Jump to content

Steve Plotnicki

legacy participant
  • Posts

    5,258
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Steve Plotnicki

  1. Sure I think I missed something. Whose the one who told the story about the frogs legs as a kid? I think that's a great opportunity to have. In fact my kids have that, that's why they only eat pasta and butter But I don't think it was a matter of catching up. Although I think when you have a good palate that is muted by being kosher, the reality of "real food" was like a breath of fresh air. And you just want to breath a lot because it tastes so good.
  2. This thread has taken a funny turn from where I thought it would go. It reminds me of a producer I work with whose father was a famous composer. He spent a few weeks at Auberge Pere Bise in Annecy when he was something like 13 years old and he recalls they drank 1961 Palmer (that is one of the great wines of the last century for those who aren't wine savvy) which he got to taste every night. He talks of tours of their wine cellar where they had cases of it piled up everywhere. But he also spent summers in a rented house in St. Jean Cap Ferrat and he developed a taste for Bellet Rose (one of the crappiest, junkiest and cheapest wines in the world.) He always speaks fondly of both wines. It's sort of like reminiscing fondly over truffles and then cheerios. It's amazing how simple food that is a part of other good memories makes us attach a certain signifigance to them that extends beyond their merely being food. And it's the same for the Palmer. It was the being at Pere Bise, eating that famous chocolate cake every night that enhanced the experience. Ah if only I had a childhood like that instead of arguing whether the rugelach should or shouldn't have raisins (they should.)
  3. Verveine. I can't find the sachets in the U.S. so I bring them back five or six boxes at a time. If you are talking about dried piments d'Espilette, tru the Gratful Palate catelog as they sell some great dried and ground AOC piment by the jar.
  4. That's not true. Everybody has seen the movie "Pretty Woman" and everyone has heard the aria from La Traviata that is in it. If the version of the aria they used was sung by a singer who sang off key, everyone would know it and it would screw up the entire ending of the movie. How come we aren't taught to think of steak the same way? Or is off key singing more more obvious than burnt steak?
  5. Gavin - That'e because they didn't know that the French had figured out the right way to eat it . Seriously, we have had many friends that insisted on taking their meat well done. For years I tried convincing them that it would be better rare. But my results were about as good as yours. But over 20 years and countless meals they have taken in my home, the occassion came up where the meat was served much rarer than they would have liked it to be served. And it was the type of social situation where it couldn't be sent back for a bit more fire. So they took a bite here and there and guess what, they realized that rare meat was juicier. So while they still won't take it rare, they now at medium, maybe even slightly rarer than that instead of "burn the hell out of it" degree of doneness they used to eat their meat at. I wonder if there isn't some authority on this point? What is the history of meat being cooked well done, and when did it change to rare and who is responsible. J.D. - Very well done. More verses indeed. But I'm not proposing forcing anyone to eat it other than the way they choose to. But I am wondering (as Adam Balic tried to ask, but woefully ) why people would refuse to pay money for a bad opera singer but would gladly pay a hefty sum for an overcooked steak? How come society hasn't imposed (by teaching) similar rules about dining?
  6. Robert S. - Your post made me laugh in a good way. I think that there are two parts to this argument. One, is there such a thing as the difference between good and bad or is it all a matter of opinion? And secondly, if there is a difference between good and bad, is the answer something finite or is it a range. I think that Wilfrid and I are grappling with the first question, and then you come along and say well even if you can prove your theory in the first question, your stuck with a range because how do you compare Callas and Sutherland. Or really, why do you want to compare them? I think that I argue against the bundling of those two questions as irrelevent. Because for me the issue isn't comparing Callas and Sutherland, it's comparing someone who can sing opera with someone who can't. The mystery in what we are groping for lies between can and can't sing opera. That's because opera doesn't operate in a vacuum. It's a demanding discipline that you have to *know how to do.* No amount of opinion will make someone who can't sing it be able to. And to me, comparing well done steak with rare steak isn't something that is a matter of opinion, one is good (like being able to sing opera) and one is not (like not being able to.) I just think that since food is consumable, we don't look at it this way but that is what I am arguing should happen. Fershtaist?
  7. Hollywood - I don't have much experience drinking Coudelet. It's the perfect case of being on the wrong side of the highway. My gut always tells me to discount second bottlings from growers who are famous for a top bottling. I think places like Domaine Gramenon where all they make are Cote de Rhones have more of an incentive to make a bottling with some distinction to it. But I have some friends who swear by Coudelet so who knows. Limestone having an impact and being on a hillside are two different things. And I can blame my lask of oyster eating on my wife who likes clams on the halfshell but not oysters. Go figure.
  8. "We should meet up in London at the right time of year, and work our way through some feathered game." I'd rather fancy it was the Loire.
  9. Erica - Thanks for the input. But where the hell does one get a good Bourride? They used to have a fairly good one at L'Ane Rouge in Nice but the quality dropped years ago. I've never seen a good one anywhere else. And what is Provence Gastronomique?
  10. Wilfrid - Your response serves to illustrate that most of the times we quibble about semantics and nothing else. Because in your example, those people from another country are clearly wrong . And that isn't because you can't construct a rationale that wouldn't make their opinion be valid, it's that their opinion doesn't count. Now as hard as I'm trying to not sound arrogant when I say that, look at it this way. People who keep kosher usually eat their meat well done. The reason being that the laws of kashruth demand that blood be eliminated in the koshering and cooking process. So if you asked a room full of Orthodox Jews whether meat tastes better rare or well done, they are bound to say well done because they don't know any better. And I suspect it would be the same for your group of beef eaters. But a strict reading of Plotnickiism would say the following. If your group of beef eaters had access to the same meats we have, and didn't have any outside pressure not to eat rare meat, that given the chance to sample all sorts of meats cooked across the spectrum of cooking temperatures, they would conclude that rare is best. As least the discerning palates would. But I would bet that the more we increased the sample group of tasters, the greater the odds that we would end up with medium as the result. The real question that we are trying to crack is why can't we convince the people that like it well done that a rarer steak tastes better? Why do people so desperately cling to making choice be the most important thing about dining? And I have to add that I am guilty too but in different ways. Look how I haven't overcome my prejudices against game or tackled learning how to appreciate oysters correctly. Yet I think if someone beamed me to Brittany and tutored me I would be quite openminded about it. But few people are like that when it comes to food. Why is the big question.
  11. Well the reason that Ca. winemakers use the term "Hillside Grapes" is because grapes grown on a slope usually have more oomph to them. The reason being that the vines need to work harder on a hillside to find water and the harder the vines work, the happier the grapes are. Many of the worlds famous vineyards are on steep hillsides. Cote Rotie I already mentioned. But the Canubbi Boschis Vineyard in Barolo is very steep as well. As is the Hermitage vineyard. I don't know if it's true but, I had heard that the famous "Jackass Vineyard" of Martinelli Zinfandel fame got its name because you had to be a jackass to take a tractor on a slope that steep.
  12. Rich - But that's the same issue Wilfrid and I are talking about. Where you like to sit at the ballgame and what's the "best seat in the house" are two different things. If we were to stick with baseball and you told me that the best seat in Shea was in the upper deck, top row and last seat near the foul pole, I'd tell you that you are entitled to your opinion but I would also feel on pretty firm ground to say you are wrong. That's an easy one. Then again, calcaulating what the best seat is, is somewhat more difficult. But I'm sure there is a scientific way to take a crack at figuring it out. Field of vision, closeness to the players, where the plays normally take place, left hand vs right hand batters etc. And I'm sure that we would find that what consititues the best seat(s) are a range of opinions. But claerly some opinions wouldn't be valid because they wouldn't meet the criteria. I think the steak example is no different. You might like your steak well done, but it just happens to taste better when it's cooked rarer because it's jucier. But of course you won't buy into that because you want to argue about the definition of the word better. But if we were to poll 250 chefs in America and ask them what the "right way" to eat steak is, I bet you not a single one of them would say well done.
  13. Gavin - If you see a bottle in the U.K. of 1981 Beaucastel, it's stupendous. I'm not quite sure why that vintage for Beaucastel was so successful but the wine is truly a marvel. I get offers every now and then around 55 pounds from brokers in London. Considering how the 1998 is about 40 pounds, an extra 15 quid is amazingly cheap for a fully mature great bottle. And it has years of life left to go. As oppossed to the 1978 Beaucastel, also a terrific bottle but getting a bit dodgy at this point. In Cote Rotie, 1989 is drinking really well now for producers like Jamet and Gentaz-Dervieux. And you can find them in the U.K. in the 50-65 pound range. Thos are amazing bargains for top wines. I think the topic of mature wine and people's preferences deserves a thread of its own. But for now I can say that I think if you were to drink a perfectly stored bottle of the '81 Beaucastel, I would bet it would recalibrate your palate and then the youngishness of wines like the '94 and '95 would stick out more. Just a hunch. Rich - I think you have made some gross generalizations about how the French use the term terroir. If you had read through this thread, you would know that terroir is not a relative term, it is a trademark that can only be used legally if your grapes are grown within the applaltion. For example, if you were to label your wine Cote Rotie and it was found that the wine came from grapes that were grown outside of the 497 acres that make up the Cote Rotie appelation, you could go to jail. So terroir is not to be taken lightly. But that doesn't mean that there aren't smaller appelations where they misuse the phrase to make their wines sound important when the "terroir" they express really isn't very distinguishable.
  14. Here's Plotnicki's ranking of years. For the south which includes Chateauneuf du Pape, Gigondas and Rasteau 1998 1990 1989 2000 1999 1995 1997 1994 For Cote Rotie 1991 1988 1999 1998 1989 1995 For Hermitage 1990 1999 1998 1995 1991 I'm sure others will have varying opinions on this and they should chime in.
  15. Rich - That's not true at all. When you buy a ticket for the theater, you can't tell the performers how to sing the songs. They try to sing it the "right way" everytime. You might not like the way they sing it but your only choice is to leave. But you would send a steak back to the kitchen for more cooking or even to get a new one. And if the chef told you that rare is the "right way" to eat it, you wouldn't care. I have to add to this point that I used to insist on having my meal prepared my way. And sometimes I still do. But I must say that when a restaurant recommends to have the food prepared a certain way, I allow them to make the decision about 95% of the time. In fact, quite often they say they prefer to serve things medium rare and when I ask them to prepare it rare, I find out that it's their preferrence as well, and they chose medium rare as a compormise.
  16. Tommy - Here are a few good Cote de Rhones that are usually available in town for less than $20. Clos des Mure Roger Sabon Cuvee Prestige Domaine Reamejeanne Domaine de la Mordoree Lirac Those should be about $11 each. If you want to graduate to the next category, Domaine Cayron from Gigondas Domaine Aphelanthes (any of their three bottlings) Alain Graillot - Crozes Hermitages All around $20-$23 If you want to splurge a little, Domaine Gramenon La Meme Les Cailloux Chateuneuf du Pape Jerome Bressy Rasteau Gourt de Mautens Andre Soumade Rasteau Fleur de Confiance Between $30-$45 The next level jumps to about $60. Of course there are wines in between those prices but I don't think the quality changes that much. But starting at $60 and continuing through $165 a bottle it starts getting really interesting. Wine at around $60 which are stellar are, Beaucastel Chateaunef du Pape Jamet Cote Rotie Ogier Cote Rotie Domaine Pegau Chateauneuf du Pape Thierry Allemand Cornas The high end wines of the region(s) are Guigal La Landonne, Mouline, Turque $165 - $250 Chave Hermitage - $135-$200 Beaucastel Hommage Jacques Perrin $250 Henri Bonneau Reserve des Celestins $300 Les Cailloux Cuvee Centenaire - $200 Roger Sabon Le Sescret de Sabon - $300 Now go out and buy them and report back to us.
  17. Gee we must be doing good if Tommy offered a compliment.
  18. Wilfrid and J.D. - Well I'm glad we are getting away from the semantics of objective vs subjective. Although Wilfrid, I recall that earlier on you used a definition of objective as "agreed upon standards." And to me, to use objective to define a systemized way of tasting things. as opposed to a definition that relies on purely physiological distinctions is just hair splitting. But let's leave that alone. I think that Wilfrid's observations in his second point begin to reveal why the phenomenon exists. Unfortunately it's that dreadful old thing called money. I think that it's cheap to eat food and drink wine. Even an expensive meal. So people are loathe to allow others to set tastes and standards for them. But a paintings in a museum or a performence of a symphony orchestra cost millions to display or put on. And that people are more open minded to allow others to explain things to them when the cost is so far out of reach. This might not be the only cause but obviously one of them. Restaurant diners are always categorized as consumers. Just read Adam's post about the Bistecca Fiorentina. But people who attend a museum are not.
  19. Heron - Well you have asked all the right questions. Fortunately French wines are the least affected by the internationalization of wine. Although that's a debatable point as well but too esoteric for this conversation. But since New World wines are so much more accessable to winedrinkers, and by that I mean ripe, fuity, sweet, big and often ready to drink on release, they are sold for prices that are often higher than French wines that have been made for decades. Take syrahs made in the Central Coast of California. The better growers like Ojai can get $60 a bottle for their top wines. But there are better producers in the Rhone who make Crozes-Hermitage (syrah) that sell for $22. The French growers are starting to resent this disparity in wine pricing. A number of years ago one of the preeminant growers in Chateauneuf who sells his wines wholesale to his U.S. importer for $12, and which end up on the shelves of stores in the U.S. for about $22, told me that a number of the growers there were accutely aware of the disparity and had met with a number of mucky mucks in the industry to see how they could change that. Unfortunately, the obvious answer is to make wines in an International style. So many of them have started to make "special cuvees" for the American market. And of course the traditionalists aren't happy with these highly extracted, alcolohic, overripe non-terroir specific wines. As to Lesley's points, we visited five of the top estates in Chateauneuf in February and each one preferred their 1999 of the last three vintages. They all think it's the most typical. At this point the 98's are shut down ( a topic worthy of a different thread) and I'm not surprised they didn't show as well as the 2000's. But I was there tasting in March 2000 and the '98's were absolutely glorious then. But I cannot drink the wines when they are this young. The amount of tannin in the wine takes the enamel off my teeth. And while they are fruity, they haven't developed secondary flavors yet.
  20. Jd - Okay duly noted. But what I'm trying to get at is to show how people will accept systematic methodology (whether termed objectivity or not) for things like art and music much more readily than they are willing to accept them about food. Loads of people walk around museums with art historians or headsets but nobody goes into a restaurant with people who are expert in dining. The closest we get is a sommelier who is a walking encyclopedia of a discipline that seems alien to mere mortals.
  21. Wilfrid - I would think that if you were to find 1990 Clos Mont Olivet for sale somewhere it would cost around $65 a bottle. The 1989 somewhat less. Probably $50-$65. The 1998 vintage sold for about $25 on release. But if you were a good shopper (like moi) you could have found it in Europe for $16.50. You should try Winesearcher.com and load it in and see what happens. Mind you Clos Mont Olivet makes a luxury cuvee called "Cuvee Papate." The 1990 Cuvee Papete sells for $100-$150 a bottle. Personally I think the wine is a stinker though a lot of people like it. But I still see the 1998 Papete around for anywhere from $38-$75 a bottle (I know that's a big variance) and I think that wine is well worth laying away and will be an absolute gem around 2012-2015.
  22. MartyL is correct about Clos Mont Olivet. Their style of Chateauneuf-du-Pape contains a high percentage of ripe grenache and as such is always one of the easier wines to drink. So for example, the 1990 Clo Mont Olivet drinks beautifully now but the 1990 Les Cailloux is till tight as a drum and could use 3-5 more years of bottle age.
  23. Wilfrid - Neither are ready. The vintages that are drinking well are 1989 and 1990 except for the special cuvees which are going to need another 5 years or so. Some earlier vintages are drinking well like 1985. But many of the wines are past their prime.
  24. I started to write a long treatise on this and then my computer crashed. Blotto. Whomever asked the question about old world vs new world, while I'm no expert on the topic in terms of wine making technique, I can point to a few techniques used by the winemakers. The first issue is a matter of ripeness. New World wines tend to be riper and as such sweeter. So they let the grapes hang on the vines longer. For example, a few years back I was in the Napa Valley at the end of October and we visited Pride Vineyards. Aside from their Merlot which was already picked, the other grapes were still on vine. We were able to walk through the vineyards and eat them off the vines and they were so sweet and perfume like they tasted like port. There isn't a traditional winemaker who wouldn't have picked those grapes at least a month earlier. One of the attributes that wines pick up from being extremely ripe is the alcohol content is high. High sugar means high alcohol level. A second issue is once they crush the grapes, how long they let the wine lie on the musts. For those who don't know, the skins of the grapes after they are crushed are called musts and the period of time when the grapes are lying on the musts is termed "extraction." If you can see where this is going, New World or internationally styled wines are riper, more alcoholic and most importantly, much more extracted than traditionally styled wines because they are left to extract wine from the skins for a longer period of time (maybe some expert can jump in and be more specific.) Now while this doesn't necessarilly sound very controversial here is where the argument between the camps sets in and we will demonstrate it amongs wines in the Rhone region to make it be on topic. What makes a Cote Rotie a Cote Rotie, or a Chateaneuf a Chateauneuf, is that the trace substances that develop in the wines from those two regions are unique and discreet to the regions. For example, the entire area of Cote Rotie is 497 acres. It's really just a single steep hill that stretches from one end of the town of Ampuis to the other and it spans a few kilometers to the west of the town once you reach the crest of the hill. It's very steep, hence it's name. Cote Rotie translates to "Roasted Slope" and in fact the hill faces the Rhone river (I would say it's set back about 1/4-1/2 of a mile and gets direct and intense sun. The unusual micro-climate of the intense sunlight offsets that the temperatures would otherwise be too cool to grow grapes as mature as the ones you get on that hill. The "vineyard" is in reality numeous different vineyards strung together. I'm not sure how many there are but there are at least 30 vineyards that are contiguous. Each vineyard has it's own unusual charcteristics and they have been marked off accordingly. Some of the vineyards make intensely fruity wine. Some make a bottle full of minerals. Some might make wines that are a deep red color and some might be pale. Most bottles of Cote Rotie are a blend of various vineyards. Each winemaker might own small pieces of various vineyards because he wants to blend them into what would be a house style. But in general when we speak about the French codifying every acre of agricultural land in their country, this is what we mean. They painstakingly and scientifically did testing on parcels of land and segregated them by what type of trace substance occurs when grapes are grown on the location. The entire 497 acres has been split into two parts. The Cote de Brune and the Cote Blonde. So for those of you who buy and drink Guigal Cote Rotie Cote Brune et Cote Blond, you now know that it's a blend of grapes that come from both sides of the vineyard. The Cote Blonde is considered the feminine side and the Brune more rustic. Other growers like Rene Rostaing bottle a Cote Blonde which means the grapes come from just that side. And then certain growers might make their wine from a single location. The most famous vineyards are the three bottlings that Guigal makes which are "La Landonne," La Mouline," and "La Turque." Those are known as single vineyard wines because the grapes used are exclusively from those vineyards. But most bottlings come from a variety of vineyards and are blended by the growers. In addition, it is legal for the growers to blend in up to 5% of the white wine viognier in their Cote Rotie. Some do it and some don't. But it's done to give the wine a perfumed scent and a touch of elegance. So taking this back to the original question of Old World vs New World/International style, the complaint against New World/International style is that the various manipulations that the winemakers put those wines through (including what I described above as well as some other winemaking techniques others raised earlier and ones that haven't been mentioned yet,) removes or diminishes the trace substances that the particular vineyards are noted for. Say for example that two growers harvested grapes from a vineyard whose characteristic was that the wines had a strong mineral component. Well what would happen with the new world/international winemaker is that the manipulations would probably eliminate that unique characteristic from the wine. Where the old world/traditional style winemaker would do everything possible to highlight that characteristic. So when you hear any of us say that wines "taste of their terroir," this is what we mean. I believe it's the wines from the Lancemont vineyard in Cote Rotie that taste of bacon fat when they age and they are highly prized as a result. But it's entirely possible that a winemaker who practices New World technique would eliminate that feature of the wines through gross manipulations in the winemaking process. So this "internationalization" of wine is short for saying, making wines taste the same regardless of where they come from. And traditionalists who are good tasters can taste where wines come from and they do not want to see the nuances be drowned out because the demand of the international wine market is driven by people who are newer to wine, and are seeking a more consistant experience. Phew, that was hard to get out. I hope that made sense and it's probably a good starting point to work our way down the Rhone River (since Cote Rotie is the Northermost appelation considered a Rhone wine) and to go through each appelation in detail. Maybe somebody can add to what I've posted (or correct any innacuracies.) Maybe if a few tough questions are lobbed out I will try and get my friend Stephane Ogier to post a few answers. And maybe on the French board we can start an analogous thread about touring the Rhone and where to stay and where to eat and link it to this one. Because it's a very easy place to get to, the town of Ampuis being only a 20 minute car ride south of Lyon. It's literally in the suburbs of Lyon.
  25. Adam - But as you point out, there aren't laws that stop people from destorying works of art. I can go out today and purchase a Van Gogh and take a knife to it if I want. How is that different than food? Agreed that there is a culture that has grown up around art that would prevent the owner of a painting from destroying it. It's just that food isn't revered the same way. It's one of the points we always get to in our objective/subjective discussions. If people approached food more objectively, we would all eat better. And the fact of the matter, and I'm trying to figure out a way to frame the question so I can start a thread about it, we do approach it objectively but we refuse to admit it. Many people will readily admit that a painting they don't care for can still be great art if it is explained to them objeticvely. Just like Wilfrid comments on the ballet in the "Assessing a restaurant" thread. But people are loath to say that food is good when it tastes bad to them. There is some cultural gap when it comes to food that I would love to get to the bottom of. Fat Guy - Thanks for saying the same thing I said. The rights you speak of come from the Constitution and it's articles and ammendments which governs how the majority can act. Fortunately as part of the "American system," we set up a judiciary and legislative branch to balance the power the majority has. This way if the popular vote elected an Islamic fundamentalist, like it did in Algeria, much of what that government would try to enact would be considered illegal and not allowed. It's what I always say about suicide bombing. That it couldn't happen in a legitimate democracy because there isn't any way in the world condoning suicide would be considered legal.
×
×
  • Create New...