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travelogues

Livin’ large with Marge (California, pt. 6 & end)

15 November 2005 – Palo Alto, California

Lavanda – Searching for a place with good food that would allow some recalcitrant wine geeks to B a little of their O, I finally settled on this upscale establishment at one end of Palo Alto’s main drag. I’m a little early, and so I wander the streets for a while, finally entering to find that John DeFiore is equally early, and enjoying a drink at the bar. I wish I’d thought of that.

Lavanda has the usual California mix of suit-and-tie folk mixed in with casual, jeans-wearing students. It’s a restaurant that attempts to be formal, but is a little noisy and frenetic to really achieve it, with high quality but occasionally uneven food; order wisely. My meal is very nice, except for a buttery dish of truffled pasta in which they’ve severely overcooked said pasta, but my fellow diners seem well-pleased with their meals. The wine list is long and extremely interesting, and if one isn’t bringing wine there’s no lack of solid options. Service depends on who you have; one waiter is dismissive and cold, others – including, at one point, one of the owners – are warm and welcoming.

The highlight of the night, however, is supplied by Bill Futornick…in the form of his mother, Marge. She’s about fifteen pounds and four feet of pure sarcastic energy, and an absolutely hilarious dining companion. An example of her repartee:

“Winemakers always say to me ‘every wine is different because their soul is in it.’ That’s crap.”

She keeps us laughing late into the night.

Couly-Dutheil 1996 Chinon Les Chanteaux Blanc (Loire) – Beeswax and candle wax with lavender, white flowers, light oxidation and high acid. It seems quite faded, yet every once in a while there’s a surge of aromatics. Perhaps, rather than too old, it’s actually too young. That would be expected for chenin, but I’ve no experience with aged Chinon blanc.

Graillot 2001 Crozes-Hermitage La Guiraude (Rhône) – Leather and smoked nuts with dried berry skins, evaporations of sweaty horse, salted pork and some of that classic Northern Rhône meat liqueur. Soft and fading, then re-energized, then well-knit; a very good wine in the variable throes of adolescence.

Verset 1997 Cornas (Rhône) – Animalistic and sweaty more than actually funky (though there’s a bit of Bootsy Collins as well), showing firm but roughly-hewn and earthy blackberry, graphite and leather. Significant, but not unpleasant, tannin provides backbone. Impressive.

Baumard 1995 Côteaux-du-Layon “la queue de Paon” (Loire) – Beautiful, silken-textured sweet chenin cream, with lovely balance. There’s fruitspice and pungent, chalky apricot, but ultimately this marvelous beverage is all about its gorgeous texture.

16 November 2005 – Menlo Park, California

Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club – As a golfer, one doesn’t pass up invitations like this. The course itself is nice, pleasant, and not all that difficult (though it’s very much the off-season for me, and I don’t play that well), but the awe-inspiring clubhouse and the general amiability of the people makes for a most enjoyable afternoon. My host’s locker is right next that of Jerry Rice (“serious about golf, but not that good”), and during the round we cross paths with Bill Walsh, which completes a year of unexpected celebrity sightings…for whatever that’s worth.

Bovine beach blues (New Zealand, pt. 12)

[net on Okia Beach]The road not taken

Commitments are a strange thing. “Next time we’re in New Zealand, we’re going to do some hikes,” we’d agreed in the rosy afterglow of our 2002 trip, and at the time we’d fervently meant it. New Zealand’s incomparable natural beauty is, despite a general lack of roads, surprisingly accessible…but then there’s much more that’s not, unless one is willing to get out of the car, train, boat or tour bus and walk a bit. It was, at the time, a firm commitment to an ideal.

Of course, the strange thing about commitments and ideals is how they crumble in the face of reality. Neither of us much likes camping (Theresa’s just not into the hassles, while any affection I once had was thoroughly destroyed by the Boy Scouts, especially our northern Minnesota winter excursions – 30ºF below zero, all day and night – and their mosquito-ridden summer equivalents), Theresa has a downhill ski racing-damaged ankle and two similarly-damaged knees that ache to the point of immobility on extended downslopes, and, to be honest, neither of us have entered this vacation in the best of shape. An exploratory early-evening stroll around our villa on Waiheke Island drove this point home with accompanying dismay, when after a mere fifteen minutes of low-impact and low-speed walking we were sweaty, tired, and eager to sit down for dinner.

Nonetheless, surrounded by the natural majesty of the Otago Peninsula, we’re determined to overcome our self-induced obstacles. Not being fools, we’ve chosen to start our walking adventures on a flat track and in the cool of the early morning. Bill, our host at the Fern Grove Garden, delivers our breakfast – enough for three starving lumberjacks: fresh fruit, organic eggs, milk, bread, butter, and a rather frightening quantity of muesli – and serves of a side of some experienced advice on which tracks might suit our needs.

Basalt, salt, and the roar of the lion

A short while later, we’re in a dusty car park (really just a flat circle of gravel) with a field full of placidly munching cows gazing lazily over a long wooden fence at these interesting new intruders. We can hear the gentle scrape of the ocean beyond the horizonless pasture, but much walking lies between us and it. To our left, gentle hills turn steeper, full of grassy and fern-covered tumult. We open a gate next to a sign that announces the beginning of our journey – the Okia Track – and start down a rutted tractor path.

Ten minutes later, we’re back at the gate. It turns out that we’re on the wrong side of a fence. The commitment is strong, perhaps, but the skill may be lacking.

(Continued here…)

Another isle of sky (California, pt. 2)

13 November 2005 – somewhere above Cupertino, California

Ridge – Despite a number of visits to the Lytton Springs offshoot, I’ve never been to the original. So with picnic supplies in tow, we (me, Theresa, Larry Stein and his young daughter Shira) wind our way up the mountain…which is, I have to say, a much less silly drive than I’ve been led to believe, though I suspect comparison with New Zealand has something to do with this…for a little lunch and a little tasting.

Lunch is first, with a nice spread (from a Whole Foods somewhere down in the valley) on a picnic table amidst gnarly old hilltop vines, sun and sky all around us. With it, we enjoy a library release from the nearby tasting room; this is a practice I wish more wineries would mimic.

Ridge 1995 Zinfandel York Creek (Spring Mountain) – Ripe apple and concentrated strawberry jam, still tannic and firm but with fruit that’s starting to “roast” (a personal descriptor I have for one specific quality of aged zin) and I suspect it’s about half as rich as it once was. Drink soonish, I’d say, though it won’t outlive the tannin.

During lunch, an amusing conversation takes place between Theresa and Shira, who are chatting about some boy Shira either does or doesn’t like:

Theresa: “If I were single again, I’d probably go for an older man.”

Shira: “Why?”

Theresa: “Maybe a richer man.”

Shira, thoughtfully: “True. True.”

I glance at Larry, amused at the look of growing panic in his eyes.

Back inside, a busy but uncrowded tasting room offers a slightly smaller selection that I’m used to vs. the Lytton Springs facility.

Ridge 2002 Lytton Springs (Dry Creek Valley) – 14.4%. Scotch and blackberry liqueur, with thick, massive waves of oak and density. Very long, and I’m used to young Ridge tasting woody, but what’s up with all the heat?

Ridge 2003 Geyserville (Sonoma County) – 14.6%. Big berry fruit (mostly cherry and blueberry), showing good, zingy acidity and moderately-strong tannin. A good, balanced wine.

Ridge 2003 Zinfandel Independence School (Sonoma County) – 15.4%. Papery and flat, with dried, dust-covered berry residue. No thanks.

Ridge 2001 “Late Picked” Zinfandel York Creek (Napa Valley) – 15.9%. Chocolate-covered cherries. This is starting to mellow a bit, though it’s still dominated by its off-dryness rather than its inherent qualities. At least here, the size makes sense, but it’s not showing much of interest at the moment.

Ridge 2003 Zinfandel Buchignani Ranch (Sonoma County) – 14%. Dried walnuts and light plum with shriveled berry skins. Balanced.

This is a somewhat dismaying tasting. I’m used to Ridge zins being big, and also being less than inviting in their oak-infused youth, but when their future seems to include a choice of Port or Sherry wood maturation, I get concerned.

Transitory traumas (New Zealand, pt. 11)

[plane]It’s the most stunning flight ever.

I’ve flown over the towering spires of the Alps. I’ve flown over deep blue equatorial ocean flecked with glinting white. I’ve flown over the jagged russet shading of the Grand Canyon. They’ve got nothing on this series of views: isolated, snow-capped Mt. Ruapehu rearing above a few drifting clouds, the girdled regularity of Mt. Egmont and its endless downflowing rivers, flowing white-capped turbulence on Cook Strait, the delicate golden tracery of Farewell Spit, and then the towering, rust-colored Kaikoura Range in disordered majesty, bordered by the relentless oscillation of the Pacific Ocean.

Theresa encourages me to get the camera and take a few pictures through the plane’s tiny window. But no, I don’t think I will. Some pictures are beyond the lens.

In Christchurch, arriving later than we’d anticipated thanks to a delayed Auckland departure, we engage in the most unsecure of transfers – through a door, around a corner, and into an already-queued line of passengers, with nary a security camera or officer in sight – to our next flight. A thirty-three seat, double-propped needle in Air New Zealand blue and white sits on the tarmac, and Theresa immediately gets nervous; she doesn’t like small planes, she hates turbulence, and this flight promises an abundance of both. Amid the clatter and chaos of the care and feeding of an airplane, carts and hoses and identically-suited men swarming like workers ‘round a queen bee, we board the plane, passing our luggage – currently sunning itself atop an overstuffed baggage cart – along the way. We’ve paid $100 in “overweight” charges to get this already-irritating collection of clothing and wine onto the Waiheke Island ferry, onto an Airbus shuttle (as always, incredibly delayed and highly unreliable), and onto a small domestic jet. It’s amazing what the addition of a single case of wine can do to otherwise hassle-free travel, and my back still hurts from lugging the box across a busy Quay Street in Auckland.

The southward flight from Christchurch is bumpy and far less scenic than its predecessor, with the buffeting waves of the Pacific coastline petering out against low, rocky cliffs that only slightly elevate the farmland to their west. It seems we’ve barely ascended to a level cruising altitude when we make a slow, sweeping turn to the right and begin the seemingly endless westward descent to Dunedin’s remote airport, the enveloping hills turning green and lush and overrunning the last traces of farmland. A tiny, somewhat ill-designed terminal is packed with students returning from holiday (Dunedin is a major university town), and one by one they pull battered knapsacks and trunks from the conveyor belt and depart for re-acquaintance with friends (and, no doubt, re-acquaintance with hefty quantities of Speights). Eventually, we’re left with a dozen other forlorn-looking tourists and students, luggage-less.

(Continued here…)

Magnum, P.I. (California, pt. 1)

12 November 2005 – Los Altos, California

[pool at Sheraton]Sheraton San Jose – Actually in Milpitas, and way harder to get to from the San Jose airport than it should be, thanks to closed onramps and construction around the airport. It’s a good, solid business hotel with a lovely pool area, as “near to stuff” as anything can be in this sprawl.

Jeff & Lisa Cuppett’s house – We’re very close to fresh off the plane, so a low-key gathering chez Cuppett, with Jon Cook and Kira Maximovich (and the Cuppett’s sleepy progeny) in attendance, is just the thing. There’s crab “cakes” with remoulade, steaks on the grill, broccolini and blue cheese/bacon potatoes, but mostly there’s wine and conversation.

Christophe Pichon 2001 Condrieu (Rhône) – Pine needles, sweet white flowers, and floral spice with light, rindy bitterness on the finish. There’s good acidity, but this is generally a light-bodied and soft wine; not necessarily a criticism, though it’s not quite up to my other experiences with C. Pichon. It’s still one of the best available, however.

Bollinger 1992 Champagne Brut “Grande Année” (Champagne) – Very full-bodied (no surprise there), with biscuits, burnt peach skin and baked orange supported by big acid. I like it, but it’s either in an odd stage or not my favorite vintage Bolly, because I don’t love it.

mystery wine – From unlabeled magnum and from Thunder Mountain…that’s all we know at uncorking. The wine shows sweaty plum liqueur, strawberry eau de vie, and a soft, light-fruited but high-alcohol palate with low acid and little remaining tannin. Jon opines that it’s zin and either a ’93 or ’96, while Kira is certain that it’s a ’96 and that she knows the source. Bowing to their vastly superior experience, then, this is a Thunder Mountain 1996 Zinfandel Dusi Ranch (Paso Robles).

Freemark Abbey 1991 Cabernet Sauvignon Bosché (Napa Valley) – It’s my once-per-year positive tasting note on a Napa wine! Gorgeous, mixed powdery peppercorns with bright cherry and lovely tobacco notes. Balanced and structured (less tannin than acid at this point). I’ve had decidedly mixed experiences with Freemark Abbey – some horrible, some reasonably positive – but this is a really nice wine, and ready to go now (though it’s probably in no danger of immediate death, either).

Edmunds St. John 1994 Syrah Durell (Sonoma County) – Boozy and flat, with smoked leather and a heavy payload of tannin. Dead and hot. Something’s wrong here, and I don’t know that “closed” quite covers it.

Mud and melancholy (New Zealand, pt. 10)

[Marty thieving wine samples]Light petting

“Which turn is it?”

Sue consults her notes. “The one to the petting zoo.”

I press the brakes, glance in my rear-view mirror. “What?”

“The petting zoo. Look, there,” she points, “up that road.”

“You know, I’ve driven this road a dozen times, and I’ve never noticed that.”

We turn. A few forlorn animals – mostly sheep, and where can one possibly find those in New Zealand? – stare balefully at us from behind a short fence. They don’t look particularly eager to be petted…but given a total absence of potential petters, there doesn’t seem to be much danger of that. Nor of ticket-taking, or indeed of any two-legged habitation whatsoever. So are these just a bunch of animals in a pen? “Hey, come pet them if you want!”

The sheep provide no answer, though they do continue to stare.

An end to summer

Most visitors to Waiheke Island’s Mudbrick will not set foot or wheel anywhere near a petting zoo. That’s because they’ll be at the winery’s eponymous restaurant, highly-regarded among Waiheke’s limited dining options, which is situated quite close to the Matiatia ferry wharf. Instead, we’re amongst tree-lined vineyards somewhere not too far from Stonyridge, still with Sue & Neil Courtney in tow, in a clean, functional winery completely removed from the touristed byways of the island. We’re joined by Nick Jones, co-owner of the property, and a youngish chap (yet another!) named Marty, who turns out to be the winemaker, and we’re here to taste some wine.

Nick wears a light blue “Playboy 50” t-shirt with studied insouciance, while Marty attends to the actual business of tasting. They’re relaxed, jovial, and inclined more towards humor than serious wine talk, which is just fine with us after a long day of wine visits. We thus skip the preliminaries and get right to tasting, with our quartet interjecting the occasional question into the casual levity.

(Continued here…)

A passage to insight (New Zealand, pt. 9)

[David Evans Gander]A wrinkle in vine

“How do you go back to the place where everything changed…?” I asked, once, and from that question a travelogue was born. The “place” I had in mind was Milford Sound, on which much more can and will be written many narratives hence, but certainly other interpretations are possible. Here’s one:

“Hello?”

David Evans Gander pokes his head around a doorway. He’s casual in working shorts and shirt, knee-deep in one of those endless tasks that consume every morning, afternoon, and night of a winemaker’s existence. “Just a moment.”

We wait. It’s dark and cool inside, strangely silent outside.

A half-dozen moments later, he re-emerges with bottles in hand, ducks behind the counter of the now-closed winery café (really more of a pizzeria, to the apparent delight of most visitors) to retrieve some glasses, and groups us around a picnic-like table.

“So…how was Stony Batter?”

Rock is their forté

My first day in New Zealand was a bit of a blur. Not so much from jet lag as travel lag, a sense-dulling miasma of displacement and the nasty, filmy feeling of twelve hours of recycled airplane air battling the onrush of a world of new experiences and sensations. Among those sensations was a marvelous little wine – just a glass – shared with Theresa and Sue Courtney at Nourish. I’d spent the morning at Goldwater and Stonyridge, tasting a lot of wines that were – whether better or worse than I’d expected – familiar. But here, at this terrific little bistro, was a glass of sun-filled viognier that rose above all my expectations, especially for this highly cranky grape. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

Passage Rock 2001 Viognier (Waiheke Island) – One of the rarest of wine discoveries, a delicious viognier from somewhere other than Condrieu. Not that it tastes like Condrieu. There’s the requisite midpalate fatness, but it’s braced on both sides with excellent acidity and a lovely floral delicacy. Best of all, there’s no alcoholic heat.

Passage Rock. Few wineries I’ve not visited hold a special place in my heart, and none whereat I’ve tasted only one wine. And yet, there was something about that deliciously brief taste of viognier…well, if I ever got back to Waiheke Island, I vowed to visit. To see what it was all about, to get at the heart of the matter…no, I must admit, my aim was more personal: to try to recapture and relive that memory.

Sue talks about our morning while Evans Gander pours the wine and I study our surroundings. Passage Rock would be, in the absence of Stony Batter, the most remote of Waiheke Island’s wineries, and the facilities obviously represent a sort of haphazard expansion; needs-based, rather than designed. And while the vines fanning out from the main buildings replicate a descent to the sea found at our morning visit, it’s a gentler, slower, shallower descent to a much more distant shore. Which only adds to the feeling of isolation.

Soon enough, however, the first wines are in front of us and we’ve work to do.

(Continued here…)

Sheep attack! (New Zealand, pt. 8)

[Stony Batter bottles]Flocking together

A large, flightless mass akin to a colorful heirloom chicken scuttles across the yard, pausing every few feet to investigate a potentially edible morsel. Cliff and I emerge from our apartments at the same time to watch, which only serves to increase the velocity of its scampering and nibbling.

“It’s a weka, I reckon,” opines Cliff.

…

Swans, geese, ducks and gulls congregate in multiracial harmony on a beach that adjoins the Matiatia ferry wharf. Neither begging food from passersby nor twitching in fear from same, they bask in the sun, preening and squalling as the ferry noisily chugs, groans, and squeaks into its berth. Our guests have arrived.

…

A not-so-stealthy and rather ridiculous-looking black, blue, and white bird with a vivid orange beak and grossly un-proportionate legs stumbles around the roadside, occasionally veering onto our already too-narrow road. Were there ever need for a visual link between the bird and the dinosaur, this sight would settle all doubts. We slow down, then swerve as best we can to miss it, but it seems not-at-all put out by the cloud of dust that now encompasses it. Neil Courtney, concise as ever, answers my unspoken query: “pukeko.”

New Zealand is for the birds

Stony dancer

It’s a sunny, hot day on Waiheke Island, though cooling ocean breezes keep the temperature just a shade short of uncomfortable. We’ve picked up Auckland-area wine writer Sue Courtney and her husband Neil for a day of wine tasting, a reversal of our usual arrangement (in which they cart us around mainland wine regions), and definitely some sort of payback for Sue’s guidance on our previous visit. That is, assuming the Americans’ driving on remote gravel roads through the wilds of Waiheke doesn’t give them both premature heart attacks. I do note that Sue’s breath seems a little quicker than usual, though Neil is his usual stoic self.

Sue’s arranged for us to start our day with a tour at the reclusive and remote Stony Batter winery, and it’s impossible to turn down the opportunity. Built on the massive expanse of an historic reserve better known for its old gun emplacements and tunnels, Stony Batter is less a winery than a all-encompassing agricultural project that covers a rather large percentage of the northeastern quadrant of the island, a project unlike any other on Waiheke. The owner, apparently an unimaginably wealthy gent, has an obvious desire for privacy (the entrance to the reserve is blocked by a forbidding gate, though through apparent negotiation hikers are once more allowed on the property as long as they don’t touch, look at, smell or otherwise offend the vines), but has equally obviously spared no expense in covering the area with a crazy-quilt of experimental vineyards.

(Continued here…)

Whites only (New Zealand, pt. 7)

Ask not what your winery can do for you…

The aquamarine rippling of the Hauraki Gulf throws shadows and highlights onto the trees below us. A breeze gently ruffles the leaves, then stills, freshening the quiet air but leaving nothing but memory in its wake. I hold up my glass of sauvignon blanc, which shines bright and clear in the sunlight, and take a deep, luxurious sniff. All is right with the world.

Though not quite as much is right with the wines.

We’re on the patio at Kennedy Point, looking down a rather precipitous cliff to the ocean, and working through a tasting conducted by a friendly young Californian. But after the sauvignon blanc, I’m afraid it’s all as downhill as the below-patio slope.

(Continued here…)

Man and machete (New Zealand, pt. 6)

[Stonyridge vineyard]

A cut below

A sweaty man with a machete approaches us. Bits of vegetation cling to the honed edge of the machete, and the bright midday sun sparkles on his sunglasses (and the beads of perspiration that surround them).

“Martin?” We eye the machete warily.

“Yeah. I’ll be right up. One more row.” He retreats, putting blade to leaf with a practiced vengeance. We shrug, return to our lunch, and wonder if he might not prefer to shower before he joins us. But hey…his giant knife, his call.

Nibbles and sips

We’re sitting on the restaurant patio at Stonyridge Vineyards, nibbling on a fantastic assortment of appetizers – raw tuna, green-lipped mussels, fairly decent local cheeses, slab bacon, something that may or may not be prosciutto but possesses all of its qualities – and waiting for someone from the winery to join us for lunch and a short tasting. Proprietor Stephen White was supposed to be our guide, as he was last time we visited, but he’s caught in a net of red tape on the mainland, trying to acquire an Indian visa, and so we’ve been passed to the actual winemaker of record.

Stonyridge is widely considered the best of Waiheke Island’s ever-emergent wine industry, though there are some relatively new contenders…and, as one might expect, a few naysayers. The dominant complaints seem to be that the wines are too expensive (or at least too expensive for the value they represent), and the always-classic “the wines aren’t what they used to be.” We’ve returned after a few years’ absence to see if we can justify or refute any of those complaints, though of course our experience is no substitute for years of careful tasting.

With our platter of goodies, we sample a few glasses of wine from the café’s rather extensive (Stonyridge-produced) wine list:

Stonyridge 2003 Riesling (Marlborough) – Crisp green apple, ripe melon, quartzy minerality and great acidity. A little underripe on the finish, but there’s striking fullness and length to this wine, plus a gorgeous balance; the minor sin of mild greenness can be forgiven. It’s not a delicate riesling, however.

Stonyridge 2004 Chardonnay Church Bay (Waiheke Island) – Balanced and soft, with oak-infused stone fruit. Pretty, but…well, chardonnay is chardonnay, and it takes a real effort to distinguish one from another. It’s pleasant, but no more.

A sizzling slab of flavorful and wonderfully rare beef arrives, accompanied by a decidedly Provençal-styled variation on ragout. Just as I’m threatening my ex-cow with the steely blade of a knife, winemaker Martin McKenzie appears tableside. Without his machete, praise Bacchus.

(Continued here…)