Best Food Writing 2010 (23 page)

WINES FOR DRINKING, NOT OVERTHINKING

By
Salma Abdelnour
From
Food & Wine

Author of the upcoming
Jasmine and Fire
, a culinary memoir about Lebanon, freelance food/travel writer Salma Abdelnour has a knack for capturing the essence of a destination through its food. Here, she matches the spirit of certain comfort foods with the right wine.

E
ver since I was too short to reach the checkout counter at the supermarket, I’ve had an insatiable curiosity about food. The less I know about a certain ingredient, the more I want to taste it and talk about it—whether it’s Galician
berberechos
clams or white-boar soppressata. But when it comes to wine, I tend to keep my mouth shut. I drink wine nearly every day, and I enjoy learning about varietals and regions and producers. But wine lingo and wine trends intimidate me, and I second-guess my tastes and instincts. I’d be mortified to be overheard gushing about something totally passé, like White Zinfandel. Let’s be clear here: I hate White Zinfandel. (I’m supposed to hate it, right? Or is it coming back in style?)

To get over my wine anxiety, I decided to conduct an experiment: What if I took wine off its pedestal and treated it the same way I treat everything else I eat and drink? I would talk to some of the world’s most respected experts and compare wine to foods and beverages I’m comfortable with—namely, burgers, bacon and coffee. Maybe then I could finally overcome my insecurities.

The White Castle Burger of Wine

My first question to the experts: What’s the White Castle burger of wine? Just as chefs like to boost their street cred by admitting to certain lowbrow tastes—from fast-food fries to RC Cola—I wondered if sommeliers had guilty pleasures, too. I had two goals: One, to make them fess up some embarrassing secrets. And two, to feel less mortified if I happen to enjoy a wine that’s unfashionable, even trashy—because if professionals privately drink déclassé wines, then the world is safer for the rest of us.

Some experts, like David Lynch, the wine director at San Francisco’s Quince, told me that wine geeks who are slumming it will drink beer or certain “disgusting” cult spirits, like
amaro
. Others, like Berkeley-based wine importer Kermit Lynch (no relation), begged off the question. One famous expert I spoke to sniffed, “A lot of wine professionals would admit, privately, that they like Silver Oak. But please, that’s off the record.” (Silver Oak is a popular California Cabernet that’s considered outmoded by snobs.)

The most convincing answer came from Laura Maniec, the wine director for B.R. Guest Restaurants (which includes Las Vegas’s Fiamma Trattoria and Manhattan’s Blue Fin). “Ask most sommeliers, ‘Do you drink Pinot Grigio?’ and no one says yes,” Maniec told me. “But if you blind-taste them, you’d be surprised how many guess it’s a very young Grüner Veltliner Federspiel, Chablis or Albariño. They don’t admit that they like Pinot Grigio, but they do like it in blind tastings.”

I asked her to point me toward a really good Pinot Grigio, and for fun, we agreed to meet at a White Castle to conduct a tasting. I think we both just wanted to eat some sliders. So as not to get arrested, we brown-bagged the bottle, a 2006 Schiopetto Pinot Grigio from the Italian region of Friuli ($30), and poured it into Riedel glasses masked by Styrofoam cups.

The wine was, indeed, refreshing. “I like the ripe honeydew, apple, tangerine and Meyer lemon flavors in here,” Maniec said. “It has a rocky minerality and a long finish. How can anyone say they don’t like this?” We were pleased with how well the wine complemented the french fries, too. “Usually fries are best with Champagne,” Maniec said. “But the saltiness works well with any acidic wine.” For my future french-fry cravings, Maniec recommended another, less expensive Pinot Grigio that she’s a fan of, the 2008 Tiefenbrunner delle Venezie from northeastern Italy ($15).

She then brought out a surprise bottle: Zinfandel. Many wine pros don’t admit to drinking New World wines like Zinfandel, Maniec explained. “We tend to drink high-acid, earthy wines that take us to the place they’re from. New World wines don’t tend to have as much terroir. But Zinfandel is always true to its colors. It tastes like ripe, cooked fruit.” We tasted one of her favorite Zinfandels, a 2007 Kunin from California’s Paso Robles region ($24), and it was, quite frankly, sublime with the White Castle burgers. “Saying you don’t like this,” Maniec said, “is like saying you don’t like chocolate.”

The Bacon of Wine

My next challenge: to discover the bacon of wine. Whether I’m tasting fried Jimmy Dean at a diner or slow-braised Berkshire pork belly at the swankiest restaurant in town, I’m eating bacon—and I’m probably pretty happy about it. There had to be a wine equivalent, a varietal so fundamentally delicious that I’d love it without having to think too hard about it, whether the bottle cost $10 or $400.

A few experts I talked to chose Pinot Noir. “The acid is soft, the tannins aren’t aggressive; it’s drinkable juice,” said Paul Grieco, the wine director and a partner at Manhattan’s Terroir, Hearth and Insieme. Kermit Lynch gave a very specific suggestion: “White Burgundy from a sunny year, from a good winemaker. It will please those who are into terroir and those who just like the taste of Chardonnay.”

But, unexpectedly, the most popular pick was Merlot. “It’s an easy wine to drink, for the most part. And some of the world’s best wines, like Bordeaux’s Château Pétrus, are made with Merlot,” said Eduard Seitan, the wine director and a partner at Chicago’s Black-bird, Avec and the Publican. Matt Skinner, the Australian sommelier who works with London-based chef Jamie Oliver, also chose Merlot: “When I started learning about wine, I read a description of Merlot as plush, round, inky, sweet, full. I thought, I want to drink that. It’s like a bear hug from your grandma. It’s safe and warm. It puts its arms around you and says, ‘It’s OK. I’m not here to challenge you, I’m just here for you to enjoy.’ ”

A wine that’s pure, uncomplicated joy: That’s what I was looking for. I asked Skinner to recommend two bottles, one under $15, the other over $30. Then I enlisted F&W wine editor Ray Isle to try them with me at my Manhattan apartment. “Merlot is one of the great grapes of the world,” Ray explained as we opened Skinner’s first recommendation, a 2007 Errazuriz Merlot Estate from Chile that sells for $13. “It’s more plush and forgiving than Cabernet Sauvignon, although that can be both a virtue and a drawback. But when it got so popular in the 1990s, farmers started overproducing it and the wine quality fell. Merlot itself is not the problem; the problem is what people did with it.”

We poured two glasses of the Errazuriz, and I took a sip. The wine had loads of dark fruit, a lush and velvety feel, and then still more fruit. “This wine hits one note—but it’s a nice note,” Ray said. I didn’t have to pay close attention to catch the nuances; there weren’t many. Then again, when I’m eating a BLT, I’m not exactly focused on the nuances of the bacon in the sandwich, either.

Next we opened Skinner’s second recommendation, a 2005 Chateau d’Aiguilhe Côtes de Castillon from Bordeaux, which is mostly Merlot blended with some Cabernet Franc. “For $35, that’s a really pretty wine,” Ray observed. “It has what Merlot wants to have, that deep, dark fruit. The Chilean bottle was more one-note, but this Bordeaux is more like a chord.”

Half an hour later, after the Errazuriz had opened up a bit more, it became more subtle and beguiling. Now it was inching closer to pork belly instead of a diner BLT—not that I was quibbling either way.

The Coffee of Wine

For my last experiment, I wanted to find a wine that was as versatile as it was reliable—a wine that I could happily drink every day. I was looking for the coffee of wine.

Again, I got a range of answers from the experts I queried, from Riesling to Champagne to Syrah. But the response that seemed to really nail it came from Alpana Singh, wine director at Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, which includes Everest and L20 in Chicago: “For me, Sauvignon Blanc fits that bill. For the most part it’s reliable, zippy, goes with a wide variety of foods—spicy dishes, sushi, lots of things. The acidity perks up your palate.”

It’s also her fallback pick at restaurants, Singh says. “If I don’t know how the wine has been stored, I’ll order Sauvignon Blanc. At least it has been refrigerated and will have some acidity to preserve it. There’s a big difference between good and bad coffee, but if you really need caffeine, you’ll drink bad coffee. It’s the same with Sauvignon Blanc.”

I decided to test her theory by drinking Sauvignon Blanc every day for a week. On the first night, I had just returned from a week of joyful overeating in New Orleans when I was invited to dinner with friends. They served a 2005 Sincerity from Chile, and the acidity made me salivate in a way I didn’t think I could muster post-Louisiana-gluttony. It wasn’t the best Sauvignon Blanc I’d ever had, but it worked well with the braised artichokes, roasted asparagus and buttery, pine-nut-studded rice—even though artichokes and asparagus are notoriously tough to pair with wine. Score one for Sauvignon Blanc. Night two: I met a friend at a terrific Bosnian hole-in-the-wall in Queens, and afterward, I brought home a sugar-syrup-drenched spongy cookie called hurmasice. I ate it with a glass of 2008 Te Muna Road Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand’s Craggy Range ($20), one of the wines Singh recommended, and together they made a splendid nightcap.

On subsequent days, Sauvignon Blanc was a fantastic utility player, pairing well with everything from a Bibb lettuce salad with olive-oil-packed tuna to spicy pulled-pork tacos and grilled-eel sushi. I alternated between the Craggy Range and another wine Singh likes, the 2007 Westerly Vineyards from California’s Santa Ynez Valley ($20).

The only time Sauvignon Blanc failed me: One night, after talking a friend through a bad breakup, I went home and poured a glass of the Craggy Range. But the acidity wasn’t quite the soothing sensation I was looking for just then. I needed something a little rounder, warmer and more instantly uplifting. An espresso, perhaps, or a glass of Merlot. Or maybe what I really needed was one of my favorite new guilty pleasures: a White Castle burger, paired with a big fat Zin. But this time, hold the guilt.

MOXIE: A FLAVOR FOR THE FEW

By Robert Dickinson From
Gastronomica

The quarterly journal
Gastronomica
is a mix of scholarly articles and essays by passionate amateurs—like this account by Nashville-based writer and public administrator Robert Dickinson, who just had to satisfy his curiosity about a vintage soda pop.

I
f you grew up anywhere but New England, you’ve probably never heard of a drink called Moxie, yet it is the oldest continually produced soda in America—and quite possibly the worst tasting, as well. Moxie inspires fierce devotion in its fans, which have included presidents, baseball stars, and a Pulitzer Prize winner, and confused disbelief among its detractors, who just can’t fathom what anyone would see in the stuff. I discovered Moxie while doing a little routine Web browsing, and after reading its illustrious history, I knew that I had to have a taste. I was particularly curious as to why, if Moxie really does taste like a telephone pole, as one Web site claims—or dirt, or battery acid—the drink has such a passionate following.

Unfortunately, Moxie isn’t sold in the Southeast where I live, so I turned to the Internet to try to track down a can. Several Web sites actually specialize in regional sodas and can ship you a case of Moxie or Cheerwine or Boylan Grape any time you get a hankering. The problem was that these specialty stores don’t just give away the Moxie, and being thrifty on the best of days, and given the high probability that I wouldn’t actually like Moxie, I was hesitant to place the thirty- to forty-dollar minimum order that the online soda merchants require. It occurred to me, though, that the folks who actually make Moxie must be quite proud of a soda that can produce such varied and extreme reactions among its drinkers; since only a few companies currently bottle Moxie, it stood to reason that one of them might be happy to send a can or two to a benighted, Moxieless southerner if he asked in just the right way.

A Proposition

So, on a cold Nashville day in the winter of 2007, I composed the following letter and mailed it to the Catawissa Bottling Company of Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and to the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England, Inc., both of which bottle and distribute the beverage in question:

Dear Sir/Madam:

As a southerner, I’m no stranger to the charms of a nice, cold soda pop, although we often just call it “coke,” no matter what the brand. Until a few days ago, however, I was completely unaware of the existence of one of your products. It started innocently enough. A friend wanted to know what the state dog of Tennessee was (there isn’t one). A few clicks on the Internet later, and we learned that the state drink of Maine is a mysterious brew called Moxie. Now, like everyone who’s seen a gangster movie, I was familiar with the term, but not, as I’ve said, with the drink.

Not content to let it rest at that, and not anxious to go back to work, we dug deeper and uncovered a whole subculture of Moxie lore—stories, memorabilia, rumors, testimonials. A sample:

“They say it takes nerve to drink a Moxie. I learned you can throw all of your normal conceptions of soda out the window when it comes to the taste of Moxie.”
²

“History has known only a few standards that cleanly divide Earth’s population into irreconcilable camps. Moxie is one of these. No one is apathetic in the matter.”
³

“I grew up in mid-coast Maine where Moxie was more beloved than mother’s milk . . . and more widely consumed.”
⁴

It’s clear that Moxie is more than a drink, more than the longest continually produced soda in our great nation’s history, more than the source of a great word for nerve, spunk, chutzpah. Moxie is the fluidic substance of the collective memory of a people, the taste of childhood, the pride of New Englanders, who know that not just anyone can suck down a Moxie and stick around to tell the tale.

Which brings me to my point. I would like to try my first Moxie—to be an initiate, to take a side. But, as you may know, none of the stores in my town of Nashville, TN, sell Moxie. I propose a trade—regional treat for regional treat. I will send you a box of Goo Goo Clusters (delicious blend of caramel, marshmallow, peanuts, and chocolate—my friends from New York City always ask for a box when I visit), a picture of Elvis, AND a bag of pork rinds, for a 6-pack of your finest Moxie.

Please consider my offer and respond via post or email. I hope you’ll find my terms acceptable, but in any case, please keep doing what you do, and remember.... If you’ve got Moxie, you’ve got taste. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Robert T. Dickinson

Since 1876

While I waited to see whether anything would come of my proposal, I went back to the Internet to conduct more research and found references to Moxie lurking in sources ranging from the
New York Times
to etymology blogs such as
www.word-detective.com
. Americans have been drinking Moxie since 1884, although a similar drink first appeared in 1876 as a patent medicine called “Moxie Nerve Food.” We’re all familiar with
moxie
as a slang term for nerve or spunk (e.g., “Say what you will about that Al Capone, the man’s got moxie”), and when I discovered the drink, I could only assume that slang preceded soda, that Moxie’s name was the result of a slick young marketing man bathing his product in the allure of the speakeasy. Surprisingly, however, it was the drink that was apparently so chockfull of bubbly refreshment that its name was later used to describe that indefinable quality of folks who just seem to know the score.
⁵

Until the early 1920s Moxie was one of the most popular soft drinks in America and was enjoyed by some of our finest citizens. The story goes that Vice-President Calvin Coolidge toasted his ascendance to the presidency with a glass of Moxie. E.B. White, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of
Charlotte’s Web
, had high praise for the soda as well. “Moxie contains gentian root,” White said, “which is the path to the good life.”
⁶
Even Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams, the Splendid Splinter, got into the act as a Moxie pitchman in the 1950s.
⁷

Despite such an impressive history, however, people in most areas of the country have never heard of Moxie, let alone tasted it. Moxie was once nationally distributed, but due to the vagaries of free-market economics, including competition with Coca-Cola, the soda took a smaller and smaller share of the soft-drink market over the years until it became a regional curiosity, unknown to Tennesseans, even ones who are pretty well traveled. These days Moxie distribution is concentrated in New England, although Cornucopia Beverages, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England (itself a subsidiary of Japan’s Kirin Brewing Company), began selling Moxie in Florida through Sweetbay Supermarkets in October 2007.
⁸

As unknown as it is in most of the United States, Moxie has developed a fiercely devoted following in the areas where it is sold. Case in point: the Moxie World Web site (
www.moxieworld.us
). Here, devotees can find a detailed listing of retail outlets and restaurants that carry Moxie, links to collectors’ sites, and lists of Moxie-related events, such as the twenty-sixth annual Moxie Days Festival held in July 2009 in Lisbon Falls, Maine. Fans even have a governing body of sorts in the Moxie Congress, a group of memorabilia collectors and Moxie connoisseurs whose mission is to promote and celebrate their favorite soft drink. Moxie displayed its real-life political clout as well when the Maine legislature made Moxie the state’s official drink in 2005.
⁹

Curiously enough, however, a large contingent of naysayers holds the equally strong opinion that Moxie is, well, not very good. To wit:

“The taste of Moxie is hard to describe, but if you have some really old sarsaparilla or birch beer around the house, mix it with a little battery acid and you’ll get the general idea.”
¹⁰

“Have you ever licked a telephone pole or railroad tie? That is about what Moxie tastes like.”
¹¹

The phrase “acquired taste” also appears quite frequently. But for every slur against Moxie, you’ll find a glowing tribute, a paean to Moxie’s wholesomeness, a fierce defense of its good name:

“It’s not a syrupy fruit or cola, and it’s not a trendy California dill flavored monstrosity—it’s the grandpappy of all of those! It’s been marketed as a health elixir, it is the reason we say ‘that kid’s got Moxie!’ and it’s history in a bottle. And I adore it!”
¹²

“There is nothing finer than smoking a fine cigar and having a snifter of Cognac, aged Scotch, a Tawny Port Wine, dry red wine, a harsh warm Guinness Stout or a cold glass of Moxie.”
¹³

If nothing more, my research had shown that Moxie refuses to be lumped in with the ubiquitous carbonated sugar waters that fill our grocery stores and vending machines, and I was even more anxious to take my first sip.

Contact

Less than a week after I made my offer, I received my first response from Paula at Catawissa:

Hello Robert,

I really appreciated the letter you sent. I had to pass it around the office. I hope you don’t mind. Our company has been in business since 1926 and often the barter system was used. So sure, I’ll send a couple of bottles and cans of diet and regular.

We also make our own line of soft drink flavors and are known for our famous Big Ben’s Blue Birch Beer, along with 16 other flavors. Samples will be included.

Respectfully,
Paula Clark
Catawissa Bottling Company
Since 1926

True to her word, Paula sent the following to my apartment in Nashville:

1 can Moxie
1 can diet Moxie
1 bottle Moxie
1 bottle Big Ben’s Sarsaparilla
1 bottle Big Ben’s Birch Beer
1 bottle Big Ben’s Cream Soda
1 bottle Big Ben’s Ginger Beer

Judging by my shipment, Catawissa seems to specialize in the quaint sodas of yesteryear—drinks that evoke first dates at the soda shop, zoot-suited gangsters, or old West gunslingers. Put another way, many Catawissa products are drinks that have little chance of grabbing a very large share of most markets. According to
Beverage Digest
, a beverage industry trade journal, the Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola companies controlled a 75 percent share of the carbonated soft drink market in 2005, selling over 7.6 billion cases of soda. In the same year the Atlanta-based Monarch Beverage Company, which owned Moxie before selling the brand to Cornucopia in early 2007, commanded a 0.1 percent market share and sold approximately 9.8 million cases of all of its products combined.
¹⁴
Nonetheless, Catawissa was clearly proud of its own carbonated wares, even if many of its products don’t generate the same eye-popping sales figures as the corporate behemoths that it competes with for shelf space.

The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England also came through with a shipment of Moxie. The following letter was enclosed:

Dear Mr. Dickinson,

We are well aware of the regional distribution of Moxie and the pride this product instills in Maine. We are also well aware of the problems finding Moxie south of the Mason-Dixon line. Snowbirds commonly complain about missing Moxie during their winter pilgrimages down South.

Enclosed you will find not six cans of Moxie as requested, but twelve cans in a convenient “fridge pack” designed to help better fit in your refrigerator and enjoy this beverage ice cold. In return, we are interested in trying your favorite regional treat—if you want to send the mentioned Goo Goo Clusters, that would be outstanding.

Please let us know what you think of Moxie and thank you for your interest in our hidden gem!

Sincerely,
Justin J. Conroy
Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England

Of course, a good southerner isn’t one to back out on a deal. I had promised an assortment of Tennessee treats and was ready to make good on that promise. In the spirit of regional goodwill, I sent not one but two boxes of Goo Goo Clusters to the Catawissa staff—one regular (with peanuts) and one “deluxe,” which replaces the peanut with the slightly more upscale pecan. I also enclosed a bag of Golden Flake pork rinds and a postcard of Elvis circa 1970 with full muttonchops, taken during a recording session in Vegas. Finally, the Catawissa folks got Polaroids of myself and two friends—one smiling, and one grimacing in pain after taking a sip of Moxie. To the Coca-Cola Bottling people I sent the same two boxes of Goo Goos and a photo of a young Elvis astride a motorcycle. I had had a change of heart about the pork rinds. They are, after all, pretty unhealthy. I’ll have to hope that the younger, better-looking Elvis made up the difference.