Food & Drink

You know what they say about America: beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain. But its fruited plains – specifically its vineyards – and amber waves of grain aren’t doing her neighbor to the north much good at the moment – at least not in the beverage department. In the Loyalist province of Ontario, just as in la belle province of Québec, no California wines have graced the store shelves for more than half a year. American tipple is out. As far as eastern Canada is concerned, the minions of Francis Ford Coppola crush grapes in vain, all is quiet along the Yakima and it matters not whether pinot noir still reigns supreme in the Willamette Valley. Ask not for whom the Napa flows; it’s not for thee.

Anyone who writes about wine for a while finds himself coming back to old friends as the years go by. This wine here was actually fuller and more sumptuous in that vintage five years ago, while that wine over there really came into its own in the most recently released vintage. Just as with people, some wines with early promise somehow go astray and never amount to much, while others that were disorganized and introverted when young suddenly blossom and turn outward as they age, the magic sunflowers of viticulture. Most writers about wine will have similar stories. It’s a bit rarer for most of us, however, to get in on the ground floor and stand by while a new vineyard, fawn-like, is born, manages to stand up on its own and then goes trotting off.

The Pisco Sour is poured by Maria, my business partner’s wife and the quiet boss of a small empire of bars and restaurants. It is served in the living room, the windows cracked open, friends drifting in and out, the kids out of school. It has rained and something in the air has lifted. Then comes the coupe glass: perfectly chilled, capped in silken foam, dots of bitters shaped like a closing parenthesis. I’ve had Pisco Sours before. But this one makes sense. In Peru, the drink is practically sacred, served at protests and presidential inaugurations alike The ingredients shouldn’t work – harsh grape brandy, raw citrus, egg – but in the glass, they harmonize. Chocolate at the edge, grape in the middle, something like spring itself underneath.

Squashed between his Truth Social announcements that fentanyl is now a Schedule I drug, President Trump made a surprising declaration related to his own favorite addictive substance: Coke (the drink). "I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so," he proclaimed. "I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them – You’ll see. It’s just better!" Coca-Cola responded to Trump's message merrily. "We appreciate President Trump's enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand. More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon," the company said in a statement.

I am standing in a sunny courtyard in the little town of Gijduvan, waiting for a drink. Just in case you don’t know, Gijduvan is a way station on the old Silk Road, in the far west of Uzbekistan: it is known for ceramics, Sufi mystics and loud celebrations of the Persian spring festival, Nowruz. As part of this festival, the locals make a special soup/beverage called sumalak. The recipe, I’m told, dates to Zoroastrian times – more than 3,000 years ago – and includes “wheat sprouts,” “cottonseed oil” and, I am not joking, “stones.” I can already see the sumalak bubbling away in a vast steel pot. It looks like viscous brown cow slurry. To be honest, I’m not brimming with eagerness.

It’s been a while since we have traveled to Beaujolais, that ancient wine growing region along the Saône River north of Lyon. Since summer is nigh, it’s time for another visit. Beaujolais is an ideal summer red wine. It is almost always made exclusively from the Gamay grape, a cross between Pinot Noir and an ancient white varietal called Gouais. It is light, flowery, full of pleasing acidity and fruitiness, satisfying by itself and notably food friendly. Of course, anyone who writes about Beaujolais these days has to begin by issuing a little advisory, like the Surgeon General’s warning on packs of cigarettes and certain medications. A few decades back, Beaujolais was plagued by scandal.

As the Super Bowl rolled into New Orleans, with Kendrick Lamar and his flared jeans in tow, I was thinking about the many contributions that this small Louisiana city has brought to the cocktail bar. There’s the creamy green Grasshopper, the French Quarter’s whiskey-based Vieux Carré, the tropical rum punch Hurricane and, of course, the comically difficult Ramos Gin Fizz – which blooms up in a tower of egg-white froth. But perhaps the oldest, most widespread and most conventional is the Sazerac: it is considered one of America’s oldest cocktails, having been served in New Orleans from the late 19th century.

I have to begin this column with a glass of Pol Roger cuvée Winston Churchill. It’s fancy stuff, and — according to some — it’s a bit early in the day to be quaffing Champagne.  “How early is too early?” I’ve often wondered that. The jury is out but most of the best authorities say that any time before actually awakening is too early.   Why the shampoo (as David Niven was wont to denominate the beverage)?  It seemed like the appropriate expedient in response to a bulletin I received from a Trump-skeptical friend. It came in over the headline, “Trump’s first mistake.

On April 26, 1336, the poet Petrarch, accompanied by his younger brother, climbed up the windy slopes of Mount Ventoux in the Rhône Valley. He said that he was the first person to climb that Alps-adjacent peak, which isn’t quite true. But it may well be true that he was the first person to go mountain climbing for fun. Petrarch wrote about his outing in 1350 in a famous letter called “The Ascent of Mount Ventoux.” The twentieth-century German philosopher Hans Blumenberg (speaking of mountains) wrote that Petrarch’s climb marked “one of the great moments that oscillate indecisively between the epochs,” namely between the medieval world and the Renaissance. Today, we like mountains. They mean picnics, sight-seeing, natural beauty.

In November, I was privileged to attend the 91st Paulée de Meursault. There are three coveted invitations at that time of year in this part of Burgundy: the world-famous wine auction held in Beaune and the luncheons called la Paulée de Beaune and la Paulée de Meursault. La Paulée de Meursault celebrates the fine wines grown in this small village. It is home to eighty wine-growing families and the area is known for its charm and terroir, that unique blend of soil and climate that has been producing exceptional white and red grapes for centuries. I had heard from our family about this festive celebration ever since our daughter and son-in-law moved to France fifteen years ago to work in wine.