A Magical and Mystical Wine Ride

I’ve been thinking a lot in the last couple of weeks about how drinking wine makes me feel. How does enjoying a glass of wine impact my mood and my emotions? What are the physiological effects and what mental images does it evoke? I’ve specifically gotten fixated on the transportative (not a word in the dictionary, but tell me you don’t get it) and transcendental aspects that follow from a sip of some wines. Where can a sip of wine take you?

I’ve concluded that based on my own reality there are two basic versions of this experience. The first is what happens when you are taken to back to a place where you previously enjoyed the same or similar wine, where the wine is made or any place from a prior experience with it. This feels somewhat like free word association to me, and isn’t at all surprising. There are so many connections made in our brains between different sensory stimuli. Our flavor and aroma memory is completely connected to our tactile, visual and auditory memories to form a composite picture (memory) that might be recalled by any of the different parts of the puzzle. These experiences are likely quite common and so much so that they are potentially easy to overlook. Pay attention people!

The second experience is when the taster is transported to a place defined by the harmony of the attributes of the wine, a place of pure fantasy, intense depth, color, passion, emotion, etc. I don’t think I’ve had this experience, but I will admit that without my attention properly focused at every occasion I’ve enjoyed a glass of wine I may have missed it. If this is the kind of experience I can expect to live the rest of my life searching for I am happier for it.

So how did a hitch a ride on this magic carpet? A book. More specifically, a graphic novel. I have to thank my friend Richard Auffrey (aka the Passionate Foodie) for his reviews of the Drops of God series. He’s a voracious reader and a very, very passionate wine & food lover creating a consistently winning combination. The Drops of God is a serial graphic novel about a wine journey, actually many wine journeys, from Japan. The first three volumes have been released and I have been fortunate enough (it really is that good) to have read through all three. Richard’s reviews of the first three segments (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3) contain spot on summaries and his own ponderings on the messages contained with the their pages. Here is my one sentence summary. The main character’s father passes away, wills him his prized wine collection on the condition that he can identify thirteen wines from only the descriptions provided in the will, and the ensuing journey of experience and education offers lots of twists and turns. Please read Richard’s summaries and reviews for the rest of the pertinents. I just don’t feel the need to cover that ground with such a solid resource just a click away.

As Richard points out in his reviews of volumes 2 & 3, there are quite a few words written about scores, ratings and critics. At each offering there is clear counterpoint though. What about personal tastes and the imagination of the consumer? It is possible that this is exactly what the author hoped to stir up for reflection and conversation. At first it was hard to get through these sections because of the tacit pretention, it made me wonder what we might have lost in translation, but ultimately I found other aspects to focus on. I would wholeheartedly recommend these books for any wine lover. They are a quick read, yet dense with imagery and points to consider over a glass of wine or two.

What I was most taken with was the metaphysical journeys that the characters, and especially the main character Shizuku Kanzaki, are taken on when they taste the different wines presented in the story. These journeys begin a mere twenty-five pages into the first volume and continue repeatedly. Presenting this type of imagery in a graphic novel is potent. The illustrations are detailed, nuanced and transportative for the reader as well.

Both types of journeys (recall and fantasy) are represented in the books, from visions of the vines of French chateaux visited in childhood, to the richly nuanced images of a primeval forest as part of the picture of the first of the thirteen wines; and finally, varying scenes representing the five great wines of Bordeaux at the end of volume 3.

As I got to thinking about the images from the book a few of my own experiences came to mind.

Any time I drink Riesling I think of my wife. It was the first kind of wine we mutually enjoyed. We both drank Boone’s Farm in college but not together, and thus the Riesling memory stuck. A certain flutter in my gut is typical when I get the chance to try a new Riesling. I rarely miss an opportunity. Maybe I now know why I like Riesling so much. I love my wife, so I why shouldn’t I love the first wine we enjoyed together?

I’ve also experienced a form of projection (a variation on the recall experience) where a wine from one region brought me back to somewhere else where I enjoyed wines made from the same grapes. I visited Provence in February 2011 and had the distinct pleasure of standing next to the vines at the ruins of the Pope’s summer house northeast of Avignon. The earth there is covered with smooth, rounded stones colored in various shades of tan and light brown. The vines are craggy and old. In February the vines are dormant and pruned back. They look like little trees with no leaves, the trunks of bonsai trees come to mind. Plots of land that look like this were visible in all directions from where I stood. During that trip I tasted wines from Cote du Rhone, Vacqueyras, Gigondas, Beaumes-de-Venise, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and others that currently escape me. The red wines from those areas are made with from Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Carignan and several other grapes. On that trip I was visiting with friends (adopted family) for a wedding and the whole experience was rich and full of emotion. 

Later in 2011 I visited Santa Barbara and tasted several wines from the LaFond label. The wines were blends of Syrah and Grenache or 100% Syrah, with some bearing similarity to some of the wines from the Rhone. At the first sip of one of the Syrah/Grenache blends I had this weird feeling like I had been “somewhere” before. It was my first trip to Santa Barbara so the sensation made very little sense. My emotions were being tweaked in an odd way. Standing at the tasting bar in that urban winery I was feeling like I was surrounded by family. The feeling was pretty weird. I had a sense of being taken somewhere by the wines, but I didn’t give it enough thought then to work it out. Only now do I fully understand what was going on. I felt like I was back in Provence. The aromas and flavors of the wines had taken me back to that place and the wines and people. What a trip!

I love wine, I drink it often but don’t have a drinking problem perse, but I can see myself coming to love the experience of being taken somewhere even more. This could be addicting and cause all sorts of trouble I would guess. It is clear that I can’t expect these experiences to be frequent or conscious if I don’t pay attention to what I am drinking and slow my roll (Kid Rock is playing in the background) so that I can be fully receptive to my senses and not miss a moment of any potential journey. I doubt I will get this all sorted out today.

Does wine take you on a journey? Have you ever been transported somewhere by a sip of wine? Leave a comment about your experiences with wine imagery. I’d love to learn more about how others are experiencing wines they encounter.

Cheers!

Jason

Book Review: The Town that Food Saved

It is due to our adventures in being a member of our local CSA that I have opened a door into the local food movement. Jay and I originally did not join the CSA to be a part of any type of movement; we just knew we loved fresh vegetables. As I went to the CSA pick up site week to week I realized that there is indeed a whole community out there that is dedicated to growing, eating and spreading the word about local food. It was around the beginning of our adventure that I heard of Ben Hewitt’s book “The Town that Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food”.

Hewitt’s book tells us about the Town of Hardwick Vermont. Once a thriving granite mining town Hardwick had fallen on some hard times and for any other town this may have been an issue but the people of Hardwick are a tough breed and they have taken it well. Though the town was not overly prosperous the people were not unhappy with their rural northern Vermont way of life. Like in most rural areas Hardwick (and the surrounding area) is a place where everyone knows everyone and sharing with and helping out a neighbor is common place. There may not have been a lot to go around but the community takes pride in caring for their own.

As a local resident, Gourmet Magazine writer Hewitt brings a nice perspective to the story of how a handful of residents are getting a lot of press coverage for their “agripreneurial” enterprises. These enterprises are varied: cheese, vegetables, seeds, composting and soy among them and Hewitt does a great job at explaining how this group of locals is working together to their mutual benefit. Where the conflict comes from (and you know there needed to be one) is from another group of locals that feel they are being marginalized by these few, even though they have been invited to join them. Many of the objectors take issue with the fact that the media is presenting the Hardwick local food movement as new, when in reality the idea of a local food system has been there for years, it just has not been publicized or done for profit. As a rural community the farmers have always depended on each other: to supplement what they have grown, to barter with, to help out as needed. What they see the agripreneurs doing is cashing in on what was already there.

As the author Hewitt does a good job of leading you through not only the friction amongst the residents but also into his thought process on why the local movement began, what it should do, and whether it can work. The economy and the recent food scare definitely drove a lot of the attention surrounding the food movement. When rice and other food items were scarce or extremely expensive during the recent gas price hikes many realized how fragile our cross country, cross world industrial agriculture framework really is. This has surely contributed to the increase in interest in local foods. But if a local, small producer based food system has items that are too expensive for many of the residents is it a success? Can the struggle between paying your local workers enough and making your product affordable ever be rectified? Is a local big operation any better then the industrial agriculture model?

While in the midst of reading this book I listened to a piece on The Good and Bad of Localism that was presented on National Public Radio. One of the experts, John Carrol, explained that the goal of localism is to create food security, meaning the closer the food source is the more secure it is whether gas goes up or down, or if there is a national emergency. Carroll also expressed that the local food movement comes from a need for people to feel more connected to what they eat. I think that this is true and it is very much represented in the popularity and media coverage surrounding Hardwick, an area that is trying to make it happen.

To Hewitt’s credit he never tries to say he has the answers to the big questions surrounding the Hardwick local food movement. From reading the book I can see how difficult it is to come up with the answers but I can tell you what I think after reading this book and asking myself these questions:

There is no perfect solution and there probably never will be. I am not a fatalist, just a realist. With any venture there is always some give and take, push and pull. What I do believe is that feeling more connected to your food makes you feel good and better yet, tastes good. Yes local food can sometime be more expensive but if more people buy local there is a chance that the cost will go down. What the group in Hardwick is doing is well….nothing new…actually it is something old. The idea that a community can be self sufficient in many ways is what it was like for many centuries. You knew the farmer that raised the cow and the butcher that prepared it for your pan. You bought your vegetables from around the corner rather than across the globe. People lived, worked, went to school and shopped all right in their own town. Was that better? I don’t know, but I can tell you that unlike the perfectly red and blemish free, grocery store tomatoes, the ones I got in my CSA share were ugly as sin….but heavenly to eat. And any time getting back to the basics tastes that good, sign me up!

Mangia,

Margot

Book Review of Kitchen Confidential

In May of 2000 when Kitchen Confidential was published I did not know of Anthony Bourdain. I have come to know him through his show No Reservations (the book is also on my reading list) and found that I enjoy his mélange of food, culture, personal stories and intellectual meanderings in each episode. No matter what you think of Anthony Bourdain I will make one simple assertion, he is real.

In a recent interview I saw with him he went back and thought about who he was and what his life was like during the times chronicled in the book. He claims it wasn’t pretty and assures the audience that he was perpetually one step away from disaster. I wanted to know more.

Kitchen Confidential is a moderately quick read, broken down into sections like a good multi-course meal. While not strictly chronological, it does flow largely in that direction allowing the reader to get a good idea about where the personality comes from.

Before I read the book I took a shot at what I expected my premise of the review to be. A wild story about the expansion of his personality from all of his real-life adventures. I believed that through all of it he was still that hot headed, addiction-prone, life on the edge guy, but with more appreciation of how to pull it all off with grace, skill and class.

Jackpot!

The other theme which is taken literally from the book’s title and notes is a picture of what really goes on in restaurant kitchens around the world. I don’t actually think that story is all that surprising, or it shouldn’t be. Office buildings are also full of real people with sordid stories, e.g. sex, drugs, failure and all that. Kitchens can’t really be that different.

Bourdain makes it clear that restaurant kitchens are as much about people as they are about food. The necessary skills of the people who make up a good and real kitchen staff are explained to be varied and include, working long hours away from family, the ability to give and take shit from everyone, a fondness for booze and drugs, the desire to share details of one’s life well beyond “too much information”, a low threshold for pain, uber multi-tasking and finally an air of unpredictability in every waking moment. Artistry with food or refined culinary skills aren’t the primary focus of the characters in the book, although many do have culinary passions and are really good at what they do. Just not in that celebrity chef sense. These are real chefs, cooks, service and cleaning staff; the ones who actually do all the dirty work to get restaurant meals on to tables. In the end Bourdain paints himself as the ring-leader of a merry bunch of misfits who wouldn’t be pegged by anyone to be doing what they do.

Along the way he makes specific mentions of how much he had to learn about the people themselves, their cultures and their lives in order for him to be able to make use of their talents. Knowing what one particular person sounds like after a notable weekend bender, or how much money a line cook makes on the side selling dope to the staff or even which cultures accept jokes about sex with their mother don’t really seem like the things we would think of for an chef to worry about. But that is real life and why the stories were so fun to read. He does reflect on these teachings and how it helped him appreciate and deal with many things that would serve to frustrate most of us in his position.

There are also some nice tips for the restaurant patron to consider, like not ordering fish on Monday as it is likely the dregs from the prior week. It is also noted that specials are often the vehicle to get rid of things hanging around rather than use some unexpected ingredients. Again I don’t see any surprises here. Restaurants are businesses and many of them have to be concerned with the bottom line rather than haute cuisine and absolute freshness.

With this book in the bag I am very much looking forward to No Reservations picking up the trail of more stories from Anthony Bourdain.

Cheers!

--Jason

Foodie Summer Reading

Margot and I are readers, we buy books in waves and used if we can. I love Half.com because you can almost always find the book you are looking for with some good wear at a fantastic price.

I am currently in the middle of Sales & Service for the Wine Professional (Julyan) which is on the recommended reading list for aspiring sommeliers from the Court of Master Sommeliers. From the same list I also have Perfect Pairings (Goldstein), Grossman’s Guide to Wines (Grossman), Beers & Spirits and yet to start and I am using What to Drink with What you Eat (Dorenburg & Page) as a solid reference for pairing ideas.

We have queued up several food-related books for what will most likely be the summer at the pace we read.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
The Town That Food Saved – Ben Hewitt
In Defense of Food– Michael Pollan
Food Rules– Michael Pollan

We also have a steady stream of food-related magazines that arrive at the house including Food & Wine, Cooking Light, Everyday with Rachael Ray, Wine Spectator, WineMaker, Brew Your Own and Imbibe.

Now I just need to work on selecting some wines to pair with my reading list…

If you have suggestions for food-related books you have read that we should take a look at leave us a comment. If you have them laying around and no longer need them we would be interested in swapping for something we are done with.

Cheers!

Jason

Rum Redux and RumBa

Rum has been on my mind since our trip to Jamaica last month. I made a rum cream after finding nothing at the state liquor stores and not wanting to buy and ship. Strong, but flavorful in all the right ways. Two new drinks go with it as well as those described in my last post on rum.

http://ancientfirewineblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/if-youre-not-drinking-appleton-youre.html

Coconut Creme

3 oz homemade rum cream
1 oz Malibu rum

Appleton Morning

3 oz homemade rum cream
1 oz Appleton Special

Meet me at RumBa! If you are into rum and from Boston you'll get this. You should get this. RumBa, the rum bar at the Intercontinental in Boston has 100+ rums ready to drink with curiosity accessible prices for the size of the drink. I tried the Cruzan Black Strap and lusted after the Appleton 21 and a host of others that will be tried before I'm gone! The Cruzan was slightly sweet and had a nice long and clean finish.

After the stop at RumBa I ordered a book on rum history which informs us of the Boston roots of the early rum business. "Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink That Conquered the World", July 2005, Charles Coulombe. This hopes to be a great read. We are already planning a trip to St. Croix to visit Cruzan!

Cheers!

--Jason