Mouthing Off

Well, I shouldn't really say "unknown," because Woodenhead's wines are known to some people at least—but they ought to be known to more. I've thought this for some time, and the thought came at me again a while back when I was at the annual Pigs & Pinot event in Healdsburg, CA, that Charlie Palmer puts on. I was there as a judge for the Pinot Cup—a blind tasting of fifty Pinot Noirs from all over the world—and when our top choice was revealed to us, I was both pleasantly surprised and not that surprised at all.

The winning wine—against some extremely tough competition—was the 2007 Woodenhead Buena Terra Vineyard Pinot Noir ($60), a silky, seamless combination of sweet cherry and tangy raspberry notes, with a hint of cola and a light gaminess. It's sourced from a vineyard on Eastside Road across from Rochioli (which in Pinot-land is pretty much Park Avenue), and was made, as all the Woodenhead wines are, by Nikolai Stez.

Nick started off as cellarmaster at Williams Selyem during the early days of that winery, and has kept contact with original owner Burt Williams—in fact, buys fruit from Williams' Morning Dew Ranch vineyard for another terrific Pinot. The 2007 Woodenhead Morning Dew Ranch Vineyard Pinot Noir lures you in with a fragrant spice note, resolving into graceful spiced berry flavors and a tangy fresh-orange acidity.

Finally, also worth looking into is the 2007 Woodenhead Humboldt County Pinot Noir ($42), about which I seem to have written "like a twisted wire of smoky herbal notes running through sweet raspberry, then crisp at the end." Evidently I was getting alarmingly poetic at that point in my tasting. Regardless, the vines this wine came from were apparently pulled out after this vintage, so this is the last of it to be had.

Woodenhead's wines are not easy to find in stores, since production is small, but they can be ordered directly from the winery (or bought from their tasting room, an extremely pleasant place where you can also chat with Nick and Zina Bower, his partner in both the winery and life). And that Pinot Cup-winning wine is still available, I believe.

 

I didn’t plan on drinking 1962 Jaboulet Cornas on a Monday night. But it was the inaugural wine dinner at Bar Henry, the subterranean restaurant in New York City’s West Village, and the small wine region Cornas is, according to my very smart wine friend, the most interesting part of northern Rhône. That same friend also said that Bar Henry has one of the city’s best wine lists these days and there were eight different vintages of Cornas being offered, so not going seemed like a bad idea. In fact, the ’62 Cornas was not the wine of the night (it was “dead of air, not old age,” someone at the table noted). John Slover, Bar Henry’s awesome wine consultant and the dinner’s organizer, said the wine of the night was the ’89 Verset  (“the most elegant barnyard ever”). Robert Bohr, one of Food & Wine’s favorite wine experts, liked the 1983 Verset best. (He called it “smoking.” For Slover, it was "also elegant barnyard but with softer tannins.") Me, I loved the ’90 Verset. My friend Augie, whom I wish would bring back his terrific blog, augieland, compared the flavor (though not the nose) to the chalky, sweet candy cigarettes we had when we were kids, which might be why I liked it so much. I learned something else from Augie: Finish your Cornas dinner with Champagne. Specifically, the not-so-well-known-but-delicious 2000 Gaston Chiquet Special Club Brut.

Well, that headline doesn't actually mean much, but it was hard to resist. The point is, I've discovered my new favorite wine snack: the beef jerky that chef John Schenk (F&W Best New Chef '95) has added to the bar menu at the Strip House steakhouses in Houston and New York—and will in theory soon be adding to all the other Strip Houses around the country.

This tiny photo doesn't quite do it justice. What Schenk does is take prime strip loin, cut it into strips, pound it lightly till it's thin, then marinate it in minced garlic, ground coriander, curry powder, dark brown sugar, black pepper, soy sauce, oyster sauce, thyme, chopped cilantro, lime juice, and red wine vinegar—whew—for at least 24 hours. He pulls it out of the marinade, dries it in a 200 degree oven for somewhere up to 40 minutes or so, cools it, refrigerates it, then fries it to order in goose fat. (Because, you know, why the heck not fry it in goose fat?) And it's served with fried onions. It's slightly sweet, tender and chewy at once, excellently beefy, much more reminiscent of Hong Kong-style beef jerky than of the leathery, black, mesquite-smoked stuff I remember from being a kid in Texas. And I can tell you, it goes fantastically well with a big red wine.

If it sounds intriguing, you have two options: go to Strip House and order it, or, if you just have a general hankering for jerky, wait till our June issue when we're running a whole jerky article. Your call.

The current April issue of Food & Wine features two of my favorite people: Jordan Salcito, who wrote a terrific piece about Burgundy winemaker Jean-Marc Roulot, and star chef Daniel Boulud, who cooked an epic dinner with artist Vik Muniz. So this seems like a good chance for Jordan to tell a funny story about her recent adventures at La Paulée earlier this month. (La Paulée, for anyone who doesn't know, is the world’s best BYOB party. The annual U.S. event originated in Burgundy to celebrate the end of grape harvest.) Here's Jordan's story:

On a drizzly Friday afternoon, I started my La Paulée weekend at a vertical tasting featuring dozens of Burgundy producers in the elaborate ballroom of the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. That’s where I bumped into famed Burgundian chef Michel Troisgros, who offered me the chance of a lifetime.

It turned out Michel would be cooking with Boulud that night for a private wine dinner featuring the storied wines of Domaine Dujac.  “Why don’t you cook with us?” he asked me. That night, while we prepared squab stuff with foie gras and bok choy and Thai pheasant sausage with lemongrass, my husband, wine director Robert Bohr, snuck back with glasses of wine for the cooks to try—1985 Domaine Dujac Clos St-Denis and 1989 Domaine Leflaive “Les Pucelles.”

Then something unexpected happened.  A tall, lanky gentleman walked into the kitchen with a gold statuette.  

“Is it real?” everyone wondered.

“It is,” said the man.

It was Pete Docter, a dinner guest, who had recently won an Oscar for his animated film, Up.  He praised Daniel, Michel and all of the winemakers and sommeliers at the dinner that night.  “You all deserve the Oscar!” he announced.

"There's no injunction in the Talmud that says kosher wine has to be sweet," explains Toronto wine writer Tony Aspler. For the seven remaining nights of Passover, wine writer Natalie Maclean  recommends these dry kosher-for-Passover alternatives:

2007 Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Cabernet Franc ($13) A rich, full-bodied wine from Israel with aromas of dark red berries, plums and smoke. Pair it with roasted eggplant, like this tangy eggplant caponata (pictured).

2004 Yarden Pinot Noir Golan Heights Winery ($27) This full-bodied Israeli wine has ripe, almost jammy, cherry and raspberry flavor. It's a great match for roasted and braised lamb, as well as grilled salmon, like this salmon dish topped with cilantro-pecan pesto.

2007 Golan Heights Winery Cabernet Sauvignon ($18) A lovely, supple Israeli wine with notes of dark raspberries and black plums. It would go well with skillet-roasted lamb loins with herbs.

 

What we love to eat and drink could be more linked to the stars than our stomachs, at least according to astrologist Shelley von Strunckel, who recently attended a tasting with the guys from WineChap for the F&W story A Stellar Zodiac Party. By reviewing restaurant wine lists in New York City, the U.K. and Hong Kong, WineChap’s main objective is to point wine drinkers toward the best bottles. To show off its irreverent side, WineChap holds wacky tastings, including "Drink Like Bond" and “Wines for Signs.” In honor of the beginning of the new zodiacal year tomorrow (linked to the Spring Equinox), here are recipes to please every sign.

I’m in Berlin this week, and in between business meetings I’ve had some extraordinary meals. One surprise: In a city I normally associate with Wiener schnitzel and currywurst, tons of restaurants are offering really interesting vegetarian options. Chef Michael Hoffman of the Michelin-starred restaurant Restaurant Margaux is perhaps the city’s biggest vegetable champion; he even has a cookbook dedicated entirely to cooking with herbs (an English version is in the works) and a second vegetable-centric cookbook in the pipeline. He and his lovely wife, Kathrin, who runs the front of the house at Margaux, recently planted gardens in nearby greenhouses so they can source vegetables and herbs year round. Hoffman promotes his seven-course vegetarian tasting menu with equal, if not greater, enthusiasm than his regular tasting menu. I was truly impressed with dishes like a seaweed salad with candied lemon and ginger, jus of pumpkin and lime and a savory baked “sushi” of pumpkin and couscous (pumpkin and couscous wrapped sushi-style in a superthin layer of phyllo dough). And his sommelier was up to the tricky challenge of finding perfect vegetable-friendly wines (the remarkable 600-plus-bottle wine list is nearly 70-percent German) with choices like the 2006 Weingut Bernhard Eifel Barriques Weisser Burgunder from the Mosel.

Liz Caskey of the Santiago-based tour company Liz Caskey Culinary & Wine Experiences —who just launched an insidery food and wine e-travel guide, Eat Wine Santiago —sent me an update earlier this week on the effects of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated parts of Chile on Saturday. Wineries in key regions like Colchagua Valley and Maule are scrambling to rebuild damaged facilities and equipment right before harvest. Miguel Torres estimates that his winery lost thousands of bottles and 100,000 liters of wine from a single cracked vat.

Caskey is doing her part to help by donating a portion of the profits from Eat Wine Santiago toward reconstruction efforts. She's also urging people to buy Chilean. I'm planning to host a Support Chile dinner party and wine tasting with dishes like these and these and wines like these. And I'm swapping out my Sicilian olive oil for this great new Chilean brand.

As everyone knows, Chile was recently struck by an immensely powerful earthquake. Among other devastation, the country's wine industry was hard hit, with some wineries nearly leveled, and many others reporting massive losses of wine and equipment, as well as damage to buildings.

Various people in the wine world have been chronicling the results—there are some vivid images on Jancis Robinson's site here—but it seemed also worthwhile simply to ask people to help support everyone down there by going out and purchasing a bottle or two of Chilean wine. To that end, here are a few good ones I've tasted recently:

2008 Maycas de Limari Chardonnay ($23) This new project from Concha y Toro is located in the Limari Valley, about as far north as you can go in Chile and still produce wine (and probably one of the areas least affected by the quake). Befitting its cooler-climate origins, this is crisp and zesty, with a distinct citrus-lemon character—it would be a great wine for wild salmon, for instance this recipe from Restaurant Eve's Cathal Armstrong.

2008 Concha y Toro Casillero del Diablo Carmenère ($11) There's a lot of spicy depth to this red, especially given the moderate price, and to my mind it has a bit more personality than the Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from the same range. Concha y Toro, I've been told, effectively lost three of the eleven winemaking facilities they own (the company is vast); nevertheless, they still plan to start harvest next Monday, bringing in white grapes from their vineyards in Casablanca.

2007 Chono Reserva Syrah ($14) This is a small, artisanal producer whose winemaking is headed up by Alvaro Espinosa, one of Chile's top winemakers as well as the country's foremost proponent of biodynamic viticulture. Dark, sleek, and spicy, it's an impressive bottle for a modest price; also look for Chono's equally good Carmenère-Syrah blend, which unfortunately is made in much smaller quantities.

2008 Veramonte Ritual Pinot Noir ($18) California winemaker Paul Hobbs consults on this substantial, dark berry-fruited Pinot. Veramonte sources the fruit from the Casablanca Valley, a cool, breezy region close on the Pacific Ocean.

2009 Viñedos Emiliana Natura Gewurztraminer ($10) Made entirely with organically grown grapes—Alvaro Espinosa consults here as well—this is a dry, intensely spicy Gewurztraminer, showing a lot of the grape variety's floral/dried rose/jasmine character but without at all going over the top.

2009 Apaltagua Reserva Chardonnay ($13) Cool climate Casablanca Valley fruit defines this appealingly non-blowsy Chardonnay: it has a pleasant citrus peel and pineapple character, with lively acidity and not too much oak.

 

 

In Austria the fun starts long before après-ski, as people break for leisurely two-hour lunches at excellent on-mountain restaurants. My favorite find was a rustic, ski-in, ski-out chalet in the tiny hamlet of St. Christoph called Hospiz Alm.

I knew we were in for a surprise when I saw a Godzilla-size, blow-up bottle of Dom Pérignon marking the turn downhill to the restaurant. Waiters wearing lederhosen and wooden bow ties serve chef Gunnar Huhn’s hearty dishes like Tyrolean potato soup with smoked bacon rinds and croutons and braised oxtail with fried butter dumplings and pommes frites. The restaurant claims that its Bordeaux-heavy cellar holds the world’s biggest collection of large format bottles. I was certainly impressed by the variety of rare vintage magnums and jeroboams, but even cooler was the spiral slide that takes guests down to the cellar.