Decanting – Unceremoniously Delicious Act

I like restaurants that simply do things without asking me.  It is as though the owners and staff are so confident in their chosen endeavour that all things seem to unfold naturally.  Perhaps, that was Henry David Thoreau’s observation when he penned: “…advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and endeavours to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with success unexpected in common hours”.  

I had the above Henry David Thoreau’s experience at Vivant in Paris.  The sommelier brought the bottle that I had ordered and decanted unceremoniously without saying a word.  The sommelier, then, left the table for a few minutes and returned with glasses to pour the wine.  He knew the wine had to sit in the decanter for a few minutes.  The wine was so mesmerizing and delicious that I almost fell from the chair.

There is a French wine saying: “drink now and experience caterpillar or cellar and experience butterfly”.  Like the Dance of the Seven Veils, some wines take time to reveal.  So the next time you enjoy a wine that you know will open up with some time, try decanting.  You may even see a glimpse of transformation to a butterfly.  

And Know the Wine for the First Time

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

T.S Eliot

  

After twenty five years of enjoying wines, I ended where I started.  I distinctively remember walking into the 39^th and Cambie BCLDB Store and intuitively asking Steven, the product consultant at the time, if he would recommend an honest traditional Chianti.  That was twenty five years ago.  Steven took me down to the aisle and pointed the wine. 

I trusted Steven.  I remember buying six bottles and opening one on the same day.  The necks of bottles were all at different levels.  Years later, I would learn the wine was probably hand-bottled – a sure sign when the neck levels are different on young wines.  I opened a bottle and stuck in the refrigerator for a half hour before I had the wine with a simple meat pasta dish.  The bottle was all gone quickly.  Well, the remaining bottles were finished within the same week.  When I returned to the store to buy some more, the wine had sold out.  I wish I took some notes or a picture of the wine.  I simply cannot recall the wine.

After my initial years of enjoying wines in my terms, like the Chianti, I bought and read a bunch of wine publications.  Then, I started buying and drinking wines in someone else’s terms.  So, It seems, the truth about wine can only be discovered when I am only true to myself.  So, my exploration of wine has arrived where I started and know the truth of wine for the first time.

Cheese Plate – A French Experience

Cheese plates in France are, well, just awesome.  I remember eating at Chez Michel in the 10^th Arrondissement in Paris a few years back.  The table next to us ordered a cheese plate, which always follow after the main entrée.  A dizzying array of cheeses arrived in a huge wooden cutting board.  A proper cheese plate always has a brick of butter and is always accompanied by a basket of crusty bread.  I wanted to order the cheese plate but I was just so full. At Chez Michel, like many fining restaurants throughout France, the cheeses arrive in tranche, round, or brick.  The idea is to help yourself to cheeses.  It is simply spellbinding to see the French devour cheeses after main entrée with aplomb.  It is rumoured the French have a separate stomach for this separate dish.  Now, when I am in France, I enjoy a cheese plate as a part of dinner.  And I always lose weight when I am in France.  It is a mystery.

Pictured above is the cheese plate at Jean Foillard in Morgon during my last visit to the domain.  Jean and Agnès Foillard make the cheese plate look so effortless.  Jean and Agnès also serve butter with their cheese plate – of course.  White wines are generally better accompaniments to cheeses.  I personally like Loire or Jura white wines with a cheese plate.  I noticed Jean and Agnès Foillard served the whites from Thierry Puzelat of Clos du Tue-Boeuf in Loire with their cheese plate.

By the way, LesAmis du Fromage has awesome cheese selections.  And Les Amis is where I shop every time I have a French craving for a cheese plate.

Things I like – Pepper Mill from the Old World

This pepper mill from a family owned company Perfex is perfect.  If you have old French cookbooks, you might have seen images of the pepper mill.  It is small, 4.5 inches, with an opening hatch, where you simply replenish pepper corns.  The mill grinds pepper corns in unique, irregular size grains. The design and production have not changed for decades. The pepper mill feels solid and looks beautiful.

Had I known this pepper mill existed, I could have saved hundreds of dollars and time. It is worth the price.  Be careful.  There are many cheap imitations.  The real deal costs about a hundred dollars.  If original, there should be “PERFEX – Made in France” stamped under the handle.  Once you acquire it, loose all your temptations to adjust anything. Use it and pass it onto your next generation.

Vouvray – Many Faces of Grace

Vouvray is one of my all time favourites of Loire white wines. Vouvray is a relatively a tiny appellation in the Loire.  The varietal responsible for Vouvray is Chenin Blanc.  It has many faces.  The wine can be dry, semi dry, sweet, or sparkling.  Vouvray, in the hands and minds of a caring vigneron or vigneronne, is matched by no other wines that I know.

One of the most compelling Vouvray discoveries for me is the sparkling from Catherine andPierre Breton ‘Pétillant Methode Traditionelle Non-Vintage (NV)’.  It is NV because the sparkler follows the traditions of Champagne.  In this case, about equal portions from two vintages are blended and aged on its lees for about three years before the wine is disgorged.  This extended time of lees-aging gives this wine unexpected complexity in uncommon hours. The wine ages gracefully and worth keeping a few bottles in your cellar.

At our home, we celebrate Catherine and Pierre Breton ‘Pétillant Method Traditionelle Non-Vintage (NV)’ with all types of seafood: fresh oysters, pan-fried sole or mussels. The most compelling match is with sushi.  Or during summer weather, I would like to simply sit on the patio and drink Catherine and Pierre Breton ‘Pétillant Method Traditionelle Non-Vintage (NV)’ with some artisanal cheeses and juicy heirloom tomatoes.

Wabi Sabi – Perfection in Imperfections

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic for a particular type of beauty. Wabi Sabi, in essence, is the ability to see perfection in imperfections.  The two words, perfection in imperfection, are an oxymoron in harmony. 

Wabi Sabi, least to me, exists in many forms.  A weathered cedar shingle house from the 1930’s in our West Coast is Wabi Sabi.  A worn stone staircase in a building is also Wabi Sabi.  A wedding ring from my grandmother has Wabi Sabi beauty.  The patina of a worn and old linen suit is.  And so is a seasoned cast iron pan.  And so is 1963 Jaguar XKE.  And so are many old neighbourhoods of Paris, Vancouver, Brooklyn, and San Francisco. 

Wabi Sabi can only be created by nature and time.  Nature is perfect.  Nature is Wabi Sabi.  A wine that is made traditionally, without intervention and additives, is Wabi Sabi to me – a quality in wine that I appreciate the most.  Noëlla Morantin wines have that Wabi Sabi beauty that I admire the most.  Pictured above is Noëlla Morantin in the century old cellar.

Liveliness of Pétillant

I only encountered the liveliness of pétillant in wines when I started drinking the wines that are traditionally made.  It is even easier to appreciate when a vigneron, like Thierry Puzelat, guided me through a tasting.

Pétillant literally means sparkling.  In the context of still wines though, it means a little tingling sensation in wines from naturally occurring carbon dioxide, which is a by-product of fermentation.  Traditionally, the pétillant is kept (i.e. wines are not de-gassed completely) intentionally because carbon dioxide is a natural preserver.  If wines are completely de-gassed, which is the case for about 99.9% plus of wines nowadays, additional sulfur would have to be used.

For the uninitiated, the pétillant taste can lead to falsely believing the wine is still fermenting.  For the traditionally made wines, pétillant gives that lovely liveliness. If you do not like pétillant, decant the wine for about ½ hour and all that beautiful pétillant taste will be gone.

The pétillant is only apparent in young bottled wines.  After a year or so in bottle, the pétillant fades.  For me, the pétillant stage of young wine is ephemeral and attractive.  When Le Clos du Tue-Boeuf ‘La Butte’ Gamay 2010 arrived on our shores, the wine had that striking pétillant.  After a few months, the wine has lost much of pétillant but has kept that stunning fragrance and freshness.

You can listen directly from the respected Burgundy vigneron Jean-Marie Fourrier in this podcast about pétillant.  Jean-Marie rhetorically asks: “Why replace the gift of natural preserver of carbon dioxide with chemical sulfur?”  If you are lucky enough to come across a bottle of Jean-Marie Fourrier wines, I urge to buy it.

I am at a point now where when I try young wine and taste zero pétillant, I ask why the vigneron chose to de-gas the natural preserver gift of carbon dioxide and replace it with abrasive sulfur. 

Colour and Complexity

On an impromptu week dinner at our local restaurant recently, the French chef joined me for a glass of wine after the kitchen closed and cried: “I don’t know why so many believe that the darker the colour, the better the wine is.  I really don’t know”. Then, he poured me another glass of Domaine de la Tournelle ‘Uva Arbosiana’ 2010 made from the Jura varietal Ploussard.  Domaine de la Tournells’s Ploussard is almost rosé.  The wine has almost no colour and full of complexity. Pictured above is Evelyne and Pascal Clairet of Domaine de la Tournelle in Arbois Jura during my last visit.

The chef’s comments are understandable.  Often some wine critics describe the colour as though it is a sign of importance.  “Dark as moonless night” or “stains the glass”. There are so many additives in wines now that one really has to know the producer to ensure the colour is natural.  One drop of this additive can change the intensity of colour.

When I am with a vigneron in his or her cellar tasting, the wines are presented in the order of increasing complexity, and not in the increasing shades of colour.  The same can be said of body. Colour and body are not indicators of complexity.

If you are in Burgundy with a great producer in the cellar, the shade of colour and body are least important in wine.  If you hear someone describing a bottle of ‘Les Amoureuse’ as dark as moonless night, I would like to suggest you hold close your wallet tightly.   And in Jura, the vignerons will pour reds before whites because the whites are more complex.  Wine, like us, the colour is least important.

Being There

I vividly remember the ‘Park Scene’ in Good Will Hunting movie.

This Noëlla Morantin 'Chez Charles' Sauvignon 2009 (as in Blanc) has an uncompromising taste.  I can only tell this, not because I have drunk many bottles of the wine, but because I have spent time in the cellar and walked the vineyards with Noëlla Morantin.  I have smelled the cellar and touched the vines that she farms. Her wines are inseparable from the vigneronne.   

Every now and then, not too often, even through tasting and drinking, I simply cannot translate the emotional impact of a particular wine.  The tasting notes become so distant from the experience of being there.  It is as though you are trying to describe the fragrance of your lover the very first time you pressed your nose against her flesh.

Of all the vignerons and vigneronnes that I represent, Noëlla Morantin 'Chez Charles' Sauvignon 2009 is one of those ‘Park Scene’ bottles for me.

Additional info from a Danish writer about the wine.

Minerality of Muscadet

A great Mucadet is an antithesis to modern wines of fruit bombs and full bodies.

Whereas many modern wines are described in fruits of cherries, blackberries, peaches, blah, blah and more blah, a great Muscadet has no desire to fit into a category of a particular fruit.  When tasted in a typical trade tasting without foods, a great Muscadet doesn’t even show very well. 

A great Muscadet is all about minerals and food, especially shell fishes such as raw oysters and steamed mussels.  A great Muscadet without food is like Fred without Ginger, a rose without fragrance, or Leonard Cohen without poetry.  A great Muscadet is for wine and food lovers. 

The qualifier ‘great’ is important when choosing a Muscadet because the majority of Muscadet is merely a mouthwash that is made industrially with chemical farming, lab yeasts and mechanical harvesting selling at supermarket low prices.

The good news is there is still a handful of vignerons who still give a shit.  The vignerons who farm in harmony with nature, who hand-harvest and who only stick to native yeasts.  Two of my favourites are Marc Ollivier of LaPépière and Jo Landron of Domaines Landron.  I can hug these guys! And I do every year by visiting them and thanking them for giving a shit.  Above is a picture of Jo Landron when I visited him January 2012.

Le Baratin – An Influential, Quiet Voice on the Hill

My Pantheon in Paris sits in the 20^th, not the 5^th, Arrodissement in Paris.

I remember phoning for a reservation at Le Baratin when I arrived in Paris in 2007.  All tables were reserved for the entire week.  So, I did not make it to the restaurant that year.  Well, I got luckier the next time I was in Paris.

Le Baratin sits on the hill in the 20^th Arrodisement in Paris.  Le Baratin opened its doors over 20 years ago.  Among the artisanal wine and food lovers, there is no equal to Le Baratin.  It is the place where all artisan Parisian trades’ people go to eat and drink.  It is a small restaurant, where the owner Raquel Carena is the chef and owner. It is like going to a friend’s family home for a dinner, except the chef and sommelier (the entire staff) are the best in the world! 

Simplicity and honesty reign at Le Baratin.  When I visited the restaurant, I did not recognize many dishes.  When I find myself in such situations in a restaurant that I respect, I simply surrender to the staff and I always have a great time.  By the way, if you show enthusiasm about wines, the staff may even recommend a wine from the cellar, which may not be on the chalk board.  I recommend saying “OUI” and asking the staff for a suggestion.  Oh one more thing.  Let go of your expectations on what a Parisian restaurant suppose to be and you will love Le Baratin.  

Le Baratin

3, rue Jouye Rouve, 75020 Paris

Tel: +33 1 43 49 39 70