Tag Archives: Philip Marlowe

An INCREDIBLE flight with the Philip Marlowe of wine

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It was about 8 o’clock in the evening, end of May, with the Manhattan moon rising above midtown and a look of hard wet rain in the distance of New Jersey. I was wearing my pinstripe blue suit, with a light checkered shirt and an orange square tie. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed sommelier ought to be. I was about to pour an 1971 Produttori del Barbaresco.

Words cannot begin to describe the sensations Tracie P and I experienced a few weeks ago in New York, when our dear friend Mary Anne treated us to dinner at Alto in midtown Manhattan, where Levi Dalton — the Philip Marlowe of the New York wine scene — had created a special flight just for us.

There a lot of talented wine professionals in New York but none is sharper than Levi, and man, he’s at the top of his game right now, really and truly in the zone. And I’m sure that anyone who knows Levi will concur: the dude’s dry wit and deftness at wordplay are matched only by the acuity of his palate. Raymond Chandler couldn’t have written a more perfect Philip Marlowe of wine.

I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a wine key and a serviette.

Like a mind-reader, Levi couldn’t have thrilled us more than by opening the flight with this Saignée de Sorbée by Vouette et Sorbée. Incredible freshness, sumptuous aroma, sexy but not overly generous fruit flavor.

Next came the 2005 Arbois Pupillon by Overnoy. I’d only ever tasted this wine in Québec, where it seems to be easier to find. To me, wines like this are the “unbearable lightness of being.” They are so light in body yet so rich in mouthfeel, delicately fragrant on the nose yet muscular in the palate. Perhaps only in Barbaresco do I find that same counter-intuitive, ineffable sensory experience. The same equine metaphors apply.

The whole restaurant turned around to see what the fuss was about when Tracie P and I gasped in delight at the appearance of this wine. 1974 not the greatest vintage for this wine but showing admirably. Little did we know what was about to come…

Dreams do come true. Awesome vintage (older than Tracie P!), beautifully cellared bottle. One of the great wine experiences of my lifetime (up there with 1989 Barbaresco Santo Stefano by Bruno Giacosa).

Angiolino Maule’s wines were a discovery for me on this recent trip to New York. Later in the trip, I tasted his declassified Soave. Fantastic wines. Great acidity even in this recioto di Soave. A true connoisseur’s wine.

And not to be outdone in the brandy department… The above photo needs no caption.

“How do you like your brandy?” asked General Sternwood. “In a glass,” said Marlowe.

From Levi Dalton to Romano Levi… what a night! What an amazing flight of wines.

Thanks again, Mary Anne for treating me and Tracie P to such an unforgettable evening in celebration of our wedding. And thanks, Levi, for being such a great friend (however from afar) and for creating such a special flight of wines just for us. I’ll never forget it.

De urbe angelorum primum scriptum: Osteria Angelini

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Do Bianchi adds a new category: de urbe angelorum. Here beginneth a cycle of posts on the City of Angeles. And what better way to begin than a post on Osteria Angelini and Chef Gino Angelini, who couldn’t have found a better city to call his home…

Above: like me, this old Rolls has seen better days but still retains its dignity in the City of Angels.

Alduous Huxley, Thomas Mann, Raymond Bradbury — they’ve lived in Los Angeles. But perhaps no great writer is more closely associated with Lotusland than Raymond Chandler and his alter ego Philip Marlowe:

    “I used to like this town,” I said, just to be saying something and not to be thinking too hard. “A long time ago. There were trees along Wilshire Boulevard. Beverly Hills was a country town. Westwood was bare hills and lots offering at eleven hundred dollars and no takers. Hollywood was a bunch of frame houses on the interurban line. Los Angeles was just a big dry sunny place with ugly homes and no style, but goodhearted and peaceful. It had the climate they just yap about now. People used to sleep ou on porches. Little groups who thought they were intellectual used to call it the Athens of America. It wasn’t that, but it wasn’t a neon-lighted slum either.”

    We crossed La Cienega and went into the curve of the Strip. The Dancers was a blaze of light. The terrace was packed. The parking lot was like ants on a piece of overripe fruit.

    “Now we get characters like this Steelgrave owning restaurants. We get guys like that fat boy that bawled me out back there. We’ve got the big money, the sharp shooters, the percentage workers, the fast-dollar boys, the hoodlums out of New York and Chicago and Detroit — and Cleveland. We’ve got the flash restaurants and night clubs they run, and the hotels and apartment houses they own, and the grifters and con men and female bandits that live in them. The luxury trades, the pansy decorators, the Lesbian dress designers, the riffraff of a big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup. …

    —Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister

Above: contributors to the Squires bulletin board would cringe. Open a 96 Giacosa Barolo Falletto Riserva at a puerile 12 years of age? Pshah, I say. This wine was fantastic, powerful, meaty, with earthy Langa flavors. It paired exquisitely with our seared wild boar loin (rare in the middle, see below).

Not so long ago, I was chastised by my lawyer, a Brit and wine lover, a friend who demands the truth and only the truth and pulls no punches (and a great litigator, I might add): “Stop complaining, you twit,” he said, “you’re poor and you still get to drink amazing wines!”

Case in point: the other night, I was treated to a bottle of 1996 Giacosa Barolo Falletto Riserva — one of Italy’s most coveted wines, in one of its greatest vintages — by Italian wine collector extraordinaire and fellow Nebbiolophile David Schachter (pictured above, with Chef Gino Angelini of Osteria Angelini on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood). David knows me through mutual friends and through Do Bianchi and we met a few months ago at Lou on Vine on the occasion Alice Feiring’s book reading.

David is a huge fan of the octopus and baby arugula antipasto at Angelini. It paired beautifully with a 2006 Venica & Venica Malvasia.

While Gino’s menu is primarily traditional Italian, he selected gnocchi with lobster — a very untraditional combination — as one of our primi: these were the best gnocchi I’ve had in a long time, delicate and light but consistent in mouthfeel. The tomato lobster sauce (more typically served over long noodles) was ethereal… We also enjoyed very traditional spaghetti alla chitarra topped with shaved black truffles and a gorgeous and decadent nido (pasta “nest”) with béchamel. David paired with a 2004 Giacosa Barbera Superiore (also splendid).

The seared wild boar loin and 1996 Barolo made for one of those sublime pairings: a seemingly divine confluence of aromas, flavors, and textures.

All the waitstaff at Angelini is Italian. Although the restaurant’s decor is humble Angelino trattoria chic and the prices are more than reasonable, Captain Gino Rindone performs four-star service nightly at Angelini: to see him debone a branzino tableside, you’d think you were at Da Vittorio in Bergamo.

Reader Christopher writes that “everyone calls Gino Rindone ‘Ginetto’ to distinguish him from Gino” Angelini.

All in all, I must say, my Angelino experience is off to an auspicious start… Not bad for a big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup. Stay tuned…

*****

“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.”
Less than Zero
—Bret Easton Ellis