huevos con vino

This is an interesting weekend for me. It’s the first time since mid-2004 that I’ve been alone in my own apartment; my wife went to visit her family and there was no way I could take another week off so soon after our East Coast vacation trip. So while she’s gone I am trying to indulge in everything she finds less interesting than I do. For example, I watched John Carpenter’s The Thing tonight for the 12th time and made up a new drink. It’s 50% lemonade, 50% iced tea, and 10% Scotch. It would be an Arnold Palmer without the Scotch, so I decided to call this drink the “John Daly.”  But then I found out that they already named another drink after John Daly, so I guess any old rummy golfer’s name would do. Maybe the “Bob Hope” is a good compromise since the drink tastes a little funny.

Anyway, one of the things I try to do on my own is visit wine stores. I do enjoy visiting wine stores with my wife, but I have a way of spending 60-90 minutes inside a good wine store, feeling guilty the entire time as my wife waits patiently at first, then impatiently, then in the car with the engine running. I believe I did that to her on our honeymoon. Hopefully she decides to return from her parents’ house next week.

Since I had a gift certificate to spend, I wanted to give the Pike and Western Wine Shop in Seattle a serious look. I had been in once before, but not for any proper length of time, and that was with my vaguely patient wife. So today I went back and spent about 20 minutes poking around the small store. I quickly noticed that this store is both friendly and snobby. I’d say the clientèle makes the store snobby in this case as the staff were helpful but several other patrons nearly body-checked me into the Italian wines on a few occasions. That would have been costly.

Or perhaps not. The store didn’t exactly have a massive selection of wine, although what they did have appeared to be carefully selected, reasonably priced for the most part, and representative of France, Italy, and the Northwest US. I did find a couple of Radio-Coteau bottles ($50+) and the 2005 Hirsch Pinot Noir release ($60). Ouch. I decided to come back another time with my $50 gift certificate.

I strolled down the hill to The Spanish Table, one of my new favorite wine stores in Seattle. Their focus is Spain, Portugal, and a bit of Chile and Argentina, and their resident wine expert knows her stuff. She’s a little intimidating because of her tremendous command of regional Spanish and Portugese wines, and because she knows how to pronounce everything she sells. I took French and Italian, but never Spanish or Portugese, so varietals such as Xarello scare the heck out of me, phonetically speaking. But with Catherine’s help, I picked out a great wine for WBW #37, which is just around the corner.

As I walked back up the steep Pike Place hill toward my car, I saw something a bit strange. Now, I am not a parent, but a frequent topic of conversation between my wife and I is the parenting quality on display in and around Seattle. I can summarize it in two words: It sucks. People in this region make horrible parents, or at least the people I see with children routinely reflect their inadequate levels of common sense and ability to think of their children as children rather than miniature adults. I guess these parents would be better suited to the Victorian era, when children were perceived as adults and did factory work that adults were too large to do.  Seattle parents tend to be older and more educated than the parents I see elsewhere in the world.  Maybe that’s why Seattle parents try to reason patiently with their 2-year-old children at the grocery store in the checkout line right in front of me every time I’m buying two things and trying to get home to cook dinner.
But I digress.

As I walked back up the hill, I noticed a kid in a stroller next to a parked car. It was an odd sight because, hey, how the heck did that kid get himself into his stroller next to a car without an adult? At least, that was my first thought since I didn’t see any adults around. My second thought was, “So this is how kids get kidnapped.” It was pathetic: The car was a Volvo and the owner had his back to his year-old son, who had a scared look on his face as he sat in a stroller that was pointed down a steeply-sloping sidewalk. In fact, I would think about the son’s face again later, but with a slightly changed perspective.

I kept walking. I noticed the little kid, the late-model Volvo sedan, and the back of a man who was on the street side of the car with the passenger door open. He seemed to be busy with something. Just as I passed the car, the father said something:

“No butterfly cookie!”

My ears perked up a bit. No butterfly cookie? What the hell does that mean?

And then I heard another kid, slightly older, probably about 3 years old at the most. He was clearly pissed off. He said to his father:

“Daddy, you’re stupid.”

Nice one. I know a few kids like that, very charming. Also, they’re 3 YEARS OLD, so that’s the sort of thing you’d expect a tired, probably hungry, overstimulated little boy to say. Right? I would expect that. But this is where things got good.

The father quickly stammered his reply:

“No, YOU’RE STUPID. If you weren’t being so obnoxious to me right now, you’d get to have your butterfly cookie. But now you don’t get one! NO BUTTERFLY COOKIE! THAT’S ALL!”

He stuttered a bit as he delivered his rebuttal while his son sobbed in the back seat. The father was clearly angry about something; there was no other adult with him, so perhaps he was angry about having to take both kids while his goddamned wife got a facial at the spa again, where she seems to spend all of her time and HIS money lately, in case he hadn’t noticed, and meanwhile he has to wrangle these two annoying little brats all over town, buying them shit and being the responsible one while that bitch gets her stupid nails done!

At least, that’s what I assume he was thinking as I quickened my pace up the hill.

Now, I understand that people have bad days. I know that we all get stressed out and upset over petty things. But holy hell, when you start calling your 3-year-old son “stupid” that forcefully, in public, while your 1-year-old son sits in a stroller pointing downhill…well, perhaps you should stop for a moment and consider the responsibility you have to your family. I get the same feeling every time I eat at a restaurant and I see two parents not talking to one another as they drink their third margaritas while their young children get into trouble all over the joint without any sort of parental attention or reprimand. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned. Perhaps I’m simply getting old. Or, perhaps, I’m not really aware just how difficult it is to raise children. Maybe kids really do drive you to drink. Maybe kids really are stupid and deserve to be called out as such by their parents. Then again, maybe not.

I don’t really know what to think about the whole situation with this specific family. I do know why the younger child looked so alarmed as I approached on my way up the hill. Kids pick up on so many nuances in their parents’ behavior, speech, and moods, and they take it hard when parents get angry. Luckily, many kids are pretty resilient and they grow up to be nice, happy people despite childhoods spent defending themselves from inadequate parents. But no kid deserves to be called “stupid” by his own father, particularly at such a young age.

Now I know why, from time to time when I enter a wine store, some of the patrons seem like royal assholes. It’s because they are assholes, even to their own children. That’s just sad.

I guess even parents need a butterfly cookie sometimes.

On gently sloping hillsides, dusted with early morning fog and tinged with effervescent dew, rest a handful of artisans who enjoy nothing more than to caress and serenade the world’s most exclusive grape vines. Surrounded by a blast of autumnal colors and verdant stripes of pasture, these vines require supreme attention to yield their elusive nectar. But before this sybaritic elixir can be created by our Nobel Prize-winning winemaker, the grapes themselves must first be carried unblemished to the winery on the backs of tiny peasant women born and raised in an extinct province of Burkina Faso, women who were only brought to the United States in 1963 on an immigration technicality. There is no finer workforce in the world.

Once the precious cargo has reached the winery doors, the grapes are gently crushed with platinum, an inert metal, before being sluiced in a very gentle way into a 27-tier, gravity-fed, ermine-lined system of golden tubes.  These tubes lead to the diamond-encrusted, 120% French Oak barrels hand-toasted by none other than the former President of France and renowned cooper, Francois Mitterand, shortly before his death in 1996. This “late” period of Mitterand’s work is considered his finest.

After no less than 47 years in these barrels, the wine is nearly complete. A final blessing is spoken over every barrel prior to bottling, rendering the wine both kosher and suitable for Catholic church services in every state except New York. The bottles are taken from the incomparable Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, where geological pressure formed them naturally over the course of 800 million years and where they grew in such conditions as to create deep punts that extend from the base of each bottle to just 5 millimeters below the neck. Labels are printed using 50% post-consumer waste and 50% recycled illuminated manuscripts. The cork used to seal each bottle comes from the tomb of Cleopatra, who was mummified inside a cork sarcophagus and who was buried with enough beeswax to enclose just 15,000 cases of our wine. Should you so desire, Jeroboams and Nebuchadnezzars are available for an additional shipping fee, packaging fee, handling fee, insurance fee, and a “fee” fee that is actually a fee for incurring so many lesser fees.

Once this wine touches your lips, hits your tongue, makes its way past your uvula and into your stomach, you will experience a sensual and aesthetic pleasure rivaled only by those brave souls who have complete a pilgrimage to Cythera, or who have tried our late-harvest Riesling. Our “second-pressing” wine is actually made from the excrement of those lucky tasters who drink our estate-bottled reserve wine. Please sign up for our mailing list and be sure to join our wine club, which features a new wage garnishment clause that our top customers will appreciate as a way to insult those lesser customers who cannot afford to remain in the club after the first shipment.

On my second of three nights in Chicago recently, I went to Spring. This restaurant receives great reviews, has wonderful decor, and is generally regarded as a smart place to visit in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago.

That said, something was lacking at Spring. Granted, I was there on a Sunday evening, so the place was about as festive as a mortuary. That’s not very festive. Also, the elite of the service staff were at odds with the rest of the service staff, which made things a tad uncomfortable. I don’t even know what I ate for my third or fourth courses from the tasting menu that I ordered. But I did hear a waiter taking other people to task over serving me too quickly. Strange.

Yes, I ordered the tasting menu, and because of some food allergy issues I asked for a more seafood-centric menu. The waiter and chef were more than happy to oblige, which was nice. Here’s an abbreviated list of the delicious food:

• Amuse bouche - Buckwheat soba noodles in an aged soy glaze
• First course - Raw maguro (tuna)
• Second course - Seared hamachi
• Third course - Maine diver scallops
• Fourth course - Raspberry/blackberry melange of sorbet with a red/black raspberry drink thing

I also had the suggested wine pairings with the meal; I never saw a bottle nor a description of anything I drank, so I have no idea who made these wines, how old they were, etc. Now that’s annoying:

• Sparkling rosé - a nice start!
• Sake - tasty, but a little strange after the rosé
• Riesling - delicious, wine of the night for me
• Viognier - absolutely one of the worst pairings I have ever had, and not a great Viognier either

After the meal, I asked the waiter for a copy of the menu listing what I had, or at least the wines that I had. He said that was not possible because the computer was down, or some such strangeness. Huh? Just write me a list? Nobody else was eating at this point! Oh well. The decor was nice.
In the end, I wanted to like Spring, but I doubt I’d go back, even on a Friday or Saturday. They need to sort out a few quirks before they can justifiably consider themselves in the same league as Blackbird, one of their sister restaurants. Apparently in Chicago, many places prepare great food, but it’s really the service that can make or break the dining experience.

Summer is in full swing in Seattle. The skies are blue, the sun is shining, the crows are slowly roasting to death on the power lines. You get the picture.

Also, summer marks the release of each new vintage of Domaine Drouhin Willamette Valley Pinot Noir; this year, it’s the 2005 vintage that will be released on August 1st. Apparently the 2005 vintage yielded a small crop of grapes again, although by “small” they meant almost 7,500 cases of the 2004 vintage, which was down from 8,907 cases of the 2003 vintage. I think of the concept of “limited” a bit differently; 189 cases of 2004 Louise Pinot Noir sounds limited to me.

Anyway, the 2005 will be shipped to me in mid-October, once the summer ends and football season begins. That’s “football” as in American football, not “soccer.” And from the sound of it, the 2005 Pinot Noir from DDO will require 7-10 years of aging before it is fully ready to drink. Nice! That’s quite a long aging cycle for their basic Pinot release, so I’m quite excited to hear what that means for the Laurène and Louise releases.

The 2005 Willamette Valley (aka Classique) hits the market at $45/bottle, the same price as the 2004 release. I get 15% off as a member of the DDO Direct club, which is pretty darn sweet. I can also order a Jeroboam for $200 if I want. For those of you not in the know, a Burgundy Jeroboam is a wine bottle with 3 liters of wine inside, equivalent to 4 regular bottles. Hot damn! That’s a big party waiting to happen, I’d say.  In Bordeaux, a Jeroboam contains 4.5 liters of wine, so be careful if you’re buying a Jeroboam at auction and it seems cheaper than you expected.  I know this sort of thing happens to me on a weekly basis.
I look forward to the 2005 releases from DDO; the other Oregonian Pinot I have tried from the 2005 vintage has been universally worthwhile. I think Lachini really produced some of the best 2005 wines that I have had the chance to taste so far. But I expect DDO to make some really awesome wines that should compete with anything from California, or possibly Burgundy….

I say this a lot on my blog, but Odisea is one of my favorite wineries.  Over the last few years, they have significantly diversified their offerings, moving from Tempranillo and Garnacha to a variety of interesting red, white, and even rosé wines.  But I think they are just beginning to hit their stride now that Viognier is being included in the mix.

As a Journey Member, I receive three bottles of wine in four shipments per year.  That adds up to a case of wine spread out over an entire year, which is a pretty nice deal for $300 shipped overall.  Each separate shipment has the latest releases in it; for example, the shipment I received yesterday contained the following:

• 2006 Muse Rosé (2 bottles, 65 cases made) - Grenache (60%), Mourvedre (20%), Tempranillo (18%), Viognier (2%)
• 2006 Angèle (1 bottle, 60 cases made) - Grenache Blanc (97%), Viognier (3%)

The Muse has been released before, but in 2005 it featured a 50/50 blend of Tempranillo and Grenache.  As you can see, this year the blend favors Grenache, with nearly equal measures of Tempranillo and Mourvedre plus a splash of Viognier.  Very exciting!  I can’t wait to try a bottle; the Muse Rosé is one of my favorite wines regardless of coloration.

The Angèle is a new one for Odisea, a white wine that focuses on Grenache Blanc as its primary varietal.  Odisea used the French Entave clone #141 for this particular wine.  I don’t know what that means exactly, but it makes me want to learn more about the possible Grenache Blanc varietals that exist.  Apparently it is the “fourth most common white wine grape in France,” if you believe Wikipedia.  Here is more information on this varietal, and more information on the wine that Odisea has made from it.  I have never tasted a Grenache Blanc wine, but I look forward to trying this one!

All three bottles are safely in my fridge at the moment, resting after what I assume was a hot journey north from California.  The corks look okay so I think these bottles made it to my safely.  I’ll have to open a bottle soon and find out for sure!