A Hedonist in the Cellar_ Adventures in Wine - Jay McInerney [66]
With its green and red curries and sweet and spicy combinations, Thai food presents similar challenges. Gewürz is a good place to start, particularly with gai pad bai krapow—spicy chicken or beef with onions and basil. Viognier also stands up. And Australian Sémillon from the Hunter Valley seems to work especially well in conjunction with lemongrass and ginger. As for reds, I have had good luck pairing young Australian Shirazes with spicy beef salads and several other dishes. The explanation for this match probably has nothing to do with relative geographical proximity.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about matching wine with Asian food is that it’s a relatively new area of inquiry. Many discoveries await the wine geek and the novice alike. Dial up your local takeout, open a few modestly priced bottles, and be prepared for some pleasant surprises.
BABY JESUS IN VELVET PANTS
Bouchard and Burgundy
A great bottle of Burgundy is one of the strongest arguments we have in favor of wine…. The problem for most of us, though, is to find that great bottle of Burgundy.
—Gerald Asher, Vineyard Tales
Back in 1985 I found myself staying at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood at the expense of a large movie studio. While the Chateau’s room service menu was minimal enough foodwise to satisfy the most demanding anorexics and drug abusers, it listed a couple dozen old vintages of grand cru Burgundy from Bouchard Père et Fils. Visiting repeatedly over the next few years, I helped deplete this cellar and in the process developed an ugly Burgundy habit, which has persisted to this day.
Burgundy is a wine for chronic romantics—those for whom hope perenially triumphs over experience. If you are a sensible person with a family, a full-time job, and a sound belief in cause and effect, you might want to avoid the Côte d’Or. Once you’ve experienced the transport of a great bottle of Burgundy, you may end your days broke, drooling on Burgundy Wine Company catalogs, offering sexual favors to sommeliers—all in the vain hope of re-creating that rapture. Having scared the wimps from the room, let me qualify this gloomy scenario by proposing a reliable source for this particular controlled substance.
Founded in 1731, Bouchard owns more prime vineyards in the Côte d’Or than any other firm. And in many ways, its history is emblematic of the region. Bouchard’s headquarters was built on the ruins of the fifteenth-century Château de Beaune, which the family purchased after the French Revolution; the ancient cobwebbed cellars contain what is undoubtedly the world’s largest library of old Burgundy vintages, extending to the early part of the last century. Long renowned for its magnificent grand crus, by the 1970s the firm was, like Burgundy itself, coasting on its reputation.
In the 1960s and ′70s many of the region’s famous vineyards had been planted with mutant, high-yielding vines and saturated with fertilizers. The feeble wines from these overworked vineyards were routinely turbocharged with sugar and tartaric acid, with little regard to the strict laws limiting these practices. Worst of all, some Burgundian estates and negotiants routinely labeled and sold lesser village wines from the flats as premier crus and grand crus from the more prestigious hillside vineyards, as well as wines from the Rhône Valley and elsewhere, making a mockery of the entire appellation system. Although these practices were widespread, the authorities decided to make an example of the biggest fish in Beaune. In October 1987 they descended on Bouchard’s headquarters, seizing the cellar book, which documented dubious cellar practices.