n.d.p. in burgundy: domaine denis bachelet, gevrey-chambertin

Professional readers might note that, as I write up my experiences tasting around Burgundy, I tend to tread uncharacteristically gingerly when dealing with the wines themselves. This is because I haven't tasted enough. I've never bought Burgundy professionally, nor have I had much opportunity to taste the region's wines very deeply or broadly. Wine criticism, like any criticism, is the act of placing subjective reactions within a context of more-or-less objective information, and it's what I feel to be a lack of the latter that keeps me a bit British and even-handed and unjudgmental about the wines I tasted on this trip.*

For instance, at Domaine Denis Bachelet, the 3.8ha cult Gevrey-Chambertin estate whose Charmes-Chambertin is among the most sought-after and revered bottles of the appellation, what perspective could I possibly bring to the wines, having never tasted them before? They're masterful, magisterial, and no, we could not, at that time, purchase any.**

I was happy just to be there. Even if I could do little more than mutely confirm the greatness of Denis Bachelet's zen-like production.

greece invades china: q-tea, 75009

My friend D visits us each men's fashion week from Athens, where he has an excellent high fashion boutique in the Kolonaki area. (Just a stone's throw from the riots, in fact. His shop has so far been spared any looting, possibly by dint of its not having any windows.) After his visit this past January, we got to talking about Greek wine, and he kindly insisted on bringing over some bottles of my choosing in June.

The problem is, I know almost zilch about Greek wine. The only place besides Greece, to my knowledge, where one can taste it in educational quantities is, of course, New York. I wound up just emailing D some PDF wine lists of reputable NYC places and telling him I remembered reading nice things about Assyrtiko.*

D, in typical fashion, showed up with a generous sack of interesting bottles, most of which we cracked open after showrooms one night over a B.Y.O.B. dinner at 9ème Chinese gem Q-Tea,** thereby creating another incidental politically-odd pairing.

bordeaux blonde: château méric & château sainte marie

Admission: I almost never buy Bordeaux, red or white. Like Hong Kong in 1997, I'm content to leave it to the Chinese.

But this is just a sneaky way of saying, 'I haven't yet become interested enough to educate myself.' White Bordeaux, however, holds a great deal of mystery for me, because I encounter it relatively rarely, and because when I do, I seem to dig the results. Typically derived from Semillon and Sauvignon, with diminishing proportions of Colombard, Ugni Blanc, and Muscadelle, among other minor grapes, the wines constitute a persuasive middle ground in great French white winemaking. More stolid and less exotic than Alsace, less luminescent than Burgundy, lacking the bite of Sancerre or the amorphous delicacy of Chenin, with neither the spicy exuberance of southwestern whites, nor necessarily the honied voluptuousness of those of the Rhone, Bordeaux blancs, like their red counterparts, seem to prize grace and gentility over strong personality. Only, not being red, they are continually overlooked, understocked, and underpriced.

The other day I dropped by 10ème natural cave La Contre-Etiquette, and left with two bottles of scandalously inexpensive white Bordeaux, which I intitially planned to keep in stock until some appropriately low-key occasion arose, such as a bad dinner party, or a risotto. I am no good at saving things, however. Later that evening my newly-bleached friend E came over, and we wound up polishing off both bottles in a state of happy incredulity, barely able to believe that such profound wines could be found so cheaply.

gustatory archaeology: 19th century cognac at julhès paris

I must begin this post by thanking my friend S, then visiting from New York, for gamely joining me for what turned out to be a breakfast of hard liquor at Julhès Paris' recent Cognac / Armagnac tasting. What's more, she did it all in good faith, without any convincing, since frankly I'd have few ideas about how to convince anyone to drink Cognac or Armagnac in the first place, let alone for breakfast.

It's just an uphill battle. Good Armagnac is fascinating and delightful but prohibitively expensive, ditto good Cognac, which latter spirit presents the added difficulty of being encountered almost never, having been crowded out of the market by the bad versions. Neither industry has had any marketing epiphanies over the past century that might have created a more engaged everyday clientele for the spirits, with the result that both continue to radiate an unfortunate aura of decrepitude and / or decadence. You have slick unsophisticated commercial Cognacs swigged by rappers who ought to know better, and then you have an obscure sliver of an artisanal industry, including the Grosperrin Cognacs S and I tasted that day, usually enjoyed by the thimbleful at fine restaurants on anniversaries. Neither of these market segments are really enough to sustain the kind of abiding dialog around a subject that leads to greater public understanding of, and therefore mental investment in, said subject. (E.g. wine criticism.)

That business diatribe notwithstanding, S and I tasted some pretty sensational things that day, including a Cognac Grand Champagne distilled in 1820, bottled some hundred years later, just after WWI. (!)

revelations: une promesse du vin tasting at spring restaurant, 75001

Wherein this author reveals he is not hardcore enough about this whole wine schtick to wait around for Anselme Selosse to show up. Yes, the Selosse, he of the otherworldly Champagnes from Avize. He arrived late to the tasting my friend Josh at Spring organized in honor of wine writer George Bardawil's book "Une Promesse du Vin," and I'd already moseyed on to the day's next tasting.

I'd like to say I left because after tasting through the stellar line-up Josh had assembled that day - the wines of vignerons who were on time, including masters like Claude Papin, André Ostertag, and Christine Campadieu of Domaine La Tour Vieille - I'd had my fill of heavenly wines for the day.

But really it was just me being in a hurry. To hell with it, I thought, I'll just have to get rich and purchase some Selosse for my own private consumption one day. I was planning to do that anyway.

n.d.p. in madrid: common decency at bocaito

After a few nights spent careening around Madrid en masse guided only by iPhones and good intentions, it was a tremendous relief on our last night to actually have a reservation in our name somewhere. My friend D's friend C, a Madrid native, had made the res from London and then moved heaven and earth to arrive in time for the main course.

I suspect that D had made us intentionally late for C's sake, actually. We all trooped into Chueca-district restaurant Bocaito loopy on sherry and about an hour late, prompting the matronly proprietress to unleash a wild tirade on impoliteness and ethics to the only member of our party who could understand her, which happened to be Y, the curator of the group show in which D's wife E was performing. We all seated ourselves red-faced with heads bowed - but grinning, since at very least we were seated, and at a restaurant that promised to be decent, even.