The Union Square Experience

During a New York wine tasting I decided to take a lunch break between two tasting events in order to refresh my palate and for a moment of rest. The highly regarded Union Square Cafe was just a short walk to my second appointment, so there I dined.

Down with the menu is an attractive assortment in the breadbasket with a plate for butter seasoned with sea salt and a ramekin of cured olives. Nice touch.

During my numerous trips to New York I've been to Union Sq. Cafe several times with pleasant results every time. While I try to find new dining destinations, I also know that Union Sq. always rewards with a good experince. The reason for that is most likely to do with man who runs this restaurant and several others in NY. Danny Meyer. So, if you ever want to see how a successful restaurant is run, then sit at the bar and experience it for yourself.

Great job by my bartender/server. Efficiency in motion.

From the moment I sat at the bar, the woman bartender offered and pleasant greeting and offred me everything I needed to complete a brief, one-plate pasta and get me on my was without feeling neglected or hurried. And everytme I've been there, the service has been nothing but efficient, professional and the food attractive and delicious. An interesting wine list completes the deal.

A bowl of delicate gnocchi. Just right.

A New York Doubleheader - Sept. 2011

Two worthy tastings on the same day always creates logistic and sanity issues. Fortunately, neither the Jenny & Francois portfolio of natural wines or the T Edwards domestic portfolio are massive in numbers and style.

Waiting for the R train to take me to Union Square.

Jenny & Francois Selections, based in Manhattan, is a tidy portfolio of just under 120 natural wines, largely from France. As in years past, this is an event that is notable for attracting a base crowd of millenials and gen Xers which is interesting in itself on who is accepting these wines.  The overall portfolio was good, but didn't seem to have as many standouts as the tasting I went to last fall. Nevertheless, it's always a provocative, eye-opening look at the growing popularity of natural wines.
 
After a brief palate cleansing lunch at Union Square Cafe, I made the very short walk to Union Square Ballroom. This is the second focused tasting of the T. Edwards domestic portfolio. The 144 selections were almost all premium labels slanted towards pinot noir with some chardonnay, syrah and cabernet making up most of the rest. Overall, the quality of the wines were quite good for those who have a preference for California and Oregon style pinot noir. There were some familiar labels like William Sinsky, ZD and Jaffurs, but most were less recognizable, small producer labels such as Elizabeth Spencer, Allorro, Gothic, Stephen Ross, Tamarack and Maysara.  

Part of the line up at T. Edwards.

Of particular interest were a couple of companies that were collaborative efforts by people in the industry that interestingly, were looking to make a California wine with the character of a French wine. Bebame sources cabernet franc (95%) and gamay fruit from the Sierra foothills to make as they say, a wine in the fashion of a Chinon, Bourguiel or Beaujolais in a natural style with little SO2 and modest alcohol. The wine is made by partner Steve Edmunds of the highly touted Edmunds St Johns label. And I would have to give them good marks for making a wine with fresh acidity, bright red and black fruits with hints of black pepper. The wine would retail in the $16-$18 range and roughly be $40 in a reasonable restaurant wine list.

On the other end of the spectrum, III Somms, a hommage to the greatness of three sommeliers who want to make Burgundy style pinot noir and of course a cabernet sauvignon and a Bordeaux style blend that "are to be reasonably priced" so they can offer them to their restaurant customers. Coming in six-packs, the least expensive III Somms, a Seven Springs Willamette Valley pinot noir would be about $126 or $65 on a retail shelf. Or we could go with the reasonable Seven Springs Willamette Valley "Old Vines" at $195 at your favorite cafe. Somehow I missed sampling the greatness of the III Somms. My bad.

Joey Tensley chatting it up.

Like the last T. Edwards domestic tasting last fall, my favorites were again from Tensley Wines of Los Olivos, Santa Barbara county. A tasty starter was their Tensley Blanc, Camp 4 Vineyard. A well balanced, mouth-filling blend of grenache blanc and rousanne. Of the syrahs it's a hard choice as for my favorite between Tierra Alta or Colson Canyon, but I lean toward the Tierra Alta with its balanced black fruits, bright acid and smoky, bacon fat nose.

The wildcard in the tasting was the Foggy Ridge ciders from the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. I found their three bottlings to be comparable in style to the high quality ones I've sampled from Normandy, France. Even the sweetest of the three was more on the dry side and all had an enticing apple peel tannin component that made them more complex than most standard ciders.

The David Bowler Fall Tasting Event - 2011

The facade of Tribeca Grill, host of the tasting.

Bowler Wines is one of the most anticipated tasting events of the season as they have a portfolio that is appreciated by discerning reataurant and retail buyers. Bowler offered 245 samples of which I was able to taste 99, which is about my limit over a four hour period.

The star of the portfolio are the wines from Louis/Dressner which is heavily slanted to Loire and Beaujolais. While their wines aren't heavily represented, items like Tue-Bouef, Olivier Lemasson, Jean-Paul Brun and others are always worth checking out. An interesting scene came about when tasting their Loire wines and Jules Dressner instructed us to skip past the Noella Morantin wines as they were in Asian oak and should be tasted last. I shared a puzzled look with another couple next to me who clearly heard, Asian oak. Now I realize that Loire is full of innovative winemakers and I knew that Noella has a neighboring winemaker from Japan. Could they be sharing ideas? Well, I just had to ask. Turns out Asian oak was meant to be aged-in-oak. That was a relief.

There was once a time when there was only one significant importer of Spanish wine. Today, there are a handful of top level importers and Bowler has a real good one in Jose Pastor. One of my recent favorites in Cava has been Pastor's German Gilbert Cava. Concocted of the traditional grapes of macabeo, xarello and parellada in Catalunya. Another versatile wine is his Benaza label from Monterrei, Galicia made from godello. Godello has the perfect balance of albarino's richness and verdejo's bright, crispness. This should be the next pinot grigio and the Benza godello is a terrific value.

In today's tasting Pastor had unveiled a group of wines from from the Canary Islands which I don't recall ever seeing before. The catch on Canary Island wines is that they are grown on volcanic soils which imparts a unique salty, smoke accent to the wines. My first overall impression was mild. Nothing really reached out to me, but I will look forward to seeing them again.

Being familiar with most of the Bowler European portfolio, I move on to spend some quality time with their domestic wines. The California winery, Cold Heaven, makes my favorite domestic viognier and their basic Santa Ynez Valley is right on with lush stonefruit, melon and thankfully absent of hot alcohol and wood that often inflict this grape. The California pinot noir samples offered today were also good, well-made samples worthy of purchase. They include the Mout Eden Santa Cruz, Holdridge Russian River, Chasseur Sonoma Coast, Black Kite Mendocino and Red Car Sonoma Coast pinots.  

Martin Scott at the Lincoln Center - Fashion Week - 2011

It seems like every subsequent tasting event put on by host Martin Scott get bigger. It's not an illusion as Martin Scott continues to bolster their portfolio with new products, which I take as an assertive way of staying competive in an ever growing and competitive market. On top of that, they seem to continue to be acquiring long familiar labels from other distributors like Domaine Baumard from Monsieur Touton and E. Piri from Michael Skurnik and a label that's just starting to come into its own, Cleto Chiarli Lambruscos which had been languishing at Frederick Wildman.

The growth of Martin Scott is being celebrated in today's tasting event at the Lincoln Center in New York during fashion week which is having their own event at the same site which creates an exciting venue littered with skinny girls, mobs of photographers and their minions taking part. For me, it just created an interesting diversion to the front door where I am set to sample some of the over five-hundred producers available as well as some exciting new spirits.

Winemaker Tom Drozd with his new North Fork Project chardonnay in a 1 liter bottle. Merlot also available. Good stuff, good price.

As usual, I begin with sparkling wines. Not much new here and mostly made up of solid commercial labels as opposed to smaller, grower/producers that have become endearing amongst progressive restaurants and retailers. While not the biggest fan of Prosecco, I have come to appreciate the Adami brut NV for being consistently clean, bright and with a satisfying mellow mousse. Their Jaume Serra Cristalino Cava brut NV is a solid value sparkler that can be sold at retail in the $6-$8 range. One of interest was a Cremant de Bourgogne, normally a value sparkler priced in the high teen range, but the Domaine Jean-Noel Gagnard (Chassagne-Montrachet) version entitled LYS, while being high in quality it would come in at serious $44 to the retailer.

At past tastings I had spent so much time with French and Italian wines that I often had little time to go through their broad selection of well known pinot noir including popular restaurant labels. Unfortunately, I was mostly unimpressed with the Californians. Too many were heavy handed and clumsy, lacking any sense of bright perfume and/or elegance. The pinots from Oregon were a different story. Most, like the Auteur, Fiddlehead and St Innocent showed nice balance, aromas and attractive red fruit character. A particularly reasonably priced wine was the Haden Fig from Willamette valley that would retail for around $26. Very pale Burgundy-like color with delicate red berry fruits and a hint of wet earth. A slight chill on that would make for one tasty, refreshing dinner red, perhaps with salmon, tuna or a quiche.

Martin Scott's Spanish imports come from Ole which has consistently offered well-made, interesting wines, mostly from smaller producers with appealing, well-designed labels. I really liked the Exopto Cellers b.b. de Exopto Rioja from Alavesa. And once again, another bright, mineral laced Rioja from Alavesa, the region that is actually situated across the border in Pais Basque. For me, Alavesa is the name to look for in exceptional Rioja.

b.b. de Exopto from the Alavesa region of Rioja.

South America has been the go-to region for popular value wines for some time. While walking by the tables, one grabbed my attention. Sommelier turned wine maker Brian Smith comes off as the kind of guy for whom life is too short to muddle in mediocrity. His Loca Linda (crazy beautiful) label provides a torrontés and malbec that have an eye-catching label on a grand one liter bottle. The malbec is good, but I'm always interested in finding an exceptional torrontés like the one I first tasted out of curiosity at a NewYork restaurant ten years ago. The one that has left me with the desire to find more. I can't say torrontés is the most exciting grape I've ever had, but you never forget it. The good ones have modest acidity which allows the exotic, spicy fruit to linger on the palate just a bit longer like a solid good-bye kiss. And with the one liter bottle, that's one long good-bye. I like torrontés with shellfish and richer seafood to white meats like veal, pork and chicken. Right now Loca Linda torrontés and vitello tonnato would be awesome. They also perform well on the holiday table alongside all the rich, fruit, herb and spice laden foods.

Brian Smith with his Loca Linda.

As a fan of food friendly, dry lambrusco, I became capitaved by the Luigi malvasia di Casorzo (Piemonte) rosso dolce. It has all that wild briary fruit, a touch of frizzante yet with a light kiss of sweetness. I also loved the quirky label that reminds me of a figure from a Christmas opera. This will be a terrific wine to offer customers for the holiday table, but this kind of wine, served cool, is fun to have with cured meats, aged cheeses and a big crusty loaf of bread on the back patio.

The devious Luigi looks like he's on his way to waking someone.

At the end of the event were several tables of new craft spirits. This has become an interesting and fast growing segment. Breckenridge Distillery of Colorado had an exceptional corn based vodka that was flavorful and had a richer texture. Since Bourbon is mostly corn, they also had a terrific Bourbon with mellow vanilla and honey with undertones of spice. Out of Nashville, Tennessee, Corsair Artisan Distillery offered a series of top-shelf spirits. I really liked their gin. A nice bouquet of juniper based botanicals with a smooth texture that would work straight-up or as a mixed cocktail. They also has a single barrel, Triple Smoke whiskey that would excite Scotch drinkers that like the smoky, Islay style. Another remarkable item was the Marolo chamomile grappa from Italy. 

Plenty of good spirits from Corsair Artisan Distillery.