jparrott

Stretch, are we turning you into Yet Another Donnhoff Whore? (edit: moved from the DC board. The background: the previous Wednesday, DonRocks and I introduced Mr. Stretch to Donnhoff in the form of the 1993 Oberhauser Brucke Auslese).

At Zaytinya, on the wireless. Probably here until the battery runs out.

Also there last night in the bar, snacking and sucking down a bottle of Rudera chenin with the spousal unit. Stellar cured salmon and game terrine, amongst other goodies. And a proper sticky toffee. God save the inventor of the sticky toffee.

I wigged out after Citronelle. I'm not worthy. I'm also not sick. Does anyone know if there are still GU-Illinois tix available? TicketBastard's website is being fluky.

As some of you may know, I've been in the process of starting a small wine import company to bring in some wines from South Africa. We have nine producers (eight estate and a tiny negociant) and the wines should start hitting retail shelves in January. Below is a (brief) characterization of the South African wine scene that I wrote a few months back on another board: During apartheid, South Africa had little, if any, access to new clones and rootstocks and little revenue to make capital changes (i.e. replanting/regrafting, new equipment) to their operations. "Wine farms" were either small operations that served as tax shelters as much as they did wineries, or bulk operations for cheap wine or rebate spirit. Phylloxera was an issue up until the turn of this century, and most vineyards are still dealing with leaf-roll. Over the last 10 years, as money from Tesco (bulk wine) and the EU has poured in (and the rand has gotten stronger), wine farms have started the process of optimizing their operations. The farms with great terroirs (including some unusual soils and soil combinations) have become much more intentional about rootstock/clonal selection and vineyard management, and have been making great and expressive wines, usually with good acidity and aging potential. Many of these farms are able to hold back wines for release a year later than otherwise normal, to allow further integration. The farms with less-great terroirs have concentrated (at least for the US market) on making good, cepage-expressive wines, usually not over-oaked, for the mid-end ($9-13/btl US retail) negociants such as Fairview, or partnering with one or two other farms to build production for $13-$16/btl US retail wines. The message here is that there is still a lot of room for improvement, but that many SA farms have resisted the urge to go completely international-style and understand the need to be price-competitive. As for Pinotage, the Cape Blend movement, which requires pinotage to be the largest component along with CS/CF/M/Syrah, has allowed farms to keep their best Pinotage plots going while still making exportable wine. Also, the use of native yeasts is extremely rare. This may be a by-product of the use of inferior rootstocks over the years (do inferior roots/clones attract inferior yeasts?). Most top-quality farms are still too bootstrapped and scared to try native yeasts, but things are slowly starting to change. Cepage-wise, what really impressed us across the board on our last trip was, shockingly, merlot. SA is using merlot much the same way California is using syrah--they only plant it in the good sites. People in SA never really learned to make crappy merlot, so they don't. The movement for varietal merlot and merlot-based blends is growing, but no one sees merlot as the cash cow that the Californians did in the 1980s. It also goes very well with the local food. The soils in Stellenbosch are primarily gravel-clay, with some sand/chalk near Somerset West (closer to the sea), and some sandstone/schist near the Simonsberg mountain. Paarl is almost all gravel on the good sites. This is quite a Bordeaux-like profile, which helps alleviate some of the heat. The close-in mountains create cool pockets and emphasize exposures. The Cape Winelands themselves are stunningly beautiful, with wonderful restaurants and B&Bs, and incredibly cheap (even with the very strong rand). It's just such a long flight . The producers in our book, btw: Avondale, BWC, Hartenberg, Le Riche, Louisvale, Monterosso, Muratie, Vergenoegd, and Vriesenhof (Paradyskloof). More information on these producers can be found on the website http://www.wine.co.za (and on our website, when we get it up).

Dinner Tuesday night and snacks last night at Aria (after a night of schnooking)--trio of bruschetta great (with a squash salad, marinated squid and decent shrimp), the bolognese as good or better then Equinox's, and involtini of veal stuffed with prosciutto cotto and served with rapini that made Tony look conspicuously like a Marchese nonna. Pizza's just okay, a good bar snack for a group because it cools down pretty fast. Mushroom cannelloni rocks (and a huge portion-yipes).

The "Mad Dog" at d.b.a. New Orleans, so named for one of the early-evening regulars: Vodka, grapefruit juice....and a splash of Hoegaarden. It works.

Oddly enough, the bog standard Singha on offer in any Thai restaurant is usually also labeled as malt liquor rather than beer, I guess because of its sneaky alcohol content. I like the name of the brewery behind it, too. Boon Rawd. Sounds like an exotic curse. ← Now straying off topic...but does Singha contain no hops? Because I think then it has to be labelled Malt Liquor regardless of alcohol content.

I will say it again. BYOF bars. Change the law. DA is a great asset to Washington, DC drinkers. Why should he worry about food and kitchens?

I also thought the review was quite harsh. In addition to Brendan's suggestions, anything that sounds sausage-y or pate-y is likely to have been made by Tony, who is ridiculously good at that kind of stuff (one of the guys from Polyface Farms is working with Equinox to prepare sausages based on Tony's recipes)..."Tony's sausage of the week" became kind of a mantra at Equinox--expect the same now.

It's a whole new crew in town over there...Tony was handed the reins a week before his two-week honeymoon in Italy, and he's just getting his sea legs there...he told me his goal was to change/rework one menu item a week, and he may have had to slip that with their ridiculous lunch crowd.

Savoy Cabbage was awesome last May. In Stellenbosch, Wijnhuis is solid (and a nice place to linger at lunchtime with good wine). Also Java Cafe for breakfast and e-mail (our morning home-away-from-home when we go visit our producers--I am a wine importer). 33 and Vineleaf are also wonderful for lunch or dinner.

Damn. And I was just about to land a pallet of Pinotage....

Do you find any difference between Hereford and Angus? I noticed that most beef in the UK and Europe is sold by both breed and hanging time, so just curious. And how long do you try to age? And if it's longer than the government maximum 21 days, think of some interesting way to say that without saying that (heh heh heh).

We need BYOF bars like NYC and New Orleans.

You can hit the 9th&G Starbucks T-Mobile hotspot from the bar at Zaytinya. Not recommended at dinner time. Edit: Doing it right now. Arak and egullet. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Breakfast. Halfsmoke, eggs over easy, homefries well done w/onions, biscuit. Get a milkshake with it too :-).

We got a croquembouche from Patisserie Poupon for our wedding in September of 2000. It was brilliant! I don't remember what the price was then, but that was 4 yrs ago, so it's probably different now.

So have I. Can I have a beer yet?

Hey, I import a pinot-cabernet blend from South Africa--it's pretty good, made in a fruit-forward style with a lot of whole-berry fermentation.

Is there a compendium of all of the rules? We're about to submit our first round of COLAs and we haven't found one.

I'm pouring for a friend of mine on The Wild Grape's stand in the South African pavilion. Anyone else coming or exhibiting? Would love to swing by!

D'oh. Dupont Circle Farmers Market, where Sunnyside has a stand every Sunday.

I'm convinced that Wegman's has the hanger priced wrong. They have it at $19.99/lb, whereas at Dupont, it's something like $8-10/lb...the other Sunnyside cuts are priced comparably to Dupont, this one is the only outlier. I've told them a couple of times, but to no avail.

Sorry, I did mean to imply to cook _covered_ in the oven.