WOPN Wine Winds Back Time

It's not every day I swirl and sniff a wine and almost cry. But it's not every day I get to taste a 1997 Foxen Julia's Vineyard, and suddenly get sensorily sucked back a couple of decades into my life when I was a much younger man just beginning to learn and love Santa Barbara wines. Julia's Vineyard was one of the first vineyard designates I can recall once I moved out to California in 1994 (beyond the venerable Bien Nacido, of course), and something about that lovely enveloping barbecue+spice+deep fruit nose erased years for me today at a Julia's Vineyard Seminar and Luncheon at the Wine Cask today as an estimable overture to World of Pinot Noir.

Of course it doesn't hurt to have Julia herself at the lunch tasting: The vineyard was planted in 1988 when she was 6 months old. (And yes, Katherine's Vineyard, famed for its chardonnay, is named after Julia's sister.) It's owned by Jackson Family Wines, the ninth-largest wine enterprise in the United States that owns 55 wineries globally (including Brewer-Clifton, Byron, Cambria, Nielson locally).

But despite all that BIG, they certainly care about small, and about relationships. For the event featured five wineries/winemakers who have been making beautiful juice from Julia's grapes for decades now: Cambria (as they get to play with the whole vineyard), plus Lumen/Lane Tanner, Byron, Hitching Post, and Foxen. MC master sommelier Michael Jordan (no relation to any other famous MJs) asserted that he not only "had a flag and a drum for the Santa Maria Valley," citing its 212 days of hang time for pinot grapes, more than anywhere in the world, but also, "if there was an American Grand Cru designation, Julia's would be it."

Surely there's nothing better than tasting through bottlings of this vineyard from 1996 to a 2018 Lumen barrel sample that Lane Tanner cleverly compared to tasting cookie dough, as we had to imagine what it would be like after it had time to "bake," so to speak. (It's going to be a scrumptious cookie.) As she said about Julia's in general, "There's always a smokiness...I always imagine that bar you go into late at night and there's a gorgeous woman at the end of the bar and you don't know if you should go there....."

Fanciful, sure, but it's a vineyard that leads to wine that leads to such heady thoughts, something to dream on. For as Jordan put it, "We like to over-complicate ans over-simplify at the same time, not just as sommeliers--it's the human condition." A wine as profound as one from Julia's let's you find a just right space, with flavors expansive yet precise, with structure exact and elastic.

(The panel, from l-r: Michael Jordan, Lane Tanner, Will Henry, Jonathan Nagy, Frank Ostini, Bill Wathen, Dick Dore, Gray Hartley, Julia Jackson, Jill Russell.)

A Lament for Things No Longer Rosie

Santa Barbara is getting a little less sweet now that pastry chef Rosie Moot is moving on from the Wine Cask and Intermezzo, eventually heading back east where she's originally from. This was her last weekend. She had been at Wine Cask long enough to make me crave desserts when I usually don't, as I don't have a sweet tooth that needs a 12-step program. Then again, as sweet as she is as a person, she knows enough to make her desserts hew to the savory line as much as possible. The classic example of that might be her butterscotch pudding so snowed with fleur de sel it could almost seem a pretzel, the sweet and salty edging each others' pleasures further and further up. It was seemingly simple and complexly delicious.

And then there was the miracle of what she could do frying things, which generally sounds like a dessert disaster--that risk of dropping a little cannonball of dough into your gullet atop a fine meal. Rosie never did that, somehow frying to perfect crispiness and not beyond, her dough ever feathery, yet substantial enough to please. There where those pumpkin beignets that were a dream place where New Orleans and Dia de los Muertos met in a culinary tango on your tongue. On the menu now there are lemon-lavender beignets, crisp pocket pillows full of zippy citrus cream with just a hint of lavender lift--they're not perfumy in the least--sitting atop a bit more of the lemon cream, some miracle of the market halved blackberries, and aside a black currant sorbet that adds yet a whole nother palette to your palate. Never fussy in the least, it's something you feel you should be able to do at home, but you know you never could.

Like, say, a market crisp, currently with the first of the season nectarines (which perhaps bake even better as they're a bit firmer than those who get more heat on the tree). Something this simple shouldn't be this good, but it is, both crunchy from the dough and ripe from the stone fruit, and then topped with a honey gelato that sounds much more sweet than it is.

Rosie Moot, you will be missed. My one consolation is I will have to run a bit less without your end of the meal temptations beckoning.

Be Bold with Your Wine Choices on Valentine's Day

Not that you're nervous, but you're not sure if you applied deodorant, or brushed your teeth, twice -- perhaps it was both. You know Valentine's Day is all Hallmark trumped up, but you can't help yourself, and you're all caught up in the spirit that this has to be the most romantic evening of the year. Which just happens to be the same night 98% of the world is thinking the same thing, so you all descend on the same restaurants (hip, dark, happening, loud enough you need to talk close). Then it comes time to order wine, and panic sets in.

Luckily, I decided to help by turning to an expert, Branden Bidwell, Wine Director at Santa Barbara's famed Wine Cask (its Gold Room is romantic as all get-out, btw). Bidwell knows all about wine and knows how to make you feel comfortable, too -- he's no snob-melier, as it were -- so his advice is precious.

Want to read the rest then do so at the KCET Food Blog.

Saying Hi Again to Ahi

Deep in my accordion folder of recipes that I use far too infrequently is a browned tear out from the pages of the Independent that has to be at least 18 years old now. It's for Seared Ahi Tuna with Black Sesame Risotto and Ponzu Sauce and comes from the David Cecchini years at the Wine Cask. Now such a recipe might seem mere shorthand to say mid '90s, but it really seemed like something to me then, a gustatory definition of my move to California from Pennsylvania, where I lived previously. (Note: the culinary revelation of Central PA is the grilled sticky bun at Ye Olde College Diner.) I grew up thinking risotto was a fluorescent yellow and couldn't eat it without humming "the San Francisco treat." I certainly had had a lot of sushi--I wasn't a complete food philistine prior to turning 30--but the idea of seared fish, that is fish cooked, but sort of not, was pretty novel. This dish was something else, light on its feet, bright in its flavors, surprisingly meaty, especially as I was still pescatarian at the time.

I bring all this up since Brandon Hughes, the current chef at the gloriously resurrected Wine Cask (the Bernard Rosenson era now seems like a sort of bad dream, the way Ava Gardner must have recalled her mirage marriage to Mickey Rooney) has dusted off this menu classic in thrilling fashion and you can (really, should) eat it right now. He's offering rosemary-crusted ahi tuna (seared rare) with sunflower seed "risotto," grilled asparagus, and cherry tomato confit. First, note, this is a seasonal dish, now, as everything must be if you want to be a restaurant of note (the food revolution has been won in many ways, you know), what with the grilled asparagus and the tomatoes shouting summer. But then the sunflower seeds do that, too, but let's leave them for a bit.

For we have to talk about rosemary-crusted tuna. Certainly rosemary is a different taste than the usual cracked black pepper backed with lots of salt (and sometimes sesame seed). In its evergreen-ness, it can be overpowering; in its needle-ness it can poke the heck out of the soft palate. Somehow Hughes avoids both these dangerous fates. This is seriously chopped rosemary, and somehow mellowed too--I'm not quite sure what he does. But it provides just enough of a grilled pine to go with the ahi's brine to make the dish new. (Of course the fish is cooked exactly as you'd want, bright red still at its interior and charred on the edges, and it melts on your tongue.)

As a decided classicist, I have to admit food in air quotes sends a series of emotions through me, tripping my BS meter while worrying me about whether it might be food at all. Luckily in this case "risotto" simply means in place of rice Hughes uses sunflower seeds--otherwise the preparation is largely the same. This is a brilliant idea, the seeds of course nutty but mellow both because that's just their flavor and of their minute size. Still, cook them in enough butter and stock and wine and they are both tender and whatever the word is before crunch becomes onomatopoetic. That's even better than rice, especially with the oh-so-perfect fish, that could use this chewier foil.

Then the rest of the plate is about all the balance you want, visually with the green and red for some drama, and for taste, especially the bit of acid the tomatoes bring. Add it all up and it's like discovering California again.

Bob Spitz Brings Julia Child to Life

Like everyone who had the good fortune to meet Julia Child — the iconic television chef and longtime Santa Barbara resident whose 100th birthday would have been on August 15 — the author of her new biography, Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, has a tale to tell.

“I was in Italy in 1992 working on magazine articles when I got a call from the Italian travel commission,” said Bob Spitz. “They asked, would I mind being an escort for an older woman? I told them I don’t do that kind of work, but then they said it was Julia Child, and I said I’d be right there. I got to spend three weeks in Sicily with nothing to do but eat and talk with Julia. It was a foundation experience.”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.

Brews Meet Their Match

The surprising thing isn’t that the Wine Cask is having a beer dinner on May 31 — they did one back in October, after all; it’s that the five-course menu kicks off with Korean chicken-skin tacos with kimchi and Asian slaw. “We’d never serve that in the dining room,” admitted Chef Brandon Hughes. “But when you think about it, everybody’s favorite part of the chicken is the skin.” It’s a bit of crispy evidence that this meal is really a chance for the Wine Cask team to think out of the fine-dining box.

Want to read the rest then go do so at the Indy's site.

UPDATE (6/3/12): Matt Kettmann, senior editor at the Indy, wrote up the dinner itself perfectly, and not just because he quoted me as we were seated at the same table. I'd write something, but when someone else has done it so well, I will just point you there instead.

Farmer to Table: Goodland Kitchen Kicks Off Series Celebrating Farmers

Sorry I'm so late (too late for the actual event) posting the link to this one. And I've got lots to blog about--SOhO's new local-sustainable focused menu, palate food + wine in Glendale--and I didn't link to this online only item about Wine Cask's first beer dinner (turns out it was a huge success--they turned folks away, even). I'm behind in life, folks. In the meantime....

“I went to a dinner party a few months ago where all the guests sat with the farmers that grew their food, as well as the people that cooked it,” says Melissa Gomez, co-owner of Goodland Kitchen. “Everything was delicious, and we enjoyed it much more than other meals because we understood the care that went into creating it. I wanted to re-create that experience for our guests, so I decided to start the ‘Meet the Farmer’ Dinner Series.”

Want to read the rest, then do see at the Indy's site.

A Chip Off the Old Choc

It's not perhaps the best karma to have to taste seven chocolate-related food items while staring across the street at the conscientious few conducting Occupy Santa Barbara. But that was the unfortunate geography of an event at which I was a judge Thursday night, as the Downtown Organization and First Thursday hosted a Chocolate Taste Off as a way to celebrate epicure.sb. Let them eat chocolate, I guess. Sorry protesters--promise I'm usually part of the 99%. But afterward, there's no doubt I occupied more of Santa Barbara then when I began.

I'm not going to run through all the entries, but the participants were Seagrass, Aldo's, Chocolate Opulence, Pierre La Fond, Wine Cask, Viva Oliva, and Adama. What people offered us was all over the board, too, if true to their businesses, but let's just admit that when somebody's baked you a whole dessert, a single raspberry in balsamic infused with three chocolates just can't compare. It's got a zen purity, sure, but this is about chocolate, and beyond spellcheck wanting to turn Opulence into Corpulence when I originally mistyped it above, it hits me now that "chocolate opulence" is pretty near redundant. Unless you're eating the wrong chocolate.

I am a bit chastened to add my winning choice came in second overall (I was one of four judges), but that might just prove that if you work the word doughnut into your dessert's name, I'm suddenly Homer Simpson. That's what Rosie Gerard at the Wine Cask did, serving up one of their regular menu items I've somehow so far resisted (mostly because I can't get past her amazing butterscotch pudding): chocolate & chevre doughnuts, crème anglaise, cappuccino ice cream. The goat cheese really works, so don't crinkle up your nose like an actual goat just stuck its horns through your monitor--it adds a creamier texture, cuts the chocolate's sweet a tad, gives it a bit of deeper dairiness. And the doughnuts were perfectly cooked all the way through, so there's no raw dough surprise or anything. Wonderful and elegant, especially with the cappuccino ice cream adding its coffee kick.

As for the winner, I had it as a close runner up, and would gladly eat one right now, especially since there might be time to have a second one before the day's end. Chef Nathan Heil from Pierre Lafond Wine Bistro prepared for us a salted caramel chocolate tart with Chantilly and caramel Oreo popcorn. Starting with the dessert's side...and, well, why don't more desserts have sides? If you're going to keep eating after a perfectly good dinner, there's no point in being a little pregnant, as the old joke goes. As for this popcorn, Heil could no doubt bag it and sell it on its own (his restaurant is close to the movie theaters, after all). Chocolate and caramel and popcorn and salt--that's four food groups. The tart itself beckons like any good tart, with its slip of salt, its crisp and flaky crust, its mix of luscious chocolate and caramel creaminess. I have no problem with it winning at all, beyond it's hard to beat a doughnut all gussied up.

Let's Go Mezz!*

Last Sunday at Intermezzo's lovely afternoon soiree celebrating its anniversary, co-owner Doug Margerum introduced two of his sons saying, "He's 14, this is 15 [pointing to Intermezzo], and he's 16--they were busy years." Of course, Intermezzo wasn't always Margerum's in that stretch (in that dire time when the Rosenson was off the bloom of the hallowed Wine Cask, so to speak), wasn't even always Intermezzo, however the name Bar/Cafe just never stuck, despite Mitchell Sjerven's attempts.

So Intermezzo it is, and a fine thing, that. Especially now out in the courtyard, where those wonderful sail-like awnings have just been installed, not only easing the midday sun (well, let's assume we get some midday sun--where is summer this year?) but making the largish space cozier, too. The flatbread program keeps evolving and if possible getting better--right now it's hard to beat the summer treat of the Orchard with fresh peach, salami, goat cheese, pepper preserves, and a balsamic reduction (ah, that's where summer went!).

And if you act now--and by now I mean for the rest of August--all the wines on tap, and all the wines are on tap, are 15% off per glass for the 15th anniversary. The wines on tap program is sort of brilliant, as it means local wines, very fresh, and a program that's very green, as the kegs are reusable and there's no need for bottles or corks. Of course, this could only work with all the fine wineries in Intermezzo's backyard of Santa Barbara County, from Doug Margerum's own wines (his blend M5 is the default let's not think but just drink and be very very pleased order, isn't it?) to a very special Cargasacchi Pinot Noir that I not only want to drink, I want to wear as cologne.

*Forgive this Jersey boy his baseball inspired title that probably makes sense only to him.

Prime Rhine Wine Time

What a quality gustatory experience worth is both a tough and easy question to answer. In some ways, it's worth whatever a person is willing to pay, if that's not too tautological. I mean, if people stopped going into debt to eat at the French Laundry (it's $270 a person, now, sans tax, tip, alcohol), Thomas Keller would have to rethink the business model.

The same is true for wine, too, and wine has had to make a bit of an adjustment of late, what with the economy tanking and all. In general wine-sellers (no, not cellars) would tell you recent years have meant a highly bifurcated wine market--you had to sell your grape juice for either under $20 or over $75. Death to the middle class, as it were.

So you might wonder if the high end stuff is still any good, or is just there so folks can show off. And, sometimes, it really really is that good. Case in point Chene Bleu, a new house in France that had a small tasting in Santa Barbara the other night. Turns out they've hit it off with the Wine Cask's Doug Margerum, who is even making a wine of his own under his Margerum label from their grapes, a rose´ they had sadly run out of by the time I got to the tasting. Especially since Chene Bleu's own, a 60% Grenache, 40% Syrah blend (Margerum's is 100% Grenache), was lovely, the sort of thing Provence does so well, both flavorful and malleable, if that makes sense, calling out for food of all sorts. That wine, $30, not cheap for a rose´, but in this portfolio, definitely the entry drug, as it were.

The tricky part is Chene Bleu is top-of-the-line through and through. Go check out the website, if you don't believe me, one of the best designed I've seen in a long time--elegant, info rich, ripe with gorgeous photos, abetted by judicious use of video. They're also working at a bit of a deficit, as they're outside all the named appellations--neighbors to Gigondas and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but even more into the magnificent Dentelles de Montmirail. That lacey limestone backdrop means their vineyards are isolated and protected and unusual. And the soil is nutrient rich.

You get to taste all that in the bottle, even when the bottle costs $100. They also like to bottle-age, so are just releasing a 2006 Abelard (90% Grenache, 10% Syrah) and a 2006 Heloise (65% Syrah, 32% Grenache, and 3% Viognier), while still insisting the wines are mighty young. Nicole Sierra-Rolet, who was presenting the wines from the winery, went even further, claiming the Abelard really needed to decant, and was a brilliant second-day wine. That said, it would be hard to imagine any making it past the first evening, it was such a gorgeous mouthful upon the bottle opening, rich red berry flavors and a persistent and pleasing pepper in the finish.

So, if you've got some spare hundreds, you won't go wrong here. Or make sure you've got some rich friends, and advise them as to what to buy.

Days Of Wine Futures Past

And there was a gnashing of teeth and a rending of garments and the sickening silence of hundreds of corks going unscrewed, leaving wine lovers themselves screwed. For George Eats has discovered most terrible news, dear readers--there will be no Santa Barbara Wine Futures program this year. For 19 wonderful years and two ownerships the Futures program was the province of the Wine Cask, and as I wrote about the last one they ran in 2008, until Bernard Rosenson drove the Wine Cask into the ground:

Wine Futures is Christmas, Opening Day, and the world’s best President’s Day Sale wrapped up into one for lovers of the grape. When people line up outside the Wine Cask, waiting for the noon opening, you can sense the anticipation, the whiff of worry in the air that someone is drinking the last of the best before you’re even in the door. Wine is serious--at least when it’s Santa Barbara good, you’re getting one of the first shots at buying it, and it’s slightly cheaper than it will be upon release.

It truly was my favorite day of the year, a sign of spring and the endless hope each vintage would be lovely, that each winery would learn yet more, make yet better wines. Somehow it almost always seemed to happen. Then there was the joy of running into people who grew to be old, if just one-day-a-year friends: Gray Hartley happily pouring at the Hitching Post table or Sashi Moorman working for more and more labels yet never diluting his skill. And then each year there'd be a new surprise, a new favorite: Ampelos, tercero, Autonom. Life was full of grapey goodness.

In the time between Mitchell Sjerven and Doug Margerum rescuing the Wine Cask as a restaurant from Rosenson's failure with it, Bob Wesley of the Winehound bravely stepped into the breech and delivered two great years of futures at the SB Museum of Natural History and then the Fess Parker Doubletree.

But now it's all gone, for as Wesley says, "It involved a lot of work and advertising expense, as well as facilities and food costs, and it just didn't meet budgetary expectations."

God damn.

Wesley says that the Wine House in LA might do a program up here next year (they are doing one in LA, so that means the big city gets our futures and we don't, and that's a sad state o' affairs), so here's hoping Jim Knight can pull that off (in addition to making his own fine wines Jelly Roll and working on Holus Bolus). Until then, drink slowly, my friends....

UPDATE (4/11/11): An informant has let me know that the Wine House will be having a Central Coast futures at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History next year, most likely in April.