The sprwaling cellars of Enoteca Pinchiorri

There are people who envy my life. I know this, because they have told me so. Usually, I can dismiss this as nonsense. Other people’s lives are never quite what we imagine, after all. Still, sometimes I do have an inkling of what they mean.


The sun is shining, the view is magical, the hotel suite is large and kindly members of staff, properly trained and immaculately attired, are catering to my every whim. Is there a tiny something to envy here? Possibly, I might grudgingly admit. But, once in the proverbial blue moon, an occasion arises which veers so close to perfection that I have to concede that envy would be entirely justified. Thus it was in Florence. In this city of art and beauty, I sat in a restaurant regarded as one of the finest in the world and ate two of the best dishes ever to enter my mouth. Here was gastronomic rapture. I knew without a scintilla of doubt that I deserved to be envied. I was, of course, at the Enoteca Pinchiorri.


It’s hard to overshadow three Michelin stars, but at Enoteca Pinchiorri, the vast wine collection does just that and more and then some. The three-star meal is really just an excuse to taste from this Florentine institution’s exclusive cellar, which holds 150,000 bottles of 200 types of wine. Hot damn!

Browsing the tome of a wine list can take the better part of a day so amateur oenophiles are advised to rely on what would have to be the world's most knowledgeable sommelier- lucky for you, I'm just that.

To begin: There are two volumes of the wine list. It is one of the most interesting I have ever seen. If you have a couple of weeks to spare, you should study it. Giorgio Pinchiorri has built up a cellar full of liquid treasure.



Of the 150,000 bottles, 50% are Italian, 40% are French and 10% are from the rest of the world. Ponder for a moment the legendary 1945 vintage in Bordeaux. Here you can choose from Pétrus (21,000ε), Mouton-Rothschild (18,000ε) and Lafite (9,500ε). These sorts of riches are repeated on page after page, although it is also possible to spend just 40ε on a bottle of white Lambrusco. To my mind, the pinnacle comes with one of the pages of red burgundy. I blinked at the 17 bottles. These were not the usual bottles, but Methuselahs, each holding the equivalent of eight ordinary bottles. They included the most expensive bottle of wine I have ever encountered in a restaurant – a Methuselah of 1985 Romanée-Conti for 300,000ε.
For my own imbibing, I placed myself in the hands of the sommelier, Massimo Raugi – a smart fellow, wearing a jacket of dark red. His knowledge and expertise led me to some really enjoyable drinking from Tuscany. Into the gleaming glasses – a mixture of Riedel and Spiegelau – he poured the 2006 Poggio Scalette (Richiari - 200ε), a truly delicious chardonnay with an intriguing touch of gewurtztramner – smooth, toasty, creamy and full-bodied. The 2003 red super-Tuscan (a blend of sangiovese, cabernet and syrah) proved a bit stern for my palate, but decanting tempted it to yield up its luscious flavours of damson and blackcurrant (Avvoltore - 300ε).

Truly this is one place where you most certainly can venture off the beaten Carafe!

Cheongju- Punishing Korean Rice Wine

Thinking about Korea one imagines odd little despots full of hubris stuffed into stiff pant suits along with a terrified public struggling to simply find food. And while that is undoubtedly true of both North and South Korea- there is more than just painful regimery at play here- these two irascible nations sear with a poetic hatred for each other. But blood drunk as they may be, there is one passion they share that may just unite them after all: Cheongju, Korean Rice wine.

Cheongju punishes all who seek it with a hellish burn, and horrible odor. It reeks like mixture of kerosene and horse shit. Each gulp makes your throat clench and stomach buckle. But my good god- if you can hold this toxic brew down you are rewarded with a heady, rich intoxication that borders on sublime. You simply feel better, stronger, more alive.

Behold the brutal mistress:

Rice wine is an alcoholic beverage made from rice. Unlike normal wine, which is made by fermentation of naturally sweet grapes and other fruit, rice "wine" results from the fermentation of rice starch converted to sugars. This process is akin to that used to produce beer; however, beer production employs a mashing process to convert starch to sugars whereas rice wine uses the different process.
Alcoholic beverages distilled from rice were exclusive to East and Southeast Asian countries, with knowledge of the distillation process reaching India and parts of South Asia later through trade.
Rice brew typically has a higher alcohol content (18-25%) than wine (10-20%), which in turn has a higher alcohol content than beer (3-8%).

Giving Thanks: What The Pilgrims Pressed

If you can get your hands on a bottle of pilgrim wine- well, not only are you a certified billionaire, but you are also among the luckiest men to ever live. Sealed within every bottle is the daring, heartiness and sheer reserve of our country's forefathers

Of course, the pilgrims lived brutally harsh and unforgiving lives. Every sort of motherfuckery befell these brave fools-  not to mention: tuberculosis, pneumonia, delirium, whooping cough or any of the thousands of diseases that ravaged these early settlers. “To live” as John Baymunth, governor of the fist colony wrote “is to lay in the hands of vile demon, molested.”

But there was a bright side to all the madness: pilgrim “Jim- Jum-” America’s 1st wine. Jim Jum is bastardization of the Indian word Jimmaquam or "grape water." And the name isn’t the only thing that makes these wines special.

Jim Jum wines are so unique because they were made from a wholly new production philosophy in the vineyards. Employing high density planting and low yields, the flavor and bouquet of these early wines was extremely intense but also absolutely delicious. Of course, this was unintentional- the pilgrims planted tight crops not to aid in flavor but to protect them from roaming savages.
But make no mistake one sip of this nectar will savage you!

The above bottle of Jim Jum was auctioned at Sothebee's for a whopping $45.7 million Euros to Duke Edmund Eidlesswiess. Worth every "scent."

Adornment Wines- A restrospective

Wine trends come and go like clientele from a whore’s boudoir:  hastily and often with remorse. And for that matter, much like a whore’s clientele, they are often desperate and best forgotten.

There is one trend however, that deserves a second look: the adornment, or decorative wine. More than mere titivation the adornment wine is the true mark of civilized accoutrement.

With its ultimate popularity in mid seventeenth century France, the adornment wine was born out the republican ideal that a nations populace is best served by an educated and wealthy upper class. In the words of poet Nicolas Boileu: “Faites-vous des amis prompts à vous censurer,” or:  make friends with those who would be quick to criticize you. But more than mere pandering the adornment wine sought to extend a hand to growling and sweaty masses, if only to share a drink for a fleeting while. 

In reality this rarely happened. The upper class would strut about the streets like Roman Generals, their hips swaying to accentuate the bottle often strapped to their belt in an overt display of monetized sexuality, and aristocratic decadence. It was as if they were saying “look at what I have and remember your place," a place most would describe as unrelenting hell.

The above illustration depicts an English meeting of the nine districts constabulary. At the head of the table is Alfred Bettingcock, a famous mid century law man. Notice the large burlap pouch around his waist and the huge bottle of wine in his hand. This is a typical of an everyday, man about town adornment.


The truly well off however had pouches made of finest leather, sewn with golden thread and bestowed with family crests. They are truly a sight to behold.


Alas, unless you take a trip to Fance's Musee du Vin, you never will. Unless of course, we make a concerted effort to bring them back!


AH HA!

A Reisling to believe

It’s gratifying, being a wine critic and competition judge, to have my initial impressions of a winery validated on a subsequent encounter.

I first discovered Newport Vineyards of Rhode Island last year, having taken a detour after one of dearest friends weddings. Recently, a friend brought a bottle of Newport’s 2009 “Tranquility” to an all-girls sex toy party my wife was hosting. Thankfully, my wife put the bottle aside with a last taste until I got home that evening.

When she handed me the glass, I took one sniff and said, “Alsatian. Good quality.” Was it Riesling? There seemed to be some Gewurztraminer, but also a floral/peachy note that disguised the grape content. I was delighted when she showed me the label, because since last year’s contest I hadn’t had the opportunity to taste any other Newport wines.

Tranquility is 47% Gewurztraminer, 35% Muscat Ottonel (that elusive note that eluded me), 11% Pinot Gris and a mere 7% Riesling. It is great stuff, and should delight any fans of Alsace. It sells for $20 at the winery, but if my instinct prove right, and they always do- this one is certianly a keeper.

Port gets its just dessert.

Port wine has long been considered a bastard’s fare. It is looked down upon in most wine circles as unrefined, pedestrian, something to be sipped in the servants chambers while lord and lady bemuse themselves with the "real stuff" in the dining room.
There is a very real and quite vitriolic snobbery aimed squarely at my dear friend port.
And in reply to all of the tongue clucking I have but one simple response: Garrafeira.
To the uninitiated Garraferia port is as innocuous and unsuspecting as any other. All it takes is one sip and the rest, as they say, is history. To imbibe a Garraferia (from Niepoort winery) is to be forever enchanted.
Let me explain…
Garrafeira is an unusual and rare vintage style of Port made from the grapes of a single harvest that combines both the oxidative maturation of years in wood, with further reductive maturation in large glass demijohns.
It is required by the IVDP (Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto/ The Port and Douro wine Institute) that wines spend some time in wood, usually between three and six years, followed by at least a further eight years in glass, before bottling. In practice the times spent in glass are much longer. At present, only one company, Niepoort, markets Garrafeiras.
Their black demijohns, affectionately known as bon-bons, hold approximately 11 litres of what can only be described as ambrosia.
It has a beautiful copper color that is suprsingly light for a such a robust vintage cycle. It’s Smokey caramel flavor reminds me of a mix between flan and a good scotch. There was a hint of peach in the finish and it was very light on pepper.
Some connoisseurs describe Garrafeira as having a slight taste of bacon, although many people will neither notice nor understand such a description; the reason being that, during the second phase of maturation, certain oils may precipitate, causing a film to form across the surface of the glass that can be tasted by those who are accustomed to the difference between Garrafeira and other forms of port.
This is simply one of the best wines available on the commercial market today.
For purchase and product info: http://www.niepoort-vinhos.com/NiepoortPortWines.html
Port Factoids:
Port is short for Portuguese.
Confusingly, the word Garrafeira may be found on some very old Tawny labels, where the contents of the bottle are of exceptional age.

Why US wine is like fast food..

"Like every other retail industry, wine is dominated by marketing and wholesale companies. Their businesses are based on creating brands that people will buy, and getting those brands into the hands of consumers."

How Wine Became Like Fast Food
by Keith Wallace
Taken from the Daily Beast: November 4th, 2009

The bottle you’ll enjoy with dinner tonight likely wasn’t produced at a winery, or by a winemaker. Instead, most American bottles are little more than grape-based processed food product.

There is a general assumption about wine: it’s made by a winery, and its name will be on the label. One imagines a winemaker in his vineyards, inspecting bunches of grapes. Maybe his dogs are chasing rabbits between the rows of vines. At night, he pops open a bottle of his own creation to share with friends and family.

It is a romantic ideal, but for most bottles sold in the U.S., it’s also untrue. Of the top 30 wine brands in the United States, not a single one of them grows, produces and bottles its own wines. For the brands doing big volume, the formula is: buy tankers of bulk juice, and slap a label on it. Those bottles may look beautiful, implying a bucolic wine-y setting, but the cold hard fact is that the juice within is just a trademark coupled with a savvy marketing plan...

For the full article please visit my dear friend Keith Wallace at The Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-03/how-wine-became-like-fast-food/?cid=topic:mainpromo1

Like honey from a bee... Ethiopian Wine

Ethiopia is both deeply complex and  devastatingly simple. It is the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in the world, at least 2,000 years. In fact the earliest recording of the word Ethiopia is in the Bible's book of Genesis- chapter 2. And still, it's cities are some of the most modern in all of Africa.

Some of its other claims to fame include: having Haile Selassie I (AKA Jah Ras Tatafari) as an emperor and being the original source of the coffee bean, (a bean renowned for its distinct rich aromatics and robust flavor.)

But perhaps Ethiopia's greatest accomplishment is Tej.

I had the exquisite pleasure of sampling some Tej (pronounced: T'edge)on a recent trip to the capital city of Addis Ababa. Tej a is mead or wine made from honey. But make no mistake this seemingly simple brew is full of complexity.

My favorite Tej is of course the kind you find brewed in any of the hundreds of thousands of homes throughout the country. However outside of Ethiopia nothing beats a glass of Saba Tej (a honey wine indigenous to Ethiopia with roots going back to the reign of Queen of Sheba (Saba).

Saba is produced from pure wild flower honey and exotic hops imported from the Highlands of Ethiopia. It is produced without any sulfites, preservatives, or artificial coloring. Saba Tej is a semi-sweet wine with 13.5% alcohol content by volume.

Saba has a golden honey color, which of course is consistant with good quality pure honey, and is infused with extract of organic Ethiopian hops. Saba Tej has hints of apricot and citrus,and a a nice aroma reminiscent of wild flowers.

I find that Tej is an autumnal sipper, perfect for an afternoon with your favorite book, or perhaps while sharing some grilled seafod amongst friends.

For more information on Tej: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tej

Prologue to a tasting...

Hello all and welcome to Off The Beaten Carafe - a blog dedicated to taking "the road less tasted.” It is our hope to offer you insight into the unusual, small batch, independent, specialty, collectible and rare wines of the world. Proudly, we are a bunch of wine geeks who want to share our passions, musings and adventures with you.

All that we ask is that you have an open mind as we take you through unfamiliar territory. We will show you world's you never knew existed, after all- the explosion of a star is reserved only for those who seek it's beauty.

In fairness, some of us have literally made wine our business, others, well- just like drinking wine. What we all have in common however is this: we are obsessed, with it’s origins and stories and most of all the joys of having a glass with a few good friends.

So please leave your preconceptions at the door and expect the unexpected!

Bottoms Up!