Posts from the Gulf coasts and dispatches on the spill

Above: Guitar legend Jimmie Vaughan is a master of the “Gulf Coast” guitar style. I snapped the above photo last year at Antone’s in Austin.

Just a quick end-of-the-day post to point your attention to a couple of Gulf Coast blogs where you can read about the local impact of the BP oil spill. The author is Ms. Ashley, who reps Kermit’s wines in the South Eastern U.S. (we met when I accompanied Kermit on his record party tour last year).

Check out her posts on the oil spill and how it’s affected gulf coast beaches and the local food and wine economy, here and here (with photos).

Thanks for reading: please don’t forget the victims of the BP oil spill!

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

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

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…

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

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!

Kermit Lynch rocks Austin and Nashville next week

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

My dinner with Étienne (in flyover country)

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).

Kermit Lynch is coming to Austin and he’s bringing some damn good music with him…

Above: Tracie B and me met Kermit Lynch in real life for the first time in May in San Francisco. In case you don’t know, Tracie B would be the good-looking one on the right.

Like so many good things that have happened to me over the last year and a half thanks to the blog, I met Kermit Lynch back in April when he commented on my post Idol and Bandol. Who knew that Kermit read my blog?

We’ve stayed in touch since then and a few months ago he asked me if I’d give him a hand organizing a listening party for his new release on Dualtone, Man’s Temptation. Needless to say, I was thrilled to get to work with him, in part because I love his palate and have always been a fan, in part because I’ve been digging his new disk and have become a new fan, and dulcis in fundo it’s just so cool to get to work with a luminary in the biz who loves country music as much as Tracie B and me.

In our trans-Atlantic conversations (he in Provence, me in Austin), he told me about how he grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, the son of an itinerant evangelist. The Grapes of Wrath was the backdrop: the souls his father saved were the same southern farmers who came to California in search of Merle Haggard’s “California Cotton Fields,” one of my favorite Merle tunes and one that Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris both covered:

    My drifting memory goes back to the Spring of ’43
    When I was just a child in Mama’s arms
    My daddy ploughed the ground
    And prayed that someday he might leave
    This run down mortgaged Oklahoma farm

That’s some pretty serious country cred that Kermit’s got.

Here’s the info and the press release I composed to launch the event. I hope to see you there: if you’ve been planning a trip to Austin, this might be a fun time to make it out.

kermit_cover2Man’s Temptation: An Evening with Kermit Lynch

Monday, November 9 @ Vino Vino, Austin, Texas

listening party and wine tasting

singer, song-writer, and wine industry legend Kermit Lynch plays cuts from his new album Man’s Temptation (Dualtone) and talks about his music, his life, and his wines

Monday, November 9, 2009, 7 p.m.
$20 (ticket price includes 1 glass of wine)

Vino Vino
4119 Guadalupe St
Austin, TX 78751-4222
(512) 465-9282

with a menu inspired by the wines and travels of Kermit Lynch

All currently stocked Kermit Lynch wines will be available by the glass and available for sale retail.

Reservations required, space limited.

To reserve, please call (512) 465-9282 or email jeff@vinovinotx.com.

Rocker Interrupted: Kermit Lynch finally yields to temptation

Singer-Songwriter Kermit Lynch releases Man’s Temptation (Dualtone), a collection of ballads, rockers, and ditties, spanning forty years of faith, temptation, and musical salvation (produced by Ricky Fataar).

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
—Oscar Wilde

From the opening lines of Man’s Temptation, singer-songwriter Kermit Lynch cinematically sets the backdrop for the multi-layers of his life as a singer, writer, and wine Svengali:

    Paris and my mind is breaking
    Paris, I’m in a railway station
    Gare de Lyon…

But just when you think that the gravelly, smoky voice behind the old tube-driven microphone is about to head out to Lyon to taste wines with a Beaujolais producer, the melody of the track rises and steers the listener in another and entirely unexpected direction. The singer is in a railway station,

    Gare de Lyon, on my way to the next concert stage.

Man’s Temptation was recorded just last year in Nashville, Tennessee with some of the great country music players in the business today but the album represents a journey that began more than forty years ago in Berkeley, California.

Lynch was born in Bakersfield and grew up of the son of a teetotalling itinerant preacher who traveled the upper reaches of the San Joaquin Valley in search of souls to save. The setting was straight out of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, as Lynch puts it, and the souls were southerners who had fled their native land and sought out the same “California Cotton Fields” that Merle Haggard’s father dreamed of as he tilled his rundown, mortgaged Oklahoma farm. It was there that Lynch discovered his first love of music (and grape juice, since no wine was to be had): Jimmy Rogers, Hank Williams, and the country recordings of Jerry Lee Lewis were the first cuts he would hear, the same music his father’s congregants listened to when not singing at church.

By 1966, Lynch had landed in Berkeley, at the height of the music scene. He began writing songs, started a band, and gigged around. But a first trip to Europe and a drummer’s cocaine habit interrupted and deferred the rockstar dream. Disillusioned by the flower power scene, Lynch decided to focus on making a living and turned to a second passion: wine.

Hit pause and fast forward: forty years later, Kermit Lynch is one of the most successful and respected names in the business and he is considered one of the world’s greatest wine writers, a pioneer in reshaping the American wine palate with wines that speak of place and the people who make them.

Hit play: forty years later, Lynch has delivered the album he lived and wrote all those years ago and in the lifetime that followed, a collection of ballads, rockers, and ditties that speak to the weaknesses and the strengths of man and his temptations.

From the original tracks like ballad “Gare de Lyon,” the Beggars Banquet-inspired country waltz “Backstreets of Moscow,” and the rocker “Buckle-Up Boogie” to covers of classic Dylan like “Girl from the North Country” and classic country like “Take These Chains from My Heart,” the verve, pathos, and fun of Lynch’s voice play counterpoint to some of the most bad-assed, finger-lickin’ pickin’ you’ve heard since the last time legendary session man George Marinelli (Bruce Hornsby, Bonnie Raitt) tuned up his git fiddle. The fresh analog-driven tones of the band provide an earthy palate of colors for the tableaux vivants painted by Lynch, whose face is probably slightly less wrinkled than his heart and whose voice is as gravelly and dusty as the vineyard roads of southern France that led this voice astray some forty years ago.

Kermit Lynch, rocker interrupted, is now waiting at the Gare de Lyon, getting ready to board a train on his way to the next concert stage.

Btw, I’ve taken a train from the Gare de Lyon to go play a gig in Lyon!

Natural wine with a capital N: 91 Nicolas Joly Coulée de Serrant

Above: What is natural wine? The question of what it is (and what it isn’t) is one of the most hotly debated topics in the world of wine blogging and punditry today. No one would deny, however, that Nicolas Joly’s Coulée de Serrant is natural wine. The 1991 was fantastic the other night.

Things have been so crazy lately — between “keeping the world safe for Italian wine” (check out this recent post I translated for VinoWire) and hawking wine in California (hey, Alder, there are wine bloggers who start wine clubs and are proud to attach their names to them!). So crazy that I neglected to post about a very special bottle of wine — 1991 Coulée de Serrant — that Tracie B and I opened to celebrate our anniversary a few weeks ago.

Above: I had packed the bottle in a thermal bag (recycled from my mom’s annual mother’s day gift of gravlax from Barney Greengrass) with an ice pack and stashed it my suitcase and brought it back from La Jolla to Austin. The sturdy wine held up well — not surprisingly.

Where did we find this bottle? In this most unlikely of places: La Jolla’s oldest luxury hotel, located on Prospect, in the heart of downtown, La Valencia (often pronounced lah vah-LEHN-chah by locals), affectionately known as “The Pink Lady” or “La V.” A good friend and fellow wine dude had mentioned that he found the wine on the list, which is otherwise dominated by flights and flights of big, oaky California Cabernet. Tracie B and went in there a few months ago at the end of the night and convinced the current sommelier to sell it to me (I have to say it was a steal for a Joly that old).

Above: At Trio, chef Todd Duplechan prepares shishito peppers the same way that padrón peppers are served in Spain. The pepper is not spicy but tangy and moreish, as the British might say.*

As it turns out, I recently became friends on Facebook with the sommelier who put that wine on the list at La V, Dustin Jones, who now reps for Fourcade and Hecht. “It was definitely a hand sell,” he wrote me, “and a tough one at that, the fact that 6 bottles were put in inventory and they still have it suggests that this is not a wine that sells itself!” One man’s esoterica turned out to be our golden Chenin treasure: Tracie B and I were thrilled to get to taste an older Joly and it didn’t disappoint.

Above: We shared our 91 Coulée de Serrant with sommelier Mark Sayre and chef Todd, who surprised us with this special dessert for the occasion. Mark is without a doubt the top sommelier in Austin and so whenever I have something really special that we want to open away from home, I take it to him. Mark and I are good friends but whenever you BYOB, you should always remember to share a glass with your sommelier.

The wine had bright acidity and nuanced fruit on the nose and in the mouth and it showed a caramel note that Tracie B attributed to the winery’s practice of letting botrytis form on the grapes. (Remember her post on our visit there?) No one would question the “natural wine” street cred of Joly and Joly’s approach to winemaking proves over and over again how natural winemaking can deliver remarkably delicious wines with remarkable aging ability.

Above: We had so much fun that night at Trio and Mark and Todd made such a special dinner for us. Even I feel handsome when I’m standing next to the beautiful Tracie B. Who wouldn’t?

In the wake of the San Diego Natural Wine Summit, a few folks have written me pointing out that not every wine we poured at the event would be considered a “natural wine” by everyone. I’ve even heard from some of the most authoritative voices in the field. I’m beginning to believe that the notion of “Natural Wine” (with a capital N) is more of an ideology and an attitude about living, eating, and drinking than a set code of self-imposed regulations. Recently, I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to interact with Kermit Lynch, who, when I asked him about this, told me: “Before I find out how the wine is made, I taste it, and if I like it then I ask about the winemaking.”

Can a wine taste “natural” even if some elements of vinification go against natural winemaking dogma?

* Of food or drink: that makes one want to have more (Oxford English Dictionary, online edition).

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

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…

Red, white, and sparkling carpet at Kermit Lynch Tasting

Some of the cool people I got to taste with in San Francisco…

The pre-Kermit-Lynch-tasting evening began with an aperitif of stinky wine at Terroir Natural Wine Merchant where we hung with my new friend Guilhaume Gerard. Between him chasing off a would-be shoplifter, a discussion of the cutthroat nature of our trade, and some Django on vinyl (how cool is that?), we had a fantastic time. I’m really digging Guilhaume’s blog, Wine Digger, and highly recommend it. (Book editors: there’s a story there that hasn’t been told yet.)

The pre-tasting dinner was held at an excellent restaurant I’d never been to, Jardinière, with a very chic, glamorous art-deco ambiance and great food. The man himself, Kermit, took time out to chat music and pose for a photo-op with me and the lovely Tracie B.

Also got to taste with Gerard’s partners the next day at the portfolio tasting, Luc Ertoran and Dagan Ministero (to the left and right, respectively) and their friend Ian Becker of Arlequin Wine Merchant in SF.

The previous week, I tasted beer not wine with Clark Z. Terry, who came to see our band Nous Non Plus play in SF. In my view, Clark represents the future of wine marketing: he’s cool, he’s hip, he’s way-friggin-intelligent, and he’s dialing Kermit into the age of viral marketing. Check out the Kermit blog, authored by Clark.

Tracie B and I got to catch up with one of our favorite people in the natural wine business, the inimitable Lou Amdur of Lou on Vine. I don’t really miss living in Los Angeles but I sure miss cozying up to the bar at Lou on Vine and checking out what he has in his glass. Terroir in SF may be giving him a run for my money but Lou remains for me the best natural wine bar and best wine bar period in the U.S.

Representing Austin in the house was Monsieur Josh Loving (center), Austin’s top natural wine palate, classical guitar player, and one of the coolest dudes I know in Texas. We kinda went ape-shit over 1987 Terrebrune Bandol Rouge that we tasted together. Geoffrey Metheny (right), who pours wine at Fino in Austin, had his eye on some of those California natural wine girls.

Our friends Dan and Melinda Redman, who own the company I work for, were so way-super-cool and generous to bring me and Tracie B along for the ride and what a ride it was. Thanks again, guys! Tracie B and I had a blast.

I didn’t taste any wine with this funny bunny but I did take this picture of him in the Sonoma downtown square where he was hanging with some Lego Stormtroopers. Thanks for reading this far!