on wine (6) the trouble with forced abstinence

The last four months of 2010 will go down in my personal history as the worst yet. After a recurring inflammation of the left inner ear while on vacation in Maine, things went steadily downhill. For the details see my "Health care(12)."

A side effect of all the different medicines was the prohibition against alcohol, i.e. wine (and, of course, the occasional calvados after dinner). For most of the period this did not matter as I had no or very little appetite. For my birthday and at Christmas I served some 1999 burgundies, of which I had a taste for the toast, but it was a gustatory loss, the wine tasting like the bottle had been open for a several days and much like any kind of red wine.

This January, after the cortisone shot and with a greatly reduced painkiller regime, I have been taking a glass with my meals, "everyday" appelation controlee wines and gradually my taste buds returned to normal (a process that took me to early April). In search of new reds, Colette found a wine from Corsica which was identified on the label as "Ile de la beaute", its appealing nickname.(She has fond memories of summer vacations with friends of the family that had a compound on the island).The wine was called Pinot (pron. pee no evil) and was a pinot noir "vin de pays" that turned out very drinkable, light in both color and on the tongue, with a pleasant aroma. At about $8 it was the buy of the month.The humor of its name was reinforced by the portrait of three monkeys, symbolizing "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" borrowed from a Japanese 8th cent. tradition. On its performance, neither C. nor I would do any of these three.

There is near Avignon a small village called Le Plan Dieu (God's plain) where Colette and I once spent half a day looking for a threatened bird, the Little Bustard, on the plainest part of the dry rocky flats that that was used as an airfield for a club of local fliers. The runways were actually nothing more than dirt tracks; on that day they were mostly used for foraging by 2 kinds of larks. We did find the Bustards, one male mostly hidden in the weeds at the end of the field and a female with 6 chicks that ambled across a runway in front of our car. No vines to be seen on this land, but along the paved roads on which we were lost for a while, the gentle slopes were bordered by large vineyards that then still produced a pretty good Cote de Rhone. In 2005 this was promoted to CdR Villages status. By chance I found one bottle of the 2007 vintage from the Domaine Grand Veneur. Near Chatauneuf du Pape one wonders whether the property once belonged to the Pope's chief gamekeeper (Grand Veneur). The current winegrower has a sense of humor labelling his wine impressively Les Champauvins (the wine fields). Although 2007 was a good but not outstanding vintage this wine was as perfect as a CdRV can be. Dark of color with slow legs and a great aroma that reminded me of some August flowery meadow near Vezelay in Burgundy. In taste was close to a Vacqueras, but somewhat rounder like the best Rasteaus. What one could call a "robust wine." Never seen before I wonder whether it will appear again, the stocking of the local wine stores being rather haphazard.

This stocking problem also exists in New Jersey were liquor stores are privately owned and the offerings depend on the connaisseurship of the owner (or worse, on what a distributor for a wholesaler has available). You would think that in some upscale resorts like Stone Harbor or Cape May the selection would be better than our State Stores. But such is not the case in our experience. Among the "better" wines we recently found a Mocali Brunello di Montalcino 2005. We drank it a few weeks later and rather enjoyed it. Dark in color with a good robe, some aroma and bouquet, it was smooth and not very complex; there was not much nuance from beginning to end and it was not as sturdy as a truly good Montalcino. Never having seen it before I looked it up on the internet where it, surprisingly, was well known. One site, a wine store's, agreed with us on the color, but cited its "complex and balanced nose, showing aromas of raspberries and liquorice with notes of chocolate and spice," etc. It also quoted similar flowery descriptions by the experts of the Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate, both of whom rated it 90 out of 100. My dinner companions liked it rather well, but on the 100 scale I would give it an 80 at most and more likely a 75. Interestingly enough the WA noted that it "loses a touch of depth and persistence in mid-palate, only to come together nicely again on the finish." That shows what a rube I am for to me this "touch of depth" was not there throughout. Would I buy it again? Probably, because the price was good for a Montalcino and in a year less suspect than 2005, it might live up to its Montalcino parentage.

As must be clear from my remarks, we often buy a wine because of some good memories. But as memories become less and less precise, this can lead to disappointment. In the middle Nineties, Colette and I made a trip along the Route to Compostella in Northern Spain in search of sculptures illustrating the Book of Revelation on a medieval commentary of which I was writing a study. Exceptionally we ended up in a resort hotel on La Toja near Compostella, from the balcony of which we had great views of the local fisherman rowing out in the early morning to their rafts from which hung poles on which an abundance of shellfish was cultivated. Colette is a great seafood fancier and so we had some of the local vino verde with our meals. Talking about a fresh, fruity yet dry wine! Well, recenty when browsing in a NJ wine store we found a "vinho verde" of a well known and large producer from Northern Portugal. What a disappointment! It turned out to be carbonated and the gas affected the taste; it reminded me of a less sweet Seven Up. Fortunately we bought only 2 bottles and I poured the other one down the sink.