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Well, I finally have internet access back after AOL 6.0 completely screwed up my computer for a week.Let's see. Where to begin? Ah, Pinot Noir. What a wretched little grape. Thin-skinned and quite tempermental, it offers little but thin wines with acidity problems and weird, decomposition aromas. Frankly, all the vines should be pulled up around the globe. We need more potatos and corn to fatten all the hogs and steers we eat. Well, let me ammend that. It should be allowed to grow solely in Germany where Wittman has turned it into a very nice dessert wine.
It is my firm belief that those that eagerly proclaim their love of the grape are screwy and are not to be trusted. Nor should those, btw, that say they like Cabernet Franc.
The end.
Can I go home now?
Brad
Follow Ups:
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Wow, if this is what passes for wine columnism on the East Coast, maybe I should move to New York, New York and become the Queen of Wine Criticism!Now Brad (speaking columnist to columnist here), you'll never get sent on junkets to fine restaurants and hotels in places like Burgundy and the Loire and Oregon and Santa Maria (home of the best BBQ this side of Oakland!) unless you show some sincere appreciation for the wine that they're selling. Even fake sincerety is better than no sincerety! And free wine? How do you expect to get free wine unless they know you're going to say good things about it? Maybe if you wrote good things about Cabernet Franc or Pinot Noir then people like Dalla Valle and Pride might read it (believe you me, there are a lot of really important ITB people lurking here) and send you their big, massive, oaky Cabernet Sauvignon (those are the ones you prefer, right?) to write about. Or what if Bize Leroy or DeVillaine are reading this? Do you think they'd send you a bottle of Musigny or Romanee-Conti to review having read what you wrote about their grapes? Just think, if they liked you they'd send you free wine and you could bring it to the next Jeebus and everyone will be favorably impressed with your classiness, style and overwhelming generosity. Nobody has to know that you got it for free!
It's sure worked for me. By following Mr. Dressner's advice on how to get in good with wineries and get free wine, I got added to the list of people who get Callaway and William Hill wines. It's almost like a wine of the month club. They send a couple of bottles with information on them and all I have to do is tell them I'm planning to write about them. Maybe for my next column. I'm still trying to figure out if Callaway is a winery or a golf club company. I also heard they design aftermarket parts that make Corvettes go faster than normal (which is pretty fast anyway).Maybe I could tour their vineyards in a Callaway Corvette and then get a souvenir putter to take home instead of a wineglass with the logo on it? Hmmmm, might be a good idea for next month's column.Anyhow Brad, nice job on your first column. They get easier the more of them you do. I find it helps me a lot to have a couple of glasses of wine before I start to write. It makes me giddy and I write from the top of my head AND from the bottom of my heart at the same time. Kind of like walking and chewing gum at the same time only you don't have to figure out what to do with the gum when the flavor runs out.
Write on, brother!
Eden
PS: You really ought to try the 1994 Beaux Freres Pinot Noir. Even if it didn't get rated by Robert Parker it's still very good wine. It's redolent with things and has gobs of other things. It's mindblowing wine (for Pinot Noir) if you ask me.
Eden,It's great to see you in print again. It has been several days I think. You have such a nice, soft touch with your would-be colleague Mr. Kane. Maybe you will make an East Coast columnist of him yet. Though I admit I like the idea of your coming to New York to be Queen of Wine Criticism.
If you do, there is a great BBQ place in Queen's we can go to. It's actually Carolina BBQ, but it is located in Queen's so you can get there by subway - or SUV (but not by Corvette).
Your fan,
Jeff
As I recall, they also had a branch in Berkeley.
Everett & Jones, most likely, or maybe Flints?
that this mis placed Texan stumbled into one hot weekday. Its called the "Back Forty". Owned by Texans so you pig lovers, no joy. But if ya fancy fork tender brisket smoked twelve hours over oak with black crust (candy), chicken fall apart tender, steak fries (Ore Ida? He**, sides were never a big deal with Tx. BBQ) and passable BBQ beans, then this is your place. One hint, put the sauce on the fries, not the brisket, it simply doesn't need it. Don't even think about a wine to go with it. Now, back to deepest, darkest, lurker mode , going, going, gone.......
As two such eriudite folks should know, there is NO barbeque west of Winston-Salem.Second, there is no such thing as barbeque that comes from any other animal besides the saintly swine.
Third, barbeque is cooked over hickory not oak. What is this Helen Turley barbeque?!? (no offense Helen, if you're lurking).
Fourth, if it has "sauce" coming out, it is probably that thing mistaken called barbeque by the unschooled, which is Texan/Tennesseean for ketchup sauce. This has absolutely nothing to do with barbeque, rather with the bad taste of Texans/Tennesseeans (no offense Al Gore, if you're lurking).
Fifth, while Pinot Noir might do in a pinch, Gruner-Veltliner is the wine of choice when eating that most beautiful, and scrumptuous (not to mention oodles of unctuositiness) gift of the noble pig.
I hope this has cleared things up a bit.
cheers.
Everyone knows that the only perfect match for barbeque is Jamaican Meat Wine. It's meateriffic!
Dear Mr. Dressner,Somehow, I never pictured you as the BBQ sort. Of course, maybe you're one of those guys sitting in their Mercedes in the parking lot dribbling sauce all over their Armani suit...
Flint's BBQ is the one that got the publicity. They have a place on San Pablo in Oakland and another one on Shattuck in Berkeley by the Starry Plough that just reopened after having been closed for a couple of years. Everett and Jones (San Pablo and University by the Smart & Final store) has been improving radically (good adjective for Berkely, huh?)recently but my favorite is still Doug's. They're sort of under the shadow of the freeway on San Pablo in Oakland and in addition to the usual ribs and chicken and ham they also serve goat. Some people might say that it doesn't really matter much at all WHAT sort of meat you're eating when it comes to BBQ but I like it. And it's also fun to tell people that you're having a beer with your birria! (some local humor there).
However much I like the Oakland/Berkeley BBQ thing, I'm still partial to Santa Maria Style BBQ. The Hitchin' Post has the best reputation (and a good winelist featuring their own Pinot Noirs) but my favorite of all time is Jocko's. It's in Nipomo, a cinderblock building with mooseheads on the wall and big hunks of whatever meat you're ordered. The steaks are as good as it gets, the lamb chops are about the size of a whole lamb and the pork chops are about the size of a softball. They're cooked over CA live oak and they don't seem to mind if you bring your own wine with you. When you go there, say hello to Holly, who is the bartended. We worked together at Trader Nick's in Pismo Beach one summer. She used to be an exotic dancer. I learned a lot from her.
Now you've got me all in the mood for BBQ but the traffic across the bay is absolute hell on a Friday afternoon so I may have to wait until tomorrow and talk Chet into driving me and the boys over to Doug's for lunch.
Drooling as I type,
Eden
I used to go to Flint's on San Pablo for lunch. At the time, I was working as an apprentice in the International Typographical Union at a shop in Oakland. We had hot-metal em spaces and en spaces and were making the transition to 'cold' type. Storage of text was on paper tape and the display showed 32 characters. People came from miles around to visit the amazing new technology my bosses had installed.Good ribs and like good wines. They evoke a time and place. Thanks for reminding me of Flint's. I hope I'm allowed back in the Bay Area some day and can try your other recommendations.
Anecdotal evidence to support your contentions would be instructive and entertaining for your readership.
"Anecdotal evidence to support your contentions would be instructive and entertaining for your readership. "Okay. You like Pinot Noir and Cab Franc and we all know you're screwy.
I rest my case.
Brad
Wow. I have never witnessed such a display of Socratic prowess. You're pretty well canned Joe.QED.
BTW, I hate Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc. That is unless they have oodles of creamy something or other. I'm really only interested in gobs of oodles of points. Points taste much better than Cabernet Franc. I think that Jeff should bypass the whole pain-in-the-ass thing about growing grapes and make wines directly from points, oak, and dye. As we all know Pinot Noir is a grape for people who are too wimpy and scared to drink Cabernet Sauvignon, which is the best wine with every food in existence, that's why it's on all the wine lists, DUH! I should submit this column to the Wine Brats, I think they'd like you too Brad.
cheers.
That's very nice, Brad.I'm glad to see you're back online and on your way towards an exciting career as a wacky internet wine character. Those westerners were starting to rib us mercilessly about their prolific and colorful correspondent and we had little to rebut them with until now.
Am I to believe that you're not even a fan of the legendary Beaux Freres 1994 pinot noir? The mind boggles.
And speaking of cabernet franc, didn't a little bird tell me that you were laying down institutional quantities of Breton Les Picasses 1997? I would hate to think this was one of those internet hoaxes that we all keep hearing about...
Champagne? well, I guess chardonnay could be used for this instead
I had a very nice sparkling wine last night, a "Blanc de Noirs" made entirely from Pinot Noir grown in the St. David's section of Niagara-on-the-Lake by Chateau des Charmes. It was fairly straightforward, but had some depth and potential for development in the bottle. A good use of the crop I thought. Most of the red table wine they make from Pinot Noir would be good Kane torturing material.
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