spain

“I want to gather together to drink dead whites.”

Fearing some sort of stealth Black Panther rally, I rubbed my eyes and re-read the email. “Unusual whites,” it actually read. Oh, OK. That’s better.

The call had gone out from the Rajah of Rioja, the Master of Moose, the man that puts the salt in cod, the Humbert-Humbert of Hamburger, Mighty Young Joe, Mr. Roll Bar, the man that keeps exotic upholstery manufacturers in business…many know him as Joe “I’m-not-the-lead-guitarist-of-Aerosmith” Perry…to assemble on a tiny island off Boston’s North Shore for the imbibing of whites that were, in Joe’s words, “off the beaten track.”

“What do you mean by that?” I queried.

“You know, no popular whites. No riesling, no gewürztraminer, no chenin…”

“Chenin is popular?!?”

“Well, what I’m thinking is…”

“Gewürztraminer is popular?!?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

A resigned sigh. “Yes, I think I do. You want to drink oxidized whites from Spain.”

“And the Rhône. Don’t forget the Rhône.”

“Oh, no. How could I?”

…continued here.

J. Girona “Castell del Remey” 1929 “Reserva” (Cataluña) – The bottle is in shockingly good condition; low neck fill, mushy but otherwise intact cork, a good solid red liquid within. The cork starts disintegrating upon contact with a regular worm-type corkscrew, but a two-pronged tool removes it intact and with little difficulty. At first, there’s just some oxidative fruit remnants and alcohol, but with a little swirling and encouragement the faded core of what must have been a rather gutsy wine emerges for a last, lingering look around. Like the faded remnants of a cool autumn leaf-fall, with subtle urgings of red cherry carried on a dusty breeze, this pulses for a moment, pauses, and then fades finally and decisively away. But even that brief moment of pleasure is a remarkable one.

More blah blah blah on this wine.

The young and the fruitless

Living history