Category Archives: de musica

Best places to eat in Nashville (or at least where I ate)

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Above: The Salmon-Bacon Sandwich with Farro Salad at Marché Artisan Foods. Ashley told me that the bread there was fantastic and it was.

If you want to eat well in any given town, ask a wine rep: because they spend time and money at their accounts, they always know the best places to eat (and they get the best tables!).

Above: The Club Sandwich at Marché. Also excellent. The bread and the peeled, gently roasted, and caramelized tomatoes took it over the top.

I was the beneficiary of such knowledge on Wednesday, after Ashley Hall, Kermit Lynch’s southeast U.S. sales manager, picked me up at the airport in Nashville and took me around town with her as she made some account calls (I love that her blog is called “Ashley Hall, the person”).

Above: I am a little hesitant to eat seafood when the sea is more than a stone’s throw away but the octopus salad at City House, an Italian-themed restaurant, was excellent. It was fresh and the octopus tender.

Kermit had been complaining that he hadn’t had a good meal in Nashville (where he’s recorded his current and upcoming records). But Ashely ably remedied that by taking us to City House. I wish this place had a better wine list but the staff was highly knowledgeable about the wines and they did have one of my favorite (undisputably) natural wines, Lunar by Movia, which our super nice waiter Jocelyn handily decanted. The pizza was among the best and the most authentically Neapolitan I’ve had in the U.S. Thanks again, Ashley, for hooking it all up!

Above: The pizza at City House was truly superb and the venue should definitely be added to the many “best pizza in the U.S.” lists that have circulated over the last year. An expert in all things Neapolitan, Tracie B always points out that the dough of true Neapolitan pizza should be crispy and firm but slightly undercooked in the very middle of the pie. She would have thoroughly approved. Road trip, Tracie B? ;-) I highly recommend it.

The Kermit Lynch listening party event was a lot of fun that night and a great success (here’s another blogger’s post on the shindig). I met a lot of wonderful folks that evening and found that Nashville — no surprise — is a highly cosmopolitan and culinarily minded destination.

Above: Noshville (get it? NOSHville) isn’t exactly what I’d call an authentic New York delicatessen (Kenny and Ziggy’s in Houston still holds the top-deli-outside-the-city spot in my book) but bagels and lox for breakfast were good and the celeb-watching is well worth the price of admission.

Thursday I made a visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame and walked around Broadway and did me some honkytonking. I’ll post about the Hank Williams exhibit and the music I heard tomorrow.

Above: Would a trip to Nashville be complete without a fried Bologna sandwich? I stopped into Robert’s Western Wear on Broadway for lunch yesterday.

I had a blast in Nashville but man, am I happy to get back home to my baby’s arms (and her cooking)! We’re staying in tonight…

Good wines and good times with Kermit Lynch in Nashville

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rick vito

Above: Last night at Kermit’s event, where I emceed, I got to hang out and chat with GUITAR HEROES George Marinelli, center, and Rick Vito. It just blows my mind to think how many hit songs these guys have played on. Top session bassist Michael Rhodes was there, too (see below).

Wow, what a week it’s been! On Monday, I presented Kermit Lynch and Ricky Fataar and we spun their new record at Vino Vino in Austin. Tuesday night I taught the last class in my series of Italian wine seminars at the Austin Wine Merchant (“Italian Wine and Civilization,” my favorite class, where we read from Italian literature and history and taste relevant wines), and then last night I emceed for Kermit again in Nashville. I can barely catch my breath…

Above: Guests were greeted last night with this fantastic sparkler, Vin du Bugey-Cerdon, a blend of Gamay and Poulsard from the Jura. It weighs in at an ethereal 8% alcohol. I loved it.

There were SO MANY famous musicians at Kermit’s listening party last night. Seems they all like hanging out with the ol’ man and drinking his vino. And who can blame them? But of all the amazing players who showed up for the event, the dude I was most geeked to meet was George Marinelli. He’s played on countless hit records but he was the guy who played on Billy Vera’s 1981 live album (recorded at the Roxy in LA) that included the hits “I Can Take Care of Myself” and “At This Moment.” I never saw George play with Billy but I used to go see Billy Vera and the Beaters play every month at At My Place in West LA when I was a freshman in college at UCLA in 1985-86. Billy’s album By Request, which features George on guitar, is still one of my all-time favorite albums (if you ever ride around the streets of Austin you might hear me and Tracie B blasting “Millie, Put on Some Chili” in the car!). Billy’s number 1 hit “At This Moment”? It’s ALL ABOUT the harmonics that George plays at the end of the song… wow… can’t believe I drank a glass of 1998 Vieux Telegraphe with that dude!

wine shoppe at green hills

Above: Ed Fryer, owner of the Wine Shoppe at Green Hills, brought a 3-liter of 1998 Vieux Telegraphe. Man, I like the way that dude rolls!

I’ve got many more tales to tell from Nashville, including some thoroughly delicious and truly authentic Neapolitan pizza we ate last night (Tracie B would have approved). I’m stuck all morning working at my computer this morning at my hotel but I’m taking the afternoon off and heading over to the Country Music Hall of Fame and I might just do me some honkytonking down on Broadway before I get on that plane and head back to my lovely lady in Austin.

Above: That’s bass player Michael Rhodes center. When you shake that dude’s hand you are shaking PURE GOLD (I’m not kidding: click the link).

Stay tuned…

Kermit Lynch, pulled pork, and 01 Moccagatta and 01 Faset

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kermit_jar

Above, from left: my buddy Mark Sayre, Kermit Lynch, and me last night at Vino Vino for the Kermit Lynch listening party. A grand time was had by all. Photos by Tracie B.

Tracie B and I had a blast last night at the Kermit Lynch listening party at Vino Vino here in Austin. It’s been a while since I took the stage with a microphone in my hand and it was great to feel that energy again and the buzz that comes along with playing music (even if I was just cueing it from my Ipod). Click here for highlights from the event.

ricky fataar

Above: Kermit’s producer Ricky Fataar, right, with his friend and awesome bass player, Austin-based Sarah Brown, who joined us for dinner. Ricky and the entire band will be fielding questions from the audience tomorrow night in Nashville at the Basement.

We’ve had a great time hanging out with Kermit, his wife Gail Skoff (who is delightful), and Ricky Fataar, who’s played with so many musical greats over the years (the Beach Boys, Bonnie Raitt, Jon Scofield, Boz Scaggs, Crowded House, The Rutles). I could have listened to Ricky tell stories from his years on the road all night long.

lamberts

Above: What does this country boy pair with his pulled pork? Nebbiolo, of course!

After the event, I swept the entourage away in the Hyundai limo and we hit Lambert’s downtown for dinner (not my favorite barbecue, but solid and open late). Earlier I had raided my Nebbiolo stash and so we BYOBed some 2001 Barbaresco Moccagatta by Produttori del Barbaresco (which was deliciously chewy and tasted like sumptuous mud) and 2001 Barbaresco Faset by Castello di Verduno (wow, this wine was off-the-charts good, almost Baroloesque in its austerity, regal and elegant, and showing nicely with some aeration despite its youth). Some would say that it’s a shame to pair savory, tannic Nebbiolo with the tangy, smokey flavors of Texas barbecue but, man, o man, was it tasty — especially riding on the high and the brio of the evening and the event…

Thanks again to the staff at Vino Vino and to everyone who came out last night for the sold-out event!

Tomorrow night: Nashville! (It’s fun to be “on the road again,” even if for just one night).

1970 Sassicaia (no, I didn’t drink it)

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Above: One of the very few things I miss about living in New York City is the availability of good smoked fish and New York bagels. We get frozen H&H bagels at our local Central Market. Scrambled eggs and bagels and lox have become a happy Sunday habit.

Kermit is coming to town and I’m prepping today (following our now traditional late-morning breakfast of toasted H&H bagels, cream cheese salmon, thinly sliced tomatoes and red onion, salted capers, brined olives, and eggs scrambled with Parmigiano Reggiano and an onion soffritto, a casa della bellissima Tracie B) for my presentation of the wine-industry great and singer-songwriter tomorrow night at Vino Vino in Austin.

I’ve been rereading his most recent book, Inspiring Thirst, an anthology of his newsletters stretching back to the beginnings of his career in the wine industry in the early 1970s (the first newsletter in the collection is dated 1974). In many ways, the gathering of glosses and notes is an excellent primer on how to sell wine. I don’t think its unfair to say that Kermit essentially invented wine blogging with his “little propaganda pieces,” as he called them.

The corpus of his blurbs is also an amazing historical document with fresh tasting notes and observations on now-nearly-forgotten vintages, like his take on 1970 Sassicaia, penned in 1975:

    1970 Sassicaia

    Unlikely, perhaps, but here we have a very impressive Cabernet Sauvignon made in Italy. It shows a pronounced varietal nose, while the effect upon the palate is akin to Bordeaux, explained by the fact that the winemaker is French and is using Bordeaux barrels. Regardless, the wine is extremely well made; to my taste it compares easily with over-$8 California Cabernets. Highly recommended! $5.50 per bottle $59.40 per case

The first commercially released vintage of Sassicaia was 1968. Darrell Corti told me that he sold it at Corti Brothers in Sacramento for $6.99 (Kermit was selling it for more than 20% less!).

Kermit talks a lot about how the 1970s recession led a lot of importers to “advance” their inventory to him. “Pay me when you sell it,” they would tell him, and he would pass the excellent pricing on to his customers. His description of the economic climate sounds a lot like the situation today and his blueprint for selling (and marketing) wine is good advice for anyone involved in the wine industry today — on any level, be it importing, wholesale, on premise, or retail.

Tomorrow night Kermit, Ricky Fataar (his producer), and I will be talking about Kermit’s new record, Man’s Temptation (and the event is already sold out) but I hope to get a chance to ask him about Sassicaia at $5.50 a bottle. The wines sells for $599.00 a bottle today.

In other news…

The fall weather’s been fantastic here in Texas and the sunsets and the Texan sky are amazing, as always. I took this photo yesterday evening before Tracie B and I headed out for the night. Happy Sunday, ya’ll!

Jimmie Vaughan’s Gulf Coast picking and the best steak frites in Austin

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From the “life could be worse” department…

louann barton

Last night found me and Tracie B at Austin’s top music destination, Antone’s, for a Doug Sahm tribute (Doug Sahm is considered by many the father of the Central Texas music scene). We were there to see legendary bluesman Jimmie Vaughan. Since I moved to Austin nearly a year ago, I still hadn’t see him play and it was a thrill to hear his Strat from the edge of the stage (one of the things that’s so cool about Austin is how the venues, even Antone’s, which is one of the largest, are just small enough that you can still hear the music directly from the amps on stage instead of through the PA). But the most amazing thing was that our friend Felice’s boyfriend Ronnie James is Jimmie’s go-to bass player and so Tracie B and I got to go back stage and meet Jimmie. Now, I’m all growed up and have met plenty of famous folks but I can’t conceal that I was downright star-struck to shake Jimmie’s hand last night. I couldn’t resist ask him about his right-hand pick-less picking and hammering technique (he’s flat-picking in the photo above with LouAnn Barton on vocals).

“That’s the Gulf Coast style,” Jimmie told me. It was created by Clarence Gatemouth Brown and was also used by Albert Collins (another native Texan and one of my personal favorite bluesmen), he said.

That’s a detail from a photo of Gatemouth, left: you pick using all your fingers on your right hand while you finger and hammer with your left hand. There is just so much great music in this town and you can hear a blues or country great on nearly any given night. Man, I love that Tracie B for bringing me here! Her cooking ain’t bad either…

In other news, the best steak frites this side of Manhattan…

Above: Steak frites at Chez Nous in Austin.

I’m dying to try the new Relais de Venise Entrecôte in New York (as reviewed by Sam Sifton in The New York Times), but there is no dearth of great red meat in Texas.

In what seems to be becoming a bad habit of mine, I played hookey again Friday after being shanghaied for lunch by my friend John. We headed over to Chez Nous with a collector friend/client of his and opened a few interesting bottles that “needed” to be tasted.

Above: The 1994 Trimbach was tighter than I would have expected but it opened up nicely with a little aeration. The pairing with the duck pâté was sublime.

Chez Nous is everything that you wish it would be: quiet, unassuming, and friendly, with solid bistro cuisine that may not win awards but never disappoints. Owner Jacques always delivers classic staples of French cuisine — the pork rillettes and duck pâté always excellent. (I don’t know where Jacques sources his bread but it’s probably the best I’ve had in Austin.)

Above: Duck liver pâté at Chez Nous — highly recommended.

The Gimonnet premier cru Cuis also paired deliciously with the pâté but then again so did the 2006 Les Palliéres Gigondas (which we tasted in honor of Kermit’s visit to Austin on Monday, since Kermit owns the winery together with the Brunier brothers).

Jimmie Vaughan and 94 Trimbach on the same day? Life would be rough if I didn’t have such a beautiful lady in my life. ;-)

tracie branch

The “intense delicacy” of the last of the Mohicans in Texas

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heredia

Tasting through the current releases of López de Heredia the other day in Austin made me feel like Big Joe Turner’s Mississippi bullfrog in “Flip, Flop, and Fly”: I’m like a Mississippi bullfrog sittin’ on a hollow stump/I got so many good bottles of wine, I don’t know which way to jump.

I was thrilled to see that the wines have returned to Texas, in the hands of a smaller distributor who seems to be treating the bottlings with the respect and care they deserve.

My friend Alice Feiring put it best when she wrote about the “intense delicacy” of these wines, using a Petrarchesque oxymoron. They are at once intensely aromatic and flavorful but show that unbearable lightness that I find so alluring in great wine.

Some of the most inspired prose in Alice’s The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization is devoted to the López de Heredia winery. But it was owner Maria José López de Heredia who called the winery the “last of the Mohicans”:

    When López de Heredia buckles — if ever — that style of wine is gone and cannot be replaced. I asked Maria José, “Are you sad about the way things are going right now?” Her answer shocked me. “Wine has been worse in Rioja. It’s not so bad now. There are good wines being made, but we are ‘the last of the Mohicans,'” she said, with tremendous pride. She actually liked being the last one.

I love the wines of López de Heredia and try to taste and enjoy them at any chance I get.

The 1989 Tondonia white was showing beautifully, even if it inspired a lively debate among the wine professionals gathered that day as to whether it was “off” or not. (“The release of a López de Herdia white,” writes Alice, “is always a love-it-or-hate-it affair. No matter what a drinker’s preferences, the wine always gets attention.”) I’ve tasted that wine maybe 10 times over the last year and I think that the bottle we tasted was right on.

I was also really impressed with the entry-level 2003 Cubillo (red), which showed uncommon grace for this wine. The 1991 Tondonia and Bosconia (reds) were simply stunning.

The wines won’t be an easy sell here in Texas (nor are they anywhere, for that matter). Their oxidative nature can be a turn-off for a lot of folks. But I’m so glad that they’ve returned to Texas. Tracie B and I will be drinking them for sure!

In other news…

Austin wine writer Wes Marshall reviewed Kermit’s CD today and previewed his listening party Monday November 9 here in town at Vino Vino (yours truly will be presenting Kermit and his producer Ricky Fataar). I haven’t been playing music professionally since Nous Non Plus’s last show in LA in May: I’ve been having a blast promoting this show and I love that feeling of filling a room. I hear there are just a few seats left! ;-)

Kermit Lynch rocks Austin and Nashville next week

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Above: Kermit debuted his new album last month in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall, paired with a menu by Alice Waters.

It’s a funny thing about the food and wine world: so many of the folks I know who work as food and wine professionals have at some point in their lives played music professionally and/or have worked in some capacity of the music industry (myself included!).

When Kermit Lynch called me over the summer, asking me to help him put together a listening party here in Austin, I jumped at the chance: as it turns out, Kermit Lynch “rocker interrupted” and I share a lot of the same tastes in rootsy, Amerciana music and when he sent me a copy of his new disk Man’s Temptation I was blown away by the musicianship and the soulful, gravelly voice behind the microphone. (I wrote a review of the CD here.)

I’ll be presenting Kermit, together with his producer Ricky Fataar, and talking to them about Man’s Temptation as we a few of Kermit’s wines on Monday, November 9 at Vino Vino here in Austin (click for details) and Wednesday, November 11 in Nashville at the Basement, where Kermit’s entire band will also be joining us (see Nashville details below).

I know Ricky’s music through his performances with Bonnie Raitt, John Scofield, and Boz Scaggs but, being the Beatlesmaniac that I am, I am most geeked to ask him about The Rutles and the film All You Need Is Cash, the original mockumentary in which he played George’s counterpart.

You may remember how Kermit and I met, like so many cool things in my life, through the blog.

Earlier this year, Kermit left a comment on a post I wrote about tasting Bandol as Tracie B and I watched American Idol and ate Tracie B’s excellent nachos.

Here are details for Nashville:

AN EVENING WITH KERMIT LYNCH

Listening Party and Wine tasting
@ The Basement
1604 8th Avenue South
Nashville, TN
5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
$20 (ticket price includes 1 glass of wine)

Click here to reserve.

I hope to see you there!

Check out all the cool cameos in this trailer from All You Need Is Cash…

More Nebbiolo news (and a lil’ guitar porn)

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One of the frequent questions that we wine folk get is “what’s your favorite wine?” It’s not an easy one to answer. I always tell people, it depends on where I am, whom I’m with, and what I’m eating. A favorite wine could be a humble bottle of grapey Lambrusco with some belt-busting gnocco fritto and rendered lard or it could be a 40-year-old Giacomo Conterno Barolo Monfortino and a blood-rare porterhouse steak, the genteel noble tannin of the Nebbiolo waltzing with the marbled meat.

But if there ever were ONE wine, one winery that I could point to and say that’s my favorite, it would have to be Produttori del Barbaresco. I love the wines, I have deep respect for the people who grow it and make it, and the ideology and winemaking philosophy that stand behind it. I also love it because I can afford it and because I can afford to “follow” each vintage. And more than anything else, I love how the style of the winery has remained so consistent: whether tasting a ’67, an ’89, or the current release ’05, the style of the “house” steadfastly represents the terroir and the vintage.

And so it was a thrill yesterday to taste the 2008 Langhe Nebbiolo by Produttori del Barbaresco, the cooperative’s entry-level wine, made from the member growers’s younger vines, and vinified with shorter maceration time and aging.

The 2007 was an anomalous vintage for this wine. The bumper crop of noble fruit resulted in a more tannic and richer expression of Nebbiolo than you usually see in this wine (I think this is what BrooklynGuy found to be off-putting when we exchanged notes about it). When I told winemaker Aldo Vacca that as much as I loath the expression “baby Barbaresco,” the ’07 was the one instance when I thought the Langhe Nebbiolo was “Barbaresco-esque.” “Baby Barberesco?” he said to me with a quizzical look. “Baby Barolo!”

With the ’08, the wine has returned to is more classic style: a Nebbiolo lighter in body, with very approachable berry fruit and sour cherry and already mellow tannin. Great for drinking now. Damn, I love this wine. It should retail for around $20, more or less. A great value.

In other news… boys will be boys…

John Roenigk and I played a little hooky yesterday after tasting and some lunch: we went to one of the most amazing guitar stores I have ever visited, Quincy’s here in Austin. (John’s an amazing musician and I’ve been helping him transfer some of his recordings from the 1980s to digital format, one of the other things that GarageBand is great for. That dude can play him some serious geetar.)

I sure wish I had the dough to afford one of these handmade beauties. It’s hard to convey what it’s like to play guitars of this caliber. Their sounds are warm and round, with the bass notes resonating like a train in the distance and the highs sparkling like stars in the sky. That’s a 1999 Gibson SJ200 Custom (Brazilian) in the foreground.

But when you actually play them, the sensation of feeling the sounds emanate from the warm wood pressed up against your belly is purely transcendental. That’s a ’52 Martin D28 above — one of the few vintage guitars owner Pat Skrovan had in the store yesterday.

Feast your eyes on that National Steel Reso-Phonic Delphi Deluxe, above.

Happy halloween ya’ll!

Umami blogging (and Nebbiolo gone wild)

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Above: I poured an awesome flight of Nebbiolo on Tuesday night at The Austin Wine Merchant for my class “The De Facto Cru System in Piedmont.”

They say that parenting blogs, so-called “mommy blogging,” are the most lucrative: evidently, folks who write about parenting have no troubles finding advertisers. Among wine bloggers, however, the term “mommy blogging” denotes a sub-genre of posts in which bloggers “write home to mom,” telling her all the great bottles that they have opened. Italian Wine Guy often accuses me of this and I must confess that my mom does read my blog (hi mom!).

Since I am about to indulge in some flagrant, unapologetic mommy blogging, I’d like to propose a new sub-genre of enoblogging for your consideration: “Umami Blogging.”

Umami is one of the “the five generally recognized basic tastes sensed by specialized receptor cells present on the human tongue” and in wine writing, we often use it to denote a class of “savory” descriptors.

Umami, meaty, brothy, savory flavors were on everyone’s palates Tuesday night when I poured 7 bottlings of Nebbiolo from Langa at my weekly Italian wine seminar at The Austin Wine Merchant. Man, what a flight of wines! The de facto cru system of Piedmont was the topic and participants tasted bottlings from the east and west sides of the Barolo-Alba road as well as a Barbaresco and a Langhe Nebbiolo sourced in Barbaresco, where many believe the proximity of the Tanaro river adds another dimension to the appellation’s macro-climate.

Highlights were as follows…

Bruno Giacosa 2001 Barolo Falletto

This wine, from a classic Langa vintage, showed stunningly on Tuesday. Still very tannic in its development but as it opened up over the course of the evening, it performed a symphony of earthy, mushroomy flavors. The Austin Wine Merchant is selling this wine at release price (RUN DON’T WALK).

Brovia 2004 Barolo Rocche

My first encounter with this vintage from traditional producer, Brovia, one of my favorites. Here wild berry fruit ultimately gave way to a wonderful eucalyptus note. The wine is still very tannic, of course, but was suprisingly approachable after just an hour of aeration. I loved the way the fruit and savory flavors played together like a meal in a glass. Great value for the quality of wine.

Marcarini 2005 Barolo Brunate

This wine had a bretty, barnyardy note on the nose that was a turn off for a lot of folks but guest sommelier June Rodil (the current top Texas sommelier title holder) and I really dug this wine, which weighs in at less than $60. I love the rough edges of this rustic style of Barolo and only wish that I had some bollito misto and mostarda to pair with its vegetal, sweaty horse flavors.

Produttori del Barbaresco 2005 Barbaresco

Tracie B, who joined at the end of the class, and I agreed that this wine is beginning to close up. It is entering a tannic phase of its development and its savoriness overpowers its fruit right now. That being said, it still represents the greatest value in Langa today, at under $40. If you read Do Bianchi, you know how much I love the wines of Produttori del Barbaresco: I would recommend opening this wine the morning of the dinner where you’d like to serve it. By the end of the night, the tannin had mellowed and the fruit began to emerge.

To reserve for my Wines of the Veneto class (Nov. 3, a seminar dear to my heart because of my personal connection to the Veneto) or my Italian Wine and Civilization Class (Nov. 10, my personal favorite), please call 512-499-0512‎. On Tuesday, Nov. 10, we’ll all head over to Trio after class for a glass of something great to celebrate. Thanks again, to everyone, for taking part and heartfelt thanks to The Austin Wine Merchant for giving me the opportunity to share my passion for Italian wines with Austin!

In other Nebbiolo news…

My buddy Mark Sayre is pouring Matteo Correggia 2006 Roero Nebbiolo by the glass at the Trio happy hour at the Four Seasons. European wine writers have been paying a lot of attention lately to the red wines of Roero (an appellation better known in this country for its aromatic white Arneis). There isn’t much red Roero available in the U.S. and I was thrilled to see this 100% Nebbiolo in the market. It’s showing beautifully right now and is my new favorite pairing for chef Todd’s fried pork belly — my compulsive obsession — a confit seasoned with the same ingredients used to make Coca Cola.

See, mom? You can sleep peacefully knowing that your son is drinking great Nebbiolo! ;-)

*****

Does anyone remember Tom Lehrer’s “So Long Mom, I’m Off To Drop a Bomb”?

My dinner with Étienne (in flyover country)

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From the “life could be worse” department…

Above: Last week the gracious Étienne de Montille tasted and took time out to pose with members of the Texas “dream team” in Austin, Texas. From left, Master Sommelier candidate Devon Broglie, Étienne de Montille, Master Sommelier candidate Craig Collins, and Fabien Jacobs, sommelier at Andrew Weissman’s Le Rêve, considered by many the best restaurant in Texas.

Over the course of my life, I’ve been very fortunate to meet and get to interact with rock stars. And I don’t just mean music rock stars. (Even though the time my band opened for Ringo Starr at the Bottom Line in the West Village was probably the top pinch-me-because-I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening moments: me, sharing a stage with a Beatle!!! A childhood dream come true. Unbelievable.)

Ever the lovable Sicilian cynic, Italian Wine Guy often laments that people consider Texas “flyover country.” He tends to exaggerate (a trait owed to his Mediterranean roots) but I have to concede that, more than once, the more snooty among my friends have asked me if life out here in Texas is boring. But, folks, I’m here to testify: it sure ain’t!

Above: A home-cooked meal at Italian Wine Guy’s place in Dallas was a welcomed respite from a week of dining in restaurants. What did we drink? Étienne’s Volnay and Barbaresco, of course!

In all seriousness, getting to “ride with” and interact with Étienne was a true thrill for me. (See the image in the left hand corner of my banner above? Tracie B took that in Paris: that’s Étienne’s father’s 1991 Volnay Les Champans in my glass, a wine I will never forget.) I’m working these days with a small Dallas-based distributor of fine wines and I had to good fortune to travel, taste, and dine with Étienne last week.

His father Hubert, now retired, is one of the greatest producers in Burgundy, and Étienne began making wines at the family estate in the late 1990s. As his American importer John Winthrop likes to say, he is “a French aristocrat whose family was ennobled so long ago that the Bourbons are relative arrivistes.” But Étienne is also a really cool, down-to-earth guy, very generous in spirit and a wine “fanatic,” as he likes to say.

Italian wine will always be my first love but Burgundy is my mistress: it was fascinating to taste with Étienne and hear him share his thoughts on biodynamic and organic farming practices. In many ways, his wines could be considered — dare I say? — “natural wines”: he employs biodynamic farming practices and uses only ambient yeast in fermentation. No one would deny, however, that his wines are a supreme example of terroir expression. He doesn’t believe in “sexual confusion” in the vineyard, for example (organic growers often deploy pheromones in vineyard that confuse the insects’s sexual drive and stops them from procreating). “Sexual confusion upsets the ecologic balance of the vineyard,” he told me, “and so it is not true to the terroir.”

The thing that impresses me the most about his wines is their balance of tannic structure and lightness in color and body. “Only nature can give color to the wine,” I heard him say over and over. “I don’t want to extract [i.e., concentrate] the wine too much because it can bring out undesired flavors,” he said, referring to the time he allows his wines to macerate with skin contact. The 2006 Beaune 1er cru Les Sizies and Volnay 1er cru Les Mitans were great examples of this: the vintage has delivered healthy but not overwhelming tannin and the wines were a pure delight, with savory, classically Burgundian aromas and flavors.

Raj ParrWhen I took Étienne to the airport on Thursday in Dallas, he left for California where he did a wine dinner — a vertical tasting of his family’s celebrated wines — at one of our country’s most famous wine destintations, RN74 in San Francisco, with one of our country’s leading sommeliers, Raj Parr. That’s Raj (one of the nicest guys in the biz, btw) to Étienne’s left and collector Wilf Jaeger to his right (Wilf is one of co-owners of the restaurant).

I’m so glad that took time out to come visit us here in “fly-over country.” Life sure could be worse out here in Central Texas! ;-)

In other news…

I’m no rock star but she sure makes me feel like one! Tracie B and I had a great time at Liz and Matt’s wedding in Richmond over the weekend. Who would have ever thought that a schlub like me would end up with a cover girl like her? Gotta say, this whole Texas thing is growing on me! ;-)

In other other news…

More rock stars are coming! Kermit Lynch and Ricky Fataar are coming to Austin on November 9 to spin tracks from their new record, eat some barbecue, and drink some good wine. And yours truly is the MC for the night (I’ll be traveling to Nasvhille with Kermit, too, for a similar event). Click here for details (the event is almost sold out so please make your reservations asap).