by Julian Schultz
julian@oxfordwineroom.com
It was on such a day, such a day as this, when winter's chill hugged my hunched shoulders as I trudged up Providence Street from the Union Station to my house on Jones Street after having arrived from Boston University in the mid-nineteen thirties.
I remembered such a day, such a day as this, with bittersweet nostalgia as I crossed the drawbridge over the pennies-dimes-and-quarters-strewn moat and into the Castle Restaurant to attend my 16th annual Holidays Feast.
My anticipation of another unique dining adventure with master sommelier Jim's - and Grand Master Chef Stanley Nicas' wine and food combinations recalled similar feasts prepared by my mother at this time of year.
My parents, aware of their darkening twilight years, started to celebrate each year end with a traditional Chanukah holidays feast - to thank God for having sustained their lives and their health and those of their two children in the now passing year. My mother would announce her extra special dinner, consisting of my father's, my younger sister's and my food favorites.
It was usually an eight course dinner of uncommon eastern European foods, comprising schmaltz (fatty) salty barrel herring; stuffed heldzell (chicken neck skin); itar (baked cow's udder); miltz (stuffed cow's spleen); putchá (cooked gelatinous cow's foot marrow with sliced hard boiled eggs and chopped onions); baked sweet/sour beef tongue in a lemon/raisin sauce with cooked prunes, apricots, raisins and whole onions; small roasted spring chicken stuffed with groats and mushrooms; brown-crusted potato puddings and crusted baked mashed potatoes mixed with ground beef. Stewed fruit compote with a splash of cherry brandy, and - my favorite - chewy raisin/cinnamon buns completed the dinner. How my mother would glow when we kissed her and showered her with praise!
She avidly read books on health and medicine and said that nothing was fried, nothing fatty was added to the food, nothing was so strongly seasoned as to cause ulcers. She reminded us that these cholesterol-containing, caloric dishes were prepared at the same time only once a year - "so enjoy, my children.... for the next seven nights." She lamented my father's insistence that he wanted more of the fat, salty herring that my mother refused to serve him.
The Castle's unusual year-end dinner reminded me of my mother's unusual year-end dinner, prepared with her love, seasoned with her love, served with her love to her loving family. They are gone now - my mother, father, sister. How sad I am now in loving remembrance of them!
There were two differences between the Castle's and my mother's festive feasts:
The Castle's Holidays food was classic gourmet elegance, varied and subtle, and was augmented with challenging uncommon wines.
My mother's Holidays dishes were peasant pedestrian, unvarying and assertive each year, and absent wines.
In common, however, Eva Schultz and Stanley Nicas offered exquisite flavorable food and memorable dining euphoria.
With these memories, I studied the Castle menu as I stepped into the Castle's Crusader function room and immediately sipped away -- with plural refills -- on Spain's Albert I. Noya Cava Brut, blended with xarello and chardonnay grapes, an enjoyable refreshing, zesty, slightly sweet-edged sparkling wine; nor did I refuse my accepting multiples of every single passed irresistible hors d'oeuvre: turkey bratwurst sausage kissed with a combination of cranberry/orange chutney, lightly marinated salmon and cream cheese pinwheels, and Caribbean style sauced glazed Nantucket scallops; I lost, thankfully, my consumption count after three of each...
...Yes, my remembrance of Holidays feasts past was watered with tears present as I remembered such a day as this...such a day...in those blissful days of my youth of yesterday...so long ago...
First course: tender, moist, excitingly savory Atlantic skate wines sautéed with leeks and finished with celery, orange sections and orange-flavored wine sauce. My guests -- my lawyer son, Gordon, and daughter-in-law, Evlyn (sic) - accustomed to dining at Boston's finer restaurants, agreed with me that the fish was exceptional; Gordon announced cavalierly that he would happily forgo the foods to follow to opt for seconds and thirds repeats of the fish.
The matching white wine Falanghina DePalo 2003 from Italy was as magnificent with the fish as it was unfamiliar to the 55 guests. My son and daughter-in-law, quick learners - into wine a comparatively short time - surprised me with their comments on the wine. Gordon: "big body, fruit filled, floral hint, beautifully balanced, smooth finished, moderate aftertaste." Wife Evlyn agreed with congratulatory soft applause - adding the query -- descriptors of "vanilla, hint of oak, early picked apples?"
Came next...open-mouthed mystification with the wine: Arbouriou Luddite Winery 2002, listed on the label only as a "red table wine" from Sonoma - a meritage blend? Nobody, but nobody, had the remotest familiarity with this wine. Guests who asked me got incomprehensible blank stares; the same mystified bibliophiles who had asked Jim -- he said an explanation was too involved but that he gave a printout of the winery and wine to me.
Winemaker's excerpts from the printout: "...never even heard of this variety...minor dark-skinned variety from Cote du Marmandais...first planted this site to Zinfandel...uprooted in favor of Abouriou a.k.a. 'Early Burgundy'...fetched a higher price than Zinfandel or Cabernet...behaves like a Syrah during fermentation...black fruit aromatics...very gentle mouth-feel and only a hint of tannin...aromatics and flavors of Malbec but the structure of Dolcetto...mid-palate richness without interfering with its more subtle aromas...completely saturated color, almost black to the rim of the glass...emerging aromas of licorice and blackberries fill my head in a hypnotic way."
After reading the printout, I am constrained to rhetorically comment:
Is it a merlot?
Is it a zifandel?
Is it a abouriou? (a.k.a early Burgundy)
Is it a cabernet sauvignon?
Is it a claret?
Is it a syrah?
Is it a malbec?
Is it a dolcetto?
No! It's...SUPERWINE!
All the above-mentioned wine grape/regional varietals are contained in the printout. Great news! This palate-boggling, rare and obscure wine is available by the bottle for $33 at the Castle. When you dine there, order it! I already have. Where does Jim find these secret treasures?
Everything with the food and the wines were going swimmingly when out of another part of the capacity-filled room Morgana the Scarsdale Stunner, my heartburn, came to the table, plunked her pulchritudinous person into the vacant fourth chair, introduced herself to Gordon and Evlyn, and ignored me.
She charmingly engaged them in spirited conversation after she explained: "I can't stand the bores I'm sitting with, which is worse than sitting with Julian here." When Gordon said that I was his father, Morgana grimaced and said, "Too bad. You have my utmost sympathy and sincere commiseration."
After she returned to her table, I explained to Gordon and Evlyn our past encounter at the Castle:
Morgana, argumentative, incisive, provocative, impatient dislikes me with unconcealed distaste. It began years ago at a Castle Sauvignon Blanc tasting when I said the wine is often referred to as "a poor man's chardonnay." She took irritated exception, and with eyes blazing and tongue searing she roasted me up one side and down the other.
We were sipping and spitting variations among five styles of sauvignon blanc. I pompously described them, to Morgana's annoyance:
* grassy/herbal: weedy, green bean, asparagus, herbs: tarragon, rosemary, oregano;
* melon-y: fruits of cantaloupe, melon, pears, sometimes citrus, lemon, figs;
* earthy dusty smoky - Loire and Graves styles;
* barrel fermented oak-y - not characteristic of this varietal, more like a chardonnay;
* slightly sweet, no oak: some residual sugar, accent on fruit, soft flavor.
It was when I referred to "poor man's chardonnay" that she exploded. Among other unflattering comments, she said: "Only a novice confuses them. I never do. I saw three for ten-dollar 'poor man's' (sarcastic) chardonnays at the Yankee Spirits wine shop. So I don't know what you are talking about...and you don't either!
"And, incidentally, if you don't know, the grassy/herbal variety is the most popular with Americans, followed by the melon-y/fruited, with barrel fermented oak-y bringing up the rear. The earthy, dusty, smoky Loire and Graves and the slightly sweet/no oak styles are more preferred abroad."
When I described a Gary Farrell '87 as being hale-fellow-well-met assertive, with an emphatic attractive nose, layered complex flavors, and charming in the swallow - I wished I had never commented on the wine.
"You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "Well-made, most popular, sauvignon blancs are delicate and elegant; they are not Hercules. This wine is the wine of monsters." I was certain she would refer to me as an oenophile monster. She didn't.
When I protested that other wine connoisseurs generally agree with my A-minus, A, and A-plus ratings, she came on strong: "Only hype artists, PR hucksters, money-grubbing wine writers use all kinds of numbers, puffs, alphabeticals, stars, and other silly symbols to confuse the gullible public."
She continued with the unkindest cuts of all: "Do you rate a sunset? A Sibelius symphony - assuming that's your thing? A Renoir masterpiece? A Channel Number 5 perfume? Your wife? Of course you don't! You appreciate them for the pleasure they bring. It's the same with wine. Don't cheapen the romance of wine by attaching symbols to them." Whew!
"Give the lady her due," I said to my middle-age children. "She is an experienced taster: quickly sights the wine, promptly swirls and sniffs, thoughtfully tastes, chews while jotting shorthand notes and articulates them succinctly and accurately. Other than rebuffing me, she does everything right."
Returning to the menu from the digression: warm Sika thinly-sliced venison pastrami - smoky, lean, tender, delicious -- on butternut squash risotto was pure perfection with the Abouriou.
The piece de resistance of this extraordinary dinner: the largest, the most gigantic, veal chop I have ever eaten, generously stuffed with Gorgonzola cheese and caramelized Vidalia onions, served with sauteed Mytaki mushrooms, diced tomatoes and leek/mushroom orzo was covered with a delicate, delectable sweet-edged brown sauce. I mused: If died and went to heaven I wouldn't get it that good.
I saw white foam take-home cartons carried to some tables for the more prudent gourmets by the waitstaff. It was paired with a challenge for us who fancy ourselves wine "experts": a trilogy of rare, aged Cabernet Sauvignons from the Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards: 1979 Bates Ranch; 1980 Gamble Ranch; 1982 Bates Ranch.
No sign of old age or senility here! I rated them A for the '79, A-plus for the '80, and A-minus-to-A for the '82. There was some agreement with me on the '80; but the comments and ratings on the three were varied. (Jim has them in inventory for discriminating aficionados.)
The sweet-toothed and dining adventurers among us were starry-eyed with pleasure as we consumed baked Swiss raspberry meringue with nuts and Cooper's crème anglaise and - first time ever for most, likely if not all, of us - black raspberry Japanese herb-infused sake. Stanley had obtained this dessert recipe when he participated at an international Grand Master Chef's convention in Lucerne and exchanged one of his original recipes with world-famous Japanese chef, Itchi Scratchi.
The '80 had me concentrating - what other wine that I once tasted did this one remind me of, which so reminded me of a soft, velvety, mature Bordeaux? I found my old notes. Ah, yes! But it wasn't a Bordeaux. It was a complex Heitz "Martha's Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon with intermingled flavors reminiscent of aged fermented berries, leather, cedar, mint and soft spices.
The '79 and '82 were less soft and velvety, were firmer with discernable black pepper. They were excellent, but for my palate were overshadowed by the '80.
As we drove home, Evlyn asked, "Why so silent, Dad?"
"For youth there is no encore I was thinking. I know that once upon a time never comes back again. But tonight, this night, once upon a time did come back. The Castle's Holiday dinner reminded me of my mother's Holiday dinners so long ago." I resumed my silence.
After Gordon and Ev left I scanned pictures in the family album, lingering over pictures of my mother, father, sister and me: a fragrant retrospection...like perfume from the blossom of the heart.
Wine Pick: Midnight Cellars Chardonnay 1999, $19. Earthy nose; tropical fruits cover the palate; some pineapple, apple, butterscotch, toasty wood; lively acid balance, velvety swallow.
Wine Pick: Victor Hugo Viognier 2000, $20. Big aromas and flavors of pear, apple; crisp, clean, dry, balanced, forever farewell.
Wine Pick: Victor Hugo Zinfandel 1999, $19. Briary, black cherry nose and aroma; soft texture, clean, crisp, dry, long aftertaste.
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julian@oxfordwineroom.com