Doktor Weingolb

The theme has been summer nostalgia and letting go post-Labour Day weekend. Yesterday, when I admitted that every season has an end, I also came to terms with a too-aged bottle of wine designed to drink young. It was heavy and cloying and a lack of freshness suggested that it had oxidized.

It was one of those sunny and versatile summertime wines, namely the Frescobaldi Albizzia Chardonnay Toscana 2005, and it showed that its limits were as clear and well-defined as summer -- Montreal's shortest and most sudden season. (It turns out that the Albizzia cuvée is very appropriately named for "usually small trees or shrubs with a short lifespan"... just check Wikipedia for the proof.)

That was then, this is now. This post is about the food I often served at wine-curated picnics over the last three months, and it's entirely true that the picnic pictured here featured those Albizzias, so sunny and versatile then, as well as that rosé you see.

What I served is a simple dish, so versatile with wine and yummy on its own, that's been plenty on demand around my place. I've received requests for the recipe in person and on Facebook. So it's about time I quite stalling and fess up: It's roasted vegetables, people. The most amazingly good and amazingly simple food fixing known to man.

Roasted vegetables, antipasto-style

- Choose 1 (or 2) of: cauliflower or broccoli florets, fennel, onion, tomato, mushroom
- Add a generous splash of olive oil and mix to generally coat everything
- Roast in the oven uncovered at 450 F for 20 minutes, stirring once
- Let cool momentarily in mixture of butter, capers and garlic, or instead, fresh mint and salt and pepper
- Serve! And save leftovers for an enjoyable cold lunch

(Note: Cauliflower takes 25 minutes; tomato and mushrooms take 10.)

I hinted in my last post that this kind of recipe would fade in the weeks to come but I don't believe it now. For one thing, I would drink pretty much any wine with this other than your most delicate whites and most tannic reds. On top of that, hardy vegetables continue to be plentiful into the fall and the heat your oven gives off to make this dish only becomes more pleasing as the days shorten. Plus, as I look ahead to the short-term weather forecast, I see that the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of September are scheduled to be summer's most formidable heat wave. It's summertime again. Get picnicking.

TASTY MORSELS

My Italian wine over-consumption two weeks ago when I was a tasting panelist has paid lovely dividends. I figure nicely in Bill Zacharkiw's latest column on the (Montreal) Gazette's Wine with Bill Zacharkiw website. Check out the site -- it's growing rapidly as Bill's tenure takes off since replacing veteran critic at the newspaper Malcolm Anderson -- but also note this direct link to the goods I helped sample: Valpolicella Classico, Ripasso, and Amarone wines.

It's been said about Bill before but let me say it again: no one has the know-how and the knack for identifying a wine's key attributes and instantly matching them up in appropriate food pairings. His writing readily conveys this, so it is a joy to read his reviews, which are totally mouthwatering and score-free to boot.

[This post was scheduled to appear at the outset of the Labour Day weekend rather than at its close and will soon be is now timestamped to indicate its intended publication date -- a date now irrevocably beyond reach, on the other side of summer, that place of sunshine and happiness, of distant memory, and of forgotten joy -- because on the morning of Tuesday, September 4, only the blogosphere offers an escape from a reality which seems a little too harsh and unforgiving: Pre-dating your blog entries is an attractive opportunity to live in denial and pretend that you are actually looking forward to getting up the next morning. -Ed.]

Like the summer whites you fold up and stow away at the back of the closet after Labour Day, some excellent picnic wines emerge from summer appearing to be past their best-before expiration date.

Unlike those eggshell clam diggers you hole up for next year, you can't hold off for next year by storing picnic wines like the one shown above. The reason why is more than the fact that they're not in season anymore. They've seen their time in the sun and then some. I mean to say that they've peaked. They're past it.

You've got to get rid of them.

In my case, when I opened this 2005 bottle I couldn't even pretend to like it and drink it -- I'm returning it to where I bought it because it's already giving off oxidative notes and tell-tale signs that this summer was the actually the autumn of its wine life.

WHY WINES SOMETIMES NEED TO BE RETURNED TO VENDOR

When perfectly good summertime wines or good old standby picnic selections fail to deliver, often no one is to blame. Not necessarily the winemaker, nor the vendor, nor the customer is in the wrong. This is the case with the Frescobaldi Albizzia Chardonnay Toscana 2005: I bought it at the start of the summer during a promotion that was obviously trying to move the old stock to make room for Frescobaldi's 2006 vintage (which is perfectly fine drinking these days, by the way). In fact, I bought several bottles and they all made a fine showing over the course of the summer, getting through many afternoon picnics and evenings sur balcon.

But this last bottle in my possession didn't make it. I recorked it with at least two-thirds of the original contents remaining in the bottle. It is going back to the SAQ and will have the oxidé [who knew it's actually spelled oxydé -- I just got back from the SAQ] oxydé box checked off on the returns and exchanges slip that goes back with it.

Tomorrow: My greatest, most wine-friendly summertime picnic recipe gets a bit of a rest too.

Jump to: Picnic pick | Eric Asimov's wine pick | Brooklynguy's wine pick | Alice Feiring's wine pick | Doktor Weingolb's wine pick | Special BYO resto pick


The plan was to blog but I stopped fighting the weak wireless signal that gave me the Internet one minute and totally disconnected me the next. So I decided to leave the laptop in my room and hit New York hard. While that made for a bit of gap in my blogging, I now have lots to say about my five-day getaway, including a few juicy tidbits about wine and food.

Consider this update as five posts in one (use the anchored links at top to navigate through it -- it's lengthy). I hope this makes up for the recent inactivity.

* * * *

First of all, as I alluded to my last post, New York City is fiery hot pit of asphalt and sweat in the summer months, especially when you are caught in Midtown or on a subway platform, or worst of all in Midtown on subway platform (Warning: Never take an uptown train from the 47th-50th Streets/Rockefeller Center station without a towel). What I discovered is that but just 10 streets down from that sauna stop on the B, C, F and V line, I discovered an oasis of refreshment and air-con at the corner of 37th Street and Madison Avenue, also known as the Morgan Library & Museum. The collection alone is well worth the price of admission, but what I went in for was its fantastic café which is at the centre of this amazing building complex.

As you can tell from the photo I posted at the top of this entry, the food is just as inviting as the cool and airy space of the café (pictured below), which the Morgan website accurately describes as "a casual dining atmosphere in the glass-enclosed central court, evoking European alfresco dining." You bet, alfresco! This is by far the greatest place for a picnic during the dog days of summer. Save Central Park for less humid weather.



The brilliant thing is that the Morgan Café emulates a real outdoor courtyard: the high ceiling is composed of a lattice of glass and steel slats, there are trees amid the small dining tables, and on exceptionally warm days like when I was there last week, the sunlight enters the space in bearable measured amounts through the help of automatically shifting shades along the glass structure (follow part of that transition in the photos below).



As for the café menu, plenty of picnic-perfect choices but my order of a plate of cold cuts, goat's cheese and olives is an amazing deal. For only $8 you get to make a couple of your own prosciutto and salami sandwiches (just slap on the cheese and that lettuce onto the complimentary rolls they offer you!) and for $7 more, get a glass of wine. (I felt like I won the lottery the instant this $15 alfresco feast started -- surely you can do no better in Manhattan.)

I chose the Château Routas Rouvière Coteaux Varois 2006, a salmon-coloured rosé from France's Provence region. It was thirst-quenching, quite dry and very likable alongside the spicy marinaded olives and salty cured meats. It had a drinkable table-ready style that some alcohol-drenched rosés from Provence don't handle as deftly. Light and appetizing, this wine is meant for casual lunches when it's really hot out. But I don't need to tell you that. See more detailed notes on this wine.

With this kind of fuel I had energy to wine-shop...

MÂCON, MÂCON-VILLAGES, AND THE MANY RESOURCEFUL TOWNS SOUTH OF THE CÔTE D'OR

My initial instinct was to take a tip from Eric Asimov and so I went for white Mâcon -- Burgundy's best summertime deal. If wine is your bag, Mr Asimov is much-respected and hard-to-miss in the blogosphere. Of all his recent recommendations, I'm finding these white Burgundies to be the most up my alley.

I love this style of Chardonnay, which is full of mineral and bright citrus flavours, though some deem it too light. I happen to value light, and not just because it often translates to light-on-the-wallet. This is Eric's point about Mâcon and its hinterland, known on the label as Mâcon-Villages.

While the results are not yet in on any specific Mâcon bottles (for that please refer to Eric's notes), I can report that New York definitely has better price-points on these wines than here in Quebec. These $12 bottles in Manhattan routinely convert to $20 bottles here in Montreal (and this is not usually the case with most French wines). Expect tasting reports for some Mâcons soon around here, most imminently for the one pictured here!

MACON, MACON & STUYVESANT, AND THE MANY GREEN STREETS OF BEDFORD-STUYVESANT

When I met the wine-wonderful Brooklynguy for lunch in TriBeCa, we discussed our common interest in wine and love for MTA buses. They are certainly cooler transportation than the subway and are routed all around the city and its four boroughs. To get to Macon Street in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighbourhood, buses are the best means of public transit and, much to the glee of Brooklynguy, I recounted how I traveled along the #43 - Franklin, the #48 - Lorimer and the #25 - Halsey.

Why do us winos like buses so much? Besides being street-level and perfectly temperature-controlled (most of the time), they are wine-shopping-friendly, or to put it more precisely, they are bottle-friendly. This is because they have padded interiors and are rather spacious if you like to buy by the case. Most importantly the differential in ambient temperature between a shaded bus stop and the coach is a lot less bottle-shocking than sweltering subway platform and meat-locker train car. (Also the bus is more personable, even when you haven't got a supply of wine on you: just before getting off at Classon Avenue, a kind Bed-Stuy rider pointed out all the globs of sunscreen smudged across my face that I had missed smoothing out.)

Brooklynguy, being the generous and knowledgeable guy that he is, suggested I take advantage of a rare Beaujolais while I could and snap up the Domaine du Vissoux Pierre-Marie Chermette Beaujolais 2005. It's not that difficult to find in Manhattan. I would certainly get it again. It's an unfiltered wine and you can sense it immediately, as in I-can't-believe-it's-not-Beaujolais-cru. My uptown hosts thought it was bold, round, rich and delicious. A hit from an advised expert... check out the full review on Brooklynguy's Wine and Food Blog.

A HEAVY FAVOURITE FROM LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON

I have never met Alice Feiring, New York-based wine enthusiast of great expertise and integrity, though she has responded to my brusque queries and desperate emails. She is the one who saved New Year's Eve for us when we hadn't a clue where to take our Cervaro Castello della Sala Antinori Chardonnay for a hopping good time. Well, Alice answered that question and supplied so many more reliable suggestions, like this next wine pick, for instance.

Yes, it was a total no-brainer to instantly buy the Domaine des 2 Ânes Fontanilles 2004 when I happened past it at Astor Wines & Spirits. She wrote about it as an everyday wine with substantial value back in February so I wasn't sure it would still be in supply. Luckily it does seem to be quite well stocked. But unfortunately, it's put into one of those extra heavy bottles that sit in your bag like a stone and makes you wonder why you're schlepping around so much weight at a free jazz concert staged in Washington Square Park. My advice: Make your purchase on the way home rather than when setting out. Astor's open till 9 pm every weeknight.

I'D LIKE A SIX-DAY VERNACCIA IN NEW YORK

For THE best Vernaccia di San Gimignano that gets made you've got to try Mormoraia. It's a little more expensive than most Vernaccia varietals at about $16 per bottle but it does taste like the height of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a grape that gets very little respect.

Respect is something that it may not need if pure aromatic refreshment comes this easily and this cheaply. In the Mormoraia Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2006 you also get great balance, nutty depth and a profound finish for an otherwise lightweight varietal. I wish I could've brought back more of this across the border. I certainly could've afforded more. As it stands on my map, I've clearly marked down New York Wine Co. (it's 21 Warren Street near the Chambers Street subway station), the Lower Manhattan wine shop that sold me this great stuff.

WHERE TO TAKE YOUR WINE PICKS OUT TO DINNER . . .

And to save the best for last, there's Petite Crevette, the longtime fish-specialty restaurant on Hicks Street in Brooklyn. I had the pleasure of taking a friend of mine out for a birthday lunch there even though she does not eat fish. Fish lover or not, this is a cozy little nook that charms you and sates you, thanks to Neil Ganic, "a chef who has a knack for turning out satisfying, homey but refined dishes that value flavor over frills."

Here's a guy who can single-handedly chat up your table and whip up a codfish burger at the same time. That neither one comes out overdone, rushed, or inauthentic makes this restaurant a true winner. Evenings are much busier so if you like the welcoming chit-chat and attention, definitely try it for lunch. Also definitely bring you own bottle of wine. There's none of those huge corkage fees here. Perhaps a vivacious and slightly rustic Greco di Tufo dei Feudi di San Gregorio 2004 to handle the flavourful fish and mouth-watering appetizers (two words: Cremini mushrooms!) as well as all the other non-seafood plates that are served.

I'm currently in love with New York City, as my Top 10 Wining and Dining Experiences in NYC from earlier this month indicates. But I've also been very much in love with tennis, as anyone who has read Weingolb during the last week could easily see.

Therefore I can have only the greatest of anticipation for the US Open, which starts tomorrow [update: GAME ON!] at New York City's Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Hmmm... A couple of Coronas in the Flushing Meadows... this Grand Slam tennis event is screaming out for serious picnicking, isn't it?

ME & MONTREAL ♥ ANASTASIA

I spent long hours at the Canadian Open in Montreal watching the world's best women players and, in particular, the magnetic personality and undeniable talent of Anastasia Myskina. So let me help out any of my New York readers who have tickets to the two-week long tournament and will be spending long hours camped out around the hardcourts waiting for their favourite athletes to appear. Here is a summary of my advice for eating and drinking in style at sporting events.

WINING AND DINING TIPS AT THE OPEN: WHERE DINNER IS ALWAYS A WINNER

DO find a vendor, be it a deli, a bakery or grocery store, near the site that has reliable good food that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and haul it in the main gates with you. Read the How-To

DO pack your own meals, using today's food cooling technologies, not coolers themselves. How-To

DO figure out how you can bring in your own wine (though this may be frowned upon so don't do something stupid and get yourself arrested). How-To

...and finally...

DON'T eat annoying food in noisy packaging while watching matches on the more intimate tennis courts


What the...?

Hey!!

Stop that!

These people are working hard out there. Dude, have some respect.


The diligent Dinara Safina deserves it.


Awesome Ai Sugiyama commands it.


And Nicole Pratt just won't stand for anything less.

Especially when it comes to fine wine and good food

Results are in from Uniprix Stadium where it was "The Swiss Miss" Martina Hingis against Ana Ivanovic (six-foot and Serbian) in the 2006 Roger's Cup championship final, which didn't get decided until Monday because of weekend rain. I enjoyed waiting to see the Serb pounce on a few too many puffballs served up by her opponent. Ivanovic cruised to a 6-2, 6-3 victory in under an hour. It made Jennifer Capriati's wins over Hingis seem overly complicated and drawn out.

Having spent six consecutive 12-hour days on the tournament site at Jarry Park and then returning a final time to see the trophy match, I got a real good first-hand look at what it's like to eat on the road, away from home. Though tennis might be considered a game of privilege the food and beverage services surrounding this stop of WTA Tour was certainly no splendid repast (maybe that's what five-star hotels are good for). I, like some of the smarter travelling athletes, found that it was best to plan ahead and customize meals to some degree. It sure beat having to run to the snack bar. The threat of fast food was always there but you mustn't be fooled! That $12.75 hot dog with chips ain't gourmet -- only its price is.

EGOS AND ALLERGIES

Montreal's eventual champ Ana had an allergic reaction to something she ate on the first day she entered the grounds to practice. As I snapped photos of her technique, she stopped hitting to talk to her coach. "I have bumps on my lips" she said as she sat down. Her trainer looked at her swollen mouth. "Looks like an allergy," he replied, not too panicked to withdraw (wise idea since she would be the eventual winner of the tourney where umpteen others had already scratched out). "Or like a pimple?" Ana uptalked, half bemused, half disgusted.

I'd be disgusted if I had eat on location every day during the tournament. I've seen what some of the food is like, and even in the luxury boxes strewn around the courts and in the player's salon, I knew I could do better. And I did. I expect to share a few posts on how I ate and drank over the course of the tournament last week. Hopefully, some people will find it useful and I'll make up for my blogging absence at the same time.

HOW TO SPECTATE IN STYLE

Before I post the full details on my vacation surrounded by asphalt, here are some general key pointers for roving wining & dining, especially in stadium situations:

• Choose plastic, not glass

Wolf Blass is a real leader in bringing wine to sporting events. I've written about its keen sense of sponsorship in the past. Now, with its sporty new plastic bottle developed to store wine, they're bringing wine to sporting events in a whole other way. Smuggled in, through the turnstiles. That's because the security team that searches your bag is really looking to prevent glass items from entering the sports arena. So find a Blass non-glass bottle, preferably a half-size one so as to remain inconspicuous, and fill it with your favourite grape juice

• Get thermal

Thermal sleeves really work well to keep drinks cool on hot days. Charge it and the bottle you are taking in the freezer for a few minutes and then it's important to keep it in the shade over the course of the day. You won't be disappointed. Or forego the sleeve and plastic bottle and just use a thermos. But be careful, some guards won't let in with a cooler and some consider a big hulking thermos to be equally as offending. Find out what exactly what you can bring in before you depart for the site.

• Pre-slice your food

You don't want to get caught entering with a big sharp steak knife so no matter what type of food you are bringing to the game, cut it up into bite-size pieces before you wrap it up and take it with you. The best thing about bite-size lunches is that you shovel away at it while you stay focused on the action going on the playing surface. And who wants sandwiches all week long anyway?

The only rosé I've had this season is also the only rosé I've bought multiple bottles of. Easily pleased? Perhaps I am. A couple of Domaine de Gournier Vin de Pays de l'Uzège 2005 won't let you down when you and three friends are on a summer holiday picnic...



...unless you plan on remembering your hat.

There are so many things about this photo that I am not sure of. Who took it? And when was taken? And, uh, what am I doing?

These answers are all lost in the mists of time. Yet I can almost certainly recall that the pink stuff in my glass was Château Bellevue La Forêt. It's a thoroughly dependable rosé from the Côtes du Frontonnais region of southwestern France (click on my wine glass in the image above for more details). During my formative years, Bellevue La Forêt was practically synonymous with weekend lunches on Mount Royal.

Perhaps a little too formative based on this unraveled Lotus position I am demonstrating here.

TIPS ON SERVING TEMPERATURE

But remember folks, it's not how much you drink, it's how you drink it. Yesterday’s post, which featured a stunningly beautiful painting-like photograph, shows that picnics don’t have to be limited to a bottle or two if you want your wine perfectly chilled. On hot summer days though, volume can present an issue for wine reaching the right temperature. Thermal sleeves are the best devices for traveling with wine bottles that need to be served cold. Put the bottles and their sleeves in the freezer separately during the hour before your departure. Can’t get those rosés too cold when the air temperature will instantly start warming it up.

Backwash
Thanks to Collin C for pointing out to me that I might need a little adventure in the picnic equation I wrote out yesterday. Here’s what I’m working with now: picnic = wilderness + friends + wine + food

There's a fine line between a blog about wine and a blog about picnics. Collin at See, Sip, Taste, Hear has made me realize this: it's only March and already he's bringing his wine out into the great outdoors for all to see. Now that's blogging commitment!

So without further ado, it's photo of the day time. Pictured above is another brisk Is-it-spring-yet? picnic scene. It's Spring in Prague (not Prague Spring) and the year is 2004. This was one of the biggest picnics I've ever been to. There was lots of wine on hand (literally, everyone was holding a wine glass -- can you spot all 5 fizzily filled flutes in the image above?).

DISCOVERING CZECH AND SLOVAKIAN WINES

My trip to the Czech Republic was an wine eye-opener: The country opened my eyes when I opened its wines. Local products are quite good. Moravia, to the east of Prague, is a full-fledged wine-producing region. Their Modrý Portugal is a bizarrely named but delicious wine reminiscent of Cabernet Franc though lighter and fruitier. Then of course there is the local Sekt, which is the sparkling wine that dots the scene above. One doesn't travel to Eastern Europe expecting to be beguiled by the wine. It happened anyway. Great bubbly!

So yes, in case you hadn't guessed, the couple captured in the centre of this photo are shown celebrating their marriage vows. I was indeed attending a wedding and between the ceremony and the reception there was this amazing luncheon overlooking the city from atop the Vyšehrad castle grounds. Among the most memorable picnics ever. Where friends + food + wine = total wonder & bliss.

That's my working equation for picnics for now. I think it covers all the crucial elements. In my mind, it's pretty darn close to the equation for enjoying wine... Like I said it's a fine line.

Photo of the day time. What's missing from this photo? Don't say a sharper focus because this is the look I was going for.

I believe I took this picture in summer 2002 as I prepared yet another meal in my kitchen which would be taken out and eaten while perched atop the balcony. There's something magical about wining and dining on Montreal balconies -- the combination of sun, wrought iron, conversation and a nice bottle of vino. It almost can transport you to Paris in springtime.

But as I look at this image I see a gaping black hole in the ice bucket where the bottle should be. That's worrisome. I guess it was still in the fridge at the time. So this photo, one of my favourites, holds something back from the viewer. It's not exactly like this induces a sense of anticipation, like a magnum of champagne about to burst its cork, but rather conveys a cool austerity. A bit like looking out my window right now and seeing the freezing drizzle coat the leafless, lifeless scene. I look at this photo now and think of the groundhog emerging from its blackened hole precisely 45 hours from now. When, oh when, can I give this little summer scene the rosé that it is calling out for?

Doktor Weingolb, like the above bucket, hasn't been holding up many bottles for review lately. That is about to change in February. I have accumulated a stack of notes and will try to review 2 or 3 wines a week. No point in keeping good wine all to yourself.

Which is the other thing missing from today's photo. Friends to share with.

Photo of the day time.

I love this image. Lunchtime meets springtime. And it's Paris. Ahhh.

The bottle of Faugères seems to be looking lovingly at the baguette. You can see it reflected in the glass. And the baguette, with its wide-open wrapper, is ready to embrace the wine. The woodland grove that surrounds these two must be happy to host them.

And so was my stomach. This was the day we decided to the track down the odd three-angled Parisian intersection that was the setting of Kylie Minogue's Michel Gondry-directed "Come Into My World" and I had gotten very hungry. It took a while but we did correctly deduce the exact site of the video shoot using maps, key landmarks from the video, and eyewitness reports from helpful local metermaids. Michel had long since abandoned the corner, where he filmed a multiplying Kylie walking in circles around the Point-du-Jour neighbourhood, which is not too far from the giant Bois de Boulogne parkland west of the city. The loaf of bread in the photograph is from the boulangerie featured in the music video; we picked up the wine further down the road. (The intersection today has almost none of the shops shown in the amazing video, just the bakery and a lot of boarded-up storefronts -- though I now realize we practically walked by this French Wine Museum on the way.) We came, we saw, we came into his world, and then we drank and ate sandwiches. And it was good.

A whole year later, I would actually stumble upon the real live Michel Gondry, in the flesh. We were in New York, not Paris. The funny thing is that the Soho restaurant we were in would be called Bread and the drinks spread across my table and his, which was cozily adjacent to mine, would be wine.

But I digress. Outside right now it's 33 degrees below with the wind blowing so never mind the whole story and just breathe in this picture.