Wine as a Metaphor

As we packed our meager belongings into green (literally) rental boxes — thank you juggleboxmoving.com.  What a great company! – I had to ask myself if it’s all worth it.  Why do we do this to ourselves?  Is living in this City that great?  We cramp ourselves into these Hannibal Lecter sized rooms and vie for every iota of space; contemplating like were the deepest of philosophers, profound thinkers, the most original of architects just how were going to take over every inch and call it a home.  Make it unique.  Make it practical.  Is it really worth it?

I mean is living in the suburbs that bad?  I would still be able to work in the City and go out afterwards if need be right?  Take the morning train with the rest of the good folks out here in these parts.  Catch up on our kids school plays, soccer practices, disgust with the school lunches but “what are you going to do?”; laugh at the latest Bravo reality show, “how could anyone live like that?  God!”; describe just how amazing the weekend is going to be and why can’t it just get here sooner.  ”Chuckle, chuckle, have a great day Bob.”  It’s worth it, isn’t it?

I packed my green boxes as neat as I could and watched things fall down.  It doesn’t matter what size apartment you have in New York. City  Things always have a way of falling down.  And what makes the average New York City dweller different then the suburbanite is our ability to prevent things from falling down.  It’s our greatest asset.  To live in the greatest city in the world, accumulate material possessions and not have them fall down.   But they still do.  They fell in our old place which was only a one bedroom and they fell even more in our new and amazing 3 bedroom, because here’s the thing:  we will never have enough space because as we grow (mentally) we have to have more.  It’s impossible not to.  Every time we open a cabinet something falls out and onto the floor.  Not a week goes by where part of my breakfast made in half asleep mode at 5am isn’t spilled on my feet, a glass breaks when the shudders open or tons of medicine and beauty products tumble onto the floor when reaching for the Q-tips.  Things will always fall down.

So we packed and packed; organized and threw things everywhere.  I began to wonder if I needed everything here.  Not need in the obvious sense but could I in my present state do without?  Will I actually use this stuff again:  dvds, guitar equipment, language books.  Can’t I just dump them?  Nothing will change?  But, I can’t.  So is it that NYC apartments are just too small or that we just have too much stuff?

I love our new place and am grateful to be here.  I don’t think we will move to the suburbs and if we did ever leave the City, it would be a drastic move:  North Fork Long Island, Southern Israel or the Himalayas.  I don’t watch Bravo Tv anymore.

If I didn’t have my toast masters tomorrow night and the guilt of wasting time with a bebe coming in less than 4 months (daddy needing to get paid), the place to be Tuesday night is the Park Slope Food-Coop for the vote to see if there will in fact be a referendum to boycott Israel products from the Coop.  This should be hilarious.  I love watching people debate the Israeli/Palestinian/Arab conflict as there is more passion, anger, spitting, blood, sweat and tears then I’ve ever seen in my 34 years on this planet.  I’ve literally seen people get out of a car accident with less anger.  So with tons of older lefties, crazies and kooks in Brooklyn, this should be very entertaining to say the least.  Quite the eye candy!  If you get a chance please go and record some altercations for me, then lets crack some Burgundy get together and laugh at how seriously people try and take themselves!

I don’t drink a lot of Sauvignon Blanc and when I do it normally isn’t New Zealand, but with that being said there is some good stuff coming out of that small country.  The Pinots are hit or miss, but the Sauv blancs are definitely a great bang for the buck.   Yet, when I do drink these wines I smell a lot of cat pee in the better ones.  I have 2 cats, a litter box, so yes, I know what it smells like.  I’m not a pervert!  And when I smell Sancerre I smell gooseberry, but in this article (http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/26/4366557/new-zealands-sauvignon-blancs.html) New Zealand Sauv Blanc is all about the gooseberry!  Maybe in New Zealand when cats pee they pee gooseberries?  Yeah, that’s it!

In a recent interview with Parker that everyone is talking about (http://www.blog.liv-ex.com/), Parker admits that he didn’t feel comfortable about the way his Spanish writer Jay Miller handled the awkward non-objective situation a while back.  In short, Parker and The Wine Advocate claim to be 100% objective in reviewing wines and never having a conflict of interest.  It turns out that Miller did have a conflict of interest as he was being paid by wineries to speak at events for massive bucks.  When discovered Miller resigned from the Wine Advocate.

Now, as you know, it is always fun to rip on Parker but I care more about the fact that his tastes in wine have done great harm to the world.  Enough said.  This situation seems a little pedantic.  I know Parker says he never has a conflict of interest but wouldn’t that be impossible?  More so, Jay Miller has always had a particular taste in Spanish wine that I would argue is even more extreme than Parker’s.  If Bob is Bush, Miller is Cheney.  And to quote Paul Mooney, “once you get a dick and a bush together, someone’s getting screwed.”  So Miller took money to speak.  Big deal.  The real problem we should be addressing is why so many Spanish wines suck and what we can do about it?  Obviously the problem goes deeper than Jay Miller although he is a great part?  So what can we do?

 Since this verdict came out yesterday morning I have been debating the issue with several people.  For the record, here are my thoughts:

I will be the first to admit that Dharun Ravi is probably not the coolest guy in the room and if I was 14 years younger and a Rutgers student I don’t think we would be friends  — or who knows, maybe we would be.  That is all I can say on the matter since I and millions of others who want to pass judgment on him know next to nothing about his personality or who he really is; let alone if he is good or evil.  How people in this day and age can still be fooled into breaking down a person’s persona, personality and ultimate determination if they’re getting into heaven based on a few media snippets is absurd and beyond me that a rational and intelligent person can stoop so low.

Dharun came from an Indian family in a sheltered Jersey suburb; far from the multicultural rainbow of San Francisco or Park Slope Brooklyn where I’m from and in case people haven’t yet gotten the memo, in suburban high schools it’s not cool to be gay.  Yes, we have made great strides in tolerance, but still, in suburban high schools it’s not cool to be gay.  I will spare you my in-depth sociological reasoning, but in short, teenagers are less close minded they used to in a right or wrong sense, but still typical teenagers believe macho and misogynistic tendencies are the way to go.  And this is where Dharun comes in.  He has never met a gay person prior to Tyler Clementi (although there is some speculation that the defense claimed he had a gay friend at some point) let alone shared a tiny room with a gay guy having sex with older men.  And yes, he was uncomfortable with it.  It doesn’t make him a belligerent homophobic or a bad person, it makes him a stupid, ignorant suburban teenager, like millions and millions of other stupid ignorant suburban teenagers.  You don’t believe me?  Well let’s look for a moment at the victim.  Tyler Clementi in the weeks leading up to the move in with Dharun said in an email to a friend, “I wonder if Dharun’s parents own a Dunkin Donuts?”  So let me get this straight:  Dharun is a horrible monster for never having met a gay person before and then feeling uncomfortable about living with a gay guy who was having sex with a 30-year-old, but Tyler’s remark that he’s Indian, his parents must own a Dunkin Donuts is even remotely acceptable?  Of course, ever since the Simpsons it is okay to make fun of Indians?  And of course, how could an educated kid from an upper middle class family think anything else?  I mean there are only 1.5 billion Indians in the world, at least half of them own Dunkin Donuts.   Sorry, perhaps its me, but on this point alone it would seem Tyler’s ignorance is much more blatant.  Should be given 10 years and then deported?

So now we come to the case:  Yes, what Dharun did to Tyler is pretty messed up and he did it twice, and his behavior was somewhat bullying.  The main law however which he broke was the invasion of privacy by filming Tyler having sex with his boyfriend.  Fair enough, that is not a cool thing to do.  Yet how many people have done such a thing?  At my wife’s law firm a few years ago, a lawyer had taped women getting undressed in their offices over a long-term period (he put a camera in a clock and left it in their office) and was eventually forced to resign and disbarred from practicing law.  Was he given 10 years and deported?  That would have been laughable and remember, this is something he did over a year, multiple, multiple times.  Dharun did it twice.  How many other cases do we know of someone filming people without their permission?  Go on Google and type in some celebrity’s name and then ”naked…having sex…topless”.  A lot will come up.  I don’t think they approved it, do you?  Now, yes Dharun bragged about it on Twitter.  Again, not cool, but in his stupid teenage mind, it was probably a prank.

So after all of this does he really deserve deportation and 10 years in jail?  Even a couple of years in jail?  For a first time offender, that would mean that his crime is on par with some forms of rape, bank robbery, corporate embezzlement, assault, sexual assault, aggravated assault, drug trafficking.  Really?  What he did was on par with those crimes?  I don’t think so.  Had Tyler of been a woman who didn’t commit suicide we never would have heard about this case in the first place.  Or even if he just didn’t commit suicide it would never have been brought to trial.  So what should be the punishment for Dharun?  How about being expelled from school for one thing.  Community service, sensitivity training perhaps and something TBD which would have compensated the family of Tyler.  10 years in jail and then to be deported?  Come on America, wake up!  One kid’s life is already over and now you want to ruin another’s for doing nothing more than being a stupid kid who didn’t use good judgment?

With that being said, there is something else that bothers me.  It is so apparent that this case was about much more then Tyler Clementi’s death.  It is the culmination of America’s new obsession:  cyber bullying and it’s victims.  We always need a hysterical obsession which helps us cope with the real pain of our daily existence and cyber bullying is our new thing.  Isn’t it fun?  What will the media think of next?  So this is our new obsession and we finally have our villan:  Dharun Ravi.  Someone we can pin the blame on that will make this whole thing go away and allow our children to live in peace.  And these aren’t my words, just listen to the DA.  He is on his way to becoming a national hero by tackling cyber bullying head on.  I’m sure he is deeply concerned about it and not just super psyched for the chance to gain national spotlight and advance his career.  Sorry DA and all of your supporters, I don’t like cyber bullying and homophobic behavior either.  But to place the blame on one kid and make him a scapegoat is completely antithetical to our democracy.  The first time I heard of a country scape goat a person like this was when I saw the film Midnight Express as a child; when the Turkish courts wanted to make an example of the American prisoner dealing drugs by giving him 30 years.  I guess American courts have a lot to emulate in 1970s Turkey.  The DA should be proud.  In the end I will paraphrase Allen Ginsberg “Dharun Ravi is not your problem America, you are the problem America.”

I was going to place a picture of an African lion awakening from an afternoon nap but I couldn’t find a way to configure it next to the other king of the jungle up above.  Does anyone know how?

I know that in wine circles as of late, t has become almost cliché to make fun of Robert M Parker jr.  And while it is always enjoyable, it is far too easy.  Check out Tyler Coleman’s website and comment section for some good old down home Parker bashing (www.drvino.com)  But come on Parker; you just released the most recent edition of the Wine Advocate where over 20 wines are given a score of 99-100 and you are calling it — once again – the wine of the century.  Where to begin…

Luckily I don’t care about Bordeaux very much.  While it is fun to indulge every once in a while in a nice and dirty one on a cold winter night, most of the time they bore  me, with a few exceptions from some extremely off the grid producers in the left bank:  Domaine de Jaugaret, Moulin Tricot and others.  To make a general statement that many wine folks would probably agree with:  most of the top scoring Bordeaux is becoming indistinguishable from Napa Valley Cabernet.  Part of it has to do with the nature of the Cabernet grape itself.  To make another general claim:  Cabernet doesn’t resemble a sense of place in the world like other grapes do.  Take for an example a Syrah from California, Australia and Northern Rhone; the differences would be much more obvious than a Cabernet from Cali, Washington and Bordeaux.  I think this and some other reasons I can’t get into is why serious wine people in general are normally not interested in Cabernet.  Again, with few exceptions here and there.

Now, part of the problem with Parker’s claim regarding 2009 Bordeaux, is that for starters, it’s redundant.   Most people don’t care and very few people go gaga over these wines the way they did back in the day.  Part of the reason has to do with the absurd price increases beginning in 2005 (another blockbuster, best vintage of the century).  Grand crus are rarely under $100 while the big name ones are triple and in the thousands.  Petrus is probably $3,000.  But apart from the price, I just don’t see these wines getting people excited in the way they used.  Bordeaux begins with the letters bor for a reason.  Yes, the wines are boring, predictable and far from unique.

When the 2005 Bordeauxs came out some years back, I was just beginning to get into the wine business.  And even though I wasn’t obsessed about Bordeaux, I found it cool that I was living through such a monumental period, where everyone was talking about them.  But that period was short-lived.  Today there is so much Bordeaux on the marketplace, even from the so-called famed 2005 vintage.  Yes, it would have been cheaper to have bought them on futures but still I think it’s a waste if you ask me.

So where is the new land of freedom?  Burgundy of course, but more people are starting to look to northern Rhone, Loire even Southwest France. Bordeaux just ain’t what it used to be.  Even in our stores with hundreds/thousands of Bordeauxs, it is quite rare to see someone order one.  In fact the ones mentioned above and some others from Rosenthal selections seem to be gaining in appeal for those wine geeks who don’t want to give up on Bordeaux forever.

Now, it is important to say a thing or two about Parker’s point system for 2009.  He gave 18 wines a 100.  Not cool!  To gain a 100 used to mean something for Parker – and other reviewers.  It was rare.  Now its overlooked.  When a wine got 100 or 99 or even 96, people would go nuts for it.  Now there are just too many.  Perhaps this is a conversation about the downfall of scores in general but I see this too much in Bordeaux.  100 point wines need to be coveted for the future of great wines to be upheld as a standard.  What a shame.  Is 2009 vintage of the century?  I don’t know, and like most other people, I don’t care.  I say let the Russians and Asian markets take it.  Have a blast.  The more lavish Bordeaux becomes the norm, hopefully the less Burgundy will become a prized possession.  More for us!

“I live in Harlem with the white people” remarked my favorite comedian Paul Mooney last time I saw him at Caroline’s a few months back. “These white people run around half-naked with sweat dripping down their bodies.  You can’t do that if your black….you run around like that and they’ll shoot ya.  Pop!”

Paul Mooney is great although his last couple of performances I found his material to get a little redundant.  Anyway, my wife and I live in Brooklyn but with a baby coming in July and both parents living in Westchester, we pondered the idea of moving uptown to be closer to them.  Its only 30 minutes closer granted, but I wouldn’t want them driving for so long several days a week.  Of course, uptown is relative.  I won’t be able to afford Central Park West anytime soon, but according to Paul Mooney and others, Harlem is up and coming.  Gentrified.  Well….I’m white.  I like running around half-naked and not getting shot.  Why not?  So with that scene in mind, my wife and I went to see a few places in different parts of Harlem.

I will skip out on the various real estate illuminations and just go straight to the obvious:  Who in their right mind is calling Harlem gentrified?  Yes it is nicer than I imagined and yes white people do run around but with it being winter they were obviously fully clothed.  But gentrified it was not.  Each street looked the same as the rest:  nail salon/beauty salon, barbershop, chicken or fish place, $1 store, funeral home.  That is the gist of it.  I can only imagine the tourist brochure:  begin your day with a mani/pedi, dine on something fried, search for household accessories and then die.  The American dream.   And I am not exaggerating.  We walked past some streets with 3 or more nail salons right next to each other.  I have always thought I had good business ideas but the people who created these are something else.  The next Mark Zuckerberg.  I wonder how it happened.  “It has always been my dream to one day move to America and own my very own store.  Do you know what this area needs…a nail salon.  Yes!  That is what we will do.”

Frankly, I just don’t understand why people can’t think outside of the box and build something else.  Even if your not trying to attract the onslaught of educated white people, isn’t there something else possible that could do well in these neighborhoods then a nail salon or funeral home?

As we walked around my pregnant wife started to get a little peckish.  But where would we go?  And then the white man’s golden arches shined in the distance:  Starbucks.   Oh mama sito.  It was packed.  And not just with crunchy white people, but all people.   Not just cafes and lattes but all shades.  Lots of green teas, Java mochas and macchiatos.  It was amazing and it answers my question as to what could actually succeed in these neighborhoods without simply relying on white gentrification.  Clearly Starbucks — for better or for worse — is a good thing.  A symbol of improvement.  Modernity.

As we spent the day seeing various apartments realizing it probably wouldn’t be for us, I noticed something.  A phrase that I kept hearing throughout the day and even before from people of all shapes and colors, but never really thought much about it.  It went and goes something like this, “you know the area is changing…a lot of people are moving here.”  Hmm, what does that really mean?  Yes, I think we all understand.  One lady even said to us, “yeah, a lot of white people live on that way (referring to 145th and Covenant Ave)”

Now, some might say this isn’t politically correct because your identifying white people as a lump sum and assuming we all come from the same background.  That doesn’t offend me and to those who know me, really….does anything offend me?  To be honest, I find it a little insulting to the people of Harlem.  What this means is that without white people moving in, moderntity (i.e., Starbucks, Subway, cleaner streets, less crime) would not take place.  I have to say, if I was black or hispanic and living in Harlem that would offend me quite a bit.  We can’t take care of our own community without white money coming in?  And what does “white” even mean?  My wife is not white, but I guess in the context of Harlem she is.  Anyway, that is another conversation in and of itself.

The bottom line is this:  probably in the end we are not going to move to Harlem for various reasons that have nothing to do with this article.  But if we did, what is it I would like to see in Harlem.  Obviously, the following would be beneficial to me:  a bagel store, cool cafes, wine bars, a wine store (I wouldn’t go for obvious reasons but it would be cool to have), interesting restaurants, stores that sold things for more than $1, etc, etc.  Now is this me imposing my values?  You bet.  Like a jappy American who goes abroad and complains about the food, I am imposing my values on a community I don’t belong to.  This is wrong.  But is it also wrong to say that the Harlem I witnessed seems pretty lame?  I don’t know.  And does it matter that I’m white and I say that?  I don’t know either.  I guess that’s why there’s a comment section below.

Spanish wines don’t suck, but they’re not very interesting either. I sort of gave up on them a while ago which is strange because I used to adore them
when I first got into wine years back; being literally “blown away”
by their overt jam packed qualities and dazzling array of exotic flavors as well as overall amazing bang for the buck. But nowadays with the exception of the five “traditional” Riojas that everyone talks about – La Rioja Alta, Marques de Murrieta, Lopez de Heredia, Hermanos Pecina and CVNE – there isn’t much that gets me excited. This sentence may seem like a segway in which I will now write
“wait…there is one producer who is doing amazing things…changing the face of Spanish wine for eternity,” but no, I am going down that lonely cliché road.

Spanish wines for me are overall disappointing. With so much out
there (3rd largest producer in the world btw) and so many diverse regions that contain a very rich history, they really should be better and more interesting.  However what is so fascinating is that in the U.S. market there are two names
which keep popping up in most conversations about Spanish wine: Jorge Ordonez
and Jose Pastor. The only thing they have in common are the first two letters
of their first name. Other than that, they are worlds apart.

What have they contributed to the U.S. wine market, and where does the
future of Spanish wine lead if they are the kings? Ordonez is by far the better known of the two. A distributor who has been around since the late 80s but really became quite
famous in the early 00′s, Ordonez has revolutionized Spanish wine (or at least
that which is exported to the States) by giving it a modern and international
twist and in a sense branding Spanish wine as not only great value, but diverse.  The big and voluptuous red wines from Priorat with 15% plus alcohol as well as the entire array of Grenache based wines from dozens of places in Spain that were literally unknown before;
places like Malaga, Campo de Borja, Borsao, Calatayud and more. I believe he
was actually the first distributor to bring Albarino to the U.S., but don’t quite me on that.

Going back to my early days, the Jorge Ordonez symbol on the back
of a wine was something I looked for; inexpensive names like Juan Gil, Tres
Picos and even Borsao were both high quality, affordable as well as pretty
unique within that price point; not only for the typical characteristics that
make a wine quality driven, but the flavors being something that I hadn’t yet
experienced at the time: coffee, toffee, licorice and tons of chocolate. I was
hooked and became even more excited after trying some of the higher end wines
like El Nido, Torremuga and of course, Termes Numanthia and Termanthia. I had a
sip of the 2004 vintage of the latter and deemed it at the time, the best wine
I ever had.

Before I begin my inevitable “what went wrong” Jorge
deserves a few more accolades. Regardless of one’s opinions of Ordonez’s wines,
the man has does great things for Spanish wine in general by bringing out such
a huge array of regions now so widely available in the U.S. Even if you hate
the wines he brings in and have other wines from those regions which you
prefer, it is important to remember that they would not exist without Jorge
leading the way. Secondly, and maybe of more importance, is the fact that
Ordonez demands low yields for production – apart from several of the cheaper
wines in his portfolio.

So what’s the problem: Well, people such as myself find the
wines from his portfolio exactly the opposite of what Spanish wine should be: too often
overoaked, overextracted; homogenous and often times trying too
hard to please the gods of the Wine Advocate. To taste a handful of his wines
is a harrowing experience; think if an English Christmas Pudding got into a
fight with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima 1945.   Fruit bombs away and plenty of
it to go around. I have tried a good number of his wines from all across the various
Spanish regions and all too often they sing the song of homogeneity. If they
don’t all taste like Opus One then they all are similar in many respects with
french oak, vanilla and jam pounding away at the senses while Robert Parker
plays Mahler’s 9th symphony in his head.  In short, they are not for me or for
many others. Nowhere is this more apparent than Rioja, which I would consider
the one area of the world that has the biggest dichotomy between traditional
and modern maybe apart from Barolo. While different styles abound, a good Rioja
should be medium bodied with that beautiful tripartite of primordial
Spanish flavors: plum, tar and leather. Some of the lighter ones like La Rioja
Alta and Lopez de Heredia take on more notes of pomegranates and cranberry,
developing typical Burgundian textures of forest floor and crunchy earth when
they age. Again, styles differ and it is not necessarily that all traditional
are good and modern are bad. Several of the modern ones can be ravishing sich
as Artadi which is done in French oak and does not utilize all 4 allowed
grapes, but still, it tastes like Spain and brings me back in my mind to being
in Spain. It shows up, when too often others don’t. Now that is all fine and
good, but the really modern Riojas from Ordonez are completely antithetical
to what Rioja should be. Most of the time they are 100% Tempranillo and fall under the Parker mantra:  dark color, high alcohol, low acid, etc.   I really
don’t get why one would want to do that. If you have 4 grapes to play around
with why not use at least 3  of them and experiment? Why would you want only
Tempranillo.

Still, Jorge Ordonez has been ruling the Spanish wine world for
sometime. Yet, more and more wine lovers are fed up with the kind of wines on
the market; giving up on Spanish wines except for occasionally dipping into one
of the last bastions of traditional Riojas listed above — most of the time Lopez
de Heredia. Then along came Jose Pastor….. Again, this is not a great segway.
Pastor is not well-known and with wines that are such small production, he
might never be. Sometime ago Asimov wrote about him in the Times and ever since
I have noticed increased interest from consumers. Pastor’s wines are
interesting, if for anything else, they are defying the trend in Spain. His
book is filled with an array of traditional producers from far off regions of
Spain so seldom seen on american shelves like Ribera Sacra and the Canary Islands.
He has a handful of decent bang for the buck grenache wines as well as some
higher end stuff that rarely goes above $50. In particular, I am a big fan of a
wine called Mencia from Guimaro a producer in Ribera Sacra. For $17 it is
great: lean, packed with exotic fruit and most importantly and unlike 95% of
other Spanish wines, it needs to show up. In our stores it is probably one of
my favorite under $20 wines, however Guimaro’s higher end stuff for $40-$50
leaves something to be desired for.

Jose Pastor is doing some decent stuff and people should be
excited. But I am not ready to jump on the Pastor bandwagon just yet. First of
all, I find that with people’s expectations for Spanish wine being so low,
traditionalists are becoming excited about anything these days.  Be patient. More
importantly, Pastor’s wines represent a fundamental problem that I have always
had with serious wine geeks. Just because a wine smells like some unusual stuff
and comes from some off the beaten path place yet to be commercial, doesn’t
necessarily make it good. Sometimes a wine is contemplative and fun to smell
that we forget it actually doesn’t taste very good apart from one or two sips.
All too often these “natural wines” get boring and people simply
praise them because of what they represent, not for what they taste like. In
Pastor’s wines, take Los Bermejos; a Malvasia from the Canary Islands. Eric
Asimov raved about this and as a result, we sell quite a few. Now granted, we
rarely see Malvasia, let alone Malvasia from the Canary Islands and at $25 not
too shabby. But then I tried it. Sorry, this is one of those wines. A wine so
geeked out that we forget the fact that it is supposed to taste good and be
something we would want to drink a bottle of and not get bored with. Yes it
smells like the sea but it doesn’t taste like chicken. It is not something I
would want to drink and for those who sing its praises I would be interested to
see them put away more than a glass and feel the same about it.

There are plenty of other wines like this. Sorry! We want Jose
Pastor to succeed because we like what he stands for and I hope the wines
improve, but as of now, there is still very little coming out of Spain that I
am getting behind. Where will the next hot area of the world be?

So yes, as the title suggests, I just finished a 10 day detox, 5 day fast which I do every year around this time.  Tonight I capped it with homemade pepperoni pizza and an old vine Aglianico which I am drinking right now.  Strange feelings are running through me.  During the intensive fast (liquid I might add — I’m not Gandhi G) one constantly thinks of food — cravings like a pregnant woman.  For me, myself, even though I made pizza to break it, I was thinking about good red wine the whole time and anything hot.  Meatball subs a lot of the time for some reason as well as clam chowder with bacon.  Again, pregnant woman cravings, which is ironic because as many of you know, my wife is pregnant, but I guess I’m the one with the random cravings.

What is strange about the fast is the way that food or lack there of takes over you — every part of your body.  Come to think of it, it is more the idea the food and how you appreciate it is so much more.  How lying there for 5 days watching stupid movies on Netflix because your body can’t do anything else, one thinks of all the foods they love.  Pardon the crude analogy, but it is almost like a person recovering in a hospital bed who can’t think of anything but breathing fresh air, smelling the grass, etc, etc.  We like to think in these situations that we always take things for granted; that we promise ourselves that when were out and back into the real world, we will learn to appreciate the world around us much more.  For me it is similar with food.  While I am not a large mammal, I do need to slow down when I eat and think about the food I am eating more.  I have made great strides and as a result have been able to become a 5 day vegan for over a year now and really minimize overeating, but still….there are those times.

Something else:  I love pizza, and especially the version I make.  Not to say I make the best pizza in the world.  I don’t.  But I can’t explain to you the fulfillment in making your own.  I don’t know if it is the challenge associated with it or the fact that it is the most common American food and the one we eat more than anything of.  The fact that I learned to make it myself, makes me wonder what else I can do:  build things, make music, etc, etc.  But now after these long 2.5 weeks, the pizza tasted good tonight but not mind-boggling.  Not what i hoped it would taste like in my 5 days lying in bed dreaming.  The wine too.  I chose an old vine Aglianico that is good but a little heavy for my taste.  Far from transcendent.  I feel almost like the thought of good food and wine is better than the food itself.  I never been to a hospital; lying in bed wishing to get better, but I guess that is why so few people actually live up to their hospital bed reflections, about how their going to be a better person and appreciate the world more.  9 times out of 10 it doesn’t happen.

But I will tell you one thing:  while I don;t have a 6 pack and without plastic surgery never will, I am looking quite thin and feel that with great consistency in exercise I can get to the fit levels I want to.  Just watched the World’s Bigges Loser btw.  Fat people trying to lose weight and crying in a contest?  Are you kidding me?  And some people actually deny that there’s a God?

Anyway, these are my thoughts after 2.5 weeks.  Thanks for reading.

As a man who is fanatic about Burgundy, I used to throw a temper tantrum when a good customer (I just ignore the bad ones) tells me the same old story time and time again:  “you know I love Burgundy and used to drink it a lot but the prices are too high….and I just find that dollar for dollar U.S. Pinot is better.”

I used to go crazy when I heard this.  Enter into the picture Ralph Wexler and his wife Samara.  A charming and couple who live in Arizona out of all places.  I became acquainted with them when they started to order Domaine Serene from me – a boutique Oregon Pinot that ranges from $50-$70 a bottle.  After a few conversations I had to ask:  “Ralph dear buddy allow me to send you some Burgundy and your life will never be the same.  Yes, Domaine Serene and other Oregon Pinots can be tasty, but trust me, try a Burgundy for the same price.  I don’t know what your religion is, but this will make you believe in something.”  Well, it turns out that Ralph has a lot of experience with Burgundy and in fact back in the day when he was a young man in NYC, he would hit up the best restaurants where Burgundy such as La Tache and Romanee Conti would cost as little as $100.  But now with it being over $1,000, Ralph said bye bye to Burgundy a long time ago, but appreciating my enthusiasm he decided to let me choose two Burgundies totalling $100 that would go against some U.S. Pinot similarly priced which he owned.  He wrote with me with some great observations that I have posted below; observations which I actually believe are quite normal for people who have good palates and are open to trying new stuff.  Further I think their comments give some insight into the question of what is a better bang for the buck and how one can decide what exactly they like about Pinot.  But that is another post soon to be followed, enjoy the contest:  U.S. Pinot vs Burgundy for $100

Round 1:  Domaine Serene 2007 Yamhill Cuvee ($42) vs Camus Bruchon 2006 Savigny les Beaune Gravains 1er Cru ($42)

This first thing we noticed was the color; the Burgundy was lighter and less
opaque. It immediately made me think that despite all the talk of creating
“Burgundian” wines the new world  was still making bigger bolder versions of
its ancestor. Indeed, while we enjoyed both immensely, by comparison [here
comes the subjective wino speak] these wines presented very different
styles. While the Oregon wine was lush with plenty of fruit and a strong
tannic backbone it lacked a certain structure and subtle complexity when
compared to the French wine. Coming from the other direction [especially
after the wines opened up for several hours] the French wine tasted a little
thin next to its younger cousin.

Anyway, while I do not have the wine vocabulary of Parker or
Suckling [or their palates], hopefully you can appreciate the
experience.

Round 2:  Domaine Drouhin 2006 Dundee Hills ($60) vs  Harmand Geoffroy 2006 Gevrey Chambertin Clos Prieur 1er cru ($60)

Unlike round #1 this time the color was not an immediate giveaway. Both
wines displayed a similarly rich, deep and opaque coloration. 
Upon close inspection, however, the Oregon wine was slightly brighter and
more intense in color while the French wine had almost a brick look on the
edges by comparison. The Clos Prieur showed thick legs while the Laurene
looked thin as it simply washed down the side of the glass.

If one were to evaluate these wines simply by their initial bouquet Oregon
would win hands down. The initial fragrance of the Clos Prieur was off
putting. I am not sure if it was corkage but it had a smoky, mineral, woody
aged aftertaste to it. Fortunately, this quality blew off in about 20
minutes to reveal deep layered blackberry and cherry aromas. This Chambertin
was more refined in the mouth with finer tannins and balance than its Oregon
cousin. It possessed a touch of wood highlights and was more elegant with
floral aromas and a hint of minerality with a textured, even velvety finish
that was nicely focused slightly austere with excellent length.

By comparison the first thing we noticed about the Laurene was the
intensity. The nose immediately picked up the higher alcohol content with
bigger, younger tannins. Even after several hours the Laurene displayed a
bigger backbone that cried out “lay me down in the cellar for another 5-10
years please.” On the nose and on the palate, there was a wealth of deep
blackberries, ripe currant, plum flavors and cherries. While on its own we
found it to be smooth, focused, and quite enjoyable, when compared side by
side with the Clos Prieur it was lacking in elegance, structure and velvety
finish. Dare I say it seemed like a young bully next to its more refined
cousin.