Just in case summer ever comes, after this bizarrely chilly spring!—boy, am I ready.

In fact, I’ve been ready every June, since time immemorial…because, without doubt, my favorite gastronomic thing to do in summer is sit around a table piled high with cooked whole crabs…sucking on an electric bottle of dry Riesling! If you can work an exterior setting in there, and a setting sun…by George, is the livin’ easy.

Ah…but what kind of crabs? Cooked how?

Firstly…I’ve gotten my share of crabs all over the world (does that sound wrong?). And there are so many I love. But, luckily for me, my favorite crab of all is the “beautiful swimmer” that’s based in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, the notorious East Coast “blue crab”…that also swims down to Florida, and around the corner into the Gulf of Mexico.

The beautiful blue crab

Why do I love it so? Yes, as the detractors say, getting at the meat of a blue crab (both in claws and body) takes work; a Dungeness is much easier to “deconstruct.” However, for me, the blue crab reward is much greater: sweet, fatty meat, often bathed in the most sublime tomalley…the juiciest crab bite on earth.

Now, there are also questions regarding the cooking and serving. Without doubt, the most famous whole-crab cookin’ in America takes place in Baltimore, and all around the Chesapeake Bay, where live crabs are showered with crab spice (like Old Bay), then steamed until cooked. They are served immediately on big sheets of brown paper: let the cracking begin. The Louisiana tradition is related…hot crabs, hot spice…except these bad boys are boiled.

I’ve done my share of hot crabs in Baltimore and Louisiana…hot spice, hot temperature. I love ‘em! But I may love even better the way my Dad used to treat whole, living blue crabs. Definitely the New York, even the Northeast way. He’d not season them with anything, then boil ‘em up (in a carefully controlled way), chill ‘em, and serve them later on. How much later? At least as late as the next day…but the secret was, the cold crabs were even better after 2 or 3 days! Everything inside the crab gels…the tomalley, the roe, the crabby flavors. Amazing with light, dry Riesling, among other things.

WHOLE COLD CRABS, NORTHEASTERN-STYLE

Appetizer for 6

24 kickin’-live blue crabs (preferably large, preferably females, preferably from Maryland)
salt

1. Bring a very large cauldron of water to the boil. Salt rather heavily (you should be able to taste the salt in the water).

2. Add the live crabs to the water. Cover immediately. Let boil for 1 minute.

3. Remove lid. Reduce heat so that the water is just simmering. Cook crabs for 12 minutes more (a little less time for smaller crabs).

4. Remove crabs from hot water, place on a platter, and hold overnight (or longer) in refrigerator. Serve cold within the next few days.

I was reminded of all this summertime glory just a few weeks ago, as we held a photo shoot for my upcoming promotion of a great, bone-dry crab wine I’m importing, the 2011 Vom Kalksteinfels Riesling, Philipp Kuhn, from the Pfalz in Germany.

The crisp acid of the Riesling cuts through the crabby richness like nobody’s business…adding, along the way, a stony-minerally dimension to the funky crab flavor.

I’m sure having a good time, as you can see! And so should you…

The 2011 Vom Kalksteinfels Riesling, Philipp Kuhn can be ordered from our shop.

Photos courtesy of Troy Amber, TLAstudio.com

You may think Ketel One Vodka, one of the leading vodka brands in America, has been around forever. In one sense, it almost has. In another sense…it most certainly has not!

I explain…and I can explain, because…

I was in Schiedam, Holland recently, the home of Ketel One Vodka–a thrilling trip!–to get the whole time line. As well as a little schnockered.

Holland, as you may well know, is the ancestral home of spirits infused with juniper berries. The Dutch called this flavorful spirit jenever, and have been distilling it since the late 1500s, originally as a medicine.

But jenever’s popularity as a drink grew inordinately in the 1600s in Holland…the same century that there was considerable engagement between the Dutch and the English…military engagement, that is. One of the spoils of war, for the English, was their new familiarity with jenever (there’s nothing like alcohol after a long day shooting muskets!). The Brits liked it so much, in fact, they took the idea home with them…and developed their own version, called London Dry Gin…drier (obviously), lighter, less juniper-y.

They sure as hell won that war! Today, the whole world drinks London Dry Gin. The gin you know is undoubtedly London Dry Gin: Tanqueray, Bombay, Boodles…all of them!

But the Dutch kept making jenever, their own style of gin.

Circa 1690, enter the Nolet family, Huguenots from France. They moved to Schiedam, kind of a Rotterdam suburb, and got involved in the thriving spirits business–based in Schiedam, because ships arrived with grain from all over, leading to Schiedam’s grain market and, ultimately, to spirits.

A canal drifting through Schiedam

If you visit lovely Schiedam today (about 75,000 people) you will see the tallest windmills in the world–windmills to grind the grain, and tall to tower above the warehouses.

A towering Schiedam windmill

A festive wall in downtown Schiedam

Nolet soon had a big hit–Jenever!–coming out of its originial still, known as a “ketel” in Dutch. Their original still, of course, was Ketel 1…and, believe it or not, it is still distilling today!

The original Ketel 1 at nolet

Moi, stoking the coals under Ketel 1; Photo courtesy of Nolet Distillery

However, by late 20th century, the jenever market wasn’t exactly hot…and was completely non-existent in America…a place with great sales potential.

Or so reasoned Carolus Nolet Sr., the tenth-generation head of the Nolet distillery (and still head today). Carolus traveled to California in the early 1980s to sniff out the market–and saw the crazy rise of vodka all around him. The bells went off. He has a distillery, among the finest in the world.

The huge windmill at Nolet

He has grain (winter wheat was his choice). Yes, jenever production can continue, to satisfy the Dutch consumer…but why not use the old Nolet facility to distill vodka?

And thus Ketel One Vodka was born. Notice that the numeral 1–still used for Ketel 1 Jenever–became “One,” now used for Ketel One Vodka. Other nifty decisions followed. For example, Carolus asked his oldest son, Carl, to move to the U.S. and head up the American marketing for Ketel One Vodka. He did, raised a family in southern California…and created one rip-roaring success for the Ketel One brand.

A museum at prosperous Nolet

Here are the most recent stats I could find on vodka market share in the U.S. You can see that Ketel One came out of nowhere to grab the #4 spot in America by 2010:

As you can see, the brands above include their flavored vodkas. I must say that the Ketel One flavored vodkas–Ketel One Citroen (with a combo of citrus fruits) and Ketel One Orange (with Mandarin oranges from Spain, Italy and Brazil)–are the finest infused vodkas I’ve tasted.

But what about the mainline product, Ketel One Vodka itself? I must confess, I’m not a huge vodka fan. To me, it’s not like judging wine–where you look for flavor. To me, judging vodka is looking for no flavor, which is what it usually has! So I look for those vodkas, which cause me the least pain, least alcohol burn.

At the distillery in Schiedam, they poured a blind vodka tasting–Ketel One vs. some of its most famous competitors. Sure enough, the one ultimately identified as Ketel One was the lightest and crispest and best balanced of all. I have now developed the habit of keeping a Ketel One Vodka bottle in the freezer, and pouring myself a quick, frosty shot whenever I need to nurse my wounds after warfare!

And the distant ancestor, jenever? If you’re looking into the subject, remember that it has morphed. Once upon a time, it was made only from malt, and had lots of juniper flavor. But around 1900, new distilling techniques with grain enabled the Dutch to create a newer, lighter style of jenever, known as jonge, which contains only a little malt. This is what I brought back from Holland–Ketel 1, of course!–and have been enjoying for its round richness. But it is not a juniper powerhouse. There are artisanal producers all over Holland playing with jenever styles, and my next trip there will certainly include a jenever hunt.

The bad news is: you won’t be able to start your hunt here. The stuff is not imported (though there is one producer of jenever in Canada).

The good news: you get to go to Holland!…which is glorious! See my coverage soon in this space of Holland and its gastronomic glories…

Hoo-hah! Big news! I am getting into bed with Languedoc-Roussillon!

I have long been fascinated by the wines, the red wines in particular, of this vast territory in south-central France (click here for my complete overview of the region, written in 2010).

Languedoc’s most famous icon, the Roman Pont du Gard

And…as you perhaps know…I made the decision a year ago to start working on wine imports (I’ll STILL be wearing my journalist hat at the same time, of course!). I was just gettin’ tired of seeing the kinds of wines I love for food…so little available in the U.S.! So I grouped the hard-to-find, food-lovin’ wines into ten categories.

One of the ten categories I have targeted for import is this one:

#7: THE PARTY
Young, bouncy, juicy reds (other wines of the world in the sappy Beaujolais mode, usually ignored on these shores)

I have been diligently searching in European caves for a great example of rollickin’ red to import.

In January 2013…I found it!!! Languedocien!

I was at an organic wine fair in Montpellier, in the Languedoc region, when one wine started screaming at me:

2012 Opi d’Aqui, Les Cliquets
(from Clermont l’Herault, inland from the sea, forming a small triangle with Montpellier to the southeast, and the great Mediterranean oyster town, Beziers, to the southwest)

My beautiful import, on the left

It is a gorgeous young and lively Grenache (100%), made in the carbonic maceration style: the grapes crush themselves by their weight, which leads to more wildly fruity wine. But in this case, there’s more than just a great party drink, and a fabulously gentle wine for food: the wine has a devastating complexity to it, haunting, with aromas of eaux-de-vie and kirsch, aromas of grilled nuts. I love it!

As I explored the import possibilities, I discovered something intriguing: the winery has a commercial link to Alain Coumont…the brilliant international restaurateur who owns 200 bakery/restaurants world-wide. His place, started in Belgium…is Le Pain Quotidien! You may know it well, since there are approximately 60 of them in the U.S.

Alain is looking to intensify his wine focus at Le Pain Quotidien…and, in support of this, he has allowed me to import into the U.S. 2012 Les Cliquets from the Languedoc, some of which will be available at Le Pain Quotidien!

I’m telling you all of this for two reasons:

1) This great Languedoc wine, Les Cliquets 2012, will soon be available for YOU to taste…I’ll be selling it from this web site!

2) My collaboration with Alain is part of a larger celebration of Languedoc wines that is about to take place in New York City, sponsored by the French government agency called Sud de France. I want you to know about the upcoming Sud de France parties devoted to the region…and my participation in them!

Every year the Maison de la Région Languedoc-Roussillon, a beautiful facility in midtown Manhattan, and an important French government office, stages a Sud De France festival in June. This year, they are going all out with a series of dinners this month that…brilliantly!…is taking place at some of the most exciting restaurants in a crazy-good new crop of informal French restaurants in New York. You must try these perfectly-chosen places!

For the parties, Sud de France is meticulously designing southern French environments…oilcloths for the outside tables, orange trees for the entrances, hammocks, wooden crates filled with Mediterranean-type vegetables, etc.

And at each restaurant the chef will present his or her own version of southern French specialties–keeping in mind the season, and the host city.

The round of parties, which began on June 2, continues on June 11 with a dinner at Calliope–a new East Village restaurant that I have come to know well! And love! In fact, I was going to write a separate piece about Calliope…until the opportunity came up to incorporate it into this Sud de France story.

I find the work of Calliope’s chef, Eric Korsh, a New Yorker who has cooked his way around lots of French kitchens (like Picholine in NYC), to be dazzling! It is so-right-on real French brasserie food with soul…but with just the right adjustment for diners today (which is to say…not too much!)

I first fell in love with Eric’s treatments of charcuterie. Usually, he slices things thinly (like an amazing oxtail terrine, a head-of-pork roll), then showers with sprightly lightening elements. Here’s a look at a cold tongue dish I had just the other night, with tatsoi leaves on top….

Tongue at Calliope

Another Eric charcuterie treat is his torchon of foie gras (the revived French specialty of foie gras poached inside a cheese cloth roll-up, then chilled and sliced). Yeah, yeah, there are torchons everywhere…but this is at the tippy-top of the New York torchon food chain.

Partially eaten torchon of foie gras at Calliope, served with gorgeous gem lettuce

The foie gras has that elusive texture I always seek: bouncy, alive, wet, almost like you’re biting into a raw organ…but it’s cooked. The gem lettuce on the side (there’s that sprightly factor again) is a beautiful example of a newly trendy lettuce variety, kind of like butter lettuce and romaine lettuce combined in a compact, miniature head.

Next thing to love: Eric’s refusal to remove the rich-and-creamy from French food! But his food never feels heavy. I am in lust with his simple boiled eggs with mayonnaise: the wet, orange yolks, and the fearless sea of delicious saffron-yellow mayo (no saffron, just the color) tell all that’s wonderful about France.

But there’s more in this vein: you will find the menu shot through with touches of French excess, in exquisite balancing act after exquisite balancing act. Last week, I had an appetizer that was clearly an homage to the Troisgros brothers, the great chefs who popularized salmon with sorrel in the 1970s.

Just-cooked salmon filet with a sorrel-rich Hollandaise at Calliope

There are two extraordinary things about this dish:

1) The salmon is reminiscent of something from a top-notch sushi bar, with the velvety texture of superior sashimi…though there is a tad of cooking involved

2) The surrounding Hollandaise does not stint on rich egginess…but the inclusion of so much sorrel cuts through the richness, adding its own spring-green acidity to the blend.

The last big Eric thing I noticed is his love for vegetables. One of my favorite recent dishes was a righteous chunk of halibut cooked in milk…to preserve the moist, creaminess of the fish…served on a plate surging with beautiful late-winter/early spring vegetables…including some of the most delicious carrots I’ve ever tasted.

Calliope’s halibut poached in milk, with surrounding vegetables

I have in my possession Eric’s menu for the big Sud de France kick-off party on June 11…for which you can buy tickets. I’ve got mine…I’ll be there!

Here’s the menu:

Anchoïade and tapenade toasts with French breakfast radishes and sweet butter

Caillette, potato purée and little gem lettuces (caillette is a wonderful southern French charcuterie specialty, rounded little påtés, something like flattened meatballs gone French)

Whole Dourade for two with tomatoes and Lucques olives

Stone fruit tart, whipped crème fraîche

And, of course, there’ll be a Languedoc-Roussillon wine for each course…ending with the great Roussillon dessert wine, Muscat de Rivesaltes.

The next Sud de France dinner will be on June 23 at The Pines, the super-buzzy new place in the newly-trendy Gowanus section of Brooklyn, not far from Carroll Street. Marianne Fabre-Lanvin, head of the Sud de France organization in the U.S.–who introduced me to Calliope!–says that this is the most exciting new restaurant in New York for creative food.

There are others too; you can get the full list from: http://sud-de-france-festival.ticketleap.com/

One other I’d like to flag is a pop-up brunch at Donna, the cool bar in Williamsburg–executed by new chef Max Sussman, who soared at the ever-popular Roberta’s. Here’s what the New York Times had to say about the feel of this very special place:

“Last week, the Haslegraves were finishing up their ninth project, a bar called Donna in Williamsburg with a lovely Art Deco-ish bar, a vaulted ceiling and typically intriguing lighting. The building dates to 1850, and was once a flophouse, said Leif Young Huckman, 30, Donna’s owner. ‘An elegant space for dirty kids’ is how Mr. Huckman articulated his vision. ‘Meaning a place for someone like me. Someone who likes nice things but doesn’t have to dress up to get them.’ ”

Obviously a great environment in which to drink wine!

Please check here for upcoming Languedoc-Roussillon events beyond June…some of which will include my new wine, Les Cliquets (it is not arriving until later this summer). There may even be a Pain Quotidien/Rosengarten Import event soon at La Maison de la Région Languedoc-Roussillon in NY!

To those who don’t drink red wine in the summer: man, are you missing out!

Again, the site where you can procure tickets: http://sud-de-francefestival.ticketleap.com

First two photographs courtesy of BigStock, party photograph courtesy of Sud-de-France

There is NOOOO doubt whatsoever, not a shred: my favorite white wine grape in the world is Riesling. Furthermore, my favorite white wine in the world is dry Riesling, preferably from Germany. Dry Riesling! Dry Riesling!

And thereby hangs an American tragedy…

For we Yanks…going back to our experience with the cheap German imports that flooded our market post-World-War-II…have typically sneered at the concept of Riesling.

“Riesling?” they’d say, if you proposed a glass. “Ya mean like Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun? YUCK!”

And the Yanks were responding, properly, to the insipid, mass-market lightly sweet wines that the Germans were sending us in bulk in order to boost their post-war economy.

The timing was awful; the Germans were staking this sugary claim just as Americans were starting to get serious about wine, in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. We got serious about Chardonnay, above all…about Sauvignon Blanc…even about the wines made in Soave, Italy……but we steadfastly did not get serious about Riesling!

Little did we all realize that in the preceding century, the nineteenth…..dry German wines were riding high across the world. You can check the catalogue of the great London wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd from the 1890s……dry Rheingau from Germany was selling at a higher price than France’s Corton-Charlemagne, or Montrachet…the two most expensive Chardonnays in the world! The vineyards of Germany had a supreme reputation…though the Germans never chose to promote great single vineyards as much as the French did.

The other mistake the Germans made was having a poor 20th century in general. We often speak of the various nightmares of the two wars….but, a few rungs down the ladder of concerns, the century for the Germans was a marketing nightmare as well. And the post-war resuscitation of Germany’s reputation as a place of fineness, of cultural achievement (the land of Brahms, Goethe, Schiller, Kant)…..was not helped one iota by the marketing of cheap sweet wine.

Then the world changed, though most American wine-drinkers still don’t know it. The Germans…let’s say the 1980s was the key period…started getting real serious again about making outstanding dry wine from Riesling. The key word on labels was “trocken,” which means dry; if you saw, and if you see, “trocken” on a label, it means the wine inside the bottle is dry. You can bank on this.

The “trocken” boom, unfortunately, didn’t get off to the greatest re-start in the 1980s. Many German winemakers went full-on in this boom, converting all the sugar in their grape must to alcohol before they figured out how to make a balanced dry white wine in Germany. Within a few years, though, they did figure it out…and were making beautiful trockens.

It was the Germans themselves who were thrilled the most. They took to the new generation of dry Rieslings like nobody’s business. If you saw two businessmen having lunch and drinking wine at a restaurant in Frankfurt–they were undoubtedly drinking DRY Riesling. To this day, about 80% of the Riesling consumed in Germany is bone-dry…and the rest consumed in Germany, sweet though it may be, is very sweet, super-expensive, concentrated, fabulous dessert wine, certainly among the world’s greatest. There is almost no consumption in Germany of the mass-market, lightly sweet wines that Americans associate with Germany!

I visited Germany on a wine writers’ trip in the mid-1980s…and freaked the hell out! Already tired of Chardonnay (with its heaviness, its high-alcohol, its frequent oak), I was treated, at fine German restaurants, to tall, cold wine glasses containing miraculous, graceful wines as dry, as pure, as complex as any white wines I’d ever had. There were a number of varietals represented, but the most spectacular one, over and over again, was Riesling. And….it was so widely flexible with food, so contributory to great dining.

At about that time, American sommeliers began to catch on as well. The growth over the last 25 years has been nothing short of amazing! Great guys like restaurateur/sommelier Paul Grieco have been beating the drum for decades…and, today, dry Riesling is among the very hottest wines for sommeliers across the country.

There are many dry Rieslings in Germany, from many sub-regions and, of course, from many different producers. But here are eight things that I love about dry German Riesling in general, eight things that make this my favorite dry white wine in the world:

1) ELEGANCE
This is kind of a composite quality, and difficult to pin down. All of the words in this section are essentially metaphors. But if you know what I mean by the “heaviness” of Chardonnay, its galumphin’, in-your-face quality–you might be able to imagine its opposite. Dry Rieslings have “cut,” they have a kind of crystalline quality, a quality that my importer buddy Terry Thiese describes as “filigree.” They are light and refreshing, while simultaneously important and deep. There is nothing in the world of wine quite like the “breed” of a great Riesling.

2) LOW ALCOHOL
The northern climate of German (i.e. less sunshine) yields, on average, the lowest-alcohol wines in the world. There’s many a good German Riesling with a little sweetness that registers at 9 to 10% alcohol! This helps to make them so light and appealing. The drier German Rieslings weight in at a little more alcohol…11%, 12%, 13%…but it’s very rare to find the number that’s so common in California Chardonnay…a whopping 14% alcohol and above. Among the many charms of dry German Riesling is that it doesn’t rattle your brains, and does let you drive home!

3) ACIDITY
Oh yeah! Probably the single component that most makes Riesling sing is its electric acidity! In places like California, they add acid to wine to make it a little livelier on the palate. Not so in Germany…where the natural zingy acidity harmonizes perfectly, naturally with a wine‘s other aspects. The result for the drinker? A freshness unique in all the world…and the ability, like lemon juice, to cut through a million foods (smoked salmon, picnic meats, creamy fish dishes, cooked pork, and on and on and on.)

4)MINERALS
One of Riesling’s greatest attributes, to me, is the stony-minerally scent and flavor it so often carries. My wise-ass response to the white wine we Americans usually drink has oft been quoted: “If I want fruit, I’ll drink grape juice!” It has long been the other aspects of wine that form the basis of my vinous love affair. When a wine starts speaking rocks, earth, underground…that’s when I get interested! And Riesling speaks this language eloquently!

5) THE FRUIT THERE IS
Well, grapes are fruit…so every wine has to have some. And, frankly, when Riesling (usually in youth) shows its fruit…I like it! Despite my anti-fruit prejudice! The thing is…the typical young white wines, non-Riesling….exude this non-gastronomic kind of fruit that turns me off. It’s something like hyper-active pears and apples, bumped up by a little bubble gum. Of course I know that white Burgundy can be a lot more interesting than that–but it’s usually not the fruit that makes it so. In Riesling, when the pure fruit is reigning in youth…that fruit, often suggestive of flowers, peaches, nectarines, apricots…meshes with the brilliant acidity to form something truly mouthwatering. And fascinating. And gastronomic.

6) AGING
And now we’ve reached the best of all…well, almost. I LOVE the way German Riesling smells and tastes when it reaches 5-10 years old! And then…those bewitching aromas and flavors of age can continue to develop another 20 or 30 years…or more! Of which aromas do I speak? There are many, of course, in a complex, high-quality aged Riesling…but the most famous one is what the Brits call…”petrol!” That’s right…as Riesling ages, it begins to take on this hyper-minerality that is reminiscent of…petroleum. It is a unique thrill–an acquired taste for some, but a wonder first-time out for many. To me, it is one of the greatest, most gastronomic wine aromas in the world.

7) TRANSPARENCY
Now that we’ve discussed all the kinds of aromas and flavors that Riesling can yield…please recognize that as a kind of lagniappe from the wine gods…there is no grape in the world that translates its immediate environment into in-the-glass flavors and essences as felicitously as Riesling does! Wine people often froth on about “terroir”–a complicated French term, that refers to many aspects of a wine‘s environment. But if you focus on what the soil contributes to a wine–no grape sucks up the essence of the specific soil as readily as Riesling. This is a bonus thrill for the knowledgeable: “check out the taste of Bernkasteler Doktor in that wine!” “look how Kallstadter Saumagen is expressed in that wine!” “Donnhoff always nails Norheimer Dellchen as he does in this wine!” And on and on.

8) FOOD-MATCHING
Lastly, the greatest good of Riesling. For me, wine is for food; a wine may be great, but if it doesn’t taste delicious with food, I have no interest in it. One of the reasons that sommeliers are going crazy with Riesling these days…is that they find it to be an all-purpose food-lover…or, as wine-writing legend Hugh Johnson once said to me about the matching abilities of German Riesling…”it’s the banker!” It cuts through heavy foods (like a big pork roast with sauerkraut). It complements light foods (like salads). It goes in a million different directions ingredient-wise…and cuisine-wise! Brilliant with French food, American food, Italian food…Riesling is also highly sympathetic with Asian foods of all kinds, and with spicy food in general. Save that Gewurztraminer for the gastronomic freak show…and break out the Riesling instead!

As you may have noticed, I’ve begun to import wine. I’ve already begun with the wonderful dry German Rieslings of Philipp Kuhn…but in the near future there’ll be scores more dry Rieslings…they will be the heart of my portfolio!

Philipp Kuhn

My mission is to bring in all kinds of wines that are easy, and elegant, and simultaneously complex…but they must be brilliant with food. And…I want them to be for everybody, at reasonable prices. Taking my advice on these wines is NOT like reading the Wine Spectator and getting their “definitive” ratings…which have no consistency, and which have nothing to do with the dinner table. Once you have come to know my palate, you may decide it’s not for you. No prob! But I suspect you’ll see the method in my madness, and, if you’re a true gastronome, it will become your madness too. A Rosengarten wine–which carries the sticker “A David Rosengarten Wine for Food–will NEVER fall outside of my aesthetic! I will scour the world for these food-loving wines…and will hope to stem the world domination of Chardonnay and Cabernet!

I have ten categories of wine in my portfolio. Here’s a glimpse:

David Rosengarten‘s Ten Wine Categories: The REAL Categories Every Wine-Lover Needs in His or Her Life!

(I estimate that 95% of the wine in wine shops falls outside of these categories!)

*Round, gentle, complex, affordable aged reds

*Dry, sleek, racy whites (for oysters, etc.)

*Dry Riesling, Chenin Blanc, and a few others, young and old (the best white-wine category for food-matching)

*Young, bouncy, juicy reds (other wines of the world in the sappy Beaujolais mode)

*Complex aged whites with tolerable wood (excellent cream sauce wines)

*Elegant mainstream reds…..that’s mainstream but ELEGANT!

*Complex toasty-yeasty Champagne (or Champagne ringers)

*Crisp, clean, non-fruity sparkling wine

*Meaningful rosés, light on their feet but…bursting with fruit, or smoldering with almost-red-wine interest

*Complex, luscious, affordable dessert wines

Photos courtesy of the following, in order of appearance:
Homepage photo: www.summerofriesling.com; Post photos: www.newyork.metromix.com, Photograph by Clive Rutland from Colbury and Ashurst Theatrical Society’s production of Robin Hood and the Singing Nun, www.winebeing.com, www.blog.friendseat.com, www.themanfrommoselriver.com, Bigstock, Bigstock

Meadowood

I recently spent a thoroughly beguiling three nights at The Meadowood Resort on the Silverado Trail in Napa Valley; really and truly, if you’re planning a Napa fantasy, you should most definitely book one of their mountainside cottages as your accommodation. The luxury, the pampering, the comfort…not to mention the fact that you feel so strongly that you are in a rural place. That you are in Napa Valley.

If you go, though, you’ll be luckier than I…for The Meadowood’s great restaurant, one of only two 3-star Michelin restaurants in Napa Valley (you KNOW the other), was recently closed for two months for renovation…of course, during my stay! But I’ve eaten there several times before (heavenly)…and, during this recent stay in February, I did get to chat with The Restaurant’s brilliant chef, one of California’s great culinary stars, Christopher Kostow.

Chef Christopher Kostow

After seeing the extensive gardens at The Meadowood, I was most interested in discussing with Christopher a subject very much on my mind lately: will locavore endure?

My own observation first: I’m not sure that the country’s hottest, hippest food trend—restaurants using ingredients that are local—is going to always have the weight it has right now. I don’t think it’ll ever die…I just think that there’s a locavore backlash right now among many chefs, and that “locavore” is going to get taken down a peg or two, or three.

Why? Lots of chefs feel handcuffed by the locavore creed. If you work in Miami and you want to cook with foie gras…whatcha gonna do? If you work in Cleveland, and the greatest fish is available to you only by airlift…whatcha gonna do? If you work in North Dakota and you need some brilliant fresh herbs in winter…whatcha gonna do?

But these examples are not minor exceptions to the rule. Many chefs are looking to the airplanes, and FedEx, for most of what they’re using.

Consider another major new star on the American culinary scene, Cesar Ramirez at Brooklyn Fare in (guess where!), another glittering recent addition to Michelin’s three-star pantheon.

When you go to Brooklyn Fare, your dinner is 25 or so small courses selected by Ramirez. No one has ever been able to exactly characterize what he does…other than “make incredibly delicious food!”…but more than anything else his vision involves a heavy Japanese aesthetic. And the execution of this aesthetic includes the air freight, constantly, of top-quality fish from Japan. In the same vein, you will find delicious fresh cheeses from Italy on your plate—also flown in, because they’re the best examples in the world.

Ramirez is part of that revisionist group of chefs who wants to work with the best possible ingredients, no matter where they’re from.

So…how does Kostow of Meadowood view all this?

For starters…Kostow sees himself as working very much in a very specific place. Ramirez of Brooklyn Fare could probably move to Kansas City tomorrow, and his restaurant wouldn’t change that much. Everything about Meadowood, however, and Kostow’s work there, screams Napa Valley.

During the two-month closing, Kostow said, “our kitchen staff took lots of local trips together. We went to purveyors. We went to wine producers. We visited local historical societies, to get a better perspective on who we are.” Meadowood’s restaurant was locavore before, but it’s even more deeply locavore now.

“Locavore,” said Kostow “…depends on where you are. If I were cooking in a restaurant in New York City, I would not set up a rooftop garden. But when you’re in an agricultural place…of course you should emphasize the local products!”

“Fortunately,” he went on, “we’re in a very happy position: we do not have to choose between local and good, as many chefs do!”

“For restaurants like ours,” said Kostow, who worked extensively in France before burgeoning in California, “the new luxury is not lobster and foie gras, like it used to be. I handled many expensive ingredients in France, which sometimes came out of the freezer and were not all they were cracked up to be. Our ‘luxury’ has a better quality aura: we spend the money on running the garden, which is a much more precise guarantee of quality. We’re not interested in ‘name’ luxury ingredients on the menu. A restaurant’s own agriculture is the true luxury in 2013.”

Meadowood Garden

Though I’m all for anti-locavore pushback when it makes sense (as in Brooklyn)…I’m also all for a locavore like Kostow! I can hardly wait to get back to Meadowood and take the measure of The Restaurant’s enhanced locavorism!

And what else will be greeting me when I return? Here’s a piece of a recent press release, tracking the changes. Please note the number of times the concept of “local” is invoked!

On the inspiration behind the recent additions, Restaurant Director Nathaniel Dorn says, “The projects we completed during the last couple of months were primarily designed to enhance our guests’ comfort, enjoyment and sense of discovery. We delved deeper into our relationships with a few of our existing artisans and craftsmen and forged several exciting new partnerships as well.”

The new entry and expanded bar area, designed by noted architect Howard Backen, features a twenty-foot beamed ceiling, fieldstone walls, two fireplaces, large windows and a polished concrete-and-wood floor. Craftsman Michael Capp worked with Dorn to execute his designs for new dining tables for both The Restaurant dining room and the bar. The table tops are crafted of limestone while the bases feature cast iron steel and 100-year-old wood salvaged from a bridge in British Columbia. Suspended custom ceramic tiles by local artist Richard Carter add warmth and texture to the room and are positioned to add interest to the overhead space. Fabric colors feature shades of gray and subtle pin striping in keeping with the accents in the dining room.

In addition to the beautiful new space with seating for 18, guests will also find snacks from Chef Christopher Kostow and The Restaurant at Meadowood culinary team offered at $20 per person. The bar will be open Monday through Saturday evenings from 5:00 p.m. to midnight with wines available by the glass or bottle and an array of traditional and signature cocktails.

Another new culinary debut occurs at the actual bar itself, where guests will now be able to enjoy a three-course menu each evening priced at $90 per person. The menu will change nightly and guests are encouraged to call ahead to reserve space as seats at the bar are limited. “This new three-course menu was largely inspired by the members of our local community who enjoy coming into The Restaurant mid-week,” says Dorn. “We have a good many vintners, for example, who’ve told us they’d like to come into The Restaurant at the end of the day for a lighter meal and some good conversation. So, we’ve created that opportunity for them.”

The new private dining room was created in response to the growing number of larger parties inquiring about dining in The Restaurant. “Increasingly,” says Dorn, “we have guests who want to hold special celebrations in The Restaurant. This space, which overlooks a small, private garden, will be perfect for gatherings of friends or family members celebrating special occasions. It’s also ideal for members of our local vintner community wishing to host private dinners featuring their wines alongside Christopher’s menus.”

Finally, in the dining room, wine enthusiasts are likely to delight in the new Thomas Warner-designed wine cellar. Crafted entirely of rich walnut the cellar fills the space of the original four-seat private dining room. Says Dorn, “We’re excited to have our extensive wine collection located in the dining room where it will be close at hand for both our staff and our guests.”

For more information on The Restaurant at Meadowood or to reserve a table, visit www.therestaurantatmeadowood.com. To reserve seating at the bar or to inquire about the private dining room, call 707-967-1205.

All photos courtesy of Meadowood

My Surprising Week in America’s Most Famous Wine Region

About a week ago, I attended the annual Wine Writers’ Symposium, based at the splendid Meadowood Resort on Silverado Trail. Increasingly, the Symposium has also shared facilities with the CIA, just across the valley floor in St. Helena.

The symposium attendees, outside the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena

Now, as you may already know…..Napa Valley wine, at its most scale-tipping typical…..is not exactly my cup of tea. So I didn’t go into this thing expecting any wine revelations. I also thought I knew what to expect Symposium-wise, having spoken there four years ago.

But lots of things rocked my world during this most enjoyable visit.

Here are the five most interesting and relatable things I took away from my week in Napa Valley:

A) THE FOCUS ON MONEY AT THE WINE WRITERS’ SYMPOSIUM

Of course 60 wine writers at a conference are going to talk wine, wine, wine. But this year I also noted the number of panels, and the amount of buzz among the wine geeks, devoted to the business of our business.

On one central day, the morning began with a panel called Where Is the Money?, which included a kind of poll, conducted by electronic means, assessing the real financial life of wine writers. The results were shocking…..with most wine writers confessing that wine writing doesn’t bring in more than $10,000 a year in income. So the focus shifted, in the next panel, to The Wine Writer as Entrepreneur: How to Leverage Your Story and Your Brand.

I was on the latter panel—my favorite panel of the week—along with Karen MacNeil (of Wine Bible fame), Linda Murphy (of Jancisrobinson.com), and moderator Alder Yarrow (of Vinography.com, Alder’s highly visible blog).

At the heart of our discussion was a question of ethics: essentially, should a wine writer remain relatively passive, weakly surfing the ebbing tide of economic possibility……or, should a wine writer build his or her own brand, even crossing the line into…..gasp…..entrepreneurship!

You probably know how I feel. As long as a writer retains his or her integrity, anything is possible. I’m importing wines now! But I would never use the journalism part of what I do to give those wines an advantage by damning competitors. It’s unthinkable! Yes, I’m importing Michel Gonet Champagne….but every story I write for the rest of my life about Krug, or Charles Heidsieck, or Pierre Peters, or whatever….will include exactly what I think about those wines!

The controversy echoed throughout the conference. It was cool.

NOTE: for a short video look at the Symposium, click here:

B) THE PROMISE OF 2011 CHARDONNAY

A Chardonnay lover I ain’t. All that butter, vanilla, tropical fruit, alcohol….the stuff that gets some wine drinkers excited….gets me completely turned off, leaves me longing for a really tingly dry German Riesling at 11.5% alcohol and a citrus grove of acid.

And so…..one of my most surprising wine reactions of the week…..was discovering that I’m digging the Napa Valley Chardonnays of 2011!

Now, I don’t want to take this too far. These are still not among my favorite white wines in the world. But in a blind tasting of Chardonnays in which a dozen different Napa wineries presented three Chardonnays each—the 2009, the 2010, the 2011—in every trio I found the 2011 to be the most appealing by far. And that’s from me, a lover of wines with age.

The set-up for the Chardonnay tasting

The Chardonnay tasting

Here’s a summary of the vintage from California’s Wine Institute:

2011 California Harvest Report

SAN FRANCISCO — The 2011 California winegrape harvest was lighter and later than normal with flavors developing at lower sugar levels, giving winemakers the opportunity to make flavorful, elegant wines. A wet winter and spring delayed bloom and hindered fruit set, resulting in shatter in some regions, which decreased the overall crop load. A generally cool summer prolonged the growing season and harvest started very late in most areas. Early autumn rains prompted growers and wineries to pick many varieties at lower Brix. “We walked blocks carefully early on and started picking when fruit reached an early ripeness, which we felt was the correct expression of this vintage,” said Michael Silacci, Winemaker at Opus One in Napa Valley. “We are really excited about this year’s vintage.”

And this is exactly what I found in this group of Chardonnays. I would never consider ordering a 2009 Napa Chardonnay in a restaurant—just the opposite kind of vintage, a hot and ripe one—but I’ve now got my eyes out for 2011.

Some of my favorites in the blind tasting came from Hudson Vineyards (fruit from Carneros), Merryvale Vineyards (also Carneros fruit), and Pine Ridge Vineyards (Carneros again!)

Come to think of it, the advice is: look for Carneros 2011!

C) THE EXTRAORDINARY WINES OF REYNOLDS FAMILY WINERY

The odds against finding a new-to-me winery in Napa that totally knocks me out? 1000 to one, perhaps?

It happened last week anyway, big-time.

At the Symposium, we did another blind tasting of wines in vintage trios—this time, the Cabernet Sauvignons of 2008, 2009, 2010.

The Cabernet tasting

What can I say? It was a typical Napa Cab tasting for me—hot, dark wines, some quite bitter, most very tannic—the organizers even supplied toothbrushes and toothpaste upon exit, I kid you not!

However, winery #5 was different. I tasted the 2008, 2009, and 2010, and my heart leapt. I tasted other wines, then came back again. Still leaping. Tasteful wine writer buddies with purple teeth at the event were buzzing: “did you taste #5?”

When I saw the ID key after the tasting, I realized that for me, a new star had swum into my wine cosmos.

Reynolds Family Winery.

Never even heard of it before. But, beyond doubt, they make my favorite Cabernet in the Napa Valley today (at least among the ones I know about)!

Steve Reynolds was a dentist with a serious love for wine (a love that had been stimulated by some teen-age years in Europe, going to vineyards with his Dad). In 1994, after years of dreaming about it, Reynolds and family took the plunge: they purchased a 100-year-old chicken ranch on the Silverado Trail, and Dr. Reynolds traded teeth for nails…..building everything on this property from fences to the tasting room. Oh yeah….they also planted ten acres of Cabernet Sauvignon in 1996, and produced their first wine in 1999.

Here’s the thing about Reynolds Family reds: they are much, much more elegant than most of the competition—but still retaining the best of Napa Valley lusciousness. I always think that California winemakers could make more balanced, harmonious wines, if they wanted to (I think of the lovely Victor Hugo winery in Paso Robles)…..but winemakers usually don’t want to, preferring to bank on the high Parker points of wines that “hurt” (I swear a winemaker in California once said to me “Dave, I know a wine is good when it hurts!!!”).

The wine that hurt so little—and was absolutely world-class wonderful, at the same time!—was the 2008 Reynolds Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Stags Leap District.

Now, Reynolds makes other wines as well, not all of them designated “Stags Leap District.” So back in New York, I called them up—discovering, happily, “the Cabernet  you liked was Steven Spurrier’s favorite winery of the tasting, too”—and asked for a broad sampling of the Reynolds wines. Tasting ensued…..along with quality confirmation!

So here are my sober, sit-down, focused notes on the best wine of my week in Napa:

2008 Reynolds Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Stags Leap District.

Medium-deep garnet ruby, full to edge. Gorgeous plummy, berry-like nose, deep fruit, touch of rhubarb, celery seed, and Bordeaux earthy exotica, something like cheese rind. It makes me fantasize about some mid-Atlantic metaphoric island, looking both east and west. The kind of plush fruit that Napa Valley is known for—but in this case it’s dry-tasting fruit, not sweet-tasting fruit. Simultaneously, the wine has the type of exquisite balance that seems like great Bordeaux, maybe Right Bank. Gorgeous, subtle, haunting echoes of rose and incense gather in the finish, which is surprisingly soft and bouncy. This is what I’d want Napa Valley Cabernet to be, but so rarely find!

This baby costs just under a hundred dollars…..seriously worth it, to me, and seriously more lovely than famous Napa wines that cost five times as much.

At home, I also tasted these winning wines from Reynolds:

2009 Pinot Noir, Los Carneros

Medium garnet, not light, not dark. Closed nose. Nice berry fruit, only moderately ripe. Hints of cranberry, but little oak or spice happening right now (though a few minutes breathing brings out a little tootsie roll). Sweet attack, then even throughout most of the palate, though it finishes a little hot. Lots of promise, I think, because the structure is fine for New World Pinot….just kinda dumb at the moment.

2008 Merlot, Stags Leap District

Silky-looking slightly lightened garnet. Lovely fruit on nose, well-behaved, slightly Bordeaux-like berries. Crushed velvet feel on palate, tremendously bright fruit, refreshing through to finish (which is a little short). My second favorite, after the Stags Leap Cabernet.

My second favorite wine from Reynolds Family Winery

2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, Estate Select

Quite dark garnet with hints of black. A little more in the ripe, hot, licorice-y direction…but only by comparison. A little hot and chunky on entry, with extremely subtle hints of Port-like ripeness. Glides across the finish-line like all Reynolds reds, with good acid and non-abrasive tannin….though this one has more tannin than the other wines.

2008 Persistence, Napa Valley

Lovely mid-garnet, ruby at rim, maybe a touch of onion skin lying ahead. Quieter than the others, but vague hints of spice and chocolate on nose. About as elegant as a big Bordeaux blend (that, creatively, includes Syrah!) can get. It’s for those who prize richness and power….but even such a wimp as I can enjoy the balance-of-power crafting in this wine.

D) THE BEAUTY OF CAIN VINEYARD AND WINERY

The tasting room at Cain Vineyard and Winery

Well, sure….a wine writer visiting Napa Valley has to make a few winery visits, no? I chose to go way the hell up on Spring Mountain, on the west side of the valley high above St. Helena, to visit a winery whose wines I’ve always liked. AND I heard the place is drop-dead gorgeous!

It is.

If you’re planning a Napa Valley visit, I would advise you to contact Cain, make an appointment (no drop-ins allowed), get a map sent to you, turn your GPS off as you ascend (because the winding curves on the way up confuse the hell out of your little device), and anticipate one of the prettiest hours you can spend in Napa.

The heart and soul of this winery is a gorgeous hillside on Spring Mountain, 550 acres of it, first purchased by Cain’s founders in 1980. They started planting vines in 1981, calling it the Cain Mountain Vineyard—a dramatic “bundt pan,” surrounding the ultra-dramatic rock called “La Piedra”—and, today, produce just a few different labels (the winery’s capacity is 25,000 cases per vintage), some from Cain Mountain Vineyard fruit, some from grapes purchased elsewhere.

Looking out at the vineyard from the winery….with La Piedra visible on the upper left

In the vineyard…..standing behind La Piedra

The most prestigious wine from this winery is called Cain Five, named for the five “Bordeaux” varieties that are blended to make it. All of the fruit comes from the famous hillside vineyard. I like it—because I find it a little more elegant than most Napa Valley top-of-the-pay-scale biggies.

But I reserve my special love for the inexpensive wine labeled “Cain Cuvée”—made from a little mountain fruit, but mostly from grapes grown elsewhere. Intriguingly, they make this wine every TWO vintages—so it is a carefully controlled blend (like Brut Champagne), not a single-vintage wine. To me, they continually hit the mark: lush but elegant Napa Valley red wine, bright and perky, terrific with a wide variety of foods. For every bottling, they include the same rows of wine, from the same growers.

The current release, specified “NV9″ on the bottle, was just released in February, and is 57% 2009 fruit, 43% 2008 fruit, with a majority of Merlot in it (53%).

So…..I’m recommending the wine, for sure….but super-recommending a trip up Spring Mountain!

E) SMITH-MADRONE SHINES AT WINE DINNER AT “PRESS”

One of the great dinner events of the Napa week was an event at Press, the upscale steakhouse owned by Lesley Rudd—who also owns the great gourmet-shop chain Dean & DeLuca, which happens to have a branch right next door to Press, just a bit south of St. Helena on Route 29. I’d been to Press before, and liked it greatly…but it was even better with all the thrill of a winemaker’s dinner in the middle of the winemakers’ region.

Waiters preparing for the crush at Press

You know the scene: local winemakers grab bottles of every this and that, many of them aged, before lugging them over to a big dinner with lots of round tables where lucky guests dive into the bottles at will. Usually there’s a set menu created by the chef, sometimes with a theme: on this night, we had a dozen courses with our Napa Valley wine that included all things porcine.

The top of the piggy menu

The wines flowed, of course….and, to be frank, though much flowed through me, not much thrilled me. Sorry to be such a Napa Scrooge! But when it’s good, it’s good. One of the sub-plots of the evening for me was an aged magnum of Mayacamas Chardonnay, really at point and yummy. Shouldn’t have been a big surprise….Mayacamas is one of the few wineries I rely on for aged Cabernet.

The lovely 1998 Chardonnay in magnum from Mayacamas

Best of all, however, was a bottle of Cab from a winery I thought I’d understood….Smith-Madrone…..also on Spring Mountain. The 2007 Cook’s Flat Reserve on my table—next to a sea of bottles from bigger-name wineries—knocked me out with its balance, and, particularly, its Bordeaux-ness. American winemakers are usually allergic to “green”—that herbal-veggie aroma so intrinsic to Cabernet, so common in France, so disgraced in California. Parker finds “green” to be a flaw—so 99% of American winemakers let their grapes get way too ripe, lest a little “green” creep into the wine (in America, it’s not easy being green!). Bleh. I like “green” in Cabernet, as long as it doesn’t dominate. This 2007, for me, had the perfect reminder of Cabernet’s true nature.

So, back in New York, I once again played the phone-call card to the winery….receiving by post, almost instantly, a lovely “library” set of Smith-Madrone wines. They make whites as well at Smith-Madrone, which I will taste in the future….but yesterday I put the Smith-Madrone reds into my Reynolds tasting and…..though nothing can measure up to the majesty of the 2008 Reynolds Family Winery Cabernet from Stag’s Leap….these were damned good wines too, atypical Napa Valley wines, right in my style.

The true knock-out was the 2000 Smith-Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley.

It is a silky-looking garnet, medium, with touch of lightening at edge. A little jam on the nose, but a hint of white truffle as well…a Napa Cab developing like a European wine! Even shows a bit of horse sweat (call it Brett, but I call it luscious!) Definite bell pepper character on palate, even Chinon-like…though the funk continues too at a very low level, with a whisper of smokiness. Great, lifting acid, and well-behaved finish. Compact, complex, delish.

Here are my notes on the other reds tasted in New York, all of which I also recommend:

1995 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Medium garnet, faintest touch of onion skin at rim. Very Bordeaux-like herby nose, with a little jammy depth. Extremely Bordeaux-like on palate, with a kind of space between the Napa-esque concentrations of fruit that allows the wine to breathe.

2001 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley

Slightly more advanced in color than the 2000, not quite as purply. Garrigue-like wild herbs on the nose, without as much fruit as the 2000. A little more disjunct than the 2000, with hints of volatile acidity, plus a little extra heat, bitterness and tannin. But perfect with the right foods, like grill meats.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, Spring Mountain District

Medium purply-garnet, but not super youthful or strong looking. Pure fruit on nose, perfect degree of ripeness. Gorgeous mixture of Cabernet green and plummy fruit on the palate. Touch of licorice. Slightly aggressive tannins, but I think they will melt away….and I think the tertiary flavors will develop beautifully in this wine.

So the big take-away is: if you seek, seek, seek in Napa Valley….ye shall find! But, unless ye are part of the big-bomb crowd……ye must be one careful, specific seeker!

COMING UP NEXT WEEK:

As you may know, I’ve just returned from an amazing winter trip. Three weeks in Europe—from a balmy wine-tasting on the banks of the Bosporus, to a week of Languedoc vineyarding in the south of France, to luscious Chenin Blanc discoveries in the Loire Valley, to a wild snow-covered jaunt through five German wine regions—ending with a supra-luxe gastro-weekend in Paris.

The good life, for sure.

You’ll be hearing much about all of this in the coming months. And, I hope, drinking some of it soon.

For now, I will be posting many of my photos, with accompanying prose, on Twitter and Facebook over the next several weeks.

Also, look on www.drosengarten.com next week, for my photo essay on one of the delights of Germany’s Pfalz region: saumagen, or stuffed pig’s stomach! Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Below are a few sneak peak photos from upcoming photo montages on Facebook and Twitter. And check out the first group of photographs showcasing Istanbul on Facebook here.

A taste of dining in The Loire Valley

Parisian bread basket

L'Obé

This Valentine’s Day, we are sharing the love. We are offering 20% OFF Michel Gonet Champagne, Jude’s Rum Cake, and Henry Family Farm Hot Sauces in my shop from now until February 14 (enter code TASTE20). Be sure to order these exclusive treats with enough time to have them delivered by Valentine’s Day.

To start, palate-invigorating Champagne…

2004 Gonet Prestige, 2004 Gonet Nude, 2002 Gonet

Michel Gonet sent me three champagnes that I love, which I’ve put on sale through our friends at WineCellarage.com. I am the first to make these classic Champagnes available across America–crisp, dry, elegant, refined, loaded with the complex flavors of aged Champagne.

For a decadent finish, rum cake…

Craig Adcock at Jude’s Rum Cakehas always been my favorite rum cake baker, and now we’ve joined forces to create a 3-pack of cakes that include my own rum selections. That’s right–three rum cakes, each made with a totally different rum! Fab for a Valentine’s Day rum cake tasting—or anytime. Adcock’s amazing recipes yield fluffy, rummy, buttery, eggy cakes that are positively addictive. They’re not at all cloying—they’re just mind-blowing! Originally $24, yours today for $19.20.

Garrigue near a swimming pool at Domaine de Costes-Cirgue in the Languedoc

Special Report from Montpellier, France

Go to any posh tasting in the U.S. of wines from the south of France, and the first description you’re sure to hear is “ah! the aroma of garrigue!” Everyone is into it because Robert Parker started including it in his southern French notes years ago—and because, let’s face it, it’s a catchy word that makes you sound smart.

But there’s a lot of dumb garrigue usage out there. For starters, it is not a single herb, as some believe. It is a group of Mediterranean herbs—some familiar, like thyme and rosemary, some not so familiar—collectively referred to as “garrigue.” They grow near each other, and together they have an effect on wine.

I was in garrigue country a few days ago, so let’s take it from the top.

The word itself is derived from the old word in the Languedoc language for a prolific tree of the area. Lots of herbs traditionally grew around these trees. The word “garrigue,” originally used for the tree, got switched to the surrounding herbs. Today, the tree itself  is called the “chêne vert,” or “green oak.”

A baby "green oak" with its pointy leaves surrounded by various herbs

In the contemporary Languedoc, there are many tall green oaks. But those clusters of herbs (now called “garrigue”) still grow around them.

"Chêne vert" tree on the property of Domaine de Costes-Cirgue

There is one more fundamental truth about garrigue that we normally overlook. According to Jean-Benoît Cavalier of Chateau de Lascaux in Pic-St.-Loup, the trees and herbs “must be on limestone. There are other clusters of herbs in the Languedoc, but they actually have other names. If they’re growing on granite, for example, they’re called ‘maquis,’ not ‘garrigue.’ ”

Of course, Chateau de Lascaux has gorgeous limestone vineyards at Pic-St.-Loup. “The one I visited yesterday was typical,” said Cavalier “…a rectangular plot bordered on every side by high green oak trees and garrigue on the ground.”

“From a vineyard like this,” said Cavalier (a vineyard that happened to be planted to Syrah) “…you can smell the garrigue in the grapes themselves.”

Istanbul's Golden Horn at dusk, Jan. 23, 2013, just before the Dom Pérignon launch

It was one of the most spectacular wine invitations of my life—and it turned out to be one of the most spectacular wine parties as well.

I left New York this Monday for Istanbul, a guest of Dom Pérignon champagne. Why? Because they are launching just now a much-awaited wine—their “dark jewel,” as they call it—the 2002 Dom Pérignon Rosé. Both the wine and the city, the French say, are “rich and vivacious, mineral and sensual, ample and precise, inviting and mysterious…one legend calls for another.”

So they created an extraordinary Kubrick-esque environment in an Ottoman princess’ palace right on the Bosporus (she was the daughter of nineteenth-century Sultan Abdulaziz I), flooded it with waves of pulsing light, summoned a mesmerizing whirling dervish to pull us all into the trance, and flew in one of France’s greatest chefs, Jean-François Piège (along with 20 pounds of black truffles in his bags) to prepare a feast that would accompany the highly byzantine global debut of…2002 Dom Pérignon Rosé.

Overkill? Yes. And worth absolutely every Turkish lira they spent. No debutante, liquid or solid, has ever had a coming-out party as thrilling as this one.

And the boule of the ball?

The 2002 Dom Pérignon Rosé, debuting on the banks of the Bosporus

I can tell you this: we have here a historic, sui generis bottle of wine, a fascinating leap into the great unknown.

You may adore it, as most at the party did. You may respect it greatly, as I do. You may find it more odd than delicious, as a grumpy few did. But you will have to admit that this taste of history is worth the price—even though the price at retail is $330 a bottle (750 ML).

The first thing that strikes you, as the DP pros have well anticipated, is the extraordinary color. I have never seen a rosé Champagne this dark, a bizarre amber-orange-red, suggestive of top-flight Tavel rosé after a good bleed, or even the Italian apéritif Aperol.

In a long conversation at the Ciragan Palace with the ebullient, fascinating, enigmatic chief winemaker of Dom Pérignon, Richard Geoffroy, we could not pry out of him the secret of the color. Yes, we learned 2002 was a kind of miracle vintage—a dismal late summer followed by a completely unexpected Indian summer. This made the grapes “even riper in some ways” than the grapes of the famously hot vintage that followed in 2003. Did the skins of 2002 turn dark, we asked? Was there a longer maceration of the red-wine grapes, perhaps? From Geoffroy, no direct answers were forthcoming.

Richard Geoffroy, Dom Pérignon's Chief Winemaker, teases us at a Ciragan Palace press conference

Geoffroy did let on that since 2000 there has been an increase in the percentage of Pinot Noir grapes in the Dom Pérignon blend. I’d say there’s reason to believe that the Pinot increase—along with global warming—is leading, at least, to heavier Dom Pérignon Rosé today than ever before.

And Exhibit A is the 2002.

The bouquet is what you’d call ample: complex, vibrant, perfume-intense, with fleeting scents of vanilla, white chocolate, violet, watermelon, citrus, and celery seed. The wine is over a decade old, and there’s nary a trace of oxidation—reflecting the Champagne ethos of Geoffroy. “I’d much rather have my Champagne taste like a great evolved wine,” Geoffroy has told me before, “than like a product of oxidation.” Not everyone agrees—I actually like some oxidation in aged Champagne—but his position is a good way to define Dom Pérignon in general, an excellent point of difference.

On the palate, the wine is heady, even a little hot. It is not exactly what you’d call “creamy”—a certain way Champagne bubbles have of creaming over your palate—but it makes up for that with its weight. Best of all, for me, is the way that it glides into elegance in the finish: passing through a brief point of bitterness, the wine goes on to a long and magnificent ever-so-slightly off-dry coda, tingling with appley acidity.

I love elegance in Champagne above all; others worship power. For me, this wine is a gorgeous compromise—an elegant version of power, a full army of soldiers dressed in velvet. It is a paradox in real liquid time.

And it is, incontrovertibly, a oner. Utterly unconventional. “Conventional beauty in wine…” Geoffroy opined in Turkey “…doesn’t mean anything. Wine should be all about singularity—towards which we push very hard. This wine is as far from archetypal as you can get.”

And suddenly, a hundred wine-lovers flown into Byzantium in the dead of winter to celebrate a bevy of beautiful bubbles, doesn’t seem so crazy after all.