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Friday, 22 July 2011

Palermo: The Invisible Prints

Love in the time of Catarratto

The front has been perched above the city for days now. Hot, humid, hovering. Stalled. All the while I have been locked in the time machine, trapped in another place and era, Palermo in 1971. And while I go back there to retrieve an image or a memory, this time I am walking the streets in August, alone, invisible, camera in hand. What will I bring back this time?

Pictures, poetry, imprints from a time that seemingly was just yesterday. As time will have it, it was nearly half a century ago, mind boggling to grasp something like that. But the tunnel of life shreds time as the wind blows hot and steady across the Sicilian plains.

Shards from a poem found, on aged and discolored paper, written in 1971 on an Italian typewriter:
kid scream horn honk smell of fish pervades all.
walking down this crazy via somewhere in Palermo,
don't know why, everyone's asleep, the city's mine
at 4 PM.

Yes, the bells of Santa Maria Assunta in Piazza Vigilena tolled four times and entered into the dark room upon the rays of light that streamed to wake the sleeper. I awoke to find not the twin beds I had spoken of to my great grandfather, but a large bed in this room of his. Drowsy and bored, I threw on my clothes, and snuck out into the street without waking my aunt and uncle. I so wanted to be on the prowl, alone with camera, to wander, to see this city of my ancestors on my own. And so it was, and has been, for all this time.

I practiced being undetected with a camera before I realized I had been invisible my whole life. In a world of billions, why would one think otherwise? We all are the center of our own universe, but those universes rarely intersect with others. Along the Via Roma I could travel through time as though I were watching the film. In this case, with a load of Tri-X film and my rangefinder. God was I happy.

Imagine being 20, to not understand what anyone around you was saying, to be invisible and to have an afternoon to explore that world. Isn?t youth something of what that quintessentially is? But to not know is even more delicious.

The heat. Stifling, save a rare breeze, which only served to turn up the heat on the main thoroughfares. A dash into one of the ancient vicolos, where shadows and cooler breezes dwell, refresh. But the pleasure is fleeting, as in the alley there is no life, like the underground catacombs lined up with the dead from previous generations of Palermitani.

Back onto Via Roma, where the life streamed out of the buildings from the afternoon siestas, looking for dinner, bargains, for a way to quench the thirst of life, if only for a moment or a memory.

I was walking on the streets that Sciascia and de Lampudusa walked, in their neighborhoods. In the neighborhood where my dad, as a kid would play, and his father and father?s father would play and work and live and die. And the sleepy little kid from California knew nothing. But the camera would record and remember for the day when the clouds finally moved on and the light would reveal.

To dodge the heat I dashed into a shop. It was filled with people queuing up for food, from baked goods to the thick, viscous, deliciously bitter espresso they served in Palermo. The streets reeked of roasted coffee, one of the few aromas the nose doesn?t tune out. Inside the parlor, the tribes of Palermo convened to sip, to catch a breeze from the fan, to sweeten life a little with a sfinge, pastine al sesamo or pietrafendola which was ubiquitous in August.

Feeling strengthened by the bitter and the sweet, I ventured back out into the avenue. Wandering, slowly, looking for the first time at a world I oddly recognized. I was in a dream in a dream. And then I came upon another shop. It was filled with barrels on one side and a long bar on the other. As I walked by the barrels I saw the words Oro, Ambra, Fine, Superiore, Vecchio, Vergine, Mandorlato, Secco, Dolce and any number of variations. I?d found the ancient Marsala bodega and wine bar my uncle was telling me about - the beginning of my world, of wine, and the path upon which for the next 40 years I would tread.

Finally, the rain falls.

...to be continued

written and photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
Source: http://acevola.blogspot.com/2011/05/palermo-invisible-prints.html
Craggy Range Columbia Crest Bodegas LAN Yealands Waterbrook

Thursday, 21 July 2011

Not a Great White Rhone, To Be Sure, But This Cheap Little Corbières Blanc Did the Job

LL used the rest of the fresh porcini and morels a few nights ago and made a simple pasta dish to highlight the deep, earthy flavors, going very light on butter and using more olive oil. I never understand the impulse, seemingly the imperative, to slather sauteed mushrooms with lots of butter and cream, thereby obscuring, if not obliterating, the reason for using them anyway. Before she got home from work, I chopped two leeks, sauteed them in a bit of olive oil and a wee sliver of butter, covered the pan, turned the flame way down, and let them stew for 15 or 20 minutes until quite soft and savory. As a thickener for the sauce, LL pureed these incredibly soft and flavorful leeks in the processor with some chicken broth and olive oil. She?s really smart that way. I brushed the porcini and morels off carefully, sliced them, and sauteed then gently in olive oil and, again, just a bit of butter, and then LL added the leek puree, some dollops of white wine and finished the sauce and the dish. For pasta we used a very interesting fresh whole-grain fettuccine, made from Kamut, from Laura and Davy Funderburk?s FunderFarms in north Mississippi. As with porcini risotto, the resulting dish, while fabulously deep and earthy and flavorful, was not very photogenic. (Kamut is a brand name for the khorasan variety of wheat supposedly discovered in Egypt in the late 1940s and grown now in limited quantities in the United States.)

I told LL that my choice for a supremely well-matched wine-and-food marriage made in heaven would be a great Northern Rhone roussanne or marsanne-based white, say an E. Guigal Ex Voto Ermitage Blanc or Paul Jaboulet Aîné Chevalier Sterimberg Hermitage Blanc, about eight to 10 years old. I didn?t have one of those, and, unless I am somehow transported into the slender ranks of Very Privileged Wine Writers or Big Dogs of Fiduciary Prowess, never will I. So I poked around in the white wine fridge for a substitute and actually found an intriguing bottle, Les Deux Rives Corbières Blanc 2010, made from a blend of 60 percent grenache blanc grapes and 20 percent each marsanne and roussanne. Now I?m not saying that this wine would in any way be comparable in nobility and character to the tremendous examples mentioned earlier in this paragraph, but it does have the advantage of selling at a price affordable to those millions of consumers modestly existing on the Plane of Mere Mortals.

What was so pleasing about Les Deux Rives Corbières Blanc 2010, produced by the Groupe Val d?Orbieu cooperative headquartered in Narbonne, is that it encapsulates, on a small scale, the nature of a wine that in large might extend the qualities of these grapes into epiphany. Yes, at most this is a very pleasant and more-than-decent effort, made all in stainless steel, yet the wine?s combination of crisp freshness and delicacy balanced with heady qualities of roasted lemon and lemon balm, dried thyme and bee?s-wax, hints of lanolin and camellia, all ensconced in a texture deftly poised between litheness and moderate lushness, rendered it deeply satisfying with the porcini and morel fettuccine, both in terms of complement and foil. When not serving a similar purpose, this would be terrific as a Porch, Patio, Pool & Picnic Wine, either as pure aperitif or with grilled shrimp wrapped in bacon; melon and prosciutto; or smoked salmon bruschetta. The alcohol content is a non-threatening 12.5 percent. Drink, nicely chilled, through the rest of 2011 and into 2012. Very Good+. About $10, a Distinct Bargain.

Corbières is in France?s Languedoc region, way down along the coast, where it turns south toward Spain, and inland up to some pretty rugged hills. ?Les Deux Rives? refers to the banks of the Canal du Midi, built between 1666 and 1681 to connect the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The 150-mile-long Canal du Midi runs from Etang de Thau on the Mediterranean coast to Toulouse, where it joins the Canal de Garonne. The enterprise was economically important until the construction of railroads in the mid-19th Century. It was named a UNESCO World heritage Site in 1996.

Pasternak Wine Imports, Harrison, N.Y. A sample for review.

Source: http://biggerthanyourhead.net/2011/07/09/not-a-great-white-rhone-to-be-sure-but-this-cheap-little-corbieres-blanc-did-the-job/
Dow Schrader Cellars Staglin Tensley Hall
Morellino wine is Tuscany 's top tipple

What attracted me was the unique perfume ? quite different from that of any other sangiovese-based wine from central Italy: enticing and voluptuous, soft dark cherry verging on plum, ripe and succulent (the climate is warmer here than in Chianti) but not hot or heavy, the opposite of tough and stringy.

Morellino is a sensualist?s wine, not a conundrum for intellectuals; loose-limbed, not tightly structured. If you think of Romans as a hedonistic lot, as I tend to, then you?ll think of it as a louche Latin wine rather than a warlike Etruscan one.

Indeed, Scansano and Monte Argentario are about as close to Rome as they are to Florence. Romans love to go on holiday in the Maremma, the closest coast to the capital where you can find unspoilt beaches; a Roman friend of mine based in London drives out there with her family every summer, not just for a bucket and spade holiday, but to pick up half a dozen cases of her favourite wine ? Morellino di Scansano, of course.

When I first discovered morellino you could buy a decent example from my local supermarket (Tesco, as it happens). Now some annoying calculation involving name recognition ? ah how different if morellino were rechristened something as short as Gavi ? and price points means that the supermarkets have given up on it. Morellino is not quite as inexpensive as it used to be, and I suppose it is the kind of wine that benefits from having an enthusiastic person in a shop to talk it up ? a perfect opportunity for independent wine merchants.

I think of it as a simple wine, but if you look at the label of a bottle of Morellino di Scansano, you?ll see that it is not just a DOC (denominazione di origine controllata) but a DOCG (denominazione di origine controllata e garantita), the highest category for Italian wines. How seriously should morellino be taken, both by makers and drinkers? There are two related issues: ageing (and in particular the riserva category for aged morellino), and the question of oak.

In Italy morellino tends to get drunk very young indeed ? by which I mean at just over one year old, when the freshness and intensity of perfume are strongest, but there can still be some quite raw tannins. For the British taste that?s too young ? but you still want a dash of freshness in your morellino.

?It?s really, really good glugging wine,? Patrick Sandeman of Lea and Sandeman puts it, while we taste his excellent Morellino di Scansano ?Heba? 2009 from Fattoria di Magliano in the shop in Kensington Church Street. There?s the deep, black cherry nose with just a hint of violets, the open generous fruit, sweetness trouncing the hint of sourness you always get with sangiovese ? helped here with 15% syrah.

Heba is mainly fermented in cement tanks ? coming back into fashion all over the wine world ? and not matured in oak. It weighs in at 13 degrees, which is relatively light for morellino these days, but seems about right. Some Morellino di Scansano Riservas can go as high as 14.5: does that mean they have the heft to benefit from new oak? Sandeman looks unconvinced.

There are makers who take their riservas pretty seriously, striving to get them within spitting distance of the best Chianti Classicos, brunellos and Vini Nobili di Montepulciano. The most famous is Elisabetta Geppetti, who makes morellino in a rather different style from Fattoria di Magliano or the similarly fragrant and fresh Serpaia di Endrizzi (Adnams stock the 2009). Geppetti?s Morellino di Scansano Riserva Poggio Valente is clearly designed to take its place at the top table of Tuscan wine, and it is undeniably impressive.

The 2007 (available from www.libertywines.co.uk at £35.99) is still youthful, and will develop further, with rich rounded fruit, striking elegance and considerable tannin.

For a thoroughly satisfactory halfway house I recommend Podere 414, made on a 2.5 hectare estate by Simone Castelli, son of the eminent ?nologist Maurizio Castelli. There?s certainly power here, and a touch of oak, but the overall effect remains lively, fresh and enticing. There?s no point in morellino, at least for me, if it concentrates too hard on being impressive and forgets to be sheerly enjoyable.

The best of Morellino

Morellino di Scansano Heba 2009 Fattoria di Magliano Lea & Sandeman (www.leaandsandeman.co.uk), £12.95/£11.95 if you buy a case

Morellino di Scansano Podere 414 2009 Private Cellar Ltd (www.privatecellar.co.uk), £14.40

Morellino di Scansano 2009 Serpaia di Endrizzi Adnams (www.adnams.co.uk), £9.99/£8.99

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568318/s/16a9ed00/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cfoodanddrink0Cwine0C86370A880CMorellino0Ewine0Eis0ETuscany0Es0Etop0Etipple0Bhtml/story01.htm
CARM Clos des Papes Mount Eden Vineyards Kosta Browne Alban
Rheinhessen 2010 - Wagner-Stempel

I have always liked these wines a lot, despite only having tasted them sparingly over the past five years. They make mostly dry wine, but their sweet stuff is spectacular as well. But dry is the name of the game here. This was my first visit, and I might have to say it was the best visit of the trip, as Oliver Muller, Daniel Wagner's right hand man, is easily one of the coolest people I have met in Germany. Very frank and matter of fact. His story is crazy too. He was working in hotel management until three years ago, when he started working for Wagner-Stempel. The guy knows the Heerkretz vineyard like the back of his hand. It is a beautiful vineyard and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Abtserde, Kirschspiel and Morstein as the great sites of the Rheinhessen. I was really amped also to taste all the wines as Terry Thiese only brings in a few, and with those few, even less comes into the US as no one buys them, which is a shame as they want to sell more wine to America. They are rockstars in Germany, Norway, and Scandinavia but still need and want a presence in the US. I am only one man....so I hope people read this recap and call their Terry Theise representative and order these wines. They are stunning.

These are Rheinhessen wines but they might as well be Nahe wines as the soil is the same. It is porphry which dominates the vineyards of the Nahe. They taste like Nahe wines too, but still have some of that Rheinhessen sunshine. The '09's here are just ridiculous wines with amazing precision like say Keller, but also oomph and soul and edge, like Wittman. Just tremendous. Took a lot of great shots as Heerkretz is gorgeous and the day was beautiful.

2009 Silvaner Trocken - The set of "village wines", per se, from Wagner-Stempel in 2009 were stunning. Mineral nose. Almost searing in its mineral intensity in the very inviting nose. Ripe, juicy and perfectly balanced palate. Amazing intensity combined with stunning purity make this a winner.

2009 Weissburgunder Trocken - Mineral, apple on the very clean and pure nose. Excellent acids and very crispy palate. Excellent fruit quality and wonderful purity. Really juicy. Just amazing for its level.

2009 Grauerburgunder Trocken - Really mineral nose with stone fruits. Excellent purity with lovely, enveloping acidity and very juicy fruits. Just amazing freshness and balance.

2009 Riesling Trocken - Mineral, chestnuts and flaming embers on the nose. So weird. But appealing and fresh. Juicy palate with lovely inner mouth aromas. Wonderful fruit and stunning finesse for a wine that is a an entry level wine. Fantastic apple and passion fruit laced finish.

2009 Schuerebe Trocken - Grapefruit, mineral nose and some blackcurrants. Really filigreed and finesse driven Schue and not all ponderous and slutty. Truly amazing wine with so much finesse and juicy as all can be.

2009 Sauvignon Blanc Trocken The local market loves their Sauvignon Blanc so almost everybody from the Rheinhessen and further down south makes one. This was the only wine I did not like. I don't go to Germany to drink or taste Sauvignon Blanc so I might be biased. It's funny as ex-cellar this was the most expensive of the village wines. Grassy and fruity on the nose with gooseberry. Pretty complex. Juicy, ripe palate with extreme mineral intensity. Real figgy finish. Ok.

2009 Siefersheimer Riesling Vom Porphry - Now to the "1er Cru's", per se. Flat out great. My Von der Fels killer as I call it. Right about the same price and at least in 2009 I liked it better. Different style of course as it is more fruit driven while VDF is more of a finesse wine. Sinewy, mineral nose that offers wonderful earthy/stony minerality. A wet impression. Also some stone fruits and notes of powdery confection that add a wonderful complexity. Delicate, nuanced and soil-driven nose. Compelling and complex. The palate is ridiculously concentrated and so sleek, yet with lovely edges from the minerals and acids. Very explosive backend with fleshy pit fruits, mouth-watering minerality and sap and extract galore on the long finish. This is a remarkable wine and offers GG quality for short money.

2009 Siefersheimer Silvaner - Lime blossom, mineral nose. So intense. Creamy and ripe palate. Excellent palate presence. Very pure. Great zingy acidity. Long finish. Richer than the village version. I liked it though just as much.

2008 Siefersheimer Silvaner - With a year of age this was as complex as all can be. Touch of oak peeking out with wonderful richness and complexity on the palate. Really expansive palate and velvety mouthfeel. So juicy and pure. Excellent.

2009 Siefersheimer Weissburgunder - Huge nose of mineral, apples and pears, with a touch of oak that adds to the complexity. Deftly used.Very mineral palate but still rich and juicy with almost a honeyed element. Lovely acids and a very expressive finish.

2009 Hollberg Grosses Gewachs - The first of two GG's. This is an excellent site but is a bit more forward and earlier drinking than Heerkretz which follows. Mineral, lemon zest on the wafting extremely complex nose. LIke a dust of minerals. The palate is rich and juicy and so pure. A touch closed. Very big winer with a super structure. Weird as this is the one that is usually open. Great stuff but need to retaste as it was showing huge structure and not much else, especially on the back end.

2009 Heerkretz GG - In my top five GG's of the trip. Deep, mineral, complex wafting nose. Dusty, minerals that display lovely nuanced sides to them of spice and fruit. The intensity of the minerals on the palare have to be tasted to be believed. Just unreal depth here. No mistaking this for anything else except, mineral driven, site specific, compact, powerful dry German Riesling. The fruit on this wine is plain awesome. Pure. So pure. Concentrated and bursting as the grapes were compact and small berried. You can just taste it. The intensity this wine brings to your palate is something else. It needed some air to get there. This will age effortlessly for many many years. A remarkable achievment for an estate I think will be a rock star after this vintage.

2009 Hollberg Spatlese - Very mineral and juicy with ripe, beautiful, focused fruit. Loads of yellow fruits on the palate. Fleshy and chewy with a long finish. Excellent.

2009 Herrkretz Spatlese - Very pure and mineral nose. More complex than Heerkretz. A touch closed it seems on the nose and no doubt it is closed on the palate. Still, though the class of Heerkretz shines through. Very concentrated and lovely yellow fruits. The palate is pure and sleek but it really needed a ton of time in the glass to start showing.

2009 Heerkretz Auslese - This was excellent. Some botrytis on the nose with creamed corn, celeriac and a nice herbal essence. Extremely perfumed. Really nuanced nose. Again another outrageous 2009 Auslese. Great, crisp acids, bring it all home. Stunning hierarchy and delineation of flavors. Long finish.

2009 Spatburgunder Eiswein - Maybe the most insane German wine I have ever tasted. 25 grams of acidity. Yes 25 grams, This was an acid bomb like nothing I have ever tasted. Like liquid electricity. Wow. Very floral. Like a bouquet of roses. Ripe but so finesse-driven. An anomaly but a delicous one.

Next up. Franconia...land of Bockbeutels and Dirk Nowitzski.
Source: http://rockssandfruit.blogspot.com/2011/03/rheinhessen-2010-wagner-stempel.html
The Royal Tokaji Wine Co. Zaca Mesa Ramey Terralsole Evening Land

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Welcome to the Future

I won?t have a chance to get everyone an update on wider life for a few more days at the least (things are busy both professionally and personally, well definitely personally) but I was sad to see that social media darling Gary V has chosen to close Cork?d.

Cork?d To Close It?s Doors

It?s an interesting situation on a number of levels and not simply because it appears to be Gary?s first significant failure in the wine industry. Originally a pet project of web developer Dan Benjamin and designer Dan Cederholm the site was created as a way to allow people to share tasting notes and wine recommendations Web 2.0 style. Gary V of Wine Library fame came into the picture and people had huge hopes for a site which everyone rightfully thought would compete with and likely replace Cellartracker.

It didn?t work out for one reason or another, despite a number of GREAT ideas by the folks at Cork?d, especially Jon Troutman who has shown himself to be one of the most professional and educated wine writers in the field today. I liked the idea of bringing in bloggers to help create content, which seemed to add a level of interest to the site while offering free content and the SEO benefits which came with it.

Along with everyone else, I?ll be interested to see where Gary V and the rest of the Cork?d team land. Their next project will be an interesting one, but unseating Cellartracker grows more difficult by the day.

Source: http://winewithmark.info/archives/632
Craggy Range Columbia Crest Bodegas LAN Yealands Waterbrook