Food, Wine, Life

This is a rare personal post - you have been warned.

I hate eating and I hate food. Sometimes. I am getting over it. The best way to learn to hate food is to work in a restaurant. Fight with the owner, the unappreciative clientele, the low pay and the servers. Have food become the means to pay the mortgage, the student loans, the credit card bills that went to electricity and a car you rarely drive anyway. Let the subtle tide of creation and exploration become the whimper of quotidian drudgery. Separate the soul from craft, trade in the excitement of the push for the torture of the grind, and watch your personal life fade away at the same time which is no small part of the equation and the dilution of taste.

I did not always hate food. In fact it has been a fascination for most of my life. Why a ten-year old would be obsessed by glistening oeufs en gelée and terrines encased in perfectly egg-washed puff pastry will never be known, but a visceral embryonic connection was there. I grew up on a vineyard in the Russian River AVA as well, and at a young age I knew my Carignan from Colombard. I was more than a million miles away from food culture, large broken family, never eating anything worth remembering, but there was this odd spark. Moving out and on meant the liberty to try Thai food for the first time, garam masala-ed failures and toxic burned bechamel. Ten years too late the food fascination got the best of me, and after a lifetime of self-imposed austerity my soon-to-be wife realized that not only did we have a food connection, but I had a serious intimate relationship with it that just wasn't quite normal (she is a great cook too by the way.) I had temperature control in my bones, an almost erotic yearning for technique that bridged science with philosophy and aesthetics, and the physical connection to organic objects that merges both into a momentary being, and then disappears. It was never about eating, it was all about crafting. This why I am not a foodie; I lost weight working in restaurants.

When I made the transition into kitchen work my culinary obsession blossomed. Science and craft gel well for me, and that is still true at this moment today in the wine game. Right brain left brain. Every spare penny went to the cheapest damaged copies of the cookbooks that I read like novels. I remember hours spent puzzling over Michel Bras' book. Like most aspiring fine dining cooks I remember having all of Trotter's cookbooks at one time and then their cold austerity and bold caution slowly made them fade away. I remember the first time I looked at one of the El Bulli books and I remember when Susur's book came out - I even sent a letter asking for a kitchen position under him at one point.

Somewhere, between application number 42 and 50 someone finally gave me a job, and I still count my first chef as my friend today. I said I would shut up and eat shit my first year and I did. When I was told to do something wrong, I did it, though I was grumbling. I was also reveling in the bizarre semi-meritocracy of kitchen life. It was kind of like college, but not so much. In my first year cooking I managed to receive a James Beard Scholarship and for my school internship I set up my own paying gig with what would shortly be a 1-star Michelin restaurant in Napa Valley. Then they hired me, and then gave me a raise. I really wasn't bad, and I was moving fast. Had I been a driven enough cook I would have probably stayed, but I was married now and had to go home. This gradual acclimation to distance in a stressful marriage set a dangerous precedent that would shape my future.

When I returned to Portland life was in slow motion. Cooks were hacks, slow, lazy, whatever. Insular, uninformed and just not really disciplined. The general level of execution was very low. I wanted to be on sauté every night. I loved tearing through an impossible prep list then gliding through 150 covers in an evening. But so few kitchens flowed like that. Growing restless and bored I took a wage cut to work with someone who spent five years with Gray Kunz and then Bouley. Kunz is God. If you don't know what this means you are missing part of this post. Half the pay for a minimum of 70 hours per week. Eventually I had to quit because I could not afford to eat and my wife hated me. It was the best food I ever made, under the worst human being with the most gifted palate I have seen. I was learning but it was true injustice from every angle. Food was not pleasure but intellectual edification, but then I had to go home.  I was already old, and while everyone else closed down the bars I biked home through the dark to an angry wife and a house I could not afford. Sleep, repeat.

I can't emphasize the difficulty of that last bit. To be learning, creating with pride but totally miserable inside was wrenching. This is where food really started to become struggle, internal versus external, spousal obligation and all that stuff. This is the quintessential kitchen conundrum. Outside the kitchen life was a struggle, treading water financially and emotionally while in the kitchen the treading was of a slightly different sort, but it was my treading. I floated for a bit, then my first chef came to the rescue, hired me back, gave me a free hand with the menu and I recreated every dish from the last year's culinary adventures, and I made them better. I got even. I made oxtail and foie gras ravioli better. Squab? Better. It was cross-cultural. Steroidal harira, melting and buttery sake kasu sablefish, tomato air and Wuxi pork belly. I became somewhat happier with my work life anyway, and for a little while I had a bit of movement and hope. I began avoiding home, stopping at the bar and sneaking a cigarette here and there. When I got there I would start thinking about the next menu and specials so I would always be ahead of the game. As a child of divorce I tend to be over prepared, born wearing pants. I was between worlds. Doing more at work meant neglecting home, and they were pretty much all six-day weeks. They had to be.

A few more jobs, a few more stages. I yelled at "chefs" for putting vinegar or tomatoes in aluminum pans. I threatened my fourth chef over his shitty plating. When he told me his customers did not like "clean" food I fucking flipped, not because I care about the drooling knuckle-dragging customer, but because his slovenly laziness diminished the discipline that was mine. He hurt me existentially. When close enough was good enough, anyone could do it. Brunoise should be brunoise, none of this four millimeter shit. There are all sorts of stories I could tell about people you know about in Portland. The lies, whining, backstabbing are everything that could be dreamt of involving all the big Portland players. Some of them lied to my face in their backwater pomposity, and I am dying to tell you their names and stories. I was getting to know them and I had the fortune of a memorable name. Three years in I took a sous chef and pastry chef position, still climbing the ladder and I wanted the executive position. I was still hungry, and I needed more money as my home life was still drowning in debt, but I was bouncing off the ceiling constantly, wanting to do more, better, harder in a dour kitchen. It was a difficult setup in an odd spot with a ragged crew. After several serious conversations with others chefs about jumping ship and really pushing fell through and a chronically ill wife who could not work I approached meltdown stage. Struggle at work, struggle at home. My own head was killing me. I didn't have the balls to make my own way. So I ditched.

What was I ditching? Well, I was avoiding the reality of ending a personal relationship of five years. Food wise, I was ditching the fact that cooking had become arguments with the owner's chain-smoking wife over menu items, food cost percentages and sending non-salaried cooks home on slow nights. I was ditching a kitchen culture that over and again just was not gelling into a cohesive unit that pushed - it was all grind. What I found interesting and compelling was not what sold. I was ditching that I was in a corner and not finding any way out. Food was work. The kitchen was a black cloud of pessimism. It felt like not moving upwards but making a series of lateral jumps. One of the worst aspects of the hidden kitchen world is the amount of dysfunction it can contain. A good team is a rare thing of beauty, the type of unit you read about at Alinea. A bad team is a series of half-trained slackers going through a revolving door frequently, and you can't do it all yourself. Those of us with personal problems such as boundary issues and faulty work/home balance (guilty) tend to burn out anyway by failing on the human side of the equation, and this affects a kitchen too. One day, with a phone call, I decided to go to California for two months to help out with harvest. It was that or jump off a bridge.

In California I reconnected with sunlight, my old friend the grapevine and enough excitement and hard work to keep me active. Though I hated the circumstance of dipping a toe into a failing family business (my family's dysfunction makes any kitchen look glowingly healthy) I enjoyed it, and the culinary background was a definite asset in the winery and also in the vineyard. I could do this, and had that feeling in my bones that I could make it better and make it succeed. The two months provided a bit of a reset. When I went back to Portland I went back to work in the kitchen but my focus was shifting. I could still go through the motions - three busy months solid on grill and not a single piece of meat ever came back, but I was elsewhere. I went to work in a wine shop. It was not great, but it was a starting point. I was also feeling the personal need to upgrade my people skills and expand the horizon socially, and a (gulp) sales position forced me to open up and gain some confidence. I actually made some lasting friends out of customers. Shortly after I was back in California 65% of the year, cutting down walnut trees, planting, trellising, making sales and making wine. Life at home remained the same. It was 2009. Things continued, some got worse and some got better.

I'll save the rest of the story for later, but there is an element of failure and success that is clear and it is the topic of discussion. I burned out on food, and I am in the midst of divorce. The irony is that ending one path has forced me to reexamine and reevaluate the other. I refuse to end both.

My wife has been quite open about our impending end in her blog, she is a fantastic writer and can be found here and here. We had the intellectual link, and I am still proud of it. It hurts to end that part as I have become much more comfortable thinking of myself as artsy-fartsy in some ways, and that awareness is largely her doing. Though I get a bit queasy discussing these things publicly it may be time to leverage technology into resolving my own struggle and possibly assist others.

So, dear reader, maybe you have struggled with cooking, with crafting and creating food. Maybe the stable mirror of your existence has departed and the flavor of life has dwindled a bit. I admire those who cook for an empty house. Maybe there is a simple fix for you, like cut your hair, get a mani/pedi and move on. Maybe you just need a new cookbook. This is no joke. I fought buying the Alinea cookbook for years. The technical aspects of modernist cuisine were mysterious and unpublished (with the exception of El Bulli) when I was coming up, so it was in a away also the end of an era. It came out when I exited cooking and I felt that it was not for me anymore and it was part of what was now a different path. I did not want to go there. It became symbolic of my failure in so many ways. Sure, it was still easy to dazzle a house party but that inchoate spark was missing, that lovely concupiscent dialectic had died. No one saw it but me, and its absence was like sleeping with a hooker, everything was just going through the motions mechanically. Could have been fucking sewing. The right book at the right time could have changed this.

What I see now is that for me the balance is all, and the dialectic comes to a grinding halt if it is forsaken. Sure, there are those few gifted visionaries who tirelessly churn forward and find success, but the price can be very high for mono-minded-mania. It feels wonderful to push at all cost with laser-like focus and shut the world out, but that is precisely the cost. Somewhere, somehow, one forgets to enjoy eating. The craft becomes impersonal labor, reified as ideology, cathected failure. It ceased to breath for me. I developed the peculiar habit of not wanting to eat my own food. In fact, even today, the thought of it makes me nauseous. Consumption became utterly unrelated to production, and I am not a classy guy. This isn't snobbery as I still drink Keystone and eat freezer pizza with vigor. No, this has been a philosophical failing, a misunderstanding of the the nature of things, an internal failing demanding an external perspective.

In short, I forgot - or am only coming to see now - that cooking is a relationship too. Relationships require different things at different times, sometimes some distance and silence, sometimes cautious nurturing and caring. Then there are times that for all the drama, storm and stress all that is needed is a sweaty three-way in the elevator. I ordered the Fat Duck Cookbook too...

When cooking became struggle it had lost its essence as something to be shared. It became either a commodity (is it a deal for $22) or it became a masturbatory exorcism. It fell into the neat dichotomous crevasse of being either a cold product or an ego-invested stand against kitchen corruption. The adventure was gone, the R & D phase so essential to forward movement evaporated because that tender care and concern no longer existed. Food can be just recipes just like it can be just a pay check. I half think that every cook should take some time and go watch their patrons eat their food. We are only part of the equation; there is a whole other world on the other side of the pass. Much like music or some other form, a sense of enthusiasm somehow pervades and persists through the object. You know a kitchen without energy or drive the second the plate hits the table, whether at a restaurant or at home. There is eating and cooking for sustenance, then for fulfillment. Fundamentally, when pride dies, food dies too. If you no longer believe it can or should get better, it won't. It is your dithyramb.

So what now? Well, I am reconnecting with food. Slowly disentangling all those painful threads of guilt, failure, duty, scarcity and self abnegation and hoping to find an equilibrium of abundance. Enjoying only the execution part will not be enough to sustain it. At the most basic level that sense of wonder and excitement that culminates in creation is a large portion of the goal, but not the totality. There is the unique possibility at this moment to cook very little in a very focused and controlled way, a few things a week, and actually share them with visitors in our winery's tasting room and reestablish that communal link of sharing and hospitality. We can explore historical elements as well through regional pairings. The technical aspect of execution is unlimited. I will focus on new areas, like charcuterie that had been marginalized in the past. The wine pairings will hopefully become more creative and adventurous or they may be historically informed and sanctioned, who knows? We like rustic as much as high minded. We like the basics, but should not be afraid to pull out the calcium chloride or kappa carrageenan, bake some bread or crack open that dusty pastry book. The wine will be better for it at the end of the day if all the cards are played right. I also will get to reconnect with an old friend in a wisened and hopefully steadily passionate, yet measured way. And, the work will be documented here so that I can spare you some failure and maybe share some success. Stay tuned...

Recipe: Beet Salad

Beet Salad (serves four)

1 pound good quality beets, greens removed (keep different colors separate if using)

1 Granny Smith apple quartered and thinly sliced

4 oz. arugula

Dressing

·      1 shallot minced very finely

·      Toasted and crushed pumpkin seeds (or crushed walnuts)

·      1 ½ tsp. sherry vinegar

·      1 tbl. finely sliced chives

·      1 tbl. pumpkin seed oil (or walnut oil)

·      Sea salt and fresh black pepper

Horseradish Cream

·      2 tbl. prepared creamed horseradish (but if you have fresh, grate extremely finely and process in a blender withe vinegar, than add cream over an ice bath gently)

·      ½ tsp. rice vinegar or white balsamic

·      1 tbl. mascarpone or crème fraiche

·      A touch of sugar if necessary

Beet salad never sounds too exciting, but this extra-classy version is a good way to dress it up and impress friends. This salad forgoes the classic goat cheese in exchange for a lighter and cleaner profile that works well in a multi-course dinner. Pumpkin seed oil is very expensive (and very good), and if you can find it the nutty and earthy flavor works beautifully with the beets. Walnut oil is a lighter-flavored substitution that works, but not quite as well. The horseradish is the secret.

1.      Preheat oven to 300°F. Rinse the beets and remove any of the greens remaining. Put beets in a small oven-safe container, such as a small saucepot, add one tbl. olive oil and a dash of water to the beets. Be sure to use a tight- fitting lid so that no steam escapes. Cook beets in oven until a knife inserts smoothly into the largest of them, approximately 50 minutes – do not overcook though. Allow to partially cool, rub skin off and slice thinly.

2.      While the beets are cooking prepare the horseradish by mixing the creamed mixture with the crème fraiche or mascarpone. Whisk well, adding the rice vinegar and a touch of sugar if necessary. A touch of olive oil may be needed.

3.      In a large bowl mix the minced shallot, pumpkin seeds (or crushed walnuts), vinegar, chives, and oil. Mix. Put half of the mixture into second bowl. In first bowl toss the beets with the dressing and season. In second bowl with other half of dressing toss the arugula and sliced apple.

4.      Assemble. Put 1 tbl. of horseradish mixture onto each plate and push with the back of a spoon to spread in a circle. Carefully layer dressed beets in a perfect circle on top of the horseradish (or use a ring mold).  If you are using the pumpkin seed oil you can quickly drizzle it around the plate Jackson Pollock/‘80s style for that clever ironic look. Very gently pile the dressed apple and arugula mixture so that it looks light and fluffy and intentionally off-center in an arty ikebana kind of way. Toss a few more seeds or nuts on the plate and pair with a 2009 Muscat Canelli by you know who...

Options, yeah, you got options. Lots of 'em. Beets are sweetly savoury and earthy, like Winona Ryder with a hangover walking to the bus stop, or a good Nuits-St. George. They are a smooth platform for all sorts of antics, daring or tame. Your wine pairing will probably have more to do with the vinegar you add for brightness or the horseradish than the beets themselves. Arugula can be a little tricky as well, so you can either overpower it with big guns or you can smoothly work with it, which is where the bit of sugar and texture in the Muscat comes into play. Remember that texture is always a component to consider, and a little sugar goes a long way. The food should always be a little less acidic than the wine, but in this recipe there are many points to cover - nutty, sweet/tart apple, bitter green arugula, deep earth and sweet beet, and a bit of horseradish fire. This is a tall order for any wine. Sure you could out acid and angle it with a Grüner or sparkler, but the salad as a whole is too complex I think for a cohesive counter point to account for all this. Plus, if you are doing a multi-course dinner, pair this slightly sweet and then go angular on the next with a meat dish or into a light red. Always think of flow and contrasts. It is o.k. to use a lightweight throwaway wine on one then alternate with a wine-centric dish for the next course. Sometimes wine folks need to let the food speak when the dish sings, because I guarantee you will need to cover up the kitchen's fuckups at some point. Other options I like would be a similar Chenin Blanc, Oregon Pinot Gris, possibly a Friulano or Fiano. Just watch the greens and let the beets come forward while quenching the horseradish to keep the salad clean and fresh.

O

O

Ode to the Oxtail

     Here is a hint for those who like to cook - use oxtail. Yes, it looks like a giant denuded penis and yes, it is actually the tail which is a little gross. But, do you need a rich brown stock? A meaty soup base? A rich and hearty braise? Then skip your boutique grocer's tail at $6.99 per pound and go directly to the local Asian supermarket and spend $1.99  and buy three times as much.

Oxtail is just as it sounds - cow tail. There was time when it actually meant old male cow tail, which would be the best for braising and stewing due to its age and muscle tone, but now it generally means cow tail young or old. And of course, all tail is not equal. Even young oxtail can give you a leg up though. Here is why:

Oxtail is a very well-used muscle for a cow, equalling flavor, and it is full of nasty stuff like collagen that  carries flavor and creates unctuous body. When you braise oxtail you are at the same time creating a super stock with the liquid. You get all the goody out of the bones and all of the meaty flavor that does not exist when making a traditional stock based only on bones. Braising oxtail is a two-fer.

A traditionally made stock (simmering bones in aromatic liquid) has its place in the kitchen. It can create discreet background flavors when braising, soups of course can be very good, it is a good wetting agent, etc. Chicken stock is extremely versatile, but those store-bought pre-roasted chickens are so full of sodium preservatives and MSG that your leftover stock may taste like a chicken McNugget, and vegetable stock is criminally underrated for its versatility and clarity of flavor. But in restaurant life we have another secret weapon: the fond. The fond is a flavor bomb. It is very powerful and not really needing any further reduction. It is Slayer to your Moby. This is where the dense flavor and high carmelization potential of oxtail really shines. I say braise your tail in the traditional way, pick the meat out and reserve it with some of the liquid for moistness and use as needed, then reduce the strained liquid with all the leftover bones and reduce it further until you have a thermonuclear potion of erotic bovinsim.

Oxtail is like a giant finger, there is a joint or knuckle every couple of inches. Cut cleanly through this joint, get rid of any extra fat and really fully brown every inch of surface area without dessicating the meat. Remove the tail, brown your onion, then add and carrot, celery or other aromatic vegetables you want. If you are super classy you may even char some tomato and put it in. For Italianate braises some tomato is key, but if you use dollar tomato paste it will have absolutely no brightness or lift. One of the few splurges that I advocate is buying the good canned San Marzano tomatoes if you do have access to seasonal ones. A ghetto trick is to use that dollar tomato paste but half and seed several romas to try to get some tomato acid in there. And always slip in an anchovy when no one is looking. Then add you thyme, bay, peppercorns, whole head garlic, etc. If you making oxtail soup, use a lot of liquid, otherwise use as little as possible.

Choose your vessel size carefully. Excess liquid is dilute flavor so keep it tight and packed. Be generous with the wine and garlic. Slow is good, so heat slowly and cool down slowly. You can use store bought stock at this point to top up the liquid. Because oxtail is all about rich flavor I advocate just barely covering it with liquid to start and then let it evaporate and reduce. This means that you will need to flip your tail, but you will create extra flavor on the exposed portion that is resubmerged. Using a parchment sheet is the classic way to allow evaporation and retain heat. When your braise has finished the key step is to pick the meat out carefully, and this job sucks. There are fine bits of cartilage hidden in their so use your fingers' tactile abilities to find them. Missing these bits has caused innumerable bad days for young cooks rushing to get through oxtails before service only have a plate come back to the chef with a piece of bone pushed to the side. Once the meat is cleaned keep it moist, never let it dry out, and in fact it should only be cooled in its liquid - never pull hot meat out of a braise to cool unless you want your love to produce chewy cardboard.

Returning to the earlier stock versus fond discussion, a fond is made not by simmering bones in water but by reducing bones and meat repeatedly to a brown fond, and then rewetting it over and over with different liquids (wine, stock, water, tears, etc.). Heat control and attention is key. This braising of tail and reusing bones even further is sort of in between, like a cheater fond. Carefully reduce and clean up your liquid with careful skimming. You will know when it is done. Due to the high reduction I do not salt the braise until the meat is picked and reserved, otherwise heavy salting can produce an inedible disaster with high reduction. It also impedes browning by liberating moisture from the meat.

I'll stop here for now with kitchen tips - more to come soon. My personal fave oxtail dish I ever made was oxtail and foie gras raviolo with the gently spiced reduction over the top (be sure to make your own pasta). Piemontese style goodness!

Oh yeah, and wine pairings are pretty endless. Good reds from all over, Rhone, Nebbiolo to Aglianico. Keep it rich though. A weedy Cab Franc from the Loire, though a personal fave may not match in body (unless it is a warm vintage). Spain is good to, but maybe not too over the top, like Priorat. Try a Ribera del Duero that has some acid. Go for that Lake County Barbera, hint hint...

Greco petition sent to the TTB

 (VCR 11 at the bottom is FPS 01)

[Greco is not recognized as a grape variety in the U.S. yet. We picked the first harvest of this cool Campanian grape propagated by Novavine last fall, documented here, producing about 65 gallons of rather orangeish, minerally wine. Assuming the petition passes, we will be the first winery in the U.S. to produce a "Greco Bianco" wine. We have also ordered budwood to graft over our Chardonnay block to it].

Rosa d’Oro Vineyards of Kelseyville, California hereby petitions the TTB to recognize “Greco Bianco” as a prime grape variety name approved for the designation of American wines. Foundation Plant Services has recognized one clone (FPS 01) of Greco as Greco di Tufo, but because Tufo is a place name, and black and white varieties exist, we believe that Greco Bianco would be the most appropriate prime grape variety name.

Greco Bianco (White Greco) and Greco Nero (Black Greco) have been cultivated in Southern Italy for at least 2000 years.  Greco Bianco is most famous as the Italian DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) wine “Greco di Tufo” or Greco from the town of Tufo in Campania. In nearby Calabria a D.O.C. sweet wine known as “Greco di Bianco” is also produced near the town of Bianco [ed note - I think Greco Bianco in Calabria is actually Muscat used in the passito style, which may be a bit of a hangup for this petition]. Current estimate is that approximately 2,500 acres of Greco Bianco is grown in Southern Italy.

Other Italian D.O.C. wines that allow Greco Bianco (percentage listed after) as part of the blend are:

·      Bivongi (30-50%)

·      Capri (up to 50%)

·      Cilento (10-15%)

·      Ciro (up to 5%)

·      Gravina (35-60%)

·      Molise if labeled varietally (minimum 85%)

·      Penisola Sorrentina (up to 60%)

·      Sannio (up to 50%)

·      Sant’Agata dei Goti (40-60%)

·      Sant’Anna di Isola Capo Rizzuto (up to 35%)

·      Scavigna (up to 20%)

·      And, the DOCG wine Fiano di Avellino (up to 15% blended in).

In California, Novavine grapevine nursery acts as the importer of Italian budwood produced by Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo (VCR). All VCR clones utilized by Novavine have passed through Foundation Plant Services (FPS), and FPS officially recognizes Greco FPS 01, generated from Italian clone VCR 11 as Greco di Tufo (see supporting dosumentation #1). The Italian VCR clones of Greco are printed as document #2. In 2009, at their budwood growing ground in Dunnigan, California, Novavine grafted one row of approximately 185 previously established rootstock to Greco FPS 01. One picture of this row was taken by this author in August 2010 and is reprinted in supporting documentation #9.

In 2010 Rosa d’Oro Vineyards harvested the first crop produced by that row of Greco FPS 01. We produced approximately 70 gallons of dry white wine. The harvest and vinification is documented in #9.

Greco, along with regional companion Fiano, are of tremendous potential to warmer growing regions of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. It is capable of producing varietally unique ultra-premium wine, and most importantly Greco is extremely heat tolerant and drought tolerant, minimizing the need for irrigation. Greco Bianco is moderately susceptible to powdery mildew. Greco Bianco’s canopy is very vigorous but it produces a relatively light crop, probably never exceeding four tons per acre in even very fertile soil.

At the author’s request Novavine indicated that in addition to an order of Greco placed by Rosa d’Oro Vineyards, in 2010 orders for Greco had been filled for Clondaire Vineyards in Calaveras County (cited in document #5) and for Callaghan Vineyards in Arizona.

The wine produced from Greco Bianco grown in Dunnigan, California by Novavine is true to type. It ripened very late for a white variety in mid-October. It retained very high natural acidity, has moderate to very thick skins, high phenolic content and produced a typical deeply colored yellow/straw/light orange wine. It also has the strong mineral and orange citrus characteristics typical of the grape. It has the potential to age and also has assertive and attractive youthfulness.

Written and compiled by

Pietro Buttitta

Rosa d’Oro Vineyards 

certified sommelier

Supporting Documentation

#1) National Grape Registry, Accessed December 2, 2010, http://ngr.ucdavis.edu/varietyview.cfm?varietynum=2938

#2) Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo, Greco Bianco biotypes accessed November 16, 2010, http://www.vivairauscedo.com/en/catalogo.php

#3) Novavine, accessed November 16, 2010, http://novavine.com/plant_materials/varieties_clones/vcr.asp

Novavine, 6735 Sonoma Highway, Santa Rosa, Ca. 95409, (707)539-5678, info@novavine.com

#4) Wikipedia, Greco entry, accessed November 16, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco_(grape)

#5) “Calaveras Winegrowers seek AVA Status Vineyard Tour Highlights new Rhone, Italian, and Iberian Varietals” in Wines & Vines Magazine, August 2010

#6) The Concise World Atlas of Wine, Octopus Publishing, 2009, by Jancis Robinson and Hugh Johnson, pp 144-145

#7) Making Sense of Italian Wine, Running Press Book Publishers, 2006, by Matt Kramer, pp 134-141

#8) Wine All-in-One for Dummies, Wiley Publishing, 2009, by Ed McCarthy, Mary Ewing-Mulligan, Maryann Egan, pp 380-83

#9) Rosa d’Oro Vineyards blog documenting Greco Harvest “The Cutest Grapes I Ever Saw 10/15/2010” http://www.rosadorowine.blogspot.com/2010/10/cutest-grapes-i-ever-saw.html

#10 Two scientific journal articles involving Greco Bianco

Espelette, the Devil, and the Details

I remember my first espelette.  I am only about 50% on the anniversary, and sometimes the car is not where it was left, but I remember the first time I used the pepper. I was working at Giorgio's in Portland, just after they made Gourmet's top restaurants list. I had just left Terra Restaurant in Napa Valley and returned to Portland hoping to continue up the fine-dining ladder. Giorgio's was turning out some of the best food in the city at that time, which was ironic since the chef, who had an immensely gifted palate and a resume to kill for, was the most miserable, insecure and douchebaggy lying weasel I ever worked for. The restaurant  started its grizzly decline when we were runner up to Andina as Willamette Weekly's restaurant of the year. The chef freaked (though he never admitted it), started drinking at the bar all day and soon disappeared back to New York where he closed three restaurants and is now slinging burgers and a "french hot dog." C'est la vie baby. Anyway, I used the pepper there, and this is about espelette.

The esplette pepper is problematic. Most importantly, it is very expensive. This is because, just like a French wine can be A.O.C (Appellation d’origine contrôlée), espelette is an A.O.C. pepper. That means that the pepper can only be grown in ten authorized villages in the valley near Espelette (Ainhoa, Cambo-les-Bains, Espelette, Halsou, Jatxou, itxassou, Larressore, Pée Saint-sur-Nivelle, and Souraïde Ustaritz), hence the  $10 per ounce price. It is used extensively in Basque cuisine, pipérade being the most famous dish. It is a shi-shi item. Is it worth it? That depends on your priorities, but you should certainly purchase it once and decide for yourself. If you are the type that buys the good anchovies, then yes, this is for you.


Espelette is not a hot pepper, though the heat can vary depending on all the normal climatic/soil/sun things. One container I used was quite hot, though generally they have only about one-third the heat of a jalapeno. The magic of the espelette is in its depth and range of flavors. For me it is sort of a cross between the fruitiness and tang of sumac and the much cheaper aleppo pepper. Aleppo (which is highly recommended as well for different reasons) has less fruit but more earthy-spice (like cumin, coriander, etc.) and can be found in most Middle-Eastern stores - will write on this one later. Espelette is quite pungent with a strong red fruity quality and also a floral tone. Its most famous attribute is an element of natural smokiness having nothing to do with smoking, unlike smoked Spanish paprika. Espelette therefore is a more delicate pepper. Though it can be used in robust dishes, like piperade, it will show its natural attributes best on a clean canvas. It performs very well with seafood (duh), utilized with clean and light flavors with a touch of natural sweetness and the umami character really brings the piquant and slightly tart flavors forward. It works well with citrus. Keeping it simple is key. Another way I have used it was in a simple fingerling potato salad that was only sliced fingerlings (gently simmer skin-on just until cooked, then slice hot and toss with ingredients while warm so that they absorb the ingredients and the starch creates a gentle binding creaminess), grey sea salt, lemon Agrumato oil and espelette. Add protein and some greenery, and you will look very, very sophisticated, if a little heavy.

Wine pairing: Espelette will rarely drive a pairing. After all, it is not like adding a teaspoon of anise to a dish. But, it can add heat and sharpness, and it has that delicate citrus floral thing, so these elements should be accounted for. Let's imagine that the potato preparation above is the dish as a simple appetizer. Txakoli is the regional drink to go to, it is the Basque Vinho Verde basically. Its attributes are low alcohol which handles the heat, very high acid that keeps it clean, and the wonderful freshness that would make your Italian grandmother blush. If you want to go Spanish an Albariño may work, but if you use enough pepper to make it hot, look elsewhere. My recommendation is to grab something that has a bit of smoke characteristic to echo the pepper, and just a touch of residual sugar to smooth the heat. If the potato dish mentioned above is used, I say grab an Alsatian Pinot Blanc (yes, the derided lowly Pinot Blanc) in the $10-$20 range. It has some of the Albarino characteristics wrapped in a totally different paradigmatic package. Pinot Gris can taste like peanut shells (especially in the Willamette Valley) and I just can't roll with it. It should have about five to seven grams of residual sugar per liter to tame a touch of heat, a whiff of smoke (from the auxerrois usually in the blend) and peach that works with the fruit of the pepper, and a medium body that matches the weight of potato and olive oil. Oh yeah, and it is cheap. If you must have Italian, go Catarratto from Sicily. Alto Adige Pinot Blancs are absolutely beautiful but they are dry and more crisp so let your heat level guide you. Add a few leaves of arugula and a couple of prawns, could not be easier. We are all Trader Joes whores.

Beating the Dead Alcohol Horse Deader

Wow, we are still talking about alcohol! W. R. Tish recently posted a very nice piece here discussing the rising alcohol levels - yesterday's rocket fuel is today's norm. The thesis is that reviews should contain ABV (Alcohol by Volume) information, and amen - they should. And she is correct that there is no compelling reason in the light of transparency to not include them. BUT, if information is the key to informed consumer reviews, then from a winemaking perspective reviews should include acidity and any "additives" (gum arabic, fining regimen, etc.)  as well if data equals knowledge and these are available. Anyway, some nice information is contained within and it is certainly worth a read. But, it is also seems a little misguided and reductionist by overly concentrating on a number that has 2% total leeway plus or minus as being intrinsically meaningful and relatively accurate in and of itself. Quite simply, your most powerful stylistic indicator would be acidity rather than alcohol. First though, since we have a higher level of access, here is some industry insight from within the wine beast:

1. Winemakers regularly put 14.5% on bottles that they know are not actually that percentage to cover the allowed spread on the ABV statement. They know it is 15.3, and legally choose to state 14.5 because it sounds better. This is an industry standard, and that is a fact. Unless you are on the inside, this might be unknown. ABV statements are a strategic marketing tool that is very carefully considered. All that jug wine in the supermarket is not actually 12.5% like it says - most of it is on high side of 13. But it is allowed the leeway to state 12.5 when it is 13.9. Tish claims that this range is moderately slippery and that is o.k., but the very thrust of her piece refutes this "moderate" claim. A review of a 15.1% wine that states 14.1% and vice versa is obviously comparing apples and oranges. The 15% threshold is pretty clearly taboo.

2. Watering back (amelioration) is very common practice in California. Barbera, which can hit 16% alcohol pretty easily in the warmer climes, is often watered back to 14.5%ish. Tempranillo and obviously Zin are the same. Most reds can float up to 15%. This is legal and no statement is required. If we try to establish some sort of direct correlation between alcohol levels and some standard of quality, it would be very much a leap of faith to believe that adding 15% water to crushed grapes to lower the alcohol to 14% will somehow result in a better end product. It certainly is a more manipulated product once that threshold has been crossed. We can give you your low alcohol, by adding water. Does that feel right?

2a. We can add acid in California at will. Higher sugar levels directly correlate with diminishing acid. Most elsewhere in the world higher alcohol means low acid wine. We can not make this stylistic correlation with domestic wine laws. Sorry. In Barolo and Toro, yes. California, no. And yes, acid is a manipulation. Alcohol levels might indicate acid levels, (lower alcohol = higher acid) but they might not, and often don't.

3. For larger producers that can afford it (and it is not cheap) alcohol removal is an option. Clark Smith at www.grapecrafter.com has written endlessly on alcohol sweet spots and it does not need to be rehashed here. Many wines have alcohol levels that have been reduced. Little guys like us are jealous because we want to do it but can't afford it. From a naturalist viewpoint (which is an illusion) this is a major manipulation. If alcohol is used as a ripeness indicator in reviews, adjusted wines can be overripe and low alcohol - a conundrum if alcohol is used to indicate something stylistically.

3a. On a similar note, many producers add concentrate back to sweeten white wine just before bottling, adding extra nose and body. Sauvignon Blanc, various Muscats, Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Blanc are commonly adjusted varietals This is the sussreserve technique used in many German wines, and sometimes this is cited to support its use. HOWEVER, QMP wines are allowed to do it, yet it is rarely practiced because it is considered schizerly and inferior. This is a pretty heavy manipulation. And again, here you can have a high-alcohol white, that is also sweet, and may have low or adjusted high acid, ruining the classic alcohol/r.s. Riesling formula.

4. Alcohol sensitivity organoleptically is variable. Usually at about 15+% it becomes noticeable to even "tolerant" tasters, though there are always famously balanced wines that are high alcohol but good. Sensitive tasters can find a burn at a lower level. Folks like Jancis and Dan Berger get hot in the 13% range with their exquisitively sensitive palates. For me, I would hate to miss that Negro Amaro just because I erroneously thought that at 14.5% it would be wonky. Also, the people that think they can feel the effects of 13% versus 15% can suck it. One night a bottle of Zin goes down just fine, the next night 2/3 is too much. Gee, I drink twice as much when a pizza is in the belly. The vagaries of the human body are great and many, and varying widely day by day. If alcohol is the enemy here, you may need to go to beer if you are obsessed with what is stated. However, if you consider yourself a very sensitive taster (in the Tim Hanni supertaster/sensitive taster sense) and your objection is due to palate sensitivity, then you are off the hook, but you still can not make a correlation between stated alcohol and any other quantitative data with California wine.

5. Alcohol is part of terroir and very much climate (or at the very least a byproduct) as ripeness/climate/growing conditions/soil water holding/canopy/ad infinitum. This rubs shoulders with the hated "naturalness" straw man. Some areas have always produced high alcohol wines - Puglia, La Mancha, or Banyuls.

The concern here is that, yes, alcohol a significant indicator of something. But what? To say that alcohol simply indicates warmth or body is a banality. What is an alcohol level preference? In your Cognac or mild ale? What about your sake? Pretty broad playing field here...  Certainly the alcohol level effects pairabilty, implicitly when in balance and explicitly when it is a problem. HOWEVER, acidity is more important generally, and this where my newly minted sommelier's hat goes on, pairings are now starting to exploiting contrast and counterpoint more and more, opening up possible venues with what were previously considered clunky complementary pairings. Also, and this where my former chef's hat goes on, food can be altered to be made more pairing friendly. Hot wine, better lower your black pepper level, and pass on that squeeze of lemon if it is low acid. Richer because of alcohol? Tighten up that texture, that risotto should be a little thicker to accompany the Amarone. High alcohol wines are generally low acid (though they can be acidified in California), so watch the acid level in the dish. Either work the counterpoint with acid or work with warmth and body by reflecting it in the dish.

Tish's piece squarely accepts these challenges and the general fuzziness in the beginning. But at the end of the day the stated ABV is still held to be a crucial piece of info. In contrast it may only be moderately informative.  Please don't believe that alcohol will show the whole story. It is a stylistic indicator at best, if it hasn't been acidified, dealcoholized, sweetened or watered back. There is just too much legal manipulation in the New World (horrible conceptual tool). We should look forward to ingredients listings if you want conclusive stylistic indicators in conjunction with alcohol. My hunch is that most of those big score U.S. wines have a big wallop of gum arabic and added polysaccharides - all legal direct manipulations. And these are probably just as responsible as brix ripeness for lush mouthfeel, Parker's glycerin fetish and the general low acid/big wine explosion.

This is no apology for high alcohol. Our goal at Rosa d'Oro is to keep the alcohol as low as we can and produce self-consciously old-world inflected wines. We do not chase critics scores. In fact, when we have sent something for review, it has always scored very low, and we don't bother anymore. And we like acid and tannin here, and these are inversely related to sugar/alcohol levels.

So, in short, please do not discount a wine just because it is 15%, or grab a 13% just because of what the ABV statement says. Please don't believe that a high alcohol wine will necessarily be low acid. There are all sorts of bad wines on each end of the spectrum, and balanced ones where you might not expect. If you comb the internet you can find labels for Primitivos and Shiraz's at 15% from the 70's. This notion that high alcohol is a totally new thing is false, though it is demonstrably more prevalent now.

Sans Soufre

Sans soufre. It sounds even nicer in French, but a wine claiming to be sulfur free sure seems more, well, serious and committed. And it looks so simple and neat. Sulfur, or potassium metabisulfite in our case, does not really seem like something we should ingest in quantity anyway, though chemical names never really sound very tasty. Contentious winemakers always like to point out that there is always some sulfur in any wine; it is a natural byproduct of yeast fermentation and it usually sits around 6 to 15 parts per million (ppm), though it can be higher. This is equivalent to 26-68 drops in a barrel. That bottle of Brunello you had last night, with its extensive barrel time and likely aging in the bottle probably had around 100ppm of bound sulfur and maybe 65 ppm as free sulfur to protect it during bottling and into years of bottle aging. The formula above works out to about 750 drops of a 50% aqueous sulfur solution in a 225 liter barrel. A little at the crusher helps keeps bad bugs way, while reductively made whites can swallow hundreds of grams a ton. Make no mistake, sulfur is the most important tool in preserving wine quality. It is very predictable, and when conscientiously applied, pretty benign. How can something so boring be so important and contentious, or is it?

Ethically, wines without sulfur additions are fascinating, and virtuous in a dangerous and exciting way. They make a statement. Wines oxidize, and things can grow in wine that cause off flavors (though the acidity keeps them pathogen free, so even though I don’t know where your mouth has been I certainly will try a sip of that Barolo). But, do you want to drink oxidized wine that tastes like nail polish? Sulfur additions used properly can help prevent this. In 1487 royal Prussian decree allowed sulfur additions. The Romans as we know burnt sulfur in various storage vessels, though they also added sea water to overly bitter wines, so maybe sulfur just ain’t all that. Sulfur levels are usually monitored pretty closely in wineries, often with the thought by responsible parties that less is better for the natural evolution of wines. There are also farmer-John types who add so much sulphur that it bleaches the wine color out (which is reversible by the way) thinking that if a little is good, etc.

Without dwelling in numbers too much, we should note that according to the FDA .4% of the population (1,200,000 people) are considered highly allergic to sulfites, though levels vary and 5% of asthmatics are particularly at risk. This is a large number of people to me, and they would very much be a target market. And, contrary to most oldtimers, not everyone interested in unsulfited wine (a more correct term) is a weenie. But, like the MSG monster, a lot of people with a hangover sometimes think they are having a sulfur reaction. Life can be complicated, and my wife’s whole family is clearly sulfur sensitive. But, it is generally accepted that wine ranks quite low on the sulfite danger list

Making a wine without sulfur additions is technically challenging because you do not have an antimicrobial agent to afford wiggle room. In Mendocino County, Frey Vineyards is certified Organic and Biodynamic (that discussion is for another time) and sulfite additive free. They are family owned and operated, great people, and their wines are always interesting and below $20. Frey does not barrel age their wines, the barrels are too much of a microbial and oxidative risk for them, so they are tank-made with oak adjuncts (another discussion for later). Even this is not insurance enough, and the last time I spoke with them, they had just gotten rid of an entire varietal vintage that had gone wrong. These are the risks, and they are very real.

Winemakers around the world are experimenting. In Italy Friuli’s Radikon is a poster member of the new smart kids club, making wine in historical modes without sulfur addition. Many are lowering sulfur levels, eschewing any addition after crushing. These wines are not simply victims of a philosophical notion of naturalness. These wines are also palate-driven. Earlier this year we ran our own little sulfur experiment with two barrels of our Primitivo. One received its inaugural dose after we decided malolactic fermentation had finished. The next evening a sample was pulled from each barrel and evaluated. The result is why this boring entry is being written. The sulfured sample had much broader palate feel, a sense of cohesion and overall integrity. In the mouth it had a sense that it was a real wine with all the trappings of predictability and stability. The nose was focused and as expected. But, the unsulfured sample was fascinating. It lacked palate cohesion and felt like it was completely out of synch with itself in the mouth but it was vibrant and tensely alive. It was thinner, tart, almost unpleasant in its angularity except for its bizarre behavior. But the nose, that was the clincher. It had treble and bass notes that the sulfur completely wiped out of the other sample. It was much more unpredictable and at the same time mineral driven, which is something we have been striving to bring into focus with our Primitivo. It had bizarre candy and earth tones at the same time that just did not exist in the other sample. But, the palate was arguably better, or fuller anyway, with sulfur. We can only imagine how differently a white might present. The sulfur issue is also most likely varietally dependant. Some claim that Sauvignon Blanc without sulfur would be a disaster as its signature aromas are too delicate and would oxidize into off flavors.

Frey’s recently tasted Syrah and Sangiovese seemed to verify our little experiment. But, here Frey is a good example, there is a tendency to conflate sulfur discussions with organic certification, moving what may be a technical stylistic argument into that sticky green quagmire that gets so much marketing mileage right now. From a winemaking point of view unsulfited wine can very easily be made from non-organic grapes in a non-organic certified facility. There are a few orange-colored non-organic white wines from Sicily that are examples of this. It is clearly a stylist approach arguably less holistic than producing organic unsulfited wines. It is a quest for flavor within the winery.

It is interesting to note that many texts and technical articles claim that sulfur enhances both palate and aroma in definitive tone. That may be good if incorrect advice for students, but like cooking all pork to 165 degrees, it is tragically misinformed and brutally anhedonic. Risk management is a completely different type of argument all together. For example, we grow most of our own grapes, we know how safe they are. Our size allows a certain level of risk to be assessed, and we have the luxury of experimenting. We have had a couple of vintages have never seen the light of day, but this is accepted risk with small lots of “boutique” wines (gak, what a horrible word when you are knee deep in mud all winter or working another 14-hour day). When your winery looks like an oil refinery, risk management moves ahead of stylistic experimentation, as does inter-vintage consistency, something anathema to risky wine making.

Will our winery risk an unsulfited red wine attempt next year? Hell no. We can not afford the risk and we do not yet have the knowledge to manage it wisely. Will one be attempted in the future? Yes, absolutely. A tank rosé might be a good candidate. Progress demands it. Knowledge through experimentation requires it. One can experiment with it without committing to a wholesale ideology like biodynamicism. Weird wines need to be made, especially when the market is still recoiling from an overoaked safe and tame homogenization of overripe styles. Authenticity seems to be reestablishing itself, and even failed experiments can be part of this movement.