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Wine (alt.food.wine) Devoted to the discussion of wine and wine-related topics. A place to read and comment about wines, wine and food matching, storage systems, wine paraphernalia, etc. In general, any topic related to wine is valid fodder for the group. |
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Copia
I've spent little enough time in the Napa area in California despite growing up nearby, and visiting family on the other side of it, and that little time was, anyway, mostly before the shift from agricultural to recreational renown. By 1987 in Napa wine country, "one is treated as a tourist," complained David Yee on a Bay Area Internet newsgroup (message ) which I answered that generally one IS a tourist, so where is the problem?. By 2003 a wine Web-site contributor would cite offhand "the hordes of tourists just looking to get schnockered on the weekend" along Highway 29 as justifying winery tasting-room fees. (Both were uncommon in times now past.) I was a tourist this weekend, with some friends of whom one was involved a little in the design of the museum exhibits at the Copia center in Napa (www.copia.org) and she was eager to show us the place. (Also, it was her birthday.) I was pleasantly impressed viewing Copia, and would happily return. The grounds are serene and relaxing. (One of our group, arriving early, hiked for an hour on the trails behind the building.) The displays on US food and wine history, which could so easily have been shallow or commercial, actually reveal some of the complexities, the bite. Irony is not overlooked. For example the account of a Mr. Graham, a 19th-century preacher of the health benefits from whole grains and vegetarianism, giving the US the idiom "Graham flour" to fine whole-wheat (UK "wholemeal") flour [1], ends with the unpolished reality that despite his own therapy, Graham remained sickly all his life and died relatively young. Classic US cookbooks appear in hands-on facsimile editions, starting with Eliza Leslie's influential 1837 _Directions for Cookery_ (still regarded by people who know it as one of the very best US cookbooks written) [2]. The display on wines does start with an introductory paragraph on wines being non-mainstream in US habits (labels unfamiliar to many people, sommeliers and rituals intimidating, etc.) but then the text makes as if to depart from this picture today, though I believe that many people would still call it apt. At the end of the exhibits, a visitor-comments display raises thoughtful and provocative points. We heard some inside bits about the displays (one of them has 144 forks, contractor staffers went out for fast food all over to get the wrappers in the wrapper display, the large wine bottle that serves as a video screen with selectable labels was technically hard). The building has two floors, with exhibits upstairs, and meeting and demonstration facilities scattered around. The large and partly volunteer staff, all of whom seemed enthusiastic on that day, were preparing for an evening function in the facility as the museum closed we left. Ogier Côte-Rôtie Even with California's wine accomplishments, highlighted at Copia, US consumers can get wines of many countries and need not limit themselves. So too with the long wine list in a popular restaurant at dinner in nearby Yountville (whose chef was especially kind to my friend with the birthday). As designated wine geek at this dinner, I checked the list and marked prospects with the wooden clothespins lying around (they had been napkin holders). As I discussed wines for the meal, the sommelier too was enthusiastic about the 1995 Ogier Côte-Rôtie. And with reason, we all saw later. The nose was amazing even for a good Côte-Rôtie. Lush with wild raspberries, surprisingly Burgundian anise, and complexity. A wine to match the one in Rouff's _Passionate Epicure_ that "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 Rhone Valley, its spiritual mother-country, and which, in waves of enlaced tannin and raspberry, brought to the brain a marvellous lucidity." I bought the 1997 of this wine when it was current in the market; how I wish I'd bought the 95 too. Mark Lipton has long advocated this producer here on alt.food.wine also. -- Max Hauser [1] Among the dialect differences between US and UK English, most are more important and better known than "Graham cracker" vs. "digestive biscuit" -- the two are not quite equivalent, either -- but few have a longer history online. An example is currently archived via http://tinyurl.com/5ejqg [2] Eliza Leslie's book is readily available today new or used in the Dover facsimile edition as ISBN 0486406148. |
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Max Hauser wrote:
> Ogier Côte-Rôtie > > Even with California's wine accomplishments, highlighted at Copia, US > consumers can get wines of many countries and need not limit themselves. So > too with the long wine list in a popular restaurant at dinner in nearby > Yountville (whose chef was especially kind to my friend with the birthday). > As designated wine geek at this dinner, I checked the list and marked > prospects with the wooden clothespins lying around (they had been napkin > holders). As I discussed wines for the meal, the sommelier too was > enthusiastic about the 1995 Ogier Côte-Rôtie. And with reason, we all saw > later. The nose was amazing even for a good Côte-Rôtie. Lush with wild > raspberries, surprisingly Burgundian anise, and complexity. A wine to match > the one in Rouff's _Passionate Epicure_ that "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 Rhone Valley, its spiritual mother-country, and > which, in waves of enlaced tannin and raspberry, brought to the brain a > marvellous lucidity." I bought the 1997 of this wine when it was current in > the market; how I wish I'd bought the 95 too. Mark Lipton has long > advocated this producer here on alt.food.wine also. Nice notes, Max. Given your apparent Burgundian tilt, I am not at all surprised that you responded well to an Ogier Côte-Rôtie. IMO, the perfume of a good C-R is one of the closest things to the nose of a good Burgundy, unless of course you're drinking one of Guigal's quercophilic single vineyard offerings. In all honesty, one reason for my praise for Ogier concerns his pricing. I also like the C-R's of a number of other producers (Gaillard, for instance) but the cost is often prohibitive. Mark Lipton |
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