Notes from a few Travels
This overheard in a Murray’s Bagels on 23rd st and 8th Ave.
An unremarkable New Yorker in glasses and a backpack asked for one of the men working behind the counter, out to the side– “I was in here yesterday and stormed out, impatient – I think it was you...was it you?” Some response that I can’t quite catch comes...along the lines of “You certainly were in a hurry”. “So it was you. I came back – I have to tell you – I’m sorry – I hadn’t had any coffee, I was feeling in a big rush, I was wrong, I shouldn’t have acted that way; I’m sorry.” (This was, if it matters, a clearly mid-range certainly at least somewhat well-off white guy – the man who had been behind the counter was Latino) . Again something I couldn’t quite make out – must have been a protestation – something in the style ‘I’m sure you had your reasons, it’s OK, I understand’– some such thing – because it triggered the response “No, I really had no right to act that way, and I apologise”. He was thanked for his apology, hands were shaken with some warmth, and the man with backpack went on his way. I nodded approvingly as he went – wanting to thank him for being brave enough – or taking the care to go back and set something right – but was a bit too bashful to raise my voice. So, I nodded and smiled, and then a young woman to my right – dressed in such a fashion that I would have taken her for the usual self-indulgent apathetic type –speaking perhaps to me in response to my movement, perhaps on her own, to the room general, said simply “That just made my day”. Then she went on about buying her large Latte, I my 1/2 dozen bagels to take back, and we all went on our way. I found myself wondering if this would have happened a year ago, or if, because the language of our public discourse has changed somewhat – because we have been stirred to remember the value of something beyond simply getting ahead – that words such as we, us and our have been used unashamedly by someone in a position of prominence and influence. I certainly hope so, because it would show the real possibility of an improvement in the quality of our daily social interaction. A nice thought.
4.01.2009
HOT STUFF - Tasting of Mar 28
Cambas Mantinia 07 – Everybody who has ever had occasion to drink Greek wine raise their hand. Good. Now, if it was Retsina, put your hand down. Now look around the room. No, Mr. Papadopolopoulos, there isn’t a prize for being the only one left. Makes the point, though, don’t it? That was me too, by the way, until this wine came around. No radical flavour evolutions, just lipsmacking, and zesty – limes squeezed on some fleshier fruit...honeydew?
Ermita de Nieve Rueda Blanco 2007– This is bigger stuff – and riper, at this point in it’s life. Verdejo is something of a more fragrant, less herbal cousin to Sauvignon. This wine, when it showed up, was a twangily tight cable of citrusy acidity. Now, with just a bit of time in bottle, it has rounded out to something a little more...odalisque-esque – and definitively riper. Full on musky melons, or ripe white fleshed peaches – something a bit sultry.
Argyros Santorini White 06– Basically, Fascinating. Or, bewildering. Manages to combine a minerally toothsomeness with the rounded lush quality one might expect from ripe, mature...Chablis? But then there is that slightly fusel element in its’ aroma – something like newly wet pavement from the beginnings of a rain shower on a warm day. That’s the particularly Greek part.
Terras do Monforte 05 - Rich, Ripe, Round and (R)earthy. I quite like this wine. Really quite a lot actually - but with its deep richness of fruit taken together with a rather..salacious twist of farmy earthiness, it edges dangerously close to being – lurid. It’s the fruit – typically, wines of this style – from the Languedoc, say, are dryer, so all that earthy, freshly turned compost action is more in a framework one might expect. In Portugal; especially here in the south, the weather and the grape varieties give such a degree of ripeness, that it can sometimes feel like eating a plum while standing in front of the cow pen. Did I mention that I like the wine?
Gravedad Toro Joven 2005– This is the first of a trio of – to me – very interesting Spanish wines, all derived from the very same grape - Tempranillo. Toro is famous for the production of massive, dark, weighty wines. Wines that won the density/price arms race that has been tearing through the international wine world. This fellow is, to some contrast, an abstainer. While it is pretty much impossible to make a light wine in Toro, but it is a wine whose primary purpose is not HEFT. Rather, I find it pleasingly red-fruited – plummy, but not ripe purple plums – more the crisp red ones – the wine still with sufficient substance to wrap around one on a chilling day, but barely influenced by the draping robe of vanilla-ey oak. Sunny, in other words.
Ibero Tinto 04– This might be the one where I stick a foot in it . I have always enjoyed this wine – Tempranillo from the interior of the south, three months only in barrel – always showing some of that slightly stiff-necked Spanish austerity that makes drinking the wine a bit like reading Borges. At this point, however, the wine quite sings – everything seems in perfect balance, the end of the wine continues, like a seemingly endless horizon – I love it. I gave it to a friend, aria-ing in ecstatic manner over it’s perfection, and was met upon their return with distinct...indifference. Those of you on my side get a prize after the show
Argyros Santorini Red 05 - This wine exhibits the rather magical combination of sun-baked earth, prunes and – old leather (?) that is typical of southern Italy in general, and the wines of Taurino, a deeply held favourite, in specific. Hopefully none of you remember the page-long paean to Cosimo Taurino that burdened an earlier installation of tasting notes. Let’s leave it that this wine is a dead ringer, and therefore, much loved.
Senoria de Valdhermoso Tinto Roble - Shows the deeper, broader character of hot-place Tempranillo – in spades, once it has breathed adequately. The particularly satisfying element of the wine is the cedary cigar box...thing, which emerges as it breathes. Burgos, which this calls home, lies fairly far to the south of Toro – in the concentrated heat of the Douro river valley – which cuts across north/central Spain, through Portugal – to the Atlantic – at Porto. Cool, right? Something about the territory makes for typically dustier, less all-about-the fruit wines than the other.
Cambas Mavrodaphne of Patras– Waddaya say – close your eyes, it’s fancy, old LBV port. Open them again, it’s from – Greece? Mavro, in Greek, is - dark – the grape, Mavrodaphne is the dark, eyes of Daphne. Basically, it’s a port-like substance of sufficient quality to either fool, or please any stuffy 19th century British empire builder, without having to engage all the native-exploitation normally required to gather the necessary funds to afford it.
Cambas Mantinia 07 – Everybody who has ever had occasion to drink Greek wine raise their hand. Good. Now, if it was Retsina, put your hand down. Now look around the room. No, Mr. Papadopolopoulos, there isn’t a prize for being the only one left. Makes the point, though, don’t it? That was me too, by the way, until this wine came around. No radical flavour evolutions, just lipsmacking, and zesty – limes squeezed on some fleshier fruit...honeydew?
Ermita de Nieve Rueda Blanco 2007– This is bigger stuff – and riper, at this point in it’s life. Verdejo is something of a more fragrant, less herbal cousin to Sauvignon. This wine, when it showed up, was a twangily tight cable of citrusy acidity. Now, with just a bit of time in bottle, it has rounded out to something a little more...odalisque-esque – and definitively riper. Full on musky melons, or ripe white fleshed peaches – something a bit sultry.
Argyros Santorini White 06– Basically, Fascinating. Or, bewildering. Manages to combine a minerally toothsomeness with the rounded lush quality one might expect from ripe, mature...Chablis? But then there is that slightly fusel element in its’ aroma – something like newly wet pavement from the beginnings of a rain shower on a warm day. That’s the particularly Greek part.
Terras do Monforte 05 - Rich, Ripe, Round and (R)earthy. I quite like this wine. Really quite a lot actually - but with its deep richness of fruit taken together with a rather..salacious twist of farmy earthiness, it edges dangerously close to being – lurid. It’s the fruit – typically, wines of this style – from the Languedoc, say, are dryer, so all that earthy, freshly turned compost action is more in a framework one might expect. In Portugal; especially here in the south, the weather and the grape varieties give such a degree of ripeness, that it can sometimes feel like eating a plum while standing in front of the cow pen. Did I mention that I like the wine?
Gravedad Toro Joven 2005– This is the first of a trio of – to me – very interesting Spanish wines, all derived from the very same grape - Tempranillo. Toro is famous for the production of massive, dark, weighty wines. Wines that won the density/price arms race that has been tearing through the international wine world. This fellow is, to some contrast, an abstainer. While it is pretty much impossible to make a light wine in Toro, but it is a wine whose primary purpose is not HEFT. Rather, I find it pleasingly red-fruited – plummy, but not ripe purple plums – more the crisp red ones – the wine still with sufficient substance to wrap around one on a chilling day, but barely influenced by the draping robe of vanilla-ey oak. Sunny, in other words.
Ibero Tinto 04– This might be the one where I stick a foot in it . I have always enjoyed this wine – Tempranillo from the interior of the south, three months only in barrel – always showing some of that slightly stiff-necked Spanish austerity that makes drinking the wine a bit like reading Borges. At this point, however, the wine quite sings – everything seems in perfect balance, the end of the wine continues, like a seemingly endless horizon – I love it. I gave it to a friend, aria-ing in ecstatic manner over it’s perfection, and was met upon their return with distinct...indifference. Those of you on my side get a prize after the show
Argyros Santorini Red 05 - This wine exhibits the rather magical combination of sun-baked earth, prunes and – old leather (?) that is typical of southern Italy in general, and the wines of Taurino, a deeply held favourite, in specific. Hopefully none of you remember the page-long paean to Cosimo Taurino that burdened an earlier installation of tasting notes. Let’s leave it that this wine is a dead ringer, and therefore, much loved.
Senoria de Valdhermoso Tinto Roble - Shows the deeper, broader character of hot-place Tempranillo – in spades, once it has breathed adequately. The particularly satisfying element of the wine is the cedary cigar box...thing, which emerges as it breathes. Burgos, which this calls home, lies fairly far to the south of Toro – in the concentrated heat of the Douro river valley – which cuts across north/central Spain, through Portugal – to the Atlantic – at Porto. Cool, right? Something about the territory makes for typically dustier, less all-about-the fruit wines than the other.
Cambas Mavrodaphne of Patras– Waddaya say – close your eyes, it’s fancy, old LBV port. Open them again, it’s from – Greece? Mavro, in Greek, is - dark – the grape, Mavrodaphne is the dark, eyes of Daphne. Basically, it’s a port-like substance of sufficient quality to either fool, or please any stuffy 19th century British empire builder, without having to engage all the native-exploitation normally required to gather the necessary funds to afford it.
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