickson of La Cruz de Comal winery. (For a recent and truly wonderful interview with Tony, please see this excellent post by my friend and blogging colleague and fellow Californian-Texan Amy Atwood. And for a profile of Lewis and his wines, please see this post I did for the 32 Days of Natural Wine.)

Above: No, that’s not Billy Gibbons, it’s Tony on “the Gator.”

It was a thrill for me and Tracie P to get to “rub shoulders” with Tony in the vineyards and the thought of getting to hang with him even got us out of bed on a Sunday morning at the crack of dawn (can you believe that?). Harvest of Lewis’s Blanc du Bois grapes began yesterday at daybreak in Comal County on the southern side of Canyon Lake (about an hour and half from our place in Austin).

cruz de comal

Above: Tony and Lewis destemming the Blanc du Bois harvest. From the quality and quantity of grapes, it appears that Cruz de Comal will have one of its best vintages of Blanc du Bois, which is used to make the winery’s Pétard Blanc, one of my favorites and white with remarkable aging potential.

In case you don’t already know Tony, he’s a leading Californian grape grower and winemaker and a pioneer of natural winemaking in the Golden State… AND he makes killer wines. I love what he said to Amy in the interview she did:

    The basic principles and procedures of my winemaking haven’t changed over the years. I have remained a believer in natural, and traditional and additive free winemaking. If anything, refining the natural process has been the change. As my understanding of the development of all aspects the vineyards through the use of organic and biodynamic practices deepens I realize that I’m not so much a “winemaker’ but a custodian of grapes. The wine is made in the vineyard. My job is to take care of it. The magic is in the vineyard not the winery.

O mamma, you’re speaking my language!

cruz de comal

Above: A little grape porn for ya’ll.

Tracie P and I are both a little sore from picking those grapes yesterday but we’re no worse for the wear. And what a good night sleep you get after a day of working in the vineyards in the sunshine and fresh air! Man, I can’t wait to taste that wine…

I’d rather trust a man who works with his hands,
He looks at you once, you know he understands,
Don’t need any shield,
When you’re out in the field.

—Peter Gabriel (can anyone name the tune? Thor, I’m counting on you!)