PORK AND PINOT (AND OTHER THINGS THAT DO NOT SUCK)

Went to Ravenswood yesterday to celebrate Labor Day through the time-honored tradition of gorging myself on pork products. James, a friend from my old company Maverick Wines, had acquired two twelvish-pound pork shoulders and a pair of briskets, and had loaded them into a waist-high smoker to cook for - and this is a conservative estimate - 343 hours. In attendance were several other ex-colleagues from Maverick as well as a random assortment of James's other wine industry friends, neighbors, and seemingly every dog for a 16-block radius. The pork was sublime, not least because we had to wait for literally hours until the shoulders reached the magic temperature (180° Fahrenheit.) With so many wine industry types in the audience, there were some pretty kickin' bottles on tap. Here's what I drank with my sweet, sweet pork meat:

Weingut Prager 1997 Riesling Federspiel Weissenkirchner Ried Steinriegl

(No picture; Prager's website is not very copy-and-paste friendly.) Prager is one of my favorite Austrian producers, which is kind of like saying Tiger Woods is a pretty good golfer, or that I have a boner for Adriana Lima. Color was medium piss-yellow, with that inscrutable opacity that these wines take on after their first youth. Funky, unyielding nose at first, then gradually gave up notes of white mineral and Meyer lemon. Again, hard as nails on palate, but finally gave up more citrus notes, lime, white pepper, and stone dust. The bottle was drunk quickly, which is a shame as this had barely found its feet before it was gone. This has another ten, fifteen years of good life, easily.


Marcel Deiss 2002 Engelgarten Bergheim


Marcel Deiss is notable for its wines that are not varietally-labeled, but rather are "field blends" of multiple grape varieties grown in a single vineyard. His wines are expressions of terroir, rather than of varietal typicity (that's the Engelgarten vineyard at left.) This vineyard, and hence this bottling, contains Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Beurot, Muscat, and Pinot Noir. Deiss's wines rock my world. This had a dark straw color, with a subtle nose of tangerine rind, petrol, and musk. Sadly, on the palate this showed the unmistakeable wet basement funk of TCA, and the fruit was really mute. Still, intriguing flavors of mushroom, wood smoke (or was that the pork?), and more petrolly, minerally flavors managed to poke through. People kept coming back for this in spite of its being corked, and I really wanted to see how a more pristine bottle would have showed.


Furst 2004 Spatburgunder Centgrafenberg



Ahh, German Pinot Noir. Confusing as all get-out. Robert Parker hates these wines, and it makes perfect sense as he's a simple man with simple tastes, and not much patience for what he doesn't immediately understand. For me, these wines can go one of two ways: sublime and delectable, or ungainly and weird. This bottle showed a classic Spatburgunder nose of candied cherry, rose petal, and iris. Palate gave cherry lozenge, cinnamon, nutmeg, clay, and a sweet earthy note that I pick up in a lot of German Pinots. Had a glass, then didn't really want another one. Furst is a great producer, but this wasn't entirely my cup of tea.


Michel Tete 2006 Julienas Domaine du Clos du Fief


A wine from New York importer Joe Dressner, which for me is usually a good and often a great thing. Julienas is one of the 10 or so villages that make the very best Beaujolais, a wine that is kind of like Burgundy's little brother. Joe imports almost exclusively organic and biodynamic wines, and while Tete's wines aren't certified as organic, they're almost certainly de facto so. This was a rush of bright red berry fruit, girded with enough dark mineral to give it some tension. Just plain delicious juice, wonderful served as it was with a slight chill, and a mercifully accessible bottle after the German Pinot. Given that I wasn't really expecting to be blown away, this was definitely the sleeper hit of the night.

As it happened, the Michel Tete also gave me the push I needed to leave. A woman walked into the kitchen where I was standing over the pork platter, feeling dazed by my meat intake. She approached the wines and was looking at them quizzically. Her friend, who I'm sure was trying to be friendly and inclusive, looks at me and says, "Oh, you're a wine guy - why don't you tell Vicky what to drink over here?" Now I'll admit that being flattered as an expert always suckers me in, but I try to accommodate with as little fanfare as possible. Anyway, I figured I'd speak my piece and leave, so I said, "Drink the Beaujolais, it's beautiful." Whereupon "Vicky" turns to regard me. She's tall, rail-thin, pushing forty, and has both a ridiculous platinum dye job and the most heavily-made-up eyes of any woman I've ever seen who wasn't offering to blow me for forty bucks. I mean Jesus, this woman's father fucked a raccoon. Anyway, she gives me this dismissive sneer, then says, "Well, I've lived in France for almost ten years, and I have to say, nobody in France drinks Beaujolais." Now, I know this to be utter and complete bullshit, and she's qualified herself as a fucking moron, but whenever this sort of thing happens I ratchet up the charm to near-toxic levels and adopt my "oh, I didn't know that! Please, teach me, oh wise and wondrous sage!" demeanor. Anyway, I listen to her tell me how the French don't drink Beaujolais, that it's really a joke wine that only stupid Americans like, and the French wouldn't be caught dead drinking it, and that by the way, most Americans are really stupid. Meanwhile, "Vicky's" friend has poured some of the Michel Tete into her own glass and now holds it up to "Vicky" saying, "here, what do you think?" "Vicky" looks pityingly at me, takes a small sip, then says, in a very small voice, "that's really... good."

Yeah, bitch, you want to suck my dick now, or wait till after you've given my balls a tongue bath??!! Actually, that would be an insult to my testicles, of whom I'm enormously proud and who have never done me a wrong turn in their lives.

So maybe that's a bit harsh, but if so it's because it was the only obnoxious moment in an otherwise blissful lyric of mass meat consumption. I should probably just take solace in the teachable moment and cut the woman some slack. In any event, it punctuated an end to the party for me that was oddly satisfying. Please also note that my regard for James and his pork-shoulder voodoo is just sky-high, and I was careful to tell him in no uncertain terms how much of a culinary genius and overall mensch I consider him to be. Y'all find a well of sweet water, you don't piss in it, that's my advice. James, if you're reading this, thanks again for an awesome barbecue. Next meal's on me.