Tag Archives: Gamay

A wine that Joe Dressner AND Robert Parker like (and a Fellini movie)

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People are going to wonder why I continue to write about wines imported by Louis/Dressner. In the light of Mr. Joe Dressner’s myriad waspish attacks, I’ll probably regret writing about the below wine. My blog is about our life and the wines and foods and poems and songs and films and joys and challenges that we embrace and face every day and I just couldn’t omit this wine. As the ex-Wine Digger once pointed out to me (and he was right), wines are an expression of the places where they are made and the people who make them — not the tertiaries who import them. And I certainly hold nothing against Mr. Dressner and only wish him a speedy recovery.

What a thrill to get to taste (FINALLY) the FRV100 by Jean-Paul Brun! The name of this gently sparkling 100% Gamay from Beaujolais is a rebus (as they say at the counter at Brooks Brothers in Manahattan, there are those among us who know Latin and those who don’t): FRV100 for eff-er-ves-cent, effervescent or sparkling in this context.

I loved everything about this wine: the low alcohol (around 7.5%), the gentle fizziness, the wonderful WONDERFUL fruit on the nose and in the mouth, and the playful, bright packaging (the winemaker uses the rebus as an acronym for a wonderful plaisir, a prosodic form adored by the early Occitan poets). FRV100 and barbecue? FRV100 and mole from Polvo’s? FRV100 and Tracie P’s nachos? HELL YEAH! I think it’s safe to say that this will be our wine of the summer of 2011.

But inasmuch as I believe that all wines are an expression of epistemological reflection, this bottling is all the more remarkable because — as I read in Mr. Dressner’s glistening marketese — not only does the Pope of Natural Wine like this wine, but so does Mr. Robert Parker, Jr.! The Emperor of Wine has called Brun’s wines “beautiful” and ranked the winery as a four-star affair, according to the Pope’s site. Felicitously unbelievable!

I loved the wine so much that I’ve paired it with a screening of Fellini’s 1957 Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria) on May 18 at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz in Austin, where I’ll be speaking about the film and the pairings (btw, the paperback version of my translation of Brunetta’s narrative guide to The History of Italian Cinema was recently published by Princeton University Press).

Why did I pair it with Fellini’s transitional classic (one of my favorite movies of his, btw)? You’ll just have to come to the screening on May 18 to find out!

@JoeDressner and @RobertMParkerJr: I’ll be happy to comp either or both of you if you’d like to attend!

Food porn: cod cheeks, rabbit loin, and tannic Gamay in San Antonio

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Above: “If a French cook and an Italian cook met at the border on the coast what would they cook? Cod cheeks with arugula, fingerlings, house-cured pancetta, and saffron aioli.” That’s how Josh Cross describes one of his favorite dishes at Oloroso in San Antonio.

If you read Do Bianchi, then you’ve heard me say it before: of all the cities I’ve visited in Texas, San Antonio is by far the most gastronomically exciting, as in the case of Oloroso, where I hung out the other day and paired some cru Beaujolais — Côte de Brouilly by Château Thivin — with my friend, chef, and owner Josh Cross.

Above: Josh’s signature rabbit includes all the innards, the rabbit “fajitas” (in the foreground), and the loin, extra rare.

Although I’ve always been a lover of French wine and I’ve sold a lot of French wine on the floor of Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego, I’ve never had the opportunity to spend so much time professionally with French wine and I’m loving it (the company I work for represents the Kermit Lynch portfolio in Texas). I snagged a bottle of the Thivin (which I sell) the other day and popped it with Josh at the end of a work day. It’s amazing how tannic Gamay can be in its single-vineyard expressions and the wine had just the right lightness to go with Josh’s cod and enough structure to pair perfectly with his rabbit. (Eric did a series of posts and a column on cru Beaujolais last year, definitely worth checking out.)

Life could be worse…