Not quite a smash hit
Tonight, my fiance and her brother and I went to a relatively new wine bar in Seattle. It’s called Smash and it’s possibly the best addition to the Wallingford neighborhood since Bottleworks.
We went in after 8 PM. The place is laid out well: several bistro-style tables, a bar, a few booths for more privacy and better people-watching ability, and some outdoor seating for those insane Seattleites (typically, for some reason, 40-something women who are trying to look 20 years younger) who think sunshine equates with warm weather. We sat in a back booth.
The wine lists are intriguing. There are just over 50 wines by the glass, which can be 3 or 6 ounces depending on your preference. Prices are very reasonable; the most expensive glass was $10/3 ounces, but that was by far the most expensive pour. You can get a number of wines for $4/glass or even less. I tried a glass of the $10 wine, figuring I’d give their “best” wine a try. Here’s what I thought:
- Wine - 2003 Cadence Ciel du Cheval; Cabernet Sauvignon (48%), Cabernet Franc (25%), Merlot (18%), Petit Verdot (9%).
- Aroma: Weird at first - tar and cherry cough syrup, giving way to a black cherry/blackberry-esque nose.
- Flavor: Black fruit, sour plum, red currant, amaretto, campfire smoke; lots and lots of acid and tannic activity (too much in fact); needed to be aged another few years and then decanted for a couple of hours.
- Overall impression: Wicked sour. Needs a LOT more time either in the bottle or in the decanter.
I felt bad. The waitress obviously liked this wine, so I thought I knew what was happening. I asked the waitress if she had just opened the bottle when she poured it and she paused for a second as she refilled our water glasses. “Pretty recently, yeah.” Then, “Yeah, we did just open that bottle.”
Makes sense. The wine was as closed as a British restaurant on Sunday, which is to say the Robitussin/tar aroma just needed time to blow off. Ultimately, though, the wine needed more time in every sense.
When I read the Cadence Web site, I noticed that they recommend either aging this wine for at least a couple more years, or decanting for a couple of hours before serving. My question, then, is simple: I trust the people who run Smash since their wine selections were good and affordable, but why serve a wine so recently opened that hasn’t been decanted? I expected something much more rich and mouth-filling, and not quite so acidic and mouth-puckering.
Another faux pas: The wine arrived at my table in a glass. I never saw the bottle, I didn’t see them pour the wine, and the glass itself wasn’t really the best shape for a Cabernet blend. Weird. For the money, I’d like to at least see the bottle of wine for future reference, or at least to be fairly certain they didn’t just give me a $3 wine instead. Call me paranoid, but I still feel like an incredibly young man in the world of wine, and as such I’m an easy mark for making a few extra dollars. I believe they gave me the right wine, of course; they were quite nice at Smash and their dessert was incredibly good. They just need to iron out a few kinks with regard to their presentation.
Finally, here’s an open question: How the heck can you write notes about each wine you taste without looking like some sort of wine nerd who wants to update his wine spreadsheet when he gets home? My fiance noticed, however, that we receive incredibly good service when I take notes in a subtle way, so perhaps I should just keep doing what I’ve been doing, except maybe I should trim the beard a bit and wear a collared shirt more often. I guess I’ll just keep writing notes on receipts with a ballpoint pen in a style that, I hope, makes it look like I’m about to award the sommelier a Michelin star for service and selection.
August 10th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
I usually just go with the looking like a wine nerd. If it’s a place I would feel uncomfortable with taking notes then I just remember as much as I can about the wine (usually I forget things like colour and just try to remember the main aromas and flavour/structure) and then write it down at the first opportunity on the way home or at home.
At first I was unable to remember anything about the wine without notes at the time I was drinking it, but it is slowly getting easier to remember clear details some time later. People I know that have been drinking wine for decades like David Lole write awesome notes from memory and I hope I get to that stage sometime.
August 10th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
That’s good advice…I do have a good memory for tasting wines, but I feel like I want to get the most primary feelings down on paper immediately so I don’t change them later by accident. Sort of like a creative writing exercise.
My future brother-in-law says I should get a PDA and type up my thoughts. Very tempting…and nerdy.