MaxH

"... Puns are never acceptable." -- Ridicule (1996). Those prices are pretty awful too, as you say. The more so, within a group of countries that claims to be a free-trade zone since 1993. What is the basic mechanism behind those elevated prices in Canada, Bill? Market, or tariffs, or what? -- Max

This is a chronic question in the US (it used to be talked about in wine publications, before there were online wine forums), and the previous respondent pointed to the chronic source for answers which is a good one: the Wine Institute Web site (which has lots of data by various breakdowns, if you peruse the site). Formerly these data were distributed on paper. The chief per-capita wine-consuming countries, if I remember the data offhand, are in western and eastern Europe and in Latin America. If you take the top several of these in any year and compare them to the US for per-capita use, you end up with a ratio. During my own interest in wines which is not quite 30 years, this ratio has evolved somewhat, from maybe 12:1 down to 8:1 or thereabouts (again if memory serves). That is to say, the US remains far from being a mainstream wine-consuming culture. (This ratio by the way has long tantalized US wine-business people and may be one reason for the very existence of such trade institutions as the Wine Institute.) I've seen some very different social attitudes about beverages with alcohol in different countries. When people from outside look at the US in this connection, they are apt to remark about the presence of extremes rather than moderation and subtlety. People with a casual awareness of the 1919-1933 US alcohol prohibition aren't always also aware of the degree of US social problems with hardcore alcohol addiction in the 19th century, or that it was largely a beer-or-whiskey culture. When Schoonmaker and Marvel's book American Wines appeared, some years after Prohibition, still three-quarters of the wine consumed in the US was fortified. There were nevertheless people who appreciated wine as a healthy and moderate part of everyday life and eating, in the European model, and were actively promoting this in the US, then and earlier.

I hope that you (or others who are interested in the wines) are spitting, though obviously how each of us chooses to taste wine is our own business. But speaking for myself, it's useful to carry emergency disposable spit cups in the trunk of the car (should the hosts fail to provide suitable crachoirs and the tasting not be outdoors, where spitting is rarely a problem). (They're big plastic cups of a generous half-liter or so, kept in an emergency box next to the emergency stopper kits and emergency tasting glasses.) Some commercial tastings may have 200 wines or more and it's hard enough to asess them even with selectivity and patience and spitting. That seems to me to capture very crisply the difference between wine tasting and "wine tasting." = Max

Interesting to see this sandwich return to Europe and even Germany, mutated. In older US cookbooks and food writing that I've read, what's now known in the US as a Hamburger or just 'burger was often called "Hamburger sandwich" or "Hamburg sandwich." De Gouy's amazing Sandwich Manual for Professionals (New York, 1939), among its 63 pages of "Club, or Three-Decker" Sandwich recipes, has 19 recipes with hamburger patties as parts of the stack. (Any number of accompaniments. One of the later ones is made on orange date bread and includes bean salad, orange marmalade, nut meats and watercress, with the cooked ground beef patty.) = Max

I've wanted for some time to visit this place, for a reason that may be unusual. In New Orleans, Louisiana is a well-known antiques dealer, M S Rau. A place where you can see (in their inner catacombs, if they are inclined to show you) a well-known Rodin brass sculpture, or a Secretary writing desk circa Catherine the Great, made of jade. A couple of years ago I was admiring an unusual solar-system model in their front (street) room, an orrery from 1780. I carelessly admitted knowing a collector of scientific instruments of that era; a salesman then dogged me for weeks, trying to get a name. It seems that the magnificent instrument had been in stock for some time, and not moved. "Make us an offer," he implored. (Asking price was High. Like the Rodin, or the jade desk.) I thought then of this well-known restaurant, and its owner, said to collect orreries. I referred Rau to him in a desperate effort to redirect their attentions, and maybe even a helpful one. The orrery was still displayed in M S Rau's online catalog as of a year ago, but I just looked and it's gone. However I newly noted in the scientific-instruments section a well-preserved brass 19th-century French enema kit labeled "Seul Veritable Irrigatuer du Dr. Eguisier Marque de Fabrique T3M.," Circa 1870. With original rubber hose, etc. Asking US $1250, FOB New Orleans. (FYI.) -- Max

Alan Murray at Masa's is in the news today for passing the Master Sommelier exam. (The others in the Bay Area this time are Brian Cronin of Gary Danko, Randall Bertao of Parcel 104 in Santa Clara, and Reggie Narito of SJ's Le Papillon, Saratoga's Plumed Horse, and Southern Wine and Spirits.)

No and it's intriguing, since teas have a reputation for volatile or sublimatable flavor components that escape into the air -- I've noticed sublimation of something onto the inside of a sealed glass container, with some very fine and allegedly fugitive light tea (hand-carried from China and given to me as a gift). As noted, the details may be subtle. (I've also dealt with Upton imports, for a decade or so, but I do not drink 3 or 4 different teas each morning, by any means.) It's well to be thoughtful about this, because such kitchen science has had many counter-intuitive realities in the past. (For instance people used to presume that all the fast flavor change in newly opened older wines came from oxidation, until a series of popular experiments in the 1970s with controlled atmospheres argued that oxygen was not necessary, and departure of dissolved gases seemed to be a factor ...) -- Max

The sentiment seems to have history in France also, where I'd thought it originated. (See quotation below, from the source). (I appreciate a good sauce too, some of my best friends are sauciers.) -------- Sometimes, in the middle of the conversation, [Dodin-Bouffant] would rise, walk over to the favourite shelves of his library, select therefrom a rare volume of the Almanach des Gourmands, open it with the deft gesture of a habitual book-handler, and say: `Grimod de la Reynière wrote: “Sixth year. Chapter on bindings. The immoderate use of roux and coulis has formed all the charlatanism of French cuisine for the past hundred years.” ‘ -- from Marcel Rouff, The Passionate Epicure; La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet, Delamain, Poutelleau et Cie., 1925. English translation by Claude [sic], E. P. Dutton, 1962. LCC number 62-7803.

I don't know myself -- French, I am only guessing -- nor did I get a chance to dine there when Masa was alive. One who did described him as "irreplaceable" to the region, after his untimely death in a family fight of some sort. There was press about the restaurant when Masa was there (though how much of it is transcribed online now, I don't know). The link above has some history (and by the way, is also thick with pop-ups too and Who Knows What Else) but it seems to dwell on more recent, post-Masa days. An element of Japanese influence on traditional European cooking as practiced in the Bay Area surfaced around the 1980s and I gather was popularized by the California Culinary Academy (CCA) in SF, which trained many fine-dining cooks in the area. All the recent graduates seemed to want to slip Wasabi into otherwise minimalist reduction sauces by the early 90s, that sort of thing. (This had no connection to Masa, that I know of.) -- Max

Just as a historical note, for anyone here who doesn't recall: Before the French Laundry with Keller, the Bay Area had Masa's with Masa himself, and he was a local legend. Then Masa was murdered in (?) 1985, and the restaurant has continued under various chefs. And some outstanding wine experts -- To offer a further example of Murray in action, one Bay Area co-operative wine-tasting circle does a dinner annually at a restaurant, which assembles a menu to go with special wines. (Group members are wine trade, one or two winemakers, and experienced enthusiasts.) A few times in recent years this dinner was at Masa's, and Murray had joined the restaurant shortly before one of them. Besides his relaxed and knowledgeable professionalism, while opening and checking our wines he spied two counterfeit Burgundies on the basis of cork or capsule labeling (I don't have the details at hand right now) slightly off the usual for those particular wines. This was later confirmed. (The wines had been bought on the secondary market from a reputable firm by a winemaker who knew them fairly well, by the way.) It was a good "catch" and a credit to his expertise.

I should have added (to complete the story) that the driver and passenger immediately returned the compliments, with imagination -- this was Paris, after all -- and spectators nodded their approval.

In my case, as a wine consumer, the sensitivity comes from reading public Internet wine forums for a while (20+ years) and seeing the grousing come up so steadily. At the same time, I've seen how separate are the realities of a restaurant's view of wines from those of consumers. I've seen restaurants whose wine dept. is the main profit center, others where it's a loss and a courtesy to the customers (and the two may use identical mark-ups). Some restaurants do brisk wine sales for business dinners selling carefully chosen "power" brands, that will convey sophistication (but not too much: they wouldn't want a label that the clients haven't heard of, naturally); others lead their customers with eclectic lists of value wines few have seen, but many enjoy once tried. I've also known restaurant customers who obsess about things like separating out the parts of the bill, to avoid leaving half a dollar too much tip. (A friend used to argue, when we were in college, that a large group with one server should leave the same total tip as a small group, because it takes no more more work to serve more people at the same table. This friend was not speaking from experience, of course.) -- Max

That wasn't my drift at all, I've no such prejudice. I'd be interested to see such arguments. (I gave an ad-hoc example of an argument from external basis, for an individual restaurant "X," in my previous posting, and I've seen real examples of those.) I was only saying in this context that there's plenty of grousing online (in general, not specifically here) with evident support of the armchair. Theorem: Given any mark-up, Internet readers can be found who will complain. (Corollary to the old principle that given any California wine at all, a county fair can be found that will award it a medal!)

As someone whose whim is more limpid than lucid, I fail to comprehend. Would you terribly mind explaining why this is objectionable? Think about argument referring to a shared reality. (For instance, restaurant X charges much higher markup than its peers.) These arguments take work, they make us adapt our notions to realities, etc. Complicated, abstract. Argument from a purely internal reality, on the other hand, can be uncomplicated, sincere: (Five-year-old: "It's not FAIR !") A type of confident Frenchman, for example, is sometimes observed by outsiders (Peter Mayle; the food-related writing of Wechsberg or Bemelmans or Liebling; even Tintin I think). Mounting an argument that makes sense solely to himself, then adding "C'est logique!" (With a decisive nod.) Or the person who reaches your phone number by mistake, and blames you for it. Or a pedestrian I saw a few months ago (by chance also French, though it could have been anywhere) stride carelessly into the Boulevard St.-Michel, escape injury as an alert driver braked to a halt, curse out the driver who'd just saved his life, and speculate on the profession of the female passenger. No lack of clarity about it, to him. (Glorious lucidity of whim!) A cousin of the "marvellous lucidity" in Marcel Rouff (below). That was the phrase I first thought of, for the previous posting. (If the source is hackneyed -- I myself have been using it online since early 90s -- I'll argue also that it's good. C'est logique!) "... Châteauneuf-du-Pape which blew into the soul like a good ocean wind into a sail, all the sunshine it had stolen, all the fervour of that baked earth of the Rhône Valley, its spiritual mother-country, and which, in waves of enlaced tannin and raspberry, brought to the brain a marvellous lucidity." -- Marcel Rouff, The Passionate Epicure; La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet. Delamain, Poutelleau et Cie., 1925. English translation by Claude [sic]. E. P. Dutton, 1962. US LCC number 62-7803.

I thought about this and excluded some places that missed on the walking part. That leaves Austin around the University or where they play music Berlin where they stop and wait for the “Walk” light at 4AM with no traffic in sight Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Hillsborough, and “even” Greensborough in season Colorado Springs which is something of a walking city by any measure Delft, ancient college town full of cafés and outrageous sandwiches Greater Dallas in the pedestrian areas or the urban-renewed downtown with the brick and the wine lists Göttingen with its medieval village look and well-behaved disarmament protests Hong Kong several neighborhoods, distinct, don't forget the long escalator Ithaca (NY) with its gothic scenery -- again in season Key West which has a restaurant or two Las Vegas, yes, actually, if you can stand the touts or it is off-season and they’re down to 3 or 4 per km Minneapolis in the winter, going underground and through all those shops and so on as people do Monterey (CA), the old town, scarcely changed in 40 years Newark in the snow, yes New Orleans, many times Portland, again v. pedestrian city and always has been Toronto, after dinner, and not just to La Tour Plus Haute Du Monde Vancouver, which many Californians envy though they scarce admit it Vienna, especially the 1st and 7th, which conveniently are full of restaurants. It is an amazing walking city -- surely a factor in so many people staying trim despite Wechsberg’s five or six meals daily. Also, they all own dogs.

"Diesel" is a new word to me for what I know as petroleum or (different term, same point) petrolatum (Vaseline™), the familiar signature of wines benevolently affected by Botrytis cinerea before picking. Among all this strange-sounding smell language, that metaphor seems unusually apt, and widely supported by tasters. Once sensitized, you'll likely spot it with ease. It's not limited to Rieslings; botrytized wines show the same component with other varietals, such as those used in Sauternes and Barsac. (Just a couple days ago at a blind tasting of 2002 GC red Burgundies we were treated in sequence to barnyard, Brett, mercaptans, and -- in one case -- curry spices. And to top it off, we had our wallets lightened memorably in the process. ...)

You are not the only one who thought so! (But I would not want to try to explain it to an innocent query like the recent one here about Merlot in the movie Sideways.) Silicon valley by the way sees a lot of business dining, which includes a certain amount of wine-upmanship. (I could tell some stories ...)

Here is something I posted publicly in 2003 in praise of good German Rieslings. [At US retail as low as $15 and even $10] I have had excellent luck in the last five years with the growers Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt, Dr. Loosen, Egon Müller, von Othegraven, J. J. Prüm, Josef Rosch, and St. Urbanshof in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer appelations; Hermann Dönnhoff in the Nahe; Peter Jakob Kühn, Prinz, and Robert Weil in the Rheingau. Good Mosels etc. often show an enticing delicate aroma of lime, or other citrus, where Rheingaus, on the palate, may show peaches or honey. [These wines are amazingly versatile with all sorts of foods. 48 hours ago I pulled a Loosen Riesling Kabinett 2000, for some eGulleteers at a restaurant gathering with several seafoods, and I think they concurred.] I am dismayed to learn that I'm unreal, as a Riesling freak. Also, taking nothing away from Theise and the other dominant US importer, gringos in the know benefit from the remarkable, smaller, intense importer-retailer Dee Vine Wines, located on a pier in San Francisco (Dade Theriot and his associates), 877-389-9463, www.dvw.com . As Kermit Lynch did 25 years ago with Rhônes and Burgs, Theriot (who handles all those above and many more) busily introduces US customers to premium and small German sources; this includes winemaker visits and tastings.

Corkage fees have been a hot topic around US fine-dining restaurants and customers for decades. (Since before this site, before Ch*wh*und, before Squires, before newsgroups; before the first paper publications of the Wine Sp*ctat*r or the Wine Adv*c*te or the other US consumer wine publications that preceded them.) In the SF area in recent years, some high-end restaurants raised corkage fees or initiated bottle limits such as two bottles. The latter has caused conflicts with collectors who sought to bring in a group of unique historic wines for a potentially historic dinner, and the policy was enforced rigidly. That however is not an everyday problem. More common with corkage lately in my opinion has been the issue, cited by Mark Sommelier on this site, of abuse by diners who want to interpret "corkage" at their convenience, without regard for etiquette of the situation, or common sense. Bringing in moderately-priced bottles that duplicate the list, so as to save a couple dollars; or griping on Internet forums about restaurant markups, whatever these happen to be, judged with the glorious lucidity of whim. Corkage is occasionally even an opportunity for a restaurant to make a statement. A menu I have on file from a spirited, inventive bistro in silicon valley a couple of years ago states an unusual house policy: Corkage fee: Silver Oak $500, everything else $17

I'm in general agreement with the spirit of that, but my own experience, in several meals at each over the years, would differ on the point of "ingredients," as they actually show up on the plate, and this is related specifically to the format difference. CP [restaurant] has typically featured le menu of the day (French sense), prix-fixe. This can produce focal, elaborate courses. I remember stopping by at noon to drop off some wines for a dinner (1988) and Paul B. showing a whole boned lamb being rolled up with winter vegetables and truffles inside for long poaching in stock. In contrast, my experiences at CPC has emphasized things along the lines of imaginative pizzas, pissaladières, pastas, rustic stews. I hope earnestly that you will have the opportunity to return and dine at the restaurant, Andy (preferably a few times!) and then compare the two, as I am doing here. -- Max

Thanks for an engaging report. I just saw it after posting some comments on CP's origins in the "Regional Californian" thread here. (Which in turn cites a different CP thread, also in this subforum.) I wanted to point out a source of some confusion. The restaurant "Chez Panisse," which established the name, is downstairs. The casual café upstairs originally (if I remember after many years) served just coffee; later with the restaurant's success it opened with its own open kitchen, as a casual spin-off (subject of the Pasta, Pizza, Calzone cookbook, ISBN 0394530942). Paul Bertolli, long chef downstairs (and author of Chez Panisse Cooking, ISBN 0394559088) used to tell me in the 1980s that they were essentially separate businesses, though part of the larger whole. Locals would make a distinction. As the restaurant became known further away, the new phenomenon surfaced of journalists eating a pizza or writing a review of the upstairs café and labeling that as "Chez Panisse" rather than the Chez Panisse Café. Which is a different, well-regarded place in its own right. The overlapping names of these very distinct establishments, one literally on top of the other, contribute to this blurring. -- MaxH

I consider myself a native (after some generations). Imported or adapted foods are a tradition in the San Francisco area including the Cantonese subculture around SF's Chinatown since 19th century, and the Italian-Americans who set up various things in that town, for example Amadeo Peter Giannini (born 1870 in San José) with his Bank of America (originally the Bank of Italy). Quoting chefzadi: Let's talk about regional differences in California. Some questions: 1. What type of cuisine did you grow up eating? Various. 2. When did you first try another ethnic cuisine? Can't remember, my parents were food fanatics and always trying new things. 3. When did you start noticing ethnic restaurants? On first noticing any restaurants, as there had always been a mix. Especially, Chinese. 4. Do you remember which types of ethnic restaurants first opened in your neighborhood? There were already Chinese ones there, and others. What came after? Well, in 1971 an upstart French-bistro-type restaurant opened nearby (1517 Shattuck, Berkeley) and there went the neighborhood. Gradually the family-owned soda-fountain drugstores, the Goldbergs' delicatessan ("The Pantry Shelf"), variety store (MacLarty's), and other small-town US institutions -- all local family businesses, by the way -- were displaced by nouveau specialty food shops (later dubbed the "gourmet ghetto") selling exotic cheeses and intense chocolate products (e.g., later, 1980s, an expensive flourless chocolate cake in the shape of El Salvador labeled a "Revolution Torte" -- Marie Antoinette, where were you???) One ancient apothecary, on Vine Street, (McCaffie's?) that used to have a barn out the back with 19th-century chemicals -- no "pull dates" then -- became a retail complex and on the corner, a man named Peet sold fresh roasted coffee beans (he sold his business in 1979 if I recall) and acquired lines of addicts stretching out the door. The house at 1517 Shattuck (Chez Panisse) occupies a recent "Alice Waters" thread here. 5. What was the first ethnic meal that you had an ethnic friends house. Probably Mexican because we had friends down the street who had moved from there. -- Max (Edited to add name of specific recent thread.)

There is certainly some history. It was, and is, an interesting idea. Felton-Empire (label of Empire Vineyards, Felton, California -- AVA Santa Cruz Mountains) bottled varietal grape juices very much like this description, and received a write-up about it in, if I remember, Vintage magazine (US), and some retail buzz. I bought a dozen at the time after reading about it in Vintage, and I probably still have the article on file. That was in 1980. I did not keep up with the product. I last looked into Felton-Empire in 1995 at the winery, by which time the business had shifted focus to exotic fruit wines (again from memory) and when I asked they said that they were not then bottling the varietal juices. I replied in the wine subforum where I thought the query might get more response, since wineries made these products. By the way, I stop at Navarro sometimes when in the Anderson Valley, it's a popular operation with a following. Located very near the small and respected Lazy Creek (known now for Pinots) and the large and respected Roederer Estate (known for raising the standards and especially the subtlety of California sparkling wines in the 1980s, under the guidance of recently retired founding director Professor Michel Salgues.) Cheers -- Max

That is certainly how many people have thought of her over the years who came to know her work through acquaintance with the restaurant. (In the wine forum there was a thread on Celebrity Wines, including products with celebrity-chef names glued on to them. That's an interesting counterpoint to this thread.) -- Max

I second this, I recently recommended these elsewhere for a similar purpose. The widely distributed Louis Jadot Mâcon-Villages (Chardonnay) and Pinot Noir (or Bourgogne Rouge) have been entry-level Burgundian varietals for many people around the world (for at least the 30 years that I've seen them). But this brings up another issue not addressed in the request: Wines that are "good," and varietally typical, in this price range may well be made for drinking after some age. (That has been true of the Jadot Pinot Noir in some strong years, for example.) What is "good": Well made, for consuming at its peak, whenever that is; or most appealing right now? (The ambiguity is one of the traditional complaints about simplistic wine ratings, by the way.)