[wine] Re: Shiraz/Syrah at Erte

Update, Piper, Theise articles. Reservation is for 6:30 (almost always the appointed time). On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 03:59:00PM -0500, Jim L. Ellingson wrote: Janet Peter > > ----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> ----- > > Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 09:51:32 -0600 > From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> > To: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> > Cc: wine(a)thebarn.com > > Any tasters? > > Lori, Russ and I are the only confirmed "takers" > for a trip to Erte on Thursday. Any brdx grape from > any place. > > I've heard from several others (BIG THANKS!) who > will not be there. > > If there's more interest we'll go, but at N=3, > maybe we should pass. > > Lori, Russ and anyone else? What are your thoughts? > > Cheers, > > On Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 11:09:23PM -0600, Jim L. Ellingson wrote: > > Greetings, > > > > > > Cheers, > > Jim > > > > > > Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:28:19 -0500 > > From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> > > To: wine(a)thebarn.com > > > > Alternate driving directions.... > > > > 94 west (north) to Broadway. East accross the river > > to Uni. N. to Erte. > > > > 35W is closed. > > 394 to Washington, N. to Broadway. > > > > > Can't exit from Hwy 280 to Broadway. 280 to Hennepin is an option. > > > > ----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> ----- > > > > Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:01:12 -0500 > > From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> > > To: wine(a)thebarn.com > > > > Greetings, > > > > > > WAG (Wild Guess) list of CITs (Cats In Attendance) > > > > Lori > > Jim > > > > Joyce may join us on her way home. > > > > Good seats available. > > Whites, sparkling, stickies, ringers always welcome. > > > > Erte Restaurant. > > 329 13 Ave NE, Mpls 55413 > > 612-623-4211 > > > > 6:30 on Thursday. > > > > Cheers, > > Jim > > Odessa Piper, a 'Recovering Chef' Who's Working the Markets By Bonnie S. Benwick Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 9, 2008; F01 People have come to know Odessa Piper as a champion of regional foods, successful restaurant owner, committed teacher, award-winning chef and wise soul. When she's at the farmers markets, though, which is where you'll find her every weekend, her calling becomes clear. She's a pollinator. "I get a little like a dizzy bee," she says, moving among the patrons who hover around the stands on a steamy Saturday in June at the Silver Spring market. It's a short bike ride from her home, and she'll visit the market in Takoma Park or Dupont Circle the next day as well. The slender 55-year-old is keen to load up her basket with herbs from the longtime local growers, fresh whole chickens and organic flowers that will lend grace as centerpiece and salad ingredients. But she says her role there is to share information and support as many of the producers as she can. And if Piper can ease a customer into trying something new, like anise hyssop, the culinarily underappreciated herb she's currently in "Johnny Appleseed mode" about, her efforts are rewarded. It's a role she grew into during her late teens and early 20s as she learned to farm and forage in her native New Hampshire, and in the almost three decades when she ran L'Etoile, a restaurant in downtown Madison, Wis., known for its regionally reliant cuisine. There, Piper developed working relationships with 100 farmers, using their vegetables, fruit, cheeses and meats in ways that were simple yet groundbreaking in the Midwest of the 1970s. It is no coincidence that the Dane County Farmers' Market, across the street from L'Etoile, simultaneously became the largest producer-only market in the country. She has legend status among America's food luminaries, yet she remains modest. No formal training, she offers as a frequent disclaimer; not like the scores of aspiring young chefs who worked stints in L'Etoile's kitchen, or the faculties of famous culinary schools that have asked her to teach the teachers about making connections between farmers and restaurant ingredients. Piper hopes to put more energy into that kind of instruction in the near future. "She's the epitome of strength and femininity, gentle and wise, with a strength of mission," says Eve Felder, associate dean of culinary arts at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. "Odessa took a really challenging area of the country and was able to be successful with local, sustainable food." Over the years, Piper's name and philosophy about food have become linked with Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame. Piper might have brought that on herself in the 1980s in attempting to explain sustainability and seasonal, organic cooking to journalists who would come to call. The result: Odessa, the Alice Waters of the Midwest. "I went to California to meet her in the mid-'80s and presented her with hickory nuts and pieces of Wisconsin cheese," she says. "Alice is wonderful, deeply generous. What I was doing wasn't as finessed. I can't speak highly enough of her." The feeling's mutual. Reached at her office in Berkeley, Waters relayed that "Odessa was a pioneer, supporting a network of suppliers in the cold, difficult climate of Wisconsin. To this day, she remains a purist." A famous chef with no cookbook, no celebrity vehicle? "I'm working on the cookbook," she says. Piper revels in being able to shop and cook in relative anonymity around Washington. Demands for her time are carefully considered. Most recently, she and New York chef Dan Barber co-chaired the food events for last month's James Beard Foundation awards in Manhattan, where her husband, Terry Theise, picked up the honor as outstanding wine professional of the year. (Piper won for best chef of the Midwest in 2001.) At the Saturday market, she chats casually with organic grower Jonathan Partin of Welsh Gardens in Warrenton about applications for different lavenders and how his seasonal plantings are progressing. But as her focus intensifies on choosing stems of calendula and bachelor buttons, he acknowledges in a whisper, "She's kind of a culinary genius, isn't she?" Her thoughtful give-and-take sessions morph naturally from vendor to vendor. With Charlie Koiner, a Silver Spring farmer, she talks up the possibilities of letting a row of his fennel go to flower. Chefs love fennel pollen, she says; once they find out you've got it, they'll find you. You'll earn more than by just selling the bulbs. "I'm trying so hard to love lovage," she says to another grower who has some of the celery-flavored plants on display. The farmer tells her its stems are hollow and suggests using them as straws for bloody marys. "I always learn something new," she says. At each stop, she dispenses praise and appreciation. It's quickly evident that this is classic Odessa: under the radar. "Yes, I like it that way," Piper says. "It's been nice to stay put and get the patterns and rhythms of daily life back. I glory in being able to cook at home, to take some of the things I learned as a chef and apply them." Piper always has some R&D underway, learning to grow herbs and edible flowers within the confines of her small 18th-floor balcony and then determining how to use them. Back at the apartment after an excursion to the Takoma market on Sunday, she frets over the porch's hot southern exposure. There are a few yellowed leaves; otherwise, her beloved anise hyssop and the basils, marigolds, geraniums, oregano, thyme, mint, chives and flowering fennel look happy. A few plants are headed for "the nice lady at the end of the market row," to help spread the gospel. Piper unpacks what she has bought: prized black currants, fresh chevre, arugula and sorrel that will stand in for the butterhead lettuce she had hoped to find, and some of the herbs she already has on hand. "I love herb cookery so much. I just have to buy a lot to encourage what the farmers do and to supplement my little dysfunctional gallery," she says. As Theise reads the Sunday papers, Piper dons an apron and her signature scarf-tied-as-headband to prep for the recipes she is sharing. It may be ironic that her husband prefers to eat only one meal a day. She's not much of a midday eater but starts her mornings with plain yogurt, fruit and granola. "She's a much better cook than any man deserves, and we eat like people who ought to get a lot more exercise than I personally do," Theise says. Not everything she makes for him passes muster. A sour-cherry sauce served with pork recently to Theise and his 21-year-old son, Max, was a bust, Theise says. She has given up the way she used to make vinaigrettes. Their circa-1970s kitchen with its almond-colored stove and refrigerator seems criminally lacking for someone so talented. Piper says she has made her peace with it since coming to live here in 2006; it's in a condominium with a glorious, tree-lined view and enough space to house 700 bottles of Theise's wine collection. She willingly opens fridge and freezer for review, each a testament to good eating and resourcefulness. Ripe berries that might otherwise mold in a day or two are popped into her freezer's "potluck bag," from whence slurries for lacquering duck and interesting fruit crisps spring year-round. Cold red currants are kept on hand to be dragged through sugar and popped on top of ice cream desserts. Whole birds have been broken down into stocks and the makings of schnitzel. "I put things away when they're plentiful and in season, so I can cook with them in the leaner winter months," Piper says. "There's no secret to it." Pulling from a batch of cheese gougeres she had frozen, Piper composes canapes by filling the just-rewarmed puffs with a special lemon vinaigrette and a lightly dressed herb salad. A single, lacy cluster of fennel blossoms serves as garnish. She crafts lacy Parmesan tuile cups using a "dumbed-down" toaster oven and uses the same herbs to create a fruity salad that will sit inside them, adding raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and flower petals. She pushes some berries through a strainer to make a gastrique that, when poured on the plate, becomes an impeccable wine-dark base for the presentation. In minutes, she also cuts watermelon slices into bite-size diamonds that she tops with strips of the anise hyssop and a dab of chevre mixed with creme fraiche and lavender. Easy enough for anyone to make, yet so distinctly Odessa. Terry Theise, a Wine Importer Who Has Folks Talking By Jane Black Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 9, 2008; F01 If you like wine and don't mind name-dropping, here's the name to know: Terry Theise. "You know Terry? Terry completely changed the way I think about wine," gushes Andrew Myers, the sommelier at CityZen. Myers has known Theise for nine years but says he still gets "giddy" when Theise e-mails him. "He's the prophet, the master and the dork, too. And when he drops me a line, usually something silly and fun, it makes me think that I rate." Derek Brown, the sommelier at Komi, says Theise "has this near-spiritual outlook on wine. He's an amazing character and a powerful person in the wine world. And what's great is that he's powerful for the right reasons." A lot more people know Theise's name these days. In May, the Silver Spring wine importer won the industry's top prize, a James Beard Foundation medal for the nation's outstanding wine and spirits professional. The award hailed Theise for what his cult of admirers has long appreciated: his role as champion of small producers; his success in making previously obscure grapes, such as Riesling and Gewuerztraminer, trendy; and his holistic approach to the joys of drinking wine. "What's always driven me is my passion for wines. I didn't look for underdogs or small producers, but that didn't deter me, either," he says. Theise, 54, started importing German wines in the 1980s, when most American wine aficionados had never heard of Riesling. His inspiration: three years in Munich as a teenager -- a time, he says, "when your whole self is formed" -- then nearly a decade after college when he worked odd jobs, including a stint at the country's first McDonald's. (He was fired after six weeks.) Along the way, as a newly "serious" drinker, he increasingly was captivated by classic German wines. In 1983, he moved to Washington and started work at Washington Wholesale Liquor. After two years as a salesman, he made his boss a proposition: If the company would send him to Germany for a few weeks, he would double its sales of and profits on German wine, which he thought was misunderstood and in need of an advocate. The company agreed but footed the bill for just one week abroad. That summer, Theise wrote his first catalogue on a manual typewriter and ran off copies on a Xerox machine. "It was very primitive. But it worked," he remembers. "Catalogue" is almost a misnomer for Theise's annual treatises. The slim volumes do provide tasting notes on each of Theise's selected producers: 39 in Germany, 21 in Austria and 15 from the Champagne region of France. But they also serve as state-of-the-industry reports. Theise, who says he writes from his gut with very little editing, covers wine regions, climate change, geology, personal histories and business trends. Each catalogue is a lively, opinionated and accessible read that could easily replace an expensive extracurricular wine course. But what most makes Theise stand apart from other wine gurus is the way he describes the stuff. In his catalogues, there are none of the frothy lists of adjectives ("nutty and coffeelike, with still-fresh acidity") found in most examples of the genre. Instead, his thumbnail descriptions of the important Champagne villages describe Mesnil as "the voodoo-doll of the Cote des Blancs, blossoming trees on a humid Spring evening." Cumieres is "for lovers of pork belly everywhere -- and who doesn't love pork belly?" Theise says he has no rules about how wines should be described. Some he calls "happy dog" wines. "They jump up and lick your face. They love you, and you love them back." For more complex bottles, Theise tends to steer away from references to specific flavors. Describing a taste as blackberry, overripe blackberry or underripe blackberry is nothing more than "brain calisthenics," he says. Instead, he prefers images -- "a bolt of lightning," "a glass of grape mojo" -- and textures: "Individual wines don't attract people because you say it's apple or pear or quince. But if you call it sensuous, creamy, enveloping, crunchy or caressing, that makes sense to people, and all of those apply to wine. "Wine is a beauty like any other," he says, sipping a "gossamer" Wagner-Stempel spatlese Riesling in his Silver Spring office, surrounded by tacked-up photos of Alpine hikes and his wife, former chef Odessa Piper. "If you approach it cerebrally, it will beat you." That wine is more than just an alcoholic beverage is one of the core lessons Theise teaches his disciples. CityZen's Myers, who has tasted many of the best wines in the world, cites an example of the Theise effect: a 2005 Schloss Gobelsburg "Lamm Vineyard" Gruner Veltliner that Myers immediately loved because its smell and flavor "reminded me of summer days on my grandparents' porch cracking sugar snaps for dinner. "Terry made me realize that this liquid can actually affect people profoundly and poetically," Myers says. Theise doesn't shrink from such challenges as convincing Americans that they should drink wines with names such as Schlossbockelheimer In Den Felsen Riesling Auslese. Or that the roséubblies now so in vogue are mostly lousy. Or, perhaps most important, that the big champagne houses such as Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot, which produce hundreds of thousands of cases of wine, are marketing their products as "exclusive" and actively trying to drive small producers out of the market. Case in point: Theise was outraged this year when Champagne Fleury, a small producer, was threatened with a lawsuit because the label on its roséore a resemblance to powerful Perrier-Jouet's Fleur de Champagne label. "I can only imagine how threatened they must have felt by the 100 cases of Fleury Roséampaging through the American market," he wrote sarcastically in the 2008 catalogue. "Around the same time, I learned that Clicquot was suing a sparkling wine producer in Tasmania who had the temerity to use a yellow label on their fizz. Perhaps the Houses should collectively trademark VOWELS so that the growers would have to call their wine "Chmpgn." Such rabble-rousing doesn't win Theise powerful friends. But he clearly savors playing David to the big houses' Goliath. His catalogues "rally the troops to fight the good fight," he says, adding mischievously, "You can tell a lot about a person by their enemies." Whatever attacks his foes might mount seem unlikely to affect Theise, who is almost Zenlike about what he wants and, more important, what he doesn't. Theise could no doubt import more wine; he wouldn't specify numbers but said he does a "handsome business for a small-batch artisan importer, but of course a lot less than the big commercial guys." He also could easily import and distribute wines on his own instead of partnering with Syosset, N.Y.-based Michael Skurnik Wines, as he has since 1999. "The only reason to do it is to keep all the money, and the price of doing it is onerous to me," he says. Nor do accolades, such as that James Beard award, affect Theise much. "Flattery is like chewing gum. Enjoy it but don't swallow it," he says, quoting Dennis the Menace creator Hank Ketcham. For Theise, the Beard award is less a validation than an opportunity to try new things: writing a book that will serve as his legacy, or planning events with and for the people who have helped him along the way. "I want to do gigs with the sommeliers I know," he says, "but wine dinners and wine tastings have just been done to death. "So," he pauses dramatically, "I'm thinking champagne breakfasts. Now, that would be fun." -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *