Some new plantings...

So, a fall garden. Long desired. Finally planted. I put down radishes in a small patch next to the lemon balm. Along the walkway I planted arugula and zanzabar spinach. Or some spinach varietal. Can't recall now, and perhaps it does not matter--the seeds came from a neighborhood friend and I'm not entirely certain she knew what they were. Swiss chard went in the second row in Maia's plot.

Volunteer tomato plants are now fruiting much more bountifully than my original transplants. Of course it is late for tomatoes, and I am in bad need of some fertilizer. I am committed to the fish emulsion, so I must go get it. The fall garden, at present, has the potential to outstrip my summer garden. Already I'm seeing what I believe are arugula sprouts. Ha! Or perhaps spinach. I cannot recall which I planted closer to the door. Too little time to record such things. But hope springs eternal. If I can grow a decent fall garden, it will bode well for a new year.

Now to write that book I promised my editor...

The case of the missing tomatoes

The wet weather has claimed my tomatoes, I fear. So too did an ill advised decision to try and train the tomato vines to a single vine. My more successful plants were allowed to bush out somewhat. Also, I had a reversal of fortune. The front planter put up an admirable show, but did not produce near the level of quality fruit as last year. By contrast, the tomato in Maia's corner has produced succulent cherries, tart and sweet with a fair pop. Last year, that plot was near dead. My amending of the soil clearly had the intended impact.

I fertilized the garden two days ago. 2 oz. on everything. Last of the fertilizer.

mysterious recipe

I'm cleaning out my office and found this:

1 gallon water
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp veg. oil
1 tbsp dish soap (unscented)

A recipe, I suppose. Either for a delightful beverage or as a natural insecticide. I'll find out this weekend...

Tonic Water #4

I planted lemongrass this year, mainly as an ornamental. Its vigorous stalks and long, wispy leaves have come in so abundantly, that I must find more uses for it. So why not start with tonic water?

You could break pencils with those stalks

My tonic water has always featured citrus. Moving into the wintery months, I decided to jettison the lemon, lime, and grapefruit peel in favor of, yes, lemongrass. Granted, many recipes call for both, but I am becoming more and more the minimalist these days. Why confuse lemongrass with lime peel?

So I cut up a bunch of stalks. Eight total or so. I put them in water for a day. (As an ornamental they give me the same impression as prairie grasses. They sits well in the vase.) Here is the recipe I am using:

3 cups water
1/4 cup cinchona bark
1/4 cup citric acid
8 stalks lemongrass, chopped and lightly crushed under the handle of the knife
20 cardamom pods
1 tsp., circa, coriander
1 tsp salt (three pinches)

boil water, add ingredients, reduce to simmer. Simmer 45 minutes. Steep for an additional hour before removing to fridge for a three day soak. On Tuesday I will transfer to another vessel, pulling out all the big pieces. On Friday I will strain the mixture and add agave. Probably 1 1/2 cups to start, but I will update the post with the proper proportions.

UPDATE:

On Tuesday I filtered the water off of the lemongrass and cinchona. The lemongrass is wonderfully fragrant, but without the citrus pop that usually came with it. Coriander is still strong on the nose. Amazing how dominant coriander can be.

I lost a lot of water on this batch. the net is 2 1/4 cups. So I should start with 1 cup of agave and move upwards. Slowly.

Cellar Up

If the Department of Agriculture can gather stats correctly, it appears that middle income parents spend anywhere from $240,000-$400,000 on one child. And that's only through high school, so it doesn't include college, an all-expense paid summer trip to Europe, law or medical school tuition, a down payment for a house, etc.

So, by rough calculations, one child equals roughly one good wine cellar. I can now smile at my first grader across the breakfast table, and while she dedicates an abnormal amount of concentration on correctly spreading honey over every bit of surface area of her bagel, think "you are why I can't afford cases of 1998 Bordeaux or 2005 Burgundy, or California cult cabs."

Of course, many people can afford both. I'm not one of them, so I've been forced to live bottle to bottle my whole life. My sole holdings amount to a 1994 Pomerol, a 2001 Port whose name I can't remember, and a bottle of red table wine from Cadeuceus Cellars in Arizona. The last one is a horrible wine, or at least it was a horrible wine when I tried it a couple of years ago. I felt obliged to buy at least one bottle since I'd made the trip to their tasting room in Jerome. The pilgrimage is worth it, as Jerome is a fantastic landmark mining town, and the food there and in neighboring Sedona is world class (or at least at the top of its class regionally). Proprietor Maynard Keenan is threatening to make wine cool, and everything from his website to his bottle designs to his styles denote an impish originality. Too bad the wines are awful. I did not take tasting notes at the time, but I just remember floating gobs of jam. The wine had no center, no essence. But that is not to say that time will produce something extraordinary out of Arizona, and if it does, I can at least claim I was there at the creation, and brought a bottle home to stick in the cellar.

My cellar is really a cellar. I have begun temperature tracking it and, given that I am not storing anything serious in it, am not all that concerned about temperature control. I can never imagine having more than 300 bottles in any case, and about the time I clear 100, I will build a drywall container to try to maintain temperature control. As it is, the summer temperatures have never been above 75. While that is 20 degrees too hot for a real cellar, it's only for a few months a year. And better wines have been kept at worse temperatures.

So cellar on. I'll try to build up a running stock, designate some for long keeping, come what may. I am not a collector--I have no desire to stockpile cult bottles of overblown, overpriced wine never meant to be drunk. I want to age some ageworthy wines while keeping good bottles in the cellar for immediate drinking. Table wines will be held upstairs.

4th and Swift, redividus

It's been too long. After being seduced by Atlanta Midtown's glitzy Empire State South, I drifted away from what might be Atlanta's most inviting, stylish, and inventive restaurant--4th and Swift. But its style and invention is not of the nature of a Kevin Gillespie enterprise. Rather, it is what I had always imagined as a kind of bedrock for good dining, something I would always return to and be able to be both comforted and surprised. After all, it was 4th and Swift that awoke me to the possibilities of the Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato. And their tomato salads are still on the menu when I return today, yet I learn new heirlooms when I arrive. Could one imagine a devoted spouse carefully presenting a Wednesday night meal with such a coquettish grin?

We had a bountiful harvest at meal tonight. Woodfire grilled octopus. Corn chowder with Tybee Shrimp. Sea Bass. Waghu steak.

And most impressively, a Smith-Madrone Cabernet. Rare to find so cultish a cabernet, so artisinal a production, in the sticks. It has the ruby texture, a nose of mountain wildflowers, and a palate of chocolate over fruit, followed by a textured acidity. A wine of great beauty.

So long live the restaurants that do it right.

The Age of Arugla

Arugula is to garden-variety lettuce as Louis C.K. is to comics--impolite yet heartwarming, pungent and unapologetic. It goes by several names, not the least of which is "the rocket," which describes precisely where it's searingly peppery taste might take you, if you aren't expecting it.

The rocket romances Bolivia

I've been eating arugula now for almost a year on a near daily basis. I love it in my packed lunches because it is as close as I can get to being high at noon (at least without getting in some serious trouble). But only recently have I branched out from my grain-arugula salads into something a little different.

Last night we had a no-cook sauce pasta (courtesy of a nameless friend) featuring arugula. It was absurdly simple. Start with arugula, olive oil and microplaned parm (the good kind). Add the spaghetti and toss, allowing the arugula to wilt. Add lemon juice and zest and pasta water, let it settle while you get everything else together.

(Actually I'll have to check this recipe, but I believe that was how it went.)

Today I made up hot quinoa and made a hot arugula-lemon juice-olive oil-parm salad. It was phenomenal. One of the joys of working at home a day or two a week.

Michel-Schlumberger 2012 Pinot Noir

I am at an immediate disability to describe this wine. I liked it, and it appeared to have all of the characteristics of Russian River Valley pinot noirs that make them so fascinating. But it was the second bottle we opened and, the other one being a chardonnay, I had no basis of comparison. It had a ruby sparkle, and I recall earthy notes on top of a plate of fresh fruit. It also gave off too much heat. I think the alcohol sat at nearly 15%, making it boozy as well as intense. So greeting the Michel-Schlumberger was a little like meeting a drunk Amazon redhead at a bar and suddenly realizing that she's picked YOU.

It could be that Michel-Schlumberger was experimenting with pinot. The winery is located in Dry Creek Valley, an upper-Russian River appellation known more for its Zinfandel and Syrah than anything else. The winery and vineyards were established by Jean-Jacques Michel, and later joined with Jacques Pierre Schlumberger. The latter retired in 2011, and apparently new management has taken over--which means, as far as I can tell, well, nothing.

In any case, I am not impressed enough with the pinot to recommend buying it again, except at discount. But then again, I would need to try this wine against another pinot to be sure. And it certainly is a bargain if found at the right price.

Day 4 in Wine Country: Crossing the Vine Curtain

Our fourth day in wine country began much the same as every other day. We picked up coffee at the roasters. Deciding on a smaller breakfast, we chose croissants over the usual eggs and bacon at Cafe Sarafonia. Then we packed into the car and prepared to make our drive. But rather than turning left at the corner of Lincoln and the St. Helena Highway, we turned right. We were headed north and west towards the Alexander Valley and the Russian River. We were passing from one county to another. Crossing the vine curtain between Napa and Sonoma.

There are, of course, important differences between the two counties, beginning with geology and extending through winemaking traditions. But the same can be said for different appellations within each of the counties. Savvy winemakers understand the differences between Mt. Veeder cabernet grapes and those grown in Stag's Leap. The same is true for the Sonoma Coast and the hillside grapes in the Alexander Valley. So there is not an immediate way to differentiate Sonoma and Napa wines, especially when the arbitrary county line is the only effective marker between the two.

But not surprisingly, competition between those with the different addresses is stiff. It almost has an "eastside-westside" feel to it. The woman I had been forced to ride next to in the airplane had eventually pried out of me the fact that my destination after SFO was wine country. "Where are you staying?" she asked. "Calistoga," I told her, and intimated unwisely that we were visiting a few of the wineries in Napa. "We have better wine in Sonoma," she responded.

I'm not ready to concede so chauvinist a sentiment. Sonoma County has whatever syndrome one might ascribe to little brothers who can't measure up, no matter their successes. Truth be told, it was Napa vintners who shocked the world at the Judgment of Paris in 1976, and it is Napa cabs that sell for the highest prices in the world (save select Bordeaux First Growths). Napa is synonymous with fine California wine.

None of which means that Sonoma wines aren't better than Napa wines. In fact, that is largely beside the point. Napa and Sonoma do some similar things, and do some things differently. I don't really see why someone would have to choose, or to declare some kind of loyalty. An exploration out into Sonoma County and along the Russian River should not feel like we've loaded up a car full of Jets to take into Sharks territory, after all.

But there were differences, and I have to admit readily apparent ones. The 128 North out of Calistoga wound between the mountain peaks and into a quiet Alexander Valley. Napa was not exactly bustling, but it was definitely more traveled. And better heeled. In Napa, the roadside is landscaped. Wildflowers all, but planned and pruned all the same. In Sonoma, the road was narrow and uninviting. The vineyards that surrounded it were much the same, but the valley beyond seemed more wild. The towns bore the same mark. The ostentatious wealth of Napa's small towns is conspicuously apparent. Sonoma's towns seemed more utilitarian. People lived and worked there. It had the mark of the agricultural community still upon it, and I strongly suspected that many of Napa's service labor force makes home in Sonoma.

Holding before the Crush

We had landed in the Russian River Valley a little early for our first appointment, and were looking for a way to kill the time. My goal had been to make it to Westside Drive, just past Healdsburg. This was the site of several groundbreaking vineyards and wineries that had begun, some thirty or forty years ago, planting pinot noir grapes. At the time, it was a decision fraught with risk. Clarets (and thier grapes) were the high point of sales and zinfandel was still the grape of choice in much of Sonoma. Pinots were disparaged as thin and weak grapes which, while they might thrive in the region of Burgundy back in France, were never going to produce world class wine in California. But several visionary winemakers began planting pinot noir nonetheless. And the results were heaven. The Russian River makes its famous left turn at Healdsburg, heading towards the Pacific. The cool ocean fog snakes up the Russian River Valley almost as far as Healdsburg, providing a cool enough setting to grow the famously finicky grape. And the rest is history. Whether one is tasting a lot-specific Pinot Noir or a blend from these vineyards, they produce interesting, complex, and delicious wines.

We tried to stop at Rochioli outside of Healdsburg, but the winery was not yet open when we arrived. Disappointed, we tried an adjacent tasting room that did not really fire the senses. This was a disappointing start to our Sonoma experience, and we rather dejectedly moved on, ending up at Gary Farrell's winery almost thirty minutes in advance of our appointment.

The pourer at Gary Farrell told us we could wait on the patio, and graciously gave us a glass of Chardonnay to sip on while we waited. (I was unaware that part of the appointment I had booked included a tour, so we were definitely on their schedule.) She must have liked us, because she gave us a different wine about fifteen minutes later.

French oak casks are used for three years at Gary Farrell

When the tour did come, it was informative. The tour guide had worked in the wine industry her whole life. We learned about the history of Gary Farrell wines (he was a pioneer in Sonoma), the buying of grapes, the crush, and the inner workings of a winery that produces a modest 35,000 cases a year. Although Gary long ago sold the winery to corporate America, it was apparent that the old ways had been respected.

Gary Farrell's wines were elegantly crafted. Well balanced, distinctive fruit, supple tannins. Steve Heimoff calls them age worthy, and I hope they are. I will lay a couple of bottles by.

After the tasting we drove down Westside road and just got lost. We stopped for lunch ... somewhere. The food was fresh and good. The waiters were stoned, I'm fairly sure.

That big building is a hop kiln

We ended up at Russian Hill. This was one of the early pinots we encountered in Chicago, nearly a decade ago, and so visiting the winery seemed necessary. The tasting room was situated on a hill overlooking the valley. It was gorgeous. The wine was very much what I remembered. An earthy, peppery pinot. A little fruity. But distinctive nonetheless.

We drove a different road back to Calistoga and ate dinner at Jolé, at the bar. We were delighted to meet a couple of locals there, including a gentleman who had been making wines in Napa since the 1970s. Of course, we didn't know that while we were sitting with him. All we learned was that he was the son of Polish immigrants. We talked about, of all things, politics, and children. He gave us his card when we left and it was only later that we learned that he was a vintner with a formidable reputation. It was probably for the best. I would have peppered him with no end of questions if I had known. And that would have spoiled our wonderful dinner.

One question I might have put to our new friend was whether the grapes really are better in Napa or Sonoma. He had farmed his whole life near Calistoga, so he doubtless had an opinion on the subject. But then again, to even pose the question to someone who spent their life in agriculture would be to admit outright that you are a rube. If you truly believe that a county line drawn by the state of California means a thing, then I have some beachfront property you might be interested in. So perhaps it is best to leave the vine curtain out of it.

Day 3 in Wine Country: From Spring Mountain back down the hill

The tasting trailer

After a picnic lunch at Smith-Madrone, we drove up the hill to the Behrens Family winery. Although Spring Mountain is a mom-and-pop place, Behrens does have a professionally landscaped garden, a beautiful view, and a dedicated tasting room. Well, tasting trailer. Their director of marketing is Robin Cooper, and she pours the wines as she unfolds the story of the Behrens Family Winery. The family history is complicated, and at times almost operatic. One confronts a bewildering array of names, both because several wineries operate off of the property, and because the winery itself changed names more than once. So, one might drink an Erna Schein, a Behrens and Hitchcock, or something with the word Drinkward in it and be drinking one of the Behrens wines.

OK then.

I chose to visit Behrens for two reasons. First, it was a small family winery, which appeals because they are not constrained by having to produce 10,000 cases of $20 pinot noir for the mass market. The small wineries can produce more distinctive wines. Second, the winery's reputation was for risk taking. They produced "rich" and "powerful" wines. This is usually a danger sign, signalling fruit bombs, but the welter of reviews online suggested that they made interesting wine. It is one thing to appreciate the hand-crafted elegance of Smith-Madrone; another, however, to be excited by experiment. My taste in most everything is driven by a terrible ambivalence. I lean conservatively towards tradition in my music, food, art, and wine tastes. But I am also attracted to the avant garde. The edge. Throw the rules to the wind. Take risks. Fail. This yin-yang between tradition and experiment informs an aethetic dialectic that keeps me confused about what really is beautiful. Or even just good.

Behrens was busy when we arrived. There were two different wineries running tastings (Behrens and some other one that operates on the space). But I should use busy in a qualified way--this was not the tasting room at Kendell-Jackson, with a long stretch of bar jammed with tourists just off the bus and "intimate tours" conducted every thirty minutes by some schlep. Or at least this is what I presume Kendell-Jackson's tasting room would look like--I've never been. Behrens-busy just meant that there was a terrace pouring going on and one in the trailer. We sat with a couple from Tennessee under the canopy and chatted about what we like about wine.

the gardens at Behrens

Robin (whom I recognized from her picture on the website), ushered the prior guests out of the trailer and told us she'd be with us shortly. I passed the time photographing the gardens. The midday heat was upon us, and the thermometer was quickly approaching the mid-nineties. This was a forty plus point swing from the morning, and I was beginning to regret my decision to forgo my fedora. So when Robin ushered us into the air-conditioned trailer, I suddenly felt sorry for the poor folks having their tasting on the terrace.

Robin walked us through a history of the winery that unfolded with each new wine. Her presentation was well scripted--clever and informative. This was someone who loved the wines she poured, and whose affection for the winemakers was genuine. It lent itself to a nice conversation in the trailer as we enjoyed pour after pour. We learned along the way that the husband-and-wife team that ran the winery had originally owned a restaurant, had started this as a hobby, and that they had been able to turn their attention full time to winemaking after Robert Parker had announced that Behrens' wines were "the next big thing."

Uh oh. Parker is the critic that everyone loves to hate. His famous 100 point scoring system and taste for big fruit favored the New World over the Old, the fruit-forward wine over the tanic-and-acid, and has prompted more than a few winemakers to urge more than a few grape farmers to delay the harvest, over-ripen their fruit, and otherwise make their wines bigger and bolder. Parker's oversized influence has, according to some wine writers, contributed to a "dumbing down" of wine by the creation of a mass palate. As more and more winemakers try to impress Parker, the argument goes, wine becomes standardized. It tastes more like every other wine and loses its sense of "terroir," or place.

I'm not sure I buy the argument. The development of a larger market for wine would necessarily include the production of large-scale, inexpensive quantities to satisfy its burgeoning middle, but that would only seem to multiply the niches of anti-Parkerites out there. I am investigating this phenomenon now, and will post on it later.

But I digress. If I rewind back to the trailer at Behrens, to Robin's announcement that Beherens wines were once (some ten years ago, I believe) christened by Robert Parker as "the next big thing," I can report that I felt the mental equivalent of a fight-or-flight response. I detest jammy wines, especially when they come advertised as claret. I associate Parker with jam, so now I was associating Beherens with it. And this doubtlessly colored the rest of my tasting. Association is a powerful phenomenon, and I could not get over the fact that the fruit was now just a little too big. The alcohol a little too high. These were hot wines. Not quite jammy, but definitely big.

But then we tried the Cab Franc. This is a wine that I have never tasted properly. The grape usually finds itself rounding out a Bordeaux in my glass, rather than standing alone, so I didn't know what to expect. And it tasted ... vegetal to me. Almost stewed. But these are words typically used to describe Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that have soaked up too much water and nutrients on the valley floor. But if a Cab Franc is supposed to taste different, then, well, vegetal might not be the word to describe it. All of which is to say, I was tasting the wine expecting a Cabernet Sauvignon. Which is like tasting pork when you think your tasting steak and then complaining that the flavor is not rich enough.

By now I was confused and petulant. Each wine we tasted came from a different winemaker somehow associated with Behrens. The $100 Cab Franc reminded me of V8. I was losing patience even with the labels, which were small paintings and sported names like "The Road Les Traveled," a tribute apparently to Les Behrens's favorite poet, Robert Frost. Except with the bad pun. ("The Road Les Traveled.")

I honestly have no clue what this was.

I'm fairly certain that the marketing director was losing patience with us as well. The couple who shared our tasting was quite nice, but knew absolutely nothing about wine. The woman kept telling us how much she loved the stories, and it was clear after several wines that they were not going to buy anything. I didn't think we would either, but we ended up leaving with six bottles.

Which, I think, was fitting. The wines were creative. Feisty. Surprising. This was the experimental side of the wine world. Even if the mess of labels, absence of adequate branding and occasional lack of focus was annoying, it was still intriguing.

We made our way down Spring Mountain, hit Lava Vine, and then collapsed back in our room. We had a big night planned at a fancy Yountville eatery, but after drinking too much wine at Jolé while we ate our nightly helping of Padrones peppers, we decided to stick to Calistoga and put the car keys on the shelf.