Webster House Reigns In Spain
by Julian Schultz
julian@oxfordwineroom.com
Before you read the wine
column that follows, much of which you read when I had announced the upcoming
all-Spanish wine and food dinner, let me introduce three new palateers who
attended last night’s dinner and contributed important information about Spanish
wines and their food pairings: Patrick Snapper de Peeney, his fiancée Donna
Carla Melendez and Don Ackerman.
At the trial dinner a month earlier at the Webster House, Chris Liazos, Dr. Bob,
Jim Vasiliadis, Tim Lasky, Jeff and Karen Robert Davis were enthusiastically
discussing the wines and food they had selected for the all-Spanish wine and
food dinner.
I was uncustomarily silent.
Dr. Bob: “Why so quiet, Julian? Don’t you agree?”
I said I heartily agreed; then added: “Why are memories emotional? I remember
two Sweet Life Foods supermarket owners’ trips to Spain – 1972 and 1977 –
Estapona, at the posh Atalaya Park Hotel. The memories: one sad, one hilarious,
one absurd, one nostalgic…But let’s do the usual first: taste the food and try
to match them to the 12 wines…and expectedly argue with insulting vehemence and
glowering anger, about which go better with what.”
Beginning with the food and wines we tasted at the dinner:
The prices of the wines shown are available at O’Hara’s Discount Liquors at
20-percent discount:
Blanco Seleccio 2005, $11.99, from Penedes region with welcoming food of Spanish
Mahorn and Ibereco cheese, red grapes, green sliced apples and pastry bites of
ground Spanish olives and anchovies. Wine: aromatic nose combines ginger, hint
of curry powder, stone, lime, pear, apple; palate: pear, apple, honey, spices,
reminiscent of Champagne without bubbles, finishes clean and dry – delicate like
a taffeta gown accentuating the loveliness of a teen-age young lady at her
coming-out party. I bought three bottles.
We achieved perfection from the trial dinner with the combination of fruit,
cheese and olives/anchovy cookies with this white wine. “Tingles the
palate…perky,” said Arline McGoldrick, my table companion, of the wine.
Martinsancho Verdejo 2004, $11.99, Rueda, with tortilla tapas of potato, onion,
egg, peas, tomato and Manchego cheese baked in pastry. Verdejo: assertive floral
nose; palate: rich, creamy, melon rind, lingering peach and firm mineral
flavors, crisp, clean swallow, powerful lingering aftertaste.
No problems whatsoever to the wine from the tortilla’s complex combination of
ingredients. Wine and food exquisitely blended.
Herbed Goat Cheese and Proscuitto-topped Jumbo Shrimp stuffed with herbed
cheese, sautéed and drizzled with truffle oil;
Marinated Swordfish Fillet skewered with green pepper and onion.
Albarino wine 2005, $15.99, complemented both courses on the same plate: bright
fruit nose with fragrances of juicy lime, with lemony zip; transfer to the
palate with added taste of apricot; feathery, light and crisp, dry, clean
finish. I bought three bottles.
The sad memory, 1974: A stooped gray-haired waiter continued to stare at our
table. I was host to our Sweet Life supermarket customers and was visiting their
tables when he approached Lillian and asked, was I “Majora Schultz from air base
in Egypt – the war?”
Lillian said, when she told him she was my wife, he threw his arms around her
and kissed her on each cheek. When I returned to the table, he embraced me:
“Majora! Majora! It’s me, Caesare! Remember?! I was your houseboy – Payne
Field!” He cried and kissed me on both cheeks twice.
He had been an Italian prisoner of war, was of Spanish-Italian parentage; he
looked after my quarters and another officer’s for nearly two years. The day I
was to leave the air base for home, he wept uncontrollably and tried to give me
his St. Christopher Medal. I was deeply touched and gave him a generous gift of
Egyptian pounds and American dollars that I knew he would need.
The hilarious memory, 1972: The hotel manager had called a meeting with our
customers: “Don’t be upset when at around 10 a.m. Thursday the entire staff
leaves the hotel…to strike! Every Thursday the local union business agent calls
out all our unionized employees.
“He harangues them about non-existent grievances – grievances they don’t have –
for about 20 minutes. On schedule the police ambulance arrives – the paddy
wagon, as you call it in America -- pulls up and the police throw the union
business agent into it. All the employees will be whistling, applauding,
screaming laughing and cheering. The police will permit the business agent to
stand on the step of the wagon and wave and throw kisses with both hands. Then
the ambulance speeds him away to jail.”
We were told we would find the incident amusing. We did…very much so – a
favorite topic we laughed over for days – and enjoyed as much five years later
during our second trip.
The absurd memory, 1974: When I told the hotel’s wine steward that I had written
favorably about Spanish wines Jean Leon Chardonnay, Ibernoble, Torres Gran
Reserva Coronas Black Label, Marques de Cáceres, Domecq Domain and the revered
Vega Scilia he was elated. He said I would receive a “miraculous flimoogli
stick” made from an aged vine stalk after I returned home.
I few months later the irregular 3-foot stick arrived, stripped of bark, and
gleaming highly polished, with instructions: “Rub generous amount of red wine
lightly into palms of hands, rub stick from top to bottom until hands are
completely dry. In six months stick will impart unusual aromas that are
transferred to palate. Must do for six months.”
He suggested I sniff and taste the wine before and after I smelled and licked
the stick to discern the stick’s “magic.”
He said he was patenting the stick and its name, and asked if I were interested
in my being his American agent.
I inaugurated the stick at our dinner table, pouring a superb 1995 Chateau
Meyney from St. Estephe into my palm…and onto the tablecloth. The red stain
flowed in all directions. Distraught, Lillian exclaimed, “Why did you ever do
that stupid thing?! Just look at my tablecloth! And the wine’s gone through onto
the teakwood table! I’ll immediately have to polish it, which is hard
work!”…She…said…more. M-u-c-h more.
“The stick will be a conversation piece,” I said lamely.
“Well, you’re getting a piece of conversation now,” she said in exasperation.
“From now on you will do this stupid experiment outside!”
“But what about in the winter when Paxton freezes over or the snow flies?
What’ll I do then?”
“You can do it over the toilet, for all I care,” she said, as she grimly
stripped the table of utensils, food, flowers and tablecloth.
I protested: “Over the toilet! You’ll humiliate the wine! Your suggestion is
incompatible with the wine’s elegance. I’ll do it over the sink.”
“Not over my sink, you won’t!”
A compatriot agreed to try it for the six-month-period experiment…until I
demonstrated how the experiment should be performed: I poured my Abadia Retuerta
Rivola into my palm…and onto my fine tan Egyptian cotton slacks. Red stain from
thigh to knee. No further interest from him.
Until I summon the courage to try the experiment again, the flimoogli stick will
be my walking stick. No, I didn’t accept the offer to be its American agent.
The nostalgic memory, 1972: At our farewell dinner with an eight-piece orchestra
that played Latin-beat music, the management sought to reward me for bringing
some 200 Sweet Life Foods supermarket guests to the hotel:
He stopped the music to introduce two young men, one each on either side of
Lillian and me, to serenade us with guitar and mandolin. They played Rodrigo’s
Aranjuez Mon Armour and Albinoni’s Adagio. Just so heart wringing beautiful!
Evoked tears from sentimental, emotional, romantic Julian.
Lillian wore her sheer, plunging neckline purple blouse and purple fringed white
skirt gown; her fan was elegantly spread at her waist. She was radiant, glowing,
sparkling, smiling and – oh, so beautiful.
When the serenade ended, I turned to her: “You know, sweetheart, we never had it
so good.”
She looked up at me with her typical slow smile from her eyes and lips: ‘Yes,
dear, that is so…and we must never take our blessings for granted.”
My beloved is gone now but pictures of that scene hang in my foyer and in my
bedroom…a daily recurring emotional nostalgia.
Balance of the food and wines we enjoyed at the dinner:
Stuffed Yellow Pepper: fresh roasted pepper filled with pine nuts, rice, raisins
and herbs; Monastrell wine from Jumilla 2005, $7.99: complex aromas of spicy
blackberry, blueberry, cola; flavors of dark berries, cola, black pepper; smooth
swallow with nuances of tangy cherry, chocolate-raspberry; long aftertaste. A
phenomenal best buy. I bought four bottles.
Chicken and Strudel: strudel and chicken breast pieces combined with sweet
sauce, onion, parsley and tomato wrapped and baked in phyllo dough; Azul Tinto
wine from Ribera Del Queilles 2003, $14.39: supple, ripe, elegant, with
Bordeaux-like cedar aromas and flavors.
Two wines with the Seafood Paella of shrimp, squid, clams, mussels, turkey
sausage on rice with fresh vegetables and saffron; wine one from Rioja (Reserva)
2001, $15.99: silky, vivacious, lively fruit acid/texture/tannin balance; ripe
red fruit aromas with toasty/balsamic notes and complex, elegant, medium-bodied,
oaky, lively tastes – I bought three.
Wine two, Pesquera from Ribera Del Duero 2003, $25.99: superb aromas of black
fruits, leather, chocolate, hints of varied spice, game; flavors of toasty oak,
blackberry, blueberry; firm tannins and acidity balance, silk and fat underlying
lively fruit.
Webster House’s Chef John Hammerstrom’s culinary expertise proudly triumphed
over the Sweet Life Food dinners at the Atalaya Park Hotel in Estapona.
Helena Liazos’ Dessert: Feather light Flan with poached half pear, topped with
whipped cream and surrounded with a sweet/tart berry sauce, thankfully was as
delicate as it was delicious after so much food.
Surprise after dinner wine delight, courtesy of O’Hara’s Discount Liquors’ Jim
Vasiliadis: Pedro Ximenez 1971 Gran Reserva, 375 ml half bottle, $22.39: syrupy
sweet, balanced fruit acid tart and overwhelming complex flavors that live
forever on the palate and in the aftertaste. I bought six bottles to give as
gifts to loved ones.
New waiter from Italy approached me: “Mista Snappa da Peeney – he wanta see
you.”
Patrick Snapper de Peeney introduced himself: “I was a classmate of your son,
Gordon, at Boston College Law School. I studied International Law, invented the
Peeney Warmer worn by our soldiers in Iceland, Labrador and Antarctica, and I
have been practicing law in Madrid.
“Gordon knows of my interest in Spanish wines and food and suggested I attend
this dinner. Perhaps I can offer an insight to this dining event. I brought my
fiancée, Donna Carla Melendez.”
He proceeded to enlighten me: “Buying Spanish red wine, especially, right now is
a superb idea. The delirious days of bargains in top flight Spanish reds are
about to end.
“Another reason to buy right now is the tremendous quality that is coming out of
Spain…and they age beautifully.
“And Spanish red wines can be extraordinary with food, sometimes creating
wine-and-food matches that cannot be duplicated by other red wines in the world.
“Above all, Spanish wines are not for sipping with la-de-da tippytoe morsels;
they are out-and-out imposing wines for serious and robust cuisine.”
Donna Carla joined the conversation, breathing heavily, after we had tasted the
Rioja Reserva: “Oh, I feel my nipples are rigidly projecting, erect and stiff;
like sentinels, they are at attention in proud salute. I dare not become
embarrassingly unladylike undone by requesting yet a third pour of this
seductive, stimulating…ooooh! aphrodisiac Reserva. I ---”
Patrick mischievously interjected: “Of course, it’s my preferred wine also.”
I asked Patrick and Carla to comment on the food and wine pairings, their being
more familiar with Spanish cuisine:
Carla, after furrowed-brow thought: “Ah, yes, I click with the castanets, I
gracefully kick up my limbs, I exultantly clap my hands, I am…Carmen! The chef’s
delightful flavors are like a gypsy child whose love is free and wild and
first-time Spanish food novices are enthrallingly beguiled.”
Patrick: “This what’s-his-name chef is no Don Quixote who with his sidekick
Sancho Pansy is tilting at non-existent Spanish flavor windmills. This Spanish
dinner is for real…for real all right. I’ll fly the ocean far, should this
restaurant do another Spanish dinner next yaar.”
I said in correction that Sancho’s last name was Panza, not Pansy. Patrick
answered abruptly, “He was gay.”
Waitstaff: Wizard service from Lyn Beardsley and Marsela Qafzezi; both were
lightning fast in service and in response to requests from palateers. What a
delight they were! Thanks, ladies.
Principal speaker, Spanish wines expert, Don Ackerman of Dendor Wine Management
(www.dendorwine.com) enlightened the 55 guests with information about each wine,
its growing region, the philosophy behind its winemaking, the food/wine
compatibility. Superb job, Don!
Wine Pick: Wild Horse Viognier 2005, $22. Reminiscent of the Rhone variety…only
better! Aromas and flavors of tangerine, honeysuckle and allspice are
complemented with a rich, smooth swallow and delightful aftertaste. I enjoyed it
with one crab cake and two oysters Rockefeller.
Wine Pick: Rancho Zabaco Heritage Vines Zinfandel, any vintage, $15. Great bold
spices and blackberry fruit; perfectly balanced with tart fruit acids, smooth
texture, and soft tannins. A delicious, lingering mouthful that lingers
on….Great value!
Email Comments to Julian at:
julian@oxfordwineroom.com