The Table on cheap wine
(Or: Cheap wine on the table.)
Saw this post to Eric Asimov’s NY Times wine blog, The Pour, and I had some thoughts about his suggested cellar.
1. Anyone who is willing to plunk down $1500 a year on wine is going to drink more than a bottle a week. This automatically makes the list kind of useless, since one could conservatively guess that a medium-level oenophile would drink three times as much wine in a year as that. Asimov basically acknowledges this, but it still merits mentioning.
2. The average price per bottle for a year’s worth of wine in Asimov’s imaginary cellar is $27. That’s more than double what I spend on the average bottle of wine in a year, including all the “special” bottles I put away to age.
3. I don’t think you can get most of those wines very easily in California, and certainly not at those prices.
4. Three bottles each of red and white for a year? You’re going to get awful bored of those everyday wines real fast.
In other words, “practical” is not the first word that springs to mind when I consider his choices. Don’t get me wrong, they all look like fun wines, but that list is both too small and too pricy for a wino of limited means and unlimited appetite like me. With this in mind, I decided to try and draft a “workingman’s cellar,” a collection of wine that could sustain two frequent drinkers for an entire year, provide interesting choices, and not break the bank.
First rule: there has to be a lot of wine. Some people have suggested in response to Asimov’s list that three bottles per week is a good starting point. Um, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but pretty much the only times we go through three bottles per week or less in our house are when one or both of us is gone. So let’s say five bottles per week, or 260 bottles for the year.
Second rule: the wine has to be good. Not great, necessarily, but something that you would enjoy opening up on any given night. It should also be wine that matches with food, since most of our wine is consumed at the dinner table, and be diverse enough to pair with many different kinds of dishes and to prevent boredom with your own cellar. Your 40th bottle of cabernet sauvignon will not look very enticing on that night when you’re just having a simple roasted fig salad.
Third rule: it’s gotta be cheap. Our target drinker has a great thirst to be quenched, but his wallet is thin. Let’s set a target of $2000 for one year of five bottles per week.
Fourth rule: it has to be available either in LA or the Bay Area in reasonable quantities.
We’ll also set aside some special bottles, most of which will benefit from short-term cellaring, although our price limits prevent us from getting anything that can sit for more than a few years.
So we throw these rules into a jaunty little chapeau, and what do we come up with?
THE TABLE’S (nearly) $2000 WINE CELLAR
Suggested title: “She Works Hard for the Money”
1 case of each of the following everyday wines. Price is per bottle.
EVERYDAY WHITES
2005 Blason Tocai Friulano – $9
2004 Bocce Pinot Grigio – $9
2005 Domaine de Cassagnole Vin de Pays Blanc – $7
2004 Chateau des Cleons Muscadet Sevre et Maine “Sur Lie” – $8
2004 La Craie Vouvray – $8
2005 Dr. Loosen Riesling “Dr. L” – $11
2005 Sollner Gruner Veltliner – $10
2005 Tobiano Sauvignon Blanc – $11
EVERYDAY REDS
2004 Bodegas Barbaris Tempranillo “Mendoza Barricas” – $7
2004 Bogle Petite Sirah – $8
2004 Cusumano Nero d’Avola – $11
2004 Cycles Gladiator Syrah – $9
2005 E. Guigal Cotes du Rhone - $10
2005 Maritma Sangiovese – $7.50
2005 McManis Cabernet Sauvignon California – $7
2005 Quattro Mani Montepulciano d’Abruzzo – $7.50
2005 Las Renas “Barrica” Monastrell – $10
2005 Las Rocas Garnacha Catalyud – $8
NV Rosenblum Vintner’s Cuvee XXIX – $8
EVERYDAY SPARKLER (good for shellfish!)
NV Fantinel Prosecco Extra Dry – $9
“IT’S A SPECIAL THING” WINES
2 bottles 2005 Selbach-Oster Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr – $15
2 bottles 2004 Stangeland Pinot Noir Stand Sure Vineyard – $25
2 bottles 2003 Domaine Tempier Bandol Rouge – $27
2 bottles 2004 Vina Cobos Cocodrilo Cabernet Sauvignon – $20
2 bottles 2004 Zind-Humbrecht Gewurztraminer – $20
1 bottle Clos du Mont-Olivet Chateauneuf du Pape – $22
1 bottle Saracco Moscato d’Asti – $15
240 bottles of everyday wine, less 10% case discount: $1868
12 bottles of special wine: $251
252 bottles of wine: $2118
So, we neither hit 260 bottles nor $2000, but we’re pretty close on both counts. And we have an interesting and flexible cellar, with some fun “special” wines to drink about once a month. I’m sure there are better choices to be found elsewhere, but these are wines I’ve had and so I can vouch for them. The other side of that is that these are wines that I enjoy. Your tastes, dear reader, can and do diverge from mine, so there are bound to be bargain bottles that you would replace one of these wines with.
Of course, this list doesn’t take into account trying ANY new wine in one year, which seems silly considering one of the greatest pleasures of wine is discovering something new to savor. It also doesn’t have any money set aside for tastings or buying bottles at restaurants. All things considered, I don’t think I have the kind of discipline necessary to restrict myself to a list like this, but for a tight budget and a serious wine jones, it might be a good starting point.
Another good list at the $1500 level is up over at Cooking Chat. Check it out – lots of interesting stuff, most of which I haven’t tried.
Across the great burger divide
I was going to talk about a couple wine bar/small plates places J and I have visited recently, but I have been talking about wine quite a bit recently, even with my recent salad rant. I mean, I love wine as much as the next guy, but a lot of you (i.e., at least one) must be thinking, “Come on, is this whole thing gonna be about grape juice? Where’s the beef, man? Why not just get it over with and rename the thing The Coaster? Up top!!” No, sir. I will not show you some love up top. But I will talk about burgers.
With some food types, it makes complete sense that LA would have a leg up on the Bay Area in quality and diversity. Given the number of Korean immigrants and their descendants in the Southland versus the Bay Area, for example, it follows that Korean food is generally better and more widespread down here than in Northern California. You could make the same argument about Thai food, Armenian, and others. But it doesn’t really make any kind of geographic sense that hamburgers would be so much better down here than in the Bay Area, would it? Yet that’s pretty much the case. No matter what side of California you butter your bread on, LA boasts the better burger. No buts about it, bub.
LA definitely seems to have something of a culture of the burger. For one thing, there is the mecca known as In-N-Out, which has a pretty remarkable following among fast food devouts and philistines alike. It’s the kind of place that can attract patrons who swear that they never eat fast food, that they wouldn’t possibly touch the stuff – and yet there they are in the drive-thru, ordering a 3×3 animal style and thinking nothing of it. There are other LA-centric burger chains, too – Tommy’s, Astroburger and Fatburger, for example. How many counterparts do they have in the Bay Area? Barney’s? Nah, Barney’s has a different feel to it. Like they’re happy to serve you a burger and all, but maybe you should put something healthy on it like some spinach and feta cheese, and are you sure you didn’t want a turkey burger in the first place? As if they’re ashamed of putting meat on the damn plate. Stand up for yourself, Barney! You serve dead cows for a living. Don’t hide behind that sesame-glazed pineapple!
Allow me to generalize wildly for a moment: the schism between In-N-Out and Barney’s says a lot about how Northern and Southern Californians think about burgers, and by extension, meat, as food. In-N-Out fits neatly into the collective self-image of those who immigrate to the Southland: looking at the tiny red palm trees printed on the burger wraps and drink cups, it’s easy to imagine that same bag sitting on the dashboard of a Mustang pulling into the parking lot of a Santa Monica beach, the milkshake within still reasonably thick due to the shade cast by the surfboard in the back. It’s all part of the fantasy that everyone wants to buy into, whether or not it exists or ever did exist. So what if it’s bad for you? It tastes good, it was cheap, and everyone was so nice to you when you showed up at the burger stand to make your order, even though you forgot that you were only wearing your Action Speedo at the time.
Barney’s, on the other hand, despite the fact that they have a menu that is almost entirely populated by burgers, somehow makes it seem like they are trying to make you forget you’re eating a burger. “Don’t feel bad! That roasted pasilla pepper was alive too, and you’ll never see the vegetarians complain about that. Hey, did we mention that we tinted our windows? No more angry glares from passersby! How about a side of guacamole?” The chosen complex of the Bay Area omnivore is one of complete and all-encompassing guilt. If the ultimate perspective of the Bay Area citizen is one from the top of the moral high horse, how does one account for all that meat one eats? How can you look down on your neighbor, your uncle from Gilroy, and the rest of the country if you can’t get yourself to stop eating all those goddamn bratwurst at Top Dog?!?
Not to rub it in or anything, but this whole discussion hasn’t taken into consideration the fact that I think that the best burger in LA, the Father’s Office burger, doesn’t even really have a Bay Area equivalent. It’s off in its own galaxy. And not far behind are the upscale patties at Cora’s Coffee Shop, The Counter, and (according to some, but these are unverified) The Hungry Cat, 25 Degrees, and Lucky Devils. Let’s not forget, as well, the old stand-bys like Pie N’ Burger, Apple Pan, and Cassell’s. Those last three serve the same kind of “LA burger” as In-N-Out – thin patty, often accompanied by a secret sauce – but with a dash of age-addled irritation thrown in just to keep you on your toes. and they’re pretty damn good to boot. Where in the City can you get yelled at for taking a napkin from an empty table?
Maybe I’m being too tough on my old stomping grounds. There are those who claim that the better burger rests by the Bay. Betrayer! they bray. Backstabber! Brutus! And frankly, I don’t have much in the way of a rebuttal. Most of the places that have been bequeathed with besotted burger backers are places I have yet to bob up at.
Mmmm, that’s probably enough.
I would like to try some of the places that are reputed to have excellent hamburgers in the Bay Area. This whole post is unfair unless I allow the Bay Area to show me the best of what it has, and there are a number of places that come up in those “best of the Bay” threads and articles you see now and then. During the time I’m visiting family and friends up in the Bay over the next couple weeks, I’m going to try to go to at least three popular burger joints. The list I’m working off so far includes Zuni Cafe, Cafe Rouge, Joe’s Cable Car Restaurant, Bill’s Place, Val’s, Luka’s, and Darla’s. Any other recommendations?
Hopefully, at the end of the year I’ll have a much better idea of the burger battle. Belt buster, you say? I’m bound to be burdened with bodily bulk and bloating? Bah. It’s all for the beauty of the burger breakdown. And who knows? Maybe at the end of it all, the Bay Area burgers will prove their mettle, and we’ll all be blessed with a breathtaking burger bouleversement.
(Yes!)
A quick complaint about salad
Do you ever get those salads from take-out places that come in the little plastic boxes with snap lids? I got one today that was about 5×5, and it was packed to the point of bursting with salad. You open that thing, and it’s all you can do to prevent the stuff from spilling out all over the place. Why do restaurants do this? Nobody wants salad on their table/desk/car seat. You’re forced to either try to carefully shuffle some salad into the “lid” side of the box, or to very, very cautiously pick up small bites of salad that will not disturb the rest of the container. It’s like salad jenga – you never know which extracted shred of iceberg lettuce will send the whole damn thing crashing down on your one clean pair of Dockers.
Wedding wines: some whites
More tasting notes for wedding wines. I was going to do some sort of fancy linking thing back to the original posts about the wedding wines, but hey, they’re on this page already. They’re right down there. If you haven’t read them, go ahead, I’ll wait. OK? OK.
The first two wines we tried were both acquired from Silverlake Wine, with the assistance of the very cool and very in-charge April. She helped us pick out two French wines, a 2005 Sacha Lichine Poule Blanche and a 2005 Domaine des Cassagnoles Vin de Pays.
Before I say anything about these wines, I want to you to go to Sacha Lichine’s web site. Go ahead, I’ll wait again. Wait, before you go – do yourself a favor and click on all the wines that he has on display. Oh, and turn your speakers on. OK, now go. Back? Wasn’t that insane? I’m not quite sure I’ll ever listen to “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” quite the same way ever again. And what was up with that one syrah that played “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”? I mean, who’s heard THAT song since they traded that tape to their sister for that Bananarama mash-up they played on Live 105, right? Right? Wait. What was I saying?
Anyway, the Poule Blanche and the Cassagnoles are both white blends that rely primarily on Chardonnay, the Poule with some sauvignon blanc and Thompson Twins viognier thrown in, and the Cassagnole with, uh, some varietals that I am not at liberty to say because the bottle has been recycled. Well. Suffice to say that while I found the Cassagnole a nicely honed white with good floral and mineral notes, the Poule Blanche was surprisingly oaky for a French chard. I was half-expecting James Laube to jump in the window and rip the label off the bottle, revealing it to be a bottle of Cakebread Cellars or some such California insanity. Not my style, and not J’s either.
We did, however, find a couple really great rieslings soon after we tried the French wines. One, a 2005 Selbach-Oster Kabinett from the Mosel, is probably our frontrunner at the moment. It had great mouthfeel with some nice peach and nectarine flavors, but enough acidity that it could probably hold up to the salmon. We picked that one up from Pasadena’s Heritage Wine Company, which is a cool little store that happens to be just a block away from where I’m currently working. Another cool wine store, Colorado Wine Company in Eagle Rock, recommended a bottle of 2005 Weins-Prum Riesling Spatlese, which was also terrific, but slightly more expensive. And this isn’t even counting the 2005 Dr. Loosen “Dr. L” riesling we’ve bought from both Silverlake and Colorado Wine, which is a really tasty wine, but probably to light and sweet for the salmon.
So it seems likely that we’re going to be putting rieslings on a few tables at the reception. The better ones we’ve tasted are fun to drink, match with food, and are pretty darn cheap in comparison to a lot of high quality chardonnay from California. Oops, there I go bashing California wines again. Okay, Frenchies, you’re in with the Americans this time! Why don’t you all go marry oak trees if you love them so much! That is, if Canada will let you! Ooohhh! Uh, that’s it.
SF Chronicle, anti-globalist enforcer
So the white wine list is coming soon, but I wanted to point out that the Chronicle has put out its list of the year’s top 100 wines. This list was put together from the weekly reviews of varietals and wine regions put out every Friday in the Wine section. Just like every other list out there of the top 10, 25, 100, or 4,387 top wines of the year, I’ve had, like, two of these, although I’ve seen a number of them spoken highly of around the web and among well-educated wine drinkers I’ve talked to. Still, I’m really not in a position to judge the quality of the wines that were selected, which is fine…except one thing: why is this list restricted to California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho (?) wines only?
Backtracking for a second, let me say that I think that it’s great that the Chronicle has an entire section in its paper for wine. It makes sense, too, because the Bay Area is one of the great food-centric cultures in the country. It’s the intersection of a lot of exciting and creative cuisine, much of which comes from the blending of different regional culinary styles to create something that is different and yet wholly representative of its surroundings. I’m thinking here of places like Manresa, Slanted Door, Betelnut, Ame, etc. The Bay is the epicenter for a lot of global ideas and experimentation in the way food is prepared and presented. The Chronicle food critics, for their part, seem to have embraced this concept. And yet the one word that springs to mind when running through the Chronicle’s wine list is…provincial.
Not to get all Kermit Lynch on you guys, but these days, it is fairly difficult to find good bargains on quality wines coming from the west coast. Decent zin starts at around $15-20, syrah $20-30, pinot in the $40s and cab…oy. Don’t go there. On the Chronicle’s list, only 3 of the 22 pinots they offer come in below $30, and only 2 of the 8 cabs. The high prices aren’t really the fault of the vintners, either. Farmers have to sell their grapes at a certain price threshhold to make enough money back to survive. That cost gets taken on by the wineries, who then have to pass most of it on to the consumer. A lot of the sticker price on California and Oregon wine comes down to land, and how expensive that land is in the prime U.S. winemaking regions: Napa, Sonoma, Santa Ynez, Willamette Valley, etc. The price of that land means the wine that comes off of it is gonna be expensive, whether you’re growing your own grapes or buying them from someone else.
So California and its neighbor states aren’t good places to find bargain wines. Where are the good QPR wines? France, with its huge grape glut, has a lot of affordable wine coming into the US every year. Rieslings from the Mosel and Austria can be terrific bargains. If you can figure out some of the grapes they use, Italian wines can be great and cheap. There’s quality wine at good prices coming out of Portugal, Chile, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand, not to mention New York, Greece, and Slovenia. So why is the Chronicle, which has witnessed the growth and support of a very healthy global cuisine among its readership, ignore all this great, affordable wine? How about some spicy, earthy mourvedre from the Rhone, or a clean and balanced pinot blanc from Alto Adige? Again, I’m not saying that the wines that were chosen weren’t worthy. I’d love to have a case (or two) of each of them in my closet cellar. But I don’t think that having a bottle of Edna Valley chardonnay or Ravenswood zinfandel sitting on every table at Firefly and Limon is the wave of the future, either.
Wedding wines: some reds
Okay, the long overdue wedding wine post is finally here. (See below for a description of what we’re looking for here.) Too late, you say? Well, don’t look at me – I was just, uh, casting about for some last-minute entrants. But anyways, on to the pour:
The first two reds we tried were actually consumed several weeks ago, so I have to work off some admittedly fading memories. Wine Number One was something my dad picked up at Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, the 2004 Domaine Gachot-Monot Cote de Nuits Villages, the entry-level pinot noir offering from the Gachot-Monot house. I’d had this wine before, and as I tried it for the second time, I realized how much it had grown on me. The primary flavor is a strong beam of sour cherry, surrounded by some brambly fruit, which really fills the mouth. The first time I had this wine, I felt that the sour cherry was a little too overwhelming and prevented any kind of serious complexity. This time, though, I was impressed with the structure behind the fruit – there’s a nice little tannic backbone to this wine; it could conceivably keep for 4-5 years or more. I’ve heard that sour cherry flavors in French pinots are often the result of picking the fruit off the vine before it is at its maximum ripeness ala American pinot winemakers, and I wonder if this is the case with this wine. Regardless, I liked the style, as it was very different from most affordable burgundy that I’ve had. It had very nice acidity, too, stacking up well against the poultry we had that day (not our wedding menu by any means, but still). J was not too impressed with it, however. Although it’ll probably end up as one of the pricier wines we will look at – it’s around $17 American – it’s a good bottle and one that I would definitely put in the running for our selections.
We also tried the 2005 Praxis Pinot Noir, which we got at Silverlake Wine here in LA. This wine comes in at $14.75 per bottle, which is a good deal for decent pinot. This wine had more of a smoky edge than the Gachot-Monot. Normally I would be all for that, but in this bottle, it wasn’t quite integrated with the cherry and raspberry fruit, which left everything a little off balance. There also seemed to be a touch of metal on the palate, although as time went on this dissipated somewhat. J was similarly “eh” about it. Overall, this wine is a good value, especially for the varietal, but there are other reds that I liked more at this price, even if they are not classic matches for salmon like pinot.
A couple days later, we tried the other red we had picked up from Silverlake, the 2004 Domaine la Bastide Syrah. I was a little worried that syrah was going to be too much for our food, but this was a very easygoing, “open-knit” style syrah that was very nice. Fruit forward, with blackberries and blueberries on the palate, it had a good mouthfeel without overwhelming one with tannins. Fresh, bright syrah like this seems to only happen in France, which is a shame, because I would buy more syrah if it were readily available in forms like this in the US. I liked this bottle and at $12, I’m willing to give it another shot. A contender.
Two wines we’ve had more recently are the 2003 Luna Sangiovese and the 2005 Pierre – Marie Chermette Beaujolais. The sangiovese is another wine that wouldn’t normally leap into one’s mind at the thought of salmon, but I’ve found that a lot of California sangiovese comes in on the lighter, fruitier side. This wine is a good example of that trend. The acidity is still mostly there to cut through the fattiness of the fish, but this wine had a sweetness and emphasis on red fruit and licorice that sets it apart from Italian sangiovese, ending with a nice little finish. I don’t necessarily know if I would want this on the table yet, but I enjoyed it and would definitely buy it again at $16. The Chermette was nice as well, with some blueberries, maybe a hint of banana and cassis that meshed well without really jumping out at you. We’ve had this wine twice now and while its price (about $12) makes it a decent house red, I don’t think I would place it higher than third in this group. J liked it, though, so she might fight for it. We’ll see.
Coming up next time: white wines. Good ones, too. Stay tuned.
Wine for the wedding table
This post is going to be the first in what will hopefully be a short series on finding the right wine for a wedding. Our wedding, specifically – that’s right, The Table is getting married! To what, you say, an Ottoman? Ha ha ha. No, come April, J and I are going to be walking down the, uh, garden path at the Brazilian Room in Berkeley. Thankfully, most of the planning has been completed with a minimum of pain – we already have a cake, the band, the florist, and, of course, the caterer. We signed up with a company called Trumpetvine, who really impressed us with the menu they whipped up with us on our visit a few months ago. A quick summary of what will most likely be appearing on the table in four months (I’ll be vague about the preparation to retain some degree of mystery here, seeing as how most of you reading this will probably be there): salmon, asparagus, eggplant, mushrooms, and other assorted vegetables and fruits. Trust me, the real thing sounds a lot cooler than the list of ingredients.
The question raised by such a list, though, is a big one: what to drink with the food? For wine, uh, enthusiasts like J and myself, it’s important to have wines on the tables that (1) match the food, (2) are interesting for the other wine drinkers of the family (and they are legion), and (3) are cheap -definitely less than $20, but hopefully less than $15. These restrictions create some interesting obstacles, but I think we can find good, exciting wines that we can be proud of come April. It’s like “The Five Obstructions,” only with Lars von Trier as a maniacal sommelier! Terrifying thought.
Considering the rules above, some concepts come focus: the reds have to be on the lighter side, should have good acidity, but at the same time have enough structure to stand up to a rich fish. The whites should have a fairly decent backbone to stand up against some of the more bitter vegetables that will be served. Oh, and we’re not buying any California Chardonnay. It just ain’t happening. Sorry.
The next post will cover some of the wines that we’ve sampled as potential wedding wine candidates. If any of you have suggestions for us, let me know and we’ll try it out.
Thanksgiving restaurant visits, Range and Eccolo – part 2.
Okay, on to the second half of yesterday’s (er, Tuesday’s) story. So the next night, we ended up heading into Berkeley with the ‘rents and the sister in tow to Eccolo, the Italian enterprise headed by Chez Panisse alum Christopher Lee. Eccolo wound up on the most recent Top 100 Restaurants list put out by the SF Chronicle, so I was curious to see what Michael Bauer, CHRONICLE FOOD CRITIC, found so interesting about this place. It was one of the few places on said list I haven’t been to. Curiosity et al.
We showed up for our reservation a little early, which gave me a chance to take a look at the environs. Eccolo is in the 4th St. area of Berkeley, an area of high-end chain stores and trinket shops that borders on the Marina. It’s a nice place to go if you’re looking for a portrait of dogs playing poker in a really tasteful frame. The restaurant looks like a lot of mid-sized Italian joints in the Bay Area – lots of dark wood and windows. The kind of place built to discourage gazing at other tables – oddly enough, the exact opposite of the interior design efforts at Range.
As much as I would love to break down the dozen-plus plates that we ordered that evening, that would be a bit over the top. I love the blow-by-blow restaurant reviews of Vinography, Becks and Posh, and Michael Bauer, CHRONICLE FOOD CRITIC, as much as the next man, but that would get a little long and boring, I think. Plus, I would run out of food-appropriate adjectives and have to resort to using questionable ones like “unctuous” and “saturnine” or some such. So instead, an Eccolo summation formatted in the style of a 1986 personality test.
UPON ENTERING THE RESTAURANT, I FELT: like I had been crammed in a phone booth with Superman, Colin Farrell, and the Nebraska football team. The host’s foyer, walled off from the restaurant, is a bit cramped. Not having anything to do there other than block the exit for departing patrons, I was forced back outside to stare at the menu for a solid 10 minutes like I had never seen the words “prosciutto and balsamic vinegar” before.
MY FIRST EXPERIENCES AT THE TABLE WERE: Decent. They had a nice, rosemary-infused bread at the table, and the waitress even offered up tap water. Hallelujah!
THE MENU WAS: Enticing. Everything looked good on paper (foreshadowing?), with the emphasis seemingly on simple dishes with in-season ingredients. So far, so good.
THE WINE LIST WAS: Italian. Very. Which is great and all, for those who actually know Italian wines. A group of which I am not a part. So when I was handed the wine list, all I was able to do was confirm the presence of wines made from thesangiovese and nebbiolo grapes, nod confidently, and pass the list along. “Yep – looks terrific!”
THE APPETIZERS MADE ME FEEL: Slightly underwhelmed. Of the five we ordered – persimmons with prosciutto, artichoke fritto, tuna tartare toasts, half a Dungeness crab with drawn butter, and a salumi e formaggi plate, only the artichokes stood out as excellent – fried to the point of crispness without dryness, and with a great aioli to match. The rest all seemed better on concept and on paper than in execution – the tuna not quite surrounded by enough flavor, the persimmons a little too overpowering for the prosciutto, and the crab too much damn effort – and left the impression of a kitchen that had good ingredients but hadn’t integrated them properly.
THE WINE WAS: Outstanding. My dad picked a bottle of L’Erta 2003, a sangiovese-cabernet blend. Even though it was a very young wine, it was simply fantastic, with dark, sweet fruit, a great mix of power and texture in the mouth, and smooth tannins that led to a long finish. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can find it anywhere in stores. But if you do, let me know. I’d love another bottle or four.
THE FEELINGS I EXPERIENCED AFTER THE MAIN COURSES CAME WERE: Mostly good. Everything was cooked well without being outstanding. I had a pork loin stuffed with sage, fennel, and rosemary that was cooked nearly perfectly – a very tricky thing to do with that particular cut of meat. However, the spices that the meat had been stuffed with consisted of a neat little circle, about three quarters of an inch thick, made up entirely of fresh green spice. So the experience of eating the dish went something like, “meat, meat,meatSPICE EXPLOSIONmeat , meat…” a little discomforting. Still good, though. I looked around the table and noticed similar expressions on other folks’ faces. That face that said, “This isn’t bad. In fact, it’s pretty good. But.” Which for me, meant Range. Have I mentioned that I love Range? I need to go back. Soon. That place is something.
MY EMOTIONS AFTER SEEING THE BILL WERE: A little up and down, sure. The starters were on the same price level as Range, but the main courses were more expensive, and for no immediately obvious reason. It wasn’t Fifth-Floor expensive, mind you, but it was still pricey.
WHEN I THINK ABOUT ECCOLO, I FEEL: Satisfied. Mostly. There are places I have been in the Bay Area where you can get more for less. More concentration on putting things together to make something unique, or more effort to get the best out of a single ingredient or two. Eccolo doesn’t quite make it to either extreme, and for that it stumbles occasionally. Overall, however, it was an enjoyable experience, albeit one that was slightly more expensive than its goods merited.
That was it for Thanksgiving 2006. A good weekend, and I look forward to next year’s trip already. Any recommendations out there for restaurants that I need to get to forthwith? I’m all ears…
