Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [42]
EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON
THE SIX SENSES · PRETZEL
PEPYS’S DIARY
CHÂTEAU D’YQUEM
Perhaps the finest tribute to a meal is, at the end of it, to drink one of the world’s great wines, Château d’Yquem, brilliant and immortal, a wine that has made countless admirers, including Thomas Jefferson, praise its finesse, richness, and ambrosia-like taste. Jefferson’s letter to the grower reads: “… I have persuaded our President, General Washington, to try a sample. He asks for thirty dozen [bottles], sir, and I ask for ten dozen for myself …” The wine expert Alexis Lichine commented that in every great wine area there are one or two plots that year after year somehow produce wine superior to other, even adjoining, vineyards. This is true in Burgundy, and in Bordeaux where the wine in question comes from. Château d’Yquem is a Sauternes, a dessert wine, the god of them. One taste of it is enough to seduce.
The château itself, about twenty-five miles southeast of Bordeaux, dates from the 12th century and sits atop a hill, the highest point in the vicinity. It was once an English stronghold, and its 260 acres produce 100,000 bottles a year, a small number for so esteemed a wine; it is, in consequence, expensive. Other of the greatest Bordeaux châteaus produce six or seven times as much per acre.
André Simon, the great French wine critic, defined a good wine as necessarily being of good value so as to be enjoyed by many “sensible people” who expect to have their money’s worth. A great wine is so good that price means nothing. There are always people who both want and can afford it. Great wines, in addition, are limited in quantity. Château d’Yquem is so scrupulously produced that the grapes, withered and rotten looking as a result of their being attacked by a particular mold, are harvested one by one as each reaches its desiccated perfection, giving them a greater concentration of sugar and resulting in the subtle sweetness of the wine. As well as being expensive, Château d’Yquem can also last for fifty to one hundred years. Usually mentioned as the single most extraordinary vintage is 1975, but many others are close.
Fargues, a Sauternes made exactly like d’Yquem; Rieussec; Raymond-Lafon; and Suduiraut are all worthy, but there is only one Château d’Yquem, luscious and golden, beyond category.
It’s not only in times of happiness that one thinks of d’Yquem. One night some years ago, Jim’s editor, Joe Fox, and his wife, Anne Isaak, the co-owner of two well-known New York restaurants, came to dinner and brought with them a bottle of Château d’Yquem. It was to be their last meal together as a couple they said; they were separating, and the end of the marriage deserved commemoration. We drank the bottle together. There are nights one remembers.
SOLITARY DINNERS
“Solitary dinners ought to be avoided as much as possible, because solitude tends to produce thought, and thought tends to the suspension of the digestive powers. When, however, dining alone is necessary, the mind should be disposed to cheerfulness by a previous interval of relaxation from whatever has seriously occupied the attention, and by directing it to some agreeable object.” So wrote a 19th-century writer, Thomas Walker.
One is not certain what was meant by “agreeable object,” but solitary dinners are inevitable and, far from being avoided, can be pleasant, providing you like your own company.
When the two of us are together, we make a real dinner—something we cook together. It doesn’t have to be elaborate and is sometimes only reheated leftovers and a salad. We have a drink or glass of wine, perhaps while watching the news. The table is set, and at about eight we sit down, eat, and talk. It’s the event that separates the tasks of the day from the rest of the evening.
It’s different when I’m alone, and I don’t try to make it the same. I eat when I’m hungry; it may be at six o’clock or not at all. It may be in front of a fire with a glass of wine and music playing or with a movie on TV or a book in hand. It’s always very simple, involving