Tag Archives: Arkansas

1970 Latour and Arkansas cornbread

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From the “life could be worse” department…

les forts

On what many (myself included) consider one of the greatest recordings of the last century, the great American lyricist Snoop Dogg sanguinely informs the listener: “I, somehow, some way, Keep comin up with funky ass shit like every single day.”

I felt a little like Snoop yesterday: as an average (and frankly gray) workday traveling and hawking wine (the first of the new year) evolved into intriguing flavors and aromas, I couldn’t help but wonder why it is that there always seems to be something interesting to taste around the corner these days.

Yesterday, my friends D’Lynn Proctor (below) and company at Grailey’s, a wonderful not-to-miss tasting room in Dallas, poured me a glass of Latour 1970 Les Forts.

grailey's

A lot of folks like to “taste me” on their old Italian wines, but I rarely get to taste old French wine and I was thrilled to put my nose in this glass. Does anyone remember Baudelaire’s macadam? That’s what this wine smelled like: tar, pitch, goudron, asphalt… I’m not one for blind tasting but this is one of those wines, we all agreed, that you would pick out as Bordeaux from the nose alone. The wine was bright in the mouth, with nervy acidity that took me surprise and a balanced medley of spice and fruit. (Mazel tov, btw, to D’Lynn on his upcoming wedding AND his invitation to take the Master Sommelier’s exam in August!)

And as if a noble wine French wine from 1970 weren’t enough to call it an extraordinarily sensorially satisfying day, the real treat came over dinner in the home of my friend and colleague Sam and his delightful betterhalf Belinda (originally from Arkansas), whose cornbread — there’s no other way to say it — was sinfully good.

arkansas cornbread

Belinda wouldn’t reveal all of the secrets to her magical Arkansas cornbread but she did explain that she makes it by dropping dollops of the cornbread dough (as it were) into a hot iron skillet (greased with cooking oil). She then turns the small loaves and transfers to hot oven. As the loaves settle, they fill out the skillet in a nearly perfectly shaped pattern (making for ideal serving portions).

arkansas cornbread

She then slices each loaf lengthwise and dresses with butter. Crispy on the outside with an ever-softer and moist center as you bite through to the middle.

The best part? Bellinda wrapped up some leftovers for me to much on as I make my way from Dallas to Houston today.

As long as I don’t get stuck in the mire of the macadam, who can say what delights await? Stay tuned…

Sunday Poetry: Love is like red, red wine

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Above: I snapped this pic with my Blackberry as I drove across Arkansas, on my way back to Little Rock from Texarkana. I like the way the phone’s camera makes the trees look two-dimensional.

There were a lot of things about my recent sales trip to Arkansas that made me think about one of my favorite poets, Langston Hughes.

The beautiful trees that line Interstate 30 were one of them. They made me think of his poem “Daybreak in Alabama”:

    When I get to be a composer
    I’m gonna write me some music about
    Daybreak in Alabama
    And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it
    Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
    And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
    I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it
    …

Above: In Arkansas, they’re very proud of their tomatoes. For lunch, I ate Tomato Aspic — tomato jello stuffed with mayonnaise.

Wine appears more than once in Hughes’s poetry. As a child I was fascinated by his poem “Lament over Love,” which I read over and over and set to music:

    I hope my child’ll
    Never love a man.
    I say I hope my child’ll
    Never love a man.
    Love can hurt you
    Mo’n anything else can.

    I’m goin’ down to the river
    An’ I ain’t goin’ there to swim.
    My true love’s left me
    And I’m goin’ there to think about him.

    Love is like whiskey,
    Love is like red, red wine.
    Love is like whiskey,
    Like sweet red wine.
    If you want to be happy
    You got to love all the time.

    I’m goin’ up in a tower
    Tall as a tree is tall,
    Up in a tower
    Tall as a tree is tall.
    Gonna think about my man
    And let my fool-self fall.

Above: Turnip greens in Arkansas were also really tasty.

Many of Hughes’s poems were adaptations of blues songs. As a teenager, I was also fascinated by his autobiography, The Big Sea, which I read over and over again. The chapters devoted to his time in Europe were heavily dogeared in my paperback copy (I wrote about his visit to Desenzano here).

Above: In North Little Rock where I spoke at a wine dinner, I slept at the Baker House, a Victorian home listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. The man who built it was not allowed to live there because of his color.

Life in Arkansas is certainly different than New York, California, or Austin. I’d never been there before this year. People were very nice to me and I had a lot of fun pouring and talking about wine. I certainly can’t complain.

    …
    Though you may hear me holler,
    And you may see me cry
    I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
    If you gonna see me die.

    Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

    (from “Life is Fine”)

Above: I sold Barolo and Barbaresco to Tom’s Jug Shop in Texarkana. You can buy beer and liquor there at a drive-through window. They give you a cup of ice with your order, if you want. You wouldn’t think it from the sign and facade but they know their wine there.

Life is certainly never boring and as much as I miss Tracie B when I’m away from Austin, I love the travel and the new places I get to visit (Louisiana is next). As Langston Hughes wrote in the epigraph of The Big Sea:

Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pull.

Mourvèdre envy (and more on Giacosa)

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Mourvèdre envy in Freudian psychoanalysis refers to the theorized reaction of a wine lover during her or his oenological development to the realization that she or he does not have access to old Bandol. Freud considered this realization a defining moment in the development of palate and oenological identity. According to Freud, the parallel reaction in those who have access to old Mourvèdre is the realization that others have access to old Nebbiolo, a condition known as Nebbiolo anxiety.

Above: Tracie B and I drank the current vintage of Tempier Bandol Rosé — made from Mourvèdre — by the glass with our excellent housemade sausage tacos at the Linkery in San Diego. Jay Porter’s farm-to-table menu and his homemade cruvinet are hugely popular. The food is always fun and tasty. Jay was one of the first San Diego restaurateurs to use a blog to market his restaurant.

Tracie B and I have had our share of great Mourvèdre lately: we were blown away by the flight of old Terrebrune Bandol — rosé and red — we got to taste last month in San Francisco at the Kermit Lynch portfolio tasting. As the Italians might say, we’re “Mourvèdre addicted.”

Above: Jayne and Jon serve Terrebrune Bandol Rosé in half-bottles at Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego — a great summer aperitif wine and a fantastic pairing with Chef Daniel’s scallop ceviche. I was first hipped to Terrebrune by BrooklynGuy: it shows impressive character and structure and costs a lot less than Tempier.

So you can imagine how I began to salivate like Pavlov’s dog when I read BrooklynGuy’s recent post on a bottle of 1994 Tempier Rouge that he had been saving. Like Produttori del Barbaresco, Tempier represents a great value and the current release of the red is generally available at about $50 retail — the upper end of my price point ceiling. In other words, it’s a wine that even the modest wine collector can invest in with fantastic results. Despite the acute case of Mourvèdre envy that he gave me, I really liked BrooklynGuy’s profile of this “natural wine” producer and his tasting notes.

Nota bene: BrooklynGuy and I are both slated to appear in Saignée’s 31 Days of Natural Wine series. My post is schedule for June 20 and you might be surprised at what I had to say. Thanks again, Cory! I’m thrilled to get to participate with so many fantastic bloggers and writers.

In other news…

Above: That’s my lunch yesterday at Bryce’s Cafeteria in Texarkana on the Texas-Arkansas border. Chicken fried chicken steak and tomato aspic stuffed with mayonnaise. Tracie B is gonna kill me if that gravy doesn’t… They sure are proud of their tomatoes in Arkansas and tomato season has nearly arrived.

So many blogs and so little time… I’m on my way back to Austin from Arkansas (where I’ve been hawking wine) and I wish I had time to translate Franco’s post on Bruno Giacosa’s decision not to bottle his 2006 Barolo and Barbaresco, the infelicitous manner in which the news was announced by the winery, and how the news was subsequently disseminated. Upon reading Decanter’s sloppy cut-and-paste job, one prominent wine blogger tweeted “note to self, don’t buy 2006 Barbaresco.” My plea to all: please know that 2006 is a good if not great vintage in Langa and please, please, please, read betweet the lines…

Holy guacamole, Batman! Ceviche porn (warning: extreme fish content)

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Yo, Dr. V, impossible pairing? What does one pair with ceviche? Tracie B and I don’t usually drink wine at lunch (when we ate most of the fish during our San Diego trip) and we had sake with our sushi (see below). What would you pair with ceviche? Leave a comment and let me know!

Is that a face or IS THAT A FACE? I couldn’t help but post this snap Tracie B took of a ray in the aquarium at the new Zenbu in Cardiff (North County, San Diego).

Isn’t he cool? That is, assuming he’s a he! Owners Matt and Jacqueline Rimel and I all went to La Jolla High together and I’m thrilled to see their businesses thriving.

Like the La Jolla location, the cooking style is decidedly Southern Californian. I like to call it “heavy metal” sushi. Tracie B and I had the Mexicali Roll (above), which is basically a classic shrimp roll with a garnish of jalapeño and cilantro imparting some Baja California flavors. It was delicious.

The traditional-style ceviche at Bahia Don Bravo in La Jolla was awesome, as always. So were the grilled mahi mahi tacos and the camaronillas (shrimp deep-fried in a corn tortilla).

The ceviche at Bay Park Fish Company in Mission Bay, San Diego was slightly more contemporary but just as delicious. I’m loving living in Austin but one thing I really miss about Southern California is the availability of super fresh seafood.

Like Matt’s materia prima at Zenbu, most of the fish at my high school bud Marc Muller’s Bay Park Fish Co. is also sourced as locally — and as humanely — as possible. Tracie B said these were the best clams she has had outside of Italy.

I couldn’t resist this pic either, snapped at Siesel’s Old Fashioned Meats, right next door to Bay Park Fish Company.

In other news…

I’m about to get on a plane for Little Rock, Arkansas where I’ll be hawking wine for the next few days. It should be a fun trip, with wine dinners tonight and tomorrow.

But I miss her already…