Blood, Frogs, and Lice, Oh My!

Ten Plagues and One Prophet

It’s that time of the year again when we open the door for Elijah the prophet and ask this question: why is this night different from all other nights? The answer rests in yet more questions—the four questions—a Passover requirement. These four ask the Seder participants why is it that on this night do we eat Matzah, do we eat bitter herbs, do we dip them twice, and do we eat in a reclined position. Anyone who has read a Haggadah can tell you that these seemingly inscrutable answers embody the moment of Jewish history when Moses and the Israelites fled Egypt for freedom.

History aside, the reason why this night is different for me is that I sit down with my whole family (or three loud Israeli families) and eat amazing food and drink wine! As with any Jewish holiday, the food is incredible, and as with every holiday there is always one specific food you can’t wait to eat. This holiday it’s Charoset, the chopped-up mixture of wine, nuts and fruits meant to represent the mortar that held together the stones of Egyptian temples.

Since I won’t be with my parents this Passover, I’ll be spending it with my cousins and close friends here in New York. In preparation for this holiday I called my mom and asked her for her recipe for Charoset, my favorite Passover treat; our conversation went something like this.

“Hi Ima (mom in Hebrew), can I have your recipe for your Charoset? I want to make it for seder”

“You want MY recipe or you just want a recipe?”

“I want your recipe, just like you make it”

Then she said something in a language I don’t speak, most likely in Hungarian, something that probably meant something like “Oh you.”

My mom’s recipe is very simple and very traditional: 2 cups of chopped red apples, ½ cup of pitted dates, ½ cup of walnuts, 1 tsp of cinnamon and some sweet red wine; this year I’ll be using Sentieri Ebraici 2008 Del Vecchio Vino Rosso. Put all these ingredients in a food processor and chop it to your liking. Although it’s an easy dish to prepare the flavors come together in a sweet way that always brings me home, if not physically then at least emotionally.

A very happy Passover to all of our Jewish friends, and may you all enjoy your families, your food, your wine and your traditions.

Around the World in Eleven Courses

From the esoteric to the iconic

One of the great pleasures in working in wine is meeting the enthusiasts and collectors whose passions are equal, or perhaps even greater, than my own. Their excitement for both the history and the experience of wine is both contagious and enlightening, and it’s sharing in these people’s enjoyment that keeps people like me creative and motivated.

For the second year in a row, Chef Kevin Sippel and I had the pleasure of creating a Valentine’s Day Wine list and menu for an IWM favorite, Omar and Leslie Khan. Together we came up with “Around the World in Eleven Courses,” a light-hearted culinary journey across to the globe that traversed some of the world’s favorite wine regions, as well as some off-the-beaten-path destinations. Each course invited our guests to experience a different grape, winemaker, dish and story that all worked together to highlight what makes each region so unique. As Omar pointed out to me, each of the chosen eleven wines on a different evening could be a centerpiece in its own right. Looking back on the night, I’d highlight the 1966 Chateau Musar from the Bekaa Valley, which offered layers of complexity and very much held its own against the 1966 Leoville Las Cases. Then there was the Weinert Malbec Estrella 1977, which challenges everything you thought you know about Argentinean Malbec (aged 19 years in oak cask).

This was truly an evening of the esoteric to the iconic, and to do it justice, I thought I would share the words and review from one of our special guests:

Valentine’s…Eve?
This entry was written by Omar Khan, posted on February 20, 2010 on his blog.

Well, we enjoy Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, so this year, as Valentine’s Day was falling on Sunday, we opted to have our amorous outing on the “eve.”

Many pooh-pooh this holiday calling it commercially contrived, historically dubious (as if our other holidays aren’t?) and more.

It’s irrelevant. It’s a day to focus on love, and you don’t have to succumb to an orgy of candy purchases to express one of our deepest sentiments. And you can be as extravagant, as imaginative, or as corny as you like. You have license. We are “excused.” After all, there’s an “official” day to blame!

We went back to our favorite spot for Valentine’s and much else: the Italian Wine Merchants, pioneers in Italian wine appreciation in the United States, and one of the primary conduits and channels for extraordinary wine of irreproachable provenance overall.

We had the lovely space to ourselves. We were surrounded by masterful chefs putting their show kitchen to the best possible use, and were “serenaded” (oenophilically) by Italian Wine Merchants’ Vice-President and a masterful commentator on the joys of the grape, Chris Deas.

Together he and Chef Kevin Sippel (a true culinary innovator), formerly of Alto, took us “Around the World in Eleven Courses.” Not quite around the world perhaps, but the circumnavigation was quite extensive. This could as easily have been called “Around the World in Eleven Wines.” But why quibble? Both are implied, and both were experienced.

Menu highlights included the palate puckering Paccheri Verdi, Braised Snails and Gorgonzola; one of the last orchestrations of Didier Dagueneau via his masterful Pouilly-Fume Silex 2006 enhanced and enchanted this remarkable dish.

Another menu highlight was the crispy sweetbread, manchego and toasted allioli, married exquisitely and tantalizingly with Descendientes de Jose Palacios Corullon La Faraona 2006. From one of the best vineyard sites in Bierzo Spain, La Faraona is the gem of Alvaro Palacios’ (of Priorat fame) art in this region. Only 65 cases are produced annually, and other than the Italian Wine Merchants, this exceptional wine isn’t available anywhere else in the United States.

Hot on the heels of this came another winner! A hen egg cooked slowly for two hours, and then lightly fried, with Serrano ham and baked sardine! Extraordinary!

A number of amazing wines, from Gaja Sperss 1998 to La Rioja Alta Rioja Gran Reserva 1995, all could have been the centerpieces in a lesser dinner.

But for us the 1977 Bodega Malbec from Mendoza Argentina showed us a style of Malbec we almost can’t experience any more because of the unsettling “globalization” of wine tastes. The two “birth year” wines for my wife and I, the Leoville Las Cases (one of fifteen second growths in Bordeaux and one of our favorites) 1966 (a vintage that seems among the better Bordeaux to be drinking quite beautifully now) and the beyond rare 1966 Chateau Musar from Lebanon (slightly sweet herb-like aromas, elegant, a bit more Burgundian), were luscious, fitting and truly memorable.

We went home with a lovely Pinot to accompany artisanal chocolates, a dozen red roses (a “classic” rather than a “cliché,” though many people can’t tell the two apart), and memories we will savor and which will reverberate happily for years to come.

James Thurber once opined, “Love is what you’ve been through with someone.” Most people take that to mean what you’ve survived together. Well, partially that’s so. But it’s as much what you’ve experienced together, exulted in together, and celebrated together! Salute!

AROUND THE WORLD IN ELEVEN COURSES

CHAMPAGNE — FRANCE
Selection of Raw Fish, Oysters and Caviar
Jacques Selosse Champagne Brut Initial NV

LOIRE VALLEY — FRANCE
Paccheri Verdi, Braised Snails and Gorgonzola
Didier Dagnueneau Pouilly Fume Silex 2006

BRDA — SLOVENIA
Grilled Sepia with Sea Urchin
Movia Lunar 2007

BIERZO — SPAIN
Crispy Sweetbread, Tomato, Manchego and Toasted Allioli
Descendientes de Jose Palacios Corrullon La Faraona 2006

PIEMONTE — ITALY
Frog Leg Risotto with Veal Reduction and Leeks
Gaja Sperss 1998

RIOJA — SPAIN
Fried Egg, Serrano Ham and Poached Sardine
La Rioja Alta Rioja Gran Riserva ‘890′ 1995

TOSCANA — ITALY
Crudo of Veal with Hot Bone Marrow, Pancetta and Pecorino Fondue
Fontodi Flaccianello 1995

MENDOZA — ARGENTINA
Smoked Venison with White Polenta, Chorizo and Porcini Mushrooms
Bodega y Cavas de Weinert Malbec Estrella 1977

BORDEAUX — FRANCE
Foie Gras Tortellini in Black Truffle Consomme with Offal
Chateau Leoville-Las Cases Bordeaux 2nd Growth 1966

BEKAA VALLEY — LEBANON
Rack of Lamb with Controne Bean, Pickled Eggplant and Lamb’s Tongue
Chateau Musar Rouge 1966

ITALY
Chocolate Cake and Bombolini
Antonio Ferrari Solaria Jonica 1959

On Ignorance, Condescension and Playing Nice

In the world of wine, that is

I may be editor of Inside IWM, but strictly speaking, I’m not a wine person. I enjoy wine, and thanks to the beneficence of IWM’s Sergio Esposito, I’ve developed a wee palate that can differentiate the most obvious traits. But I recognize that I’m not much of an expert. I can talk long and pseudo-knowledgably about wine varieties, growing methods, bottling techniques and regions, but my knowledge is more or less limited to what I’ve written about and therefore researched. I’m a pretty poor excuse for a wine writer, really (but I’m a good writer in general and smart as a whip, so that gives me some great leniency).

Which is all to say that I’m delighted by Tom Wark’s March 22 post in his wine blog, Fermentation. The post, called “Responsibility of the Wine Experts,” uses as its basis the top ten questions about wine on Ask.Com. Wark writes,

The other day a representative from ASK.com sent me the top ten wine questions asked at the site. Here they are:

1. How many calories are in a glass of wine?
2. How do I make wine?
3. What is port wine?
4. How many bottles of wine are in a case?
5. What is marsala wine?
6. What wine goes best with chicken?
7. Who is the god of wine?
8. How long does wine last once opened?
9. How do I remove red wine spills from carpet?
10. What is the best way to open a bottle of wine?

Eye these questions real closely. Are they not the exact questions you’d expect of a group of folks with little or no knowledge of wine but who drinks and uses wine?

Wark continues, “Perhaps the exception is question #7: Who is the God of Wine?” To which my answer is most assuredly not me. I’d go with Bacchus, but you might have your own answers.

Rather than using these questions as a springboard for smacking down people who have even less wine knowledge than I do, Wark uses them as a way to suggest that rather than be condescending, wine experts should be gentle with us who are still wine toddlers. Wark even acknowledges his own desire to be sarcastic when confronted with a question like, “How do you open a bottle of wine?” I can understand that knee-jerk impulse. I am sarcastic to the bone. I cherish irreverence and I {heart} flippancy. And yet, Wark makes a really good point about reining in the condescension.

“The point is,” Wark argues, “among the many things that those of us who work in and around wine should remember is that we can really help turn a person off to wine by the kind of responses we give to the simplest questions.” There’s nothing like a smart-mouth answer to a sincere question to make the questioner feel like a fool—and then slink away slowly in shame.

Wine is difficult enough as it is. Those who are fortunate enough to be experts need to bear that in mind and play nice with those of us who still ride the wine bike with our training wheels. And should my training wheels ever come off, and should I ever give a cutting answer to a simple question, I hope you’ll remind me I wrote this piece about my wine salad days, when I was green and inexperienced.

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