The Martini Shot

DIRT DINNER. Last Part.

In Hollywood, the Martini Shot is the last shot of the day. Legend has it this is because the next shot comes out of a glass.

And so out of glass, we chased the end of our farewell evening.

The wine from the Chateau d'Yquem is arguably the greatest Sauternes in the world. Though I don't know who you'd get to argue about this. The Chateau Raymond-Lafon is famous for being next door to the Chateau d'Yquem, and its wines are often marketed as such. The "shelf-talker" next to the bottle I bought said, "Next-door to Yquem for 1/3 the price!" (Maybe it was 1/8th... I don't remember exactly).

Raymond-Lafon is owned by Pierre Meslier and his family. Meslier was the long-time manager of Yquem. So there is more than just geographical proximity in play.

And yet, there is nothing similar about these wines. Except for the fact they are wines.

The Raymond-Lafon smelled like caramelized prunes and tastes of sweet apricot jam. There was nothing that suggested proximity to Yquem. No common thread. No shared Dirt.

The Yquem meanwhile was beguiling. A seductive enigma. An aromatic Siren. One amongst us said dreamily, "I just want to keep smelling this. Forever."

At a point in the evening when we were all half in the bag, this wine gently and unpretentiously claimed our full attention. It was a mind-spinning, ethereal swirl of apple and pear, quince, pineapple, fresh apricot, lime pith, honey, vanilla, firefly glow and white magic.

It simply stole the show.

The perfect wine to end a beautiful dinner with dear friends. To toast the Rational Denial Lab's illustrious tenure in Los Angeles and to christen our forthcoming Asian adventure.

So that, everybody, is a wrap.

Stay tuned.

Jefferson's High-End Inventory [ROOTS 2]

(Second in a series)



We actually have a pretty good idea what Thomas Jefferson was drinking. He was a fastidious record-keeper and a manic archivist. He kept everything. Letters he received, copies of letters he sent, receipts, invoices, inventories. He was a Pack Rat of the highest order.

Before his first junket to Paris in 1784, like the rest of his countrymen, Jefferson mostly drank Madeira, some Port and the odd Portuguese table wine. In France, with the help of Ben Franklin and John Adams, Jefferson discovered better wines. By the time he took a celebrated tour through vineyards of Europe in 1787, Jefferson had developed an expensive palate. His archives reveal a great fondness for Bordeaux from the chateaux of Lafite, Margaux and Haut-Brion, Sauternes from Yquem and Burgundy from the famed villages of Meursault and Montrachet. After this trip, he began to order wine directly from the chateaux (proto mail-order), requesting his order be bottled and packed at the estate (bottling at the vineyard would not become commonplace until the 1920s!) to insure that brokers and other middle-men weren't messing with his juice.

So we could, in theory, consult Jefferson's detailed and much published wine inventories and invoices and drink just what Jefferson was drinking (This also assumes a theoretical absence of budgetary constraints at the Lab; Jefferson's favorites are horribly expensive).

But in the view of almost everyone at the Lab, this misses a big and important detail. We're not interested in the quiz answer to "What was Th: J. drinking?" We're more excited about imagining what was in the actual glass. What did it taste like? How was the bouquet? And none of the wine that Jefferson drank at the turn of the 18th century was grown on vines grafted onto American roots. So matching contemporary brands against Jefferson's ledgers wouldn't leave us drinking the "same" wines anyway. Almost all of the wines imported from Europe today are grafted onto New World rootstocks.

How did that happen? Many of you already know, but for the rest, we have one more chapter of the history to cover before we start drinking...


(image credit: © Maksim Esin | Dreamstime.com)

The Beauty of Age?

Any wine enthusiast knows that age is prized. Oenophiles build cellars and buy fridges to "lay down" their bottles. They know the greatness of past vintages. 1982? A classic year in Bordeaux. A '47 Lafitte? Trade you my sister for it. Age is beauty.

But the vast majority of wine is consumed within a year of its release. And most bottles within 24 hours of purchase. For wine that costs less than $20, these majorities are definitive, well over 90%. And the reality is that these wines were designed for exactly this kind of consumption. Winemakers aren't stupid. They know what you're going to do with their wine. They build it to drink now, not in 10 years. Only serious wines get better with time.

Most wine scientists will admit that the chemistry of aging is little understood and largely unstudied. So why this fetish for old booze? Especially amongst people who don't often (or ever) drink it.

We don't know. But we thought it would be worth some investigation at the Lab. So we bought 2 cases of wine from varietals recognized for their ability to age. One red, from Burgundy. One white, a Riesling. Each costs more than $20 a bottle (if just), and so can be considered serious. Our plan is drink a bottle every 6 months. See what happens. Learn what lessons we can about a wine's EVOLUTION through time.

Like watching paint dry. But with alcohol.

Up first: The Riesling. (coming soon.)

(* I rescued the 1970 Yquem in the photograph from my wife's childhood home in Australia. Her father bought it on release, stored it indifferently and eventually forgot about it. It was in a box with "other old plonk we're pouring out." Now it's at the Lab. Until I open it, it is a very serious wine, a symbol of good fortune and ripe with magic potential. After, it'll just be some vinegar I've been keeping in the fridge. )