Sophie moves on…The Jura’s gain is TriBeCa’s loss

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Today is my friend Sophie Barrett’s last day at Chambers Street Wines.

She heads off to work the harvest with Stephane Tissot in the Jura. Trades an apartment in Brooklyn for a flat in Arbois

On one hand, I’m amazingly jealous.

Tissot, Poulsard, Trousseau, Savignon, the Jura–are a larger than life tag cloud of good taste painted in delicious colors.

Super happy for her.

On another, a bit sad and thinking only of myself.

I’m one of those wine customers who stops in 4 or so times a week, spends half an hour, buys a bottle. Then does it again and again.

Add up probably a hundred of these with Sophie over the last years, and you plum the depths of where my love affair with the Jura began, the foundations of my obsession with Savoie and Bugey, with Altesse and Gringet, Mondeuse and Alpine Pinot.

Sophie is also the person who made me understand bubbly as a wine.

I nudged her to write and blog early on.

Her posts on Sophie’s Glass have become musings of a unique type, steeped in geekiness, lightened by her personality and rhymed to her counter intuitive and surprising turns. Read her piece on Pet Nat as a case in point.  She obviously loves words and language as she does wine.

Sophie and I are friends.

We connect around wine. I love to buy it, she to sell it. We make a great team in this exchange.

During those fun encounters of banter and decisions, we’ve gotten to know each other. Talking about love of our cats. Our lives. Losses of parents and and cycles of work and life.  She collaborates with my son and yearly participates in choosing my birthday presents. None predictable I might add.

And back in the theLocalSip day, she was a huge supporter of the project.

So Sophie—have a great trip!

I trust you’ll stay part of my wine world.

Maybe back at the shop. Maybe opening your own. Maybe a unique importer under your own name or lucky someone elses, who gets to hire you.

Who knows. As a wine friend certainly.

Safe travels and have a great harvest Sophie.

And PLEASE, make certain that before you leave, that someone who loves the Jura and Savoie as we both do, will grab me and say‘ You must try this’ when I wander in the shop.

 

 

 

Stephane Tissot, Racines, the Jura, New York, natural wine and me

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I learned to love wine in the early 90s, tasting in the kitchen of Art and Bunny Finklestein in their then tiny, hand-built Judd’s Hill Winery in Napa.

We would hang out at the table in the morning, wine, bread and cheese spread about. I knew immediately that I had found a connector through wine to passionate people who loved the land, the process, the grape and the perpetual reflection that making and loving wine brings to a community of people.

I was smitten.

Roll the clock way way forward. We are in Racines in TribeCa pre-opening Stephane Tissot dinner on Chambers Street, not down some windy dirt road east of Napa.

Seven or so years after pursuing wine as a passion through my travels and blog, theLocalSip project and a dedication towards a natural approach to wine, and to the environment and food in general.

IMG_5624This post is a hug to David Lillie, a friend, the co-owner of Chambers Street Wines (with Jamie Woolf), and Racines NYC (with Arnaud Tronche) which will open in a week.

It’s a heartfelt thank you for arriving at the pre-opening dinner to find a menu with my name on it, a seat waiting, and a sense of belonging to the beginning of something new.

It’s a sharing of my long affair with the Jura, a deep respect for Stephane Tissot and a thrill at finally meeting him.

I’ve blogged on Stephane’s wines numerous times.

Every year I take a bottle of either a Poulsard or Trousseau to Tulum, Mexico on vacation, take a picture of me drinking it in a hammock and post it. We bonded over this at the first handshake of the evening.

It’s a sense of real pleasure to see my good friend Wink Lorch have her book on Jura Wine out, highlighted at the event, and her stature as an expert in this area truly appreciated. And some satisfaction of my own little role in helping to get her Kickstarter campaign going and introducing her to my NY wine community. You can buy the book here.

And it’s a celebration of New York, of natural wine, of a community of people—many that I know and respect like Pascaline Lepeltier, Camille Riviere, Sev Perru, Chris Struck who were at the event and to co-owner Arnaud Tronche, and Frederic Duca, the chef,  whom I trust will become friends..

Tribeca needed a place like this. Not a wine bar, but a restaurant with a core sense of wine as prime. I’m betting that Racines will be it.

Screen Shot 2014-04-13 at 7.56.13 AMI haven’t tasted the menu yet—I know it will be as crisp and natural and delicious as the wines will be.

I haven’t seen the wine list, but that is a slam dunk with David as the curator and a promise on the best selection of wines without sulfur added.

I don’t have a sense of the place although the attention to detail in the design is perfect, down to acoustical absorbing ceiling tiles. But when people like Pascaline from Rouge Tomate are working for the joy of it at the party, the community is already there.

It just feels right.

And to gloat a bit about the wine at the dinner!

The 1990 Vin Jaune was just amazing—nuts, and ginger, and a balance between acidity and fruit that time really enabled. The Trousseau in Amphora—never been tasted before in the states—was an unstressed, as naturally flavorful, as easy on the palate and alert on the senses as any Trousseau I’ve drunk.

And—a nudge to David and Arnaud—that no matter how popular Racines becomes, I’m hopeful that there is always a bar stool open for me at the corner. I’ve already moved a handful of meetings in May there before I know the schedule.

See many of you there.

 

IMG_4745David Lillie, c0-0wner Racines

IMG_4774Sev Perru, Stephane Tissot, Camille Riviere

IMG_4848Arnaud Tronche, co-owner Racines

IMG_5628Camille, Stephane, Sev, ‘The Book!’

IMG_4836Pascaline Lepeltier from Rouge Tomate

IMG_4804Chris Struck & Arnaud Tronche

IMG_4698Frederic Duca, Chef at Racines

IMG_4718Camille Riviere, Riviere Wine Selections

IMG_4855Eben Lille

An even dozen natural beach pack

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Most people head to Mexico and drink Mojitas.

We mixed up a few, but for our annual family Spring Break in Tulum, it’s about wine and the natural best at that.

Tulum is all about being in the zone. Wonderful, refreshing and not-your-standard fare is the rule.

The setting:

Screen Shot 2014-03-22 at 9.41.34 PMHot and humid to the max. Hammocks under the palms. Fish and more fish on the grill. Tacos of every sort. Cerviche and guacamole every day.

Basically anything you can wrap in a banana leave and put in grilled flatbread.

The wine:

Screen Shot 2014-03-22 at 9.41.16 PMInteresting is the rule. Delicious is the grade.

This year we nailed it. The most diverse and varied, the most economical and the most natural.

Screen Shot 2014-03-22 at 9.40.56 PMBest twelve beach pack ever.

I’ll recap with an eye towards choices over time. They are all winners.

–>Three choices from the Jura

Evelyne and Pascal Clairet from Domaine de la Tournelle in Arbois stole the show with their 2010 Terre de Gryphées Chardonnay ($27). Those who say that the Jura is an acquired taste are just plain wrong.

This chard is as unique and terroir-expressive as it is delicious. Wine geek or no, this is a head nodder with undeniable satisfaction.

Second year running on the Poulsard side was Ludwig Bindernagel’s 2010 Les Chais du Vieux Bourg ($34). This German newcomer to the Jura just nails it. Light with a rich body, layered and lovely, a larger than life bouquet for such a delicate wine.

Puffeney made the cut this trip. His 2011 Les Berangeres Trousseau ($35) was the third Jura bottle. The family loved it. I found it a bit  austere with a hard edge but quaffable nonetheless.

–>A touch of Sicily and anfora with Giusto Occhipinti’s COS Pithos

COS makes the trek yearly. The 2012 COS Pithos IGT ($31) Cerrasuolo Frappato/Nero D’Avola blend was as expected–delicious and unassuming.

Lightly chilled, delicate and satisfying are its hallmarks. Giusto is the first winemaker I ever tasted that fermented in Anfora and a personal hero and friend. This wine nails it in just about every category

–>Gruner from Nikolaihof is as good as it gets

I love this vineyard. Natural. Bio-D. Ancient. As crisp and unique a Gruner Veltliner as you can find. This year (the third appearance of Nikolaihof) we switched to the 2012 Hefeabzug Gruner Veltliner ($25). A winner.

–>More bubbles make the cut

Bubbles are an occasion in their own right. Two bottles made the trip with us.

The first Cava to cross the border was the 2011 Raventos i Blanc de Nit Rose Brut Conca Del Riu Anoia ($22). Elegant, smokey citrus from the Monastrell grape. We had it with a breakfast/brunch on the first morning. Yum!

The Filaine NV Brut ler Cru Damery Cuvee Speciale ($49) was the priciest of the bottles and a special treat. Creamy and classical. A Pinot Noir/ Chardonnay/ Pinot Meunier blend of 2009 and 2010 grapes was oh so ripe and finely moused and bubbly crisp. This was brought for a birthday and it crushed expectations.

–>A bit of Alpine Savoie at the Mexican seaside

I’ve fallen hard to this region, the producers and varietals. I could have brought a half case of just these whites.

I tasted with Gonon recently and his 2012 Vin de France Chasselas Vieilles Vignes ($25) is well—a dream. Subtle and herbal with smacks of fruit. I so love this bottle. So did everyone.

I’m a long-term Belluard fan. His 2012 Grandes Jorasses Altesse ($34) is fresh, mineral, crips, light and delicious. I had sent this bottle as presents earlier in the year. It’s a family tradition already.

Next to the Jura–in fact Savoie is Jura adjacent–this is fast becoming my favorite region.

–>New world naturalists make the trip

A first for this vacations–an Oregon Pinot Noir and a California Grenache/Mourvedre blend.

I tasted the 2009 Montebruno Eola-Amity Hills Pinot Noir ($25) with the winemaker Joe Pedicini earlier in the year. Bio-D, a light effervescence and deep flavor are its traits. Served lightly chilled in water glasses on the terrace overlooking the sea was a crowd pleaser.

Hank Beckmyer from La Clarine Farms is a favorite of mine for the brilliance and ease of his wines. A Grenache and Morvedre blend at km 9.2 in Tulum? I say, hell yes!

The 2012 Sierra Josephine & Mariposa ($25) is a beautifully balanced and structured, tannin-laden bottle. I did chill it slightly and with some home made Quesadillas and Cerviche, it was a killer.

Not a hint of sulfur added in these. Not a touch of funk. Freaking lovely natural wines!

–>Wrapping up with a Cotes de Provence Rose

From the selections of my friend David Lillie was a Les Fouques 2012 Aubigue Rose ($13!).

This blend of Cinsault, Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, is almost pale white, shot with pepper, light on the palate, dreamy on the nose and perfect on the hammock.

Small producers all.

These wines are very small productions and go in and out of stock. Some are available at Chambers Street Wines and online through other small specialty shops. Shop the producer if not the vintage.

I will wager a free bottle on me for long-term readers that these will delight.

A thank you to my friends Sophie Barrett and Ariana Rolich of Chambers Street Wines for making the process of choosing almost equal to the drinking.

 

Some photos to capture the joy of this place along with the wine.

Screen Shot 2014-03-22 at 9.42.10 PMDaily feast.

IMG_4601Playtime in between resting and sipping.

Screen Shot 2014-03-22 at 9.41.52 PMHammock is up and to the right.

The Jura, Wink Lorch and the Kickstarter book project

 I love the Jura.

This tucked away, off the grid wine region on the eastern border of France just touches me at my very core.

Truly delicious and unique wines that are at once both foreign and familiar. Indigenous grapes like Trousseau, Poulsard and Savagnin that call only the Jura home. Wines like Vin Jaune that make you shake your head with disbelief, and, in the hands of a few masters, nod and sigh with satisfaction.

You either love the Jura or you don’t. There are the curious who try but don’t get it. There are those that fall hard at first taste. I’m certainly one of the seriously smitten.

I don’t love Jura wine because its unusual, but because it’s wonderful. But unique and interesting it most certainly is.

The Jura is a great connector—to the culture of this place, to the traditional approaches to winemaking that have rolled on through the centuries, to unique grapes and to a taste of terroir like none other.

But more importantly to people, in a unique way that few of my other favorite wine regions do. And it has driven me to blog more about this area and a few rock star producers than any other wine region I’ve written about.

I credit my friend and Jura maven, Sophie Barrett from Chambers Street Wines who, for over three years, has been nudging me and has given me bottle after bottle, story after story to take home and try. She started me on this path. Thanks Sophie!

Friendships have blossomed over a love of this wine. With other wine shop owners, like Christy Frank at Frankly Wines, Dan Weber at Flatiron Wines, importers and distributors like Zev Rovine, Camille Riviere and Guilhaume Gerard, great wine lovers like June Winters and the ceaseless crusader for natural wine and author, Alice Feiring.

Not to mention the thousands who have read my Jura posts, friends who for three years now have celebrated the ‘Summer of Jura Reds’ on my rooftop. And to my son Asa, with whom, every year in Tulum, I crack a bottle of Tissot Trousseau, with our feet in the sand of the Mexican Caribbean.

Now enter Wink Lorch to this Jura ecosystem!

Wink, a veteran wine writer, penultimate wine educator and a great friend.

We have traveled and fallen hard together for the wines of Carso, Fulvio Bressan in Friuli and many producers in Etna. But we connect the most over the Jura. Wink is truly an expert of this area. She is the Yoda of Jura communications.

After some prodding and much cajoling, and with the support of a worldwide community of Jura wine lovers, Wink is writing ‘the’ book on the Jura—wine, food and the place itself.

As a friend this week said: “The Jura needs a book and Wink is the person to write it!”

I couldn’t agree more!

She has the support of my wine community here in New York, my blog readers. I am positive that the Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds will not only be successful, but will coalesce the worldwide community of Jura lovers around this project. The power of the web, crowdsourced funding and common passions combined!

Check out the Kickstarter project HERE!

There are a number of cool incentives to support this book on the Kickstarter page.

But honestly, support it because the world needs a book in English on this really special place, replete with unusual tastes that define the terroir like few other regions I’ve experienced.

And support it because I believe that Wink is the perfect person to write it with a rare blend of deep knowledge and honest humility.

And support it because it will bind the community together and gather in one place a treasure trove of information wrapped in an experienced storyteller’s words.

I’m sipping my second glass of Stephane Tissot’s La Mailloche 2010 from the Jura as I write this post. Chardonnay never had a more unique expression of place.

I’m convinced that those who learn about this region through this project will not only help to aggregate knowledge of the wine region and join the community of enthusiasts, but also just learn to love Jura wine.

It’s truly a gift.

 

Wine by the word

Is there really a unique language to talk about wine?

Not the obscure vernacular of the tasting note. Nor the language of the winemakers themselves as they think through every detail and nuance in the alchemy of turning grapes into wine.

Simply for wine lovers to talk to each other. To share wines we like. To get referrals from our wine shop on what to pair with dinner. Or to talk to the sommelier at our favorite restaurant so we end up with something we enjoy in our glasses.

Easy question. Not so simple an answer.

Wine is ever so wacky and wonderful to talk about. But perplexing when it comes to the language of appreciation.

The act of drinking and sharing connects people, culture and places with immediacy and depth. It cuts through differences amongst strangers and builds bonds of interest and easy familiarity.

Yet it’s remarkably hard to describe or talk about in non-technical terms. We more often talk around it. Maybe that’s where the magic lies.

And maybe that’s why the obscure language of the wine critic developed and the horrid simplicity of the numerical scale that stemmed from one man’s palate that came to rule the world with Parker.

In a blog post, you can tell a story. Connect the wine in the glass to the place the grapes were grown and the history of the person who made the wine. Details become syntax in weaving a tale of weather and grape varietal, geography and the mysteries of the cave. In a tasting you can do this as well. This is ideal in every way.

But in the quick phraseology of the web, the natural need to share what we like as icons and emblems, I often find myself stitching together phrases of pure excitement and hyperbole. ‘Can you say…unbelievable?’ or ‘Gamay rules!’ or ‘Eric Texier delivers again!’ attached to a tweeted picture of a wine bottle.

And most people, wine and food lovers, just want to say that they liked it and attach a memory to taste in a word. This is remarkably difficult. Or maybe just so simple we are over intellectualizing it.

Think of all the thousands of glasses of wines that are sipped in tastings every night in New York. Smart, interested people spending real dollars, seriously tasting and having a great time doing it. And many of them in the days that follow will go into their wine shop to buy a bottle for dinner or a party. When asked what they like, they usually just don’t remember. Maybe it’s the arcane nature of the names of the wine or the lack of words to attach the taste to, but many start from scratch every time anew.

Enter the experiment that made me write this post.

A friend needed a list of 20 words for a project where people would rate and share their personal ratings about wine. I was somewhat clueless past the seemingly trivial ones I usually used when blown away by a great glass when out with non-wine geeky friends.

I turned to my community of wine friends for help. They are bloggers, wine tour operators, sommeliers, and restaurateurs. Wine obsessed all. All communicators who professionally or personally share, taste and talk about wine daily.

I phrased my question something like this:

What are your top five words that you use to describe a wine to an interested, articulate and wine loving individual to get them to sense the character of what they are drinking? To give them a handle to hang onto when they might want to share their pleasure in the bottle with someone else? To strike a note that might get them more interested in finding out more about the story behind the bottle?

I unleashed hurricane of response. Some 60+ comments over my Facebook and Twitter communities. With emails on the side.

The choices below are the short list that had the most commonality across those that responded.

Everybody cares: Food friendly. Aromatic. Affordable

Feels like: Fresh. Crisp. Elegant. Full-bodied. Effervescent. Lively.

Tastes like: Floral. Mineral. Earthy. Dry. Sweet. Fruity. Acidic. Tannic.

Love it:  Yummy. Unfuckinbelievable. Quaffable. Drinkable. Refreshing.Delicious. Luscious. Big and rich. Silky.

Hate it: Yuck. Dreck. Bleah. Boring.

Moody: Ambitious. Aloof. Recalcitrant.

What’s interesting is that these words on their own are really quite unremarkable. Facile even. They are adjectives of appreciation and general snippets of categories around taste and some basic terms that are true across all wines.

What would you add?

Not to show off your knowledge but to encourage communications. This is an exercise in restraint. And it’s hard.

I think there are other creative endeavors like movies and music that have the same interesting contradiction of complex emotions and simplistic expression. In movies you have plot and dialogue, cinematography and sound to wines’ balance and character, fruit forwardness and the complexity of the finish. Beyond a handful of easily accessible ideas, it’s all about degree and personal expression.

Here’s the rub. And why this exercise is so difficult, the process so interesting and the result so unsatisfying out of context.

Wine is romantic and poetic at its core. Not only because the process of where, how and by whom is a saga when told with skill and passion. But the subject is not the wine, it is your impression of it. It is what you think and this is connected to who you are and the situation you experienced the wine in.

The wine may be the backdrop for romance or the linchpin of the evening to build a dinner around.

Whether you are drinking something incredible in a plastic cup on a picnic with your partner on a bike trip. Or swirling an aromatic translucent Trousseau from Arbois in the Jura in a crystal goblet at a remarkable wine bar in the 6th in Paris with the best of friends. It’s yours. It’s not just the wine. It’s you experiencing it there and then.

We romanticize our lives. We romanticize the accoutrements that make them all the more glorious. We should. This is the good stuff that life is made of. This is what we share with friends on Facebook, Twitter and our blogs and chatting in the elevator with people in the building.

I was really impressed that my wine friends who know the science of wine at its most minute detail came back with adjectives of expression that can be used by everyone. This group is an inspiration for me and can go deep into soils, indigenous yeasts, climate, root stocks and stories of fabled wine families.

The skill is not in giving that detail. It is in creating the scene so that information is indeed interesting as well. The layers that add depth and texture to the story of the bottle and the saga behind the glass.

I’m starting to appreciate this list of expressive adjectives more. A useful lexicon for amateur and pro alike. Enough choices with the perfect combination a function of what you want to express and to whom.

In late Spring last year I snapped a picture with my iPhone of a bottle of Jura red that I was drinking on the rooftop of my building with some friends. It was a marvelous Le Ginglet from Philippe Bornard. I pushed it out into my Tumblr blog and let it roll out to my Twitter and Facebook streams.

The caption said:

The wine of summer. Slightly chilled. Perfect for hot summer night.

The responses came back strong from wine friends all over the globe with Likes, smiley faces, texts and emails wanting to know where to buy it.

Simple words that grabbed the moment. Captured that truly iconic wine. Shared connections.

There was just nothing more to say.

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I want to thank all my wine friends, especially those from EWBC for their input and inspiration and friendship.