West Side Wine

I just finished Alice Fiering’s book, The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization. The love part was lost on me, but her message about “real or authentic” wines rings loud and clear. About six years ago, two kids named Jenny and Francois walked into my store, unannounced, with a wheelie bag full of these wines from France. From the first taste of the first wine, I was hooked. I owe them a huge thanks. These are wines made by small producers, who make their wines free of all the crap that most winemakers use to make their wines “appealing” to the general wine buying public. By crap I mean artificial yeasts, wood chips, added enzymes, not to mention all those new contraptions that adjust alcohol levels and aerate the wines so that they mature sooner. The real winemakers not only shun that stuff, but they also farm organically, if not biodynamically. Some even go so far as use horses instead of tractors to work their vineyards. The wines are truly what wine was meant to be, the essence of the grapes that are grown in the winemaker’s particular piece of the world. Alice is a terrific spokesperson for authentic wines because of her passion, her palate, and her complete understanding of what makes these wines so special. So pick up the book if you want to know the real scoop on authentic wines, and when you’re shopping, ask your wine guy to show you his/her natural wine section. Look for names on the back labels like Jenny & Francois, or Louis/Dressner to be assured that you’re getting the real deal, so to speak.

I can’t tell you how many times Ellen and I have gone to a restaurant, ordered a red wine, only to have it presented at a temperature that feels like it has been in the trunk of a car in an outdoor parking lot in July for a week. When I ask for an ice bucket, I’m usually sneered at and reluctantly obliged. Oh the stares I get from neighboring diners. I could care less. Rare is the restaurant that knows how to keep red wines cool, or for that matter white wines not so cool. 
I talk about this to at least three customers a day. Most people drink their reds too warm and their whites too cold. Stick those “room” temperature reds in the fridge for 20 minutes and see how much better they taste. Even longer for the lighter reds. And for Pete’s(?) sake don’t leave your whites in the fridge for hours before that dinner or cocktail party. Try 45 minutes?  How many times have I had a frantic customer call and say they need a few whites right away for a party that’s going to happen in eight hours (or even the next night), so they’ll have time to chill them.  “Chill them?” I say. “You mean kill them.” That’s what I call vinocide.
Calm down, people. That white is going to be perfect if you just give it a slight chill and let all of those nuances, aromas and tastes come through. Same goes for reds. Heat brings out the alcohol in wine, and that just doesn’t taste very good. 
Check out the Dining in section of the NYT today. If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Mr. Asimov.

If you’re finding, or rather not finding, your favorite French (and soon your favorite Spanish) wine, it’s probably not the fault of your retailer. France has been enduring a ten-week dock strike in Marseille, so many of the wines from Southern France have been stuck in the country or dribbling out of Antwerp, Belgium. Barcelona was another possibility for escape, until two weeks ago, when Spanish truckers went on strike protesting the high price of diesel fuel. They’ve now successfully blocked that port. This kind of stuff drives me nuts. Not only do we have to deal with the insanity of the euro, but now we can’t even get our hands on the wines no matter what the cost. I spend a lot of time researching, hunting down and tasting wines.  When I finally find something I love, and know my customers will too, it’s discouraging to find that they’re currently not available and have no predictable e.t.a.  With better wines being consumed at an unheard of rate these days, you have to move quickly or it’s gone — and there’s no return in sight. 
A plea for patience. Use this as an opportunity to try something new in the meantime. That’s the “glass is half full” way to look at it. Trying something new every chance you get is always a smart and good thing. 

Okay, so this woman I’ve never seen before sticks her head in the door of West Side Wine and the “dialogue” went like this:
  “Do you have Paul Masson Chablis?” 
“No, ma’am.” 
“Do you have Lancer’s?” 
“No, ma’am.” 
“Do you have Mateus?” 
“No, ma’am.” 
“Why don’t you carry wines that people like?” 
With that, she stormed off. 
Obviously, she hadn’t tasted my Oudin Vaugiraut Chablis ‘05 or “Les Serres” 06, or my Simon Billaud Montée de Tonnère ‘04 Chablis. I guess only the Chablis from California (?) as opposed to the Chablis from Chablis would do. And rosés? How about one of my 30 different choices, like the Lafond Tavel ‘07 or the Boulay Sancerre or the Baudry Chinon or the Piage Barbera? I guess only the fizzy, sweet Portuguese would do. 
If only she had given me a chance to show her around, I’m sure I could have opened her eyes to new and exciting alternatives. You think? Ah, always the optimist. Maybe she’ll come by again some day. I’ll be ready for her, you can bet on that.

They come, they go. Mostly they move out of the neighborhood, and sometimes it’s my snarkiness that causes them to never return. And sometimes they die. This was the case of a gentleman whose name I knew, but knew little about until he died. His name was Van Varner, an elderly gentleman who  always came in to West Side Wine accompanied by an equally elderly black mutt, and his adult son (Van’s, not the mutt’s.) I could tell that Van had had some medical issues because of his slightly slurred speech and his labored handwriting when signing his credit card slip. But every single time he came in he would look me square in the eye and sincerely ask me how it was going. ”Are you doing ok? How’s the business doing? Good? Well, that’s just great. Keep at it and everything will be just fine.”  This is not the usual New York, tough-as-nails, I’m-in-a- hurry kind of customer. So he really stuck in my mind, and I always looked forward to seeing him. He never failed to make me feel good about myself and what I was doing. So when I learned of his death, it got to me. I decided to google him to see if I could find out more about this man. Who was he? Well, it turns out he was for many years the editor-in-chief of Guidepost Magazine, a publication based upon the teachings of Dr Norman Vincent Peale….the power of positive thinking?  I had to laugh. Wow. A guy who actually practiced what he preached.  Maybe there should be more positive thinking in our lives. Thanks, Van. I’ll do my best to keep you in mind when I’m ready to lose it. No promises, however.

We love this time of year over here on the “unhip” Upper West Side. Shakespeare In The Park is just a couple of blocks away, and it started its 2008 season on Tuesday with Hamlet by old whatshisname. Ellen and I went Thursday. The production is fantastic. Considering it was only the third night of previews, these guys really had their act together. Notables are Lauren Ambrose as Ophelia, Andre Braugher as Claudius, Sam Waterston as Polonius and very notable, Michael Stuhlbarg as you-know-who. There have been a few turkeys over the past few years, but this is not one of them. A great night at the theater, but get some rest before you go — it runs until about 11:30. And bring in a little wine to sip while you’re watching. As long as it’s not in a glass container, it’s cool. West Side Wine has sold alot of Three Thieves Pinot Grigio and Cabernet Sauvignon in one-litre cartons to theater-goers over the past couple of nights.
The icing on the Hamlet cake came last night when a woman came in to buy some wine. She was introduced to me by one of my associates as Gertrude. It took me a few seconds to realize she was the actor playing Gertrude, Hamlet’s mom, in the play (Margaret Colin.)  “I saw you the other night!” I said excitedly. “Well, I’ve been in once or twice,” she replied.  “No, I mean I really SAW you the other night, and you were terrific!” She was shocked, delighted and gracious. 
So, catch the show before the rest of the City wakes up.  It’s not currently selling out, but it will when the word gets out. 

One of the main things I tout about West Side Wine and my selections is that I won’t buy any wine that I haven’t tasted and do not highly recommend. Think about it. How can anyone speak about what they sell without knowing it and believing in it? At least that’s how I have to do it. 
Anyway, sometimes there comes a time when I am forced to commit to a wine before it’s in bottle and available to taste. This is called, imaginatively, a “pre-buy.” The importer and/or the distributor needs to know how much of a wine to order, so they have to get a commitment, untasted. An iffy proposition for the buyer, but if you familiarize yourself with the prognostications on the vintage, it reduces the risk.
Rosés are always first offered on a pre-buy basis. The grapes are harvested in the fall, bottled sometime in the winter, and shipped right away in the early spring for the prime enjoyment season — the summer. So there’s no lead time. A crap shoot? It can be. But so far, 2007 is proving to be amazing. We were in southern France last August, and were witness to amazing weather and a superb growing season. And guess what? Everything I’ve tasted from the southern Rhone, Provence, the Languedoc have been outrageous. This weekend I tried the Domaine Lafond Tavel….to die for. Look for Tavel, or anything from that part of the world.  Also excellent vintages were had in Italy, certain parts of Spain (not Rioja), South America, Northern California, and, yes, our own Long Island.  
You can check out my rosé picks here: Wine Guy’s Picks
They’re all here, or will be very shortly, so start sipping the ‘07 pink. It’s summer in a glass.

You know you’re staying in a special place when the check-in area is a tasting room. Shinn Estate Vineyards is just such a place. We arrived mid-afternoon with gorgeous sunshine, met by Barbara Shinn and two empty glasses. Before we had a chance to get the room key we were tasting through all of their lovely, hand-crafted, organic, biodynamic wines. They (Barbara and her husband David Page) are pioneers in the North Fork organic movement. And it’s not only their grapes that are organic, but all of their flowers,fruits and vegetables as well. Barbara was actually brewing up some compost tea when we got there, soon to be placed into their vineyard irrigation system. All of the wines were wonderful, and I immediately placed an order for a few cases.
The Shinn Estate Farmhouse has four meticulously appointed rooms and the price includes an unbelievable breakfast prepared by David, who owned and was the chef for Home and the Drover Tap Room, late of Greenwich Village. They sold both restaurants to devote their full time to the vineyard’s 22 acres, and the Farmhouse. If you would like to die, go to heaven and live to tell about it, treat yourself to a night there. If there’s a void in your life in need of filling, this place might do the trick. Drop-dead sunsets are included.

Tuesday was the day Ellen and I had dreading for almost a year. It was time for Cathy, the wonderful and gorgeous black lab we’ve been fostering for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, to go in for her training.  It’s a great program, but there comes a time when they want their dog back. We were bereft, so we had to come up with something that would help us get through that final goodbye. The Guide Dog Foundation is in Smithtown, Long Island, which is just a short ride to the East End.  So why not keep on going after we dropped Cathy off and drown our sorrows in the beauty of the North Fork and their wonderful wines?  I remembered reading about Shinn Estate Vineyards in Mattituck having the only B&B on a vineyard site in Long Island.  Perfect!  The wines are excellent, the weather forecast was perfect, and they had one vacancy (there are only four rooms.) This would help ease the pain.  Done.  So we drove drove out to Smithtown for our “exit interview” and the handover.  We did all of the final official formalities and braced ourselves for a sad, tearful, gut-wrenching farewell.  But that wasn’t Cathy’s agenda.  All she could think about was getting into the room with the rest of the other puppies and going nuts, something that she is extremely good at.  She literally dragged our puppy advisor into the kennel, and never once looked back.  Clearly, any void in her life was about to be  to be filled.  We looked at each other, a little relieved that she was so happy and a little pissed that she was so happy.  But after we got over ourselves and our bruised egos we were relieved that she made it so much easier for us. And on top of it, now we had this amazing two day mini-vacay to look forward to.  It was our turn to fill our, not so big as we thought, void.  Bring on Shinn Estate Vineyards.

Up at Yankee Stadium today, for a day game with the Indians.  My pal Lou and I were enjoying a pre-game Rolling Rock at Stan’s when we witnessed something interesting — a whole new way to drink tequila shots.  New, that is, to us two geezers.  Apparently you can enjoy a tequila shot by having your girl friend lie down on top of the bar, place a lemon slice in her mouth, fill her navel (preferably an innie) with the tequila and a dash of salt, and then offer it up to you out of that container. Then you can proceed to enjoy the lemon slice while it’s still in her mouth. This ritual was repeated several times with several different women, and several male and female tasters. Huh! Who knew? Is there no end to the imaginative ways one can enjoy a beverage?  Normally I would say don’t try this at home, but in this case I think home is the perfect place. There’s always next year’s Cinco de Mayo.  Boy, am I old.  And you thought Yankee Stadium was only about baseball.  Ay caramba!