Pulse Spring 2012 Wine Section by Brewer Media Group

The Pulse

Spring 2012

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‘May I See The Wine List, Please?’ • Choices abound in Chattanooga where there once were none

Pop Your Cork! • Champagne turns an otherwise nice time into a special memory. So why not drink it as often as possible?

BY PAUL HATCHER

couple of years ago my New Year’s resolution was to “drink more Champagne.” I had just poured a second glass and thought, “Why on earth don’t we do this more often?” With New Year’s behind us and wedding season comfortably ahead of us, we can simply focus on our resolution without pesky distractions. Unlike other resolutions I am proud to say that I have kept this one. That particular New Year’s Eve I had picked up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot at the recommendation of a friend at the wine store. It was marked down for the New Year’s rush and I decided to

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Like most people, I had until that time reserved Champagne and other sparkling wines for New Year’s, weddings and other special occasions. I appreciated it but didn’t indulge very often. That has changed. engaged in a battle of wits with Major Strasser of the Third Reich. Champagne is requested, and Renault calls out, “May I suggest Veuve Clicquot 1926, a fine French wine” (emphasis on French). My wife and I looked at each other and then at the label on the bottle and she said, “Did he just say what I think he said?” I wasn’t sure either. The next day I pulled the “Casablanca” script from the Internet and confirmed that this was exactly what he had said. What are the odds of that? Pretty spooky. I have since learned that Veuve Clicquot, Perrier-Jouet and Moet et Chandon, all of which in their non-vintage variety sell for about $40 to $50 per bottle, are vigorously marketed and fairly lead the pack in the Champagne market.

Champagne • Champagne/Sparkling Wine: These wines are made effervescent in the wine-making process. Champagnes and sparkling wines range in style from very dry (natural), dry (brut) and slightly sweet (extra dry) to sweet (sec and demi-sec). Many sparkling wines are also identified as Blanc de Blancs (wines made from white grapes) or Blanc de Noirs (wines produced from red grapes).

And well they should, especially when favorably compared side-by-side with their vintage or prestige labels, Moet’s Dom Perignon and Veuve’s La Grande Dame, for example, which sell for much more. Like most people, I had until that time reserved Champagne and other sparkling wines for New Year’s, weddings and other special occasions. I appreciated it but didn’t indulge very often. That has changed. Champagne turns an otherwise nice time into a special memory, so why not do it as often as possible? There is of course a risk that when you add Champagne to the evening you

How many bubbles are in a bottle of Champagne? Actually, this is a trick question. Because the carbon dioxide is diffused and dissolved in the wine, there are no bubbles in an unopened bottle of Champagne. However, once the bottle is opened and the wine makes contact with the air, the bubbles come out of solution, all 56 million of them—in each bottle, give or take a million or two.

and your spouse may not finish every movie you start (especially if you like each other), but is that so bad? Legally, the term “Champagne” may now only be applied to sparkling wine made in the French region of Champagne. Other sparkling wines using the Champagne method include Cava from Spain, Spumante from Italy, Cremant from other areas of France, Sekt from Germany, and Champagne-style sparkling wines from California, Australia, South Africa and other various and sundry places in the

• Champagne, one of the world’s greatest sparkling wines, is popularly but erroneously thought to have been invented by the Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Perignon (1638-1715). Although he did not invent or discover champagne, he founded many principles and processes in its production that are still in use today. And he purportedly declared upon drinking the bubbly beverage, “I am drinking stars.” He was also blind. • The European Union declared that sparkling wine produced outside the French region of Champagne can no longer be labeled ”champagne.” The word “champagne” is named after a province in France, meaning “open country.” Due to the Protected Designation of Origin law in Europe, sparkling wine made outside the Champagne region of France can no longer be called “champagne.”

»P4

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world. Often those bottles will be marked “Methode Champenoise,” “Traditional Method,” or “Fermented in This Bottle” to indicate that they are made using the same production methods as true Champagne. The traditional method is labor-intensive. The winemaker begins with a still wine and then adds a small dose of sugar and yeast to each individual bottle. The resulting carbon dioxide is captured in the bottle and the yeast is removed by a process called “riddling”: Each bottle is pointed in a downward angle and rotated periodically so that gradually the yeast deposit forms a plug at the bottleneck. The neck of the bottle is then placed in icy water to freeze the plug. When the bottle is opened the internal pressure from the CO2 shoots the frozen plug out of the bottle which is then re-corked. Before the riddling process was invented in the early 19th century (by Veuve Clicquot, by the way), Champagne was cloudy and had a yeasty taste that was masked with plenty of sugar. Along with the riddling process came dryer Champagnes, and nowadays extra-dry and brut Champagnes constitute the lion’s share of Champagne production. There are cheaper methods of making sparkling wine, the cheapest being carbonation by the injection of CO2 directly into the wine in the same way as a Coca-Cola, with similar results. Unlike sparkling wines made using the Champagnemethod, in which the CO2 is in solution with the wine, the bubbles of carbonated wines are short-lived, the same as a soft drink. The bubbles in a bottle of Champagne can last for several days after a bottle is opened, rather than a half-hour with a carbonated drink. In a similar way that still wine drinkers look at a wine’s legs to measure body and alcohol level, Champagne experts observe the size of the bubbles as one sign of the wine’s quality. The smaller the bubbles, the better. Age, cool cellaring and purity (less particulate) all contribute to smaller bubbles. Although the shallow bowl

How do I open a bottle of Champagne? When it is time to open your bottle, here is how to do it: First, remove the foil which covers the cork. Then hold the bottle in one hand while you point the bottle away from your face and your loved ones. Un-twist the wire cage which secures the cork and remove it. Lift and loosen the cork by pushing and slightly twisting it gently and moving it from side to side to finesse it out of the bottle while containing its potential flight with your hand. Forget all of the movies where a third of the bottle sprays across the room. That’s bad. The loud pop anticipating that loss is also bad. As the Frenchmen say, the removal of the cork should make a sound no greater that that of a contented woman’s sigh.

Champagne glasses are fun and pretty, to get the full effect of the bubbles use a flute. The tiny bubbles will dance vertically throughout the glass for a seemingly endless period of time. And regarding Champagne glasses, it is a proven fact that a Champagne glass in your hand makes you look twice as sophisticated as you are. (I cannot quote a study to back this up but I know it to be true.) That is why you should have a glass in your hand often and a photographer in tow at all such times. Here are some sparklingwine recommendations if you are a novice and want to know what the fuss is about or if you

4 • The Pulse • SPRING WINE SECTION • MARCH 2012 • chattanoogapulse.com

are an old pro and want to compare notes. These labels are all currently available in the Chattanooga area: I recommend the Freixenet Cordon Negro, which is a Spanish Cava made in the traditional method. This wine sells at a remarkable $10 per bottle and is a great one to have on hand. It is available either brut or extra-dry. Remember that brut is bone-dry and dryer than extradry. Although most Spanish Cava is made from indigenous Spanish grape varieties, Freixenet also uses a large proportion of traditional Champagne grapes, chardonnay and pinot noir, in its production. It is medium-bodied and its flavor profile is apples-and-citrus. The small print on the back label reads, “Freixenet is crisp, dry, captivatingly smooth and hard to pronounce.” If you have $45 burning a hole in your pocket, Claude Raines and I recommend Veuve Clicquot. “Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin” is the non-vintage variety. (The 1926 vintage is no longer widely available.) It is medium-to-full bodied Champagne made from 55 percent pinot noir, 30 percent chardonnay and 15 percent pinot meunier. It manages to be both creamy and zesty, showing perfect balance. I asked my friend Lisa Andrews at Jax Liquors downtown to suggest a favorite inexpensive sparkling wine. She named Louis Perdrier brut, which is a sparkling Burgundy (Cremant de Bourgogne) made in the Cote d’Or. It is dry and light-bodied, and she said it raised her eyebrows when she first tasted it. It also sells for about $10 per bottle. If you have $45 to throw around, she recommends the Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Champagne. It is rich and creamy, with hints of honey and lemon. Of course, these recommendations only scratch the surface and there are many other choices available out there. Ask a wine merchant that you trust to suggest a sparkling wine for you: Tell them that you want it produced using the Champagne method and that you want extra dry or brut. Indicate

how much you care to spend. What food should you serve to accompany your dry sparkling wine, if at all? Cheese, caviar and plain-style crackers. French bread slices and butter. Grapes, melon and sliced fruit. If you are having a Champagne brunch, go with Eggs Benedict or similar fare. Some people pair Champagne with seafood, but I suggest that seafood is better paired with still white wines, for example muscadet with oysters and white Bordeaux with grilled flounder. The wine should compliment the meal but not upstage it. Anything you serve with Champagne will play second fiddle, which is why in my opinion a platter of cheese and caviar hors d’oeuvres is a better match than anything else. Because we have now unanimously declared every month to be Champagne month, it is incumbent upon each of you to find some flutes, a decent bottle of sparkling wine, one or more friends, ideally one with whom you have a romantic interest, and then proceed to improve your life by declaring yourself entitled to a special moment. Now, back to the movies. In “Casablanca,” as the Germans enter Paris, Rick pops a cork and refills Sam and Ilsa’s glasses. They have three more bottles to go and they declare that they are not going to let the Germans have them. Sam raises his glass and says, “This should take the sting out of being occupied!” So you see, even occupation by the Nazis can be a special occasion if you are in good company and are popping the cork on a bottle of Champagne. Paul Hatcher traces his wine obsession to the great 1982 Bordeaux vintage. Since 1986, he has made dry table wine from local blackberries, strawberries, peaches, plums and cherries. In 2009, he received the Certified Specialist of Wine industry designation from the Society of Wine Educators in New York. By day, Hatcher is a partner in the Chattanooga law firm of Duncan, Hatcher, Hixson and Fleenor. This is his first article for The Pulse.

‘May I See The Wine List, Please?’ • Chattanooga was once a wine wasteland. Today, an ever-growing number of restaurants are offering quality wines. Our expert visits two.

BY PAUL HATCHER

orty years ago, dining in Chattanooga was limited to Fehn’s, the Town & Country Restaurant, the Green Room (although we never went there), and later the Black Angus. Pizza became the rage when Shakey’s came to town in the late 1960s, followed by Pizza Hut. Until the late ‘70s, the only Asian restaurant I recall was the South Pacific on Brainerd Road. The first Japanese hibachi steak house arrived in the early 1980s and Mexican restaurants began to open in the mid-1980s. Thai and Indian food? Forget that. You were already buying your third cell phone when they arrived.

Wine, meanwhile, was the red-headed-step-child of restaurants and liquor stores. In some restaurants, you could order a glass of “Chablis” or “Burgundy,” which were neither. The wine sections of most liquor stores consisted of cheap, fortified wino stuff such as Mogen David 20-20, Thunderbird and Boone’s Farm, as well as modestly priced jug wines from New York and California. There were also sweet German wines like Blue Nun and Black Castle liebfraumilch. The Bordeaux rack, if it existed, consisted of Barton & Gustier merchant wines labeled “Medoc,” “St. Emilion,” or “Graves.” The B&G wines were (and are) of good quality, but there was little selection. Today you can choose from a wide range of wines from anywhere in the world and try

obscure grape varietals never before available. And the selection gets better and better. Do you want to try a viognier from the Rhone or a teraldego from Italy? You can buy them here. Even a Greek xenomavro or Bull’s Blood from Hungary. There was also a time when the most inexpensive wine on the wine menu should have been labeled, “It Serves You Right.” Although you can still

get burned, Chattanooga has an ever-growing number of fine restaurants which offer high-quality, well-thoughtout selections across the board with an absence of plonk on the low end and an absence of gouge on the high end. Nowhere in town is this more evident than at Tony’s Pasta Shop & Trattoria in the Bluff View Art District. Before we tackle Tony’s list and later Rain Thai Bistro’s, it should be noted that the 212 Market Restaurant and St. John’s Restaurant in Chattanooga, as well as the Bald Headed Bistro in Cleveland, have all received the Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator magazine for their wine lists which, in addition to certain quality criteria, “offer at least 100 selections.” »P6

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While many award-winning wine lists comprise multi-page books offering wines from around the world, Tony’s list contains nothing but Italian wines (with one understandable exception) to compliment its Italian menu. Tony’s 12 white wines and 15 red wines are hand-picked by wine director Michael Vasta for the sole purpose of providing a perfect wine match to Tony’s menu. In short, everything works. As proof, Michael points out that Tony’s sells more Italian wine than any other establishment in the Chattanooga area, including the liquor stores. The least expensive bottle of Italian wine on Tony’s list is $25 and the most expensive is $50. All of these are available by the glass. I talked with Vasta and restaurant manager Michael Gilliland for a few minutes on a recent Friday afternoon and a couple of hours later my wife and I snuck back in for dinner (angel hair/alfredo/grilled chicken for me and lobster ravioli/crème sauce for Bambi—plus bread and Caesar salad). We tasted four red wines and one white. Sorry, we couldn’t try all 27 wines and then remember enough to write about them unless buckets had been provided, and I suspect that would have horrified the other diners. When choosing the wines, we skipped the familiar super-Tuscans and the pinot noirs from the north of Italy, as well as the Barbera and the Valpolicella, and went for the labels we didn’t recognize: The star of the show was called “Gode II” and is a blend of sangiovese and the unfamiliar and unpronounceable canaiolo. This wine offers clean, intense currant fruit with the surprising addition of a long chocolate-and-mint finish reminiscent of a right-bank Bordeaux. We fought over it. The most interesting wine of the evening was a cannonau from Sardinia called “Sella & Mosca.” This impressive wine from a largely unimpressive region struck me with its dark fruit, and it had a rustic-and-green finish that bit a little. I loved it. The Montepulciano d’Abruzzo offered the same basic profile as every one I have ever had: Much like Chianti but not as intense and very quaffable. It is a simple and straightforward grape variety and cleanly made. Before ordering the Dolcetto d’Alba, and remembering that “dolce” means “sweet,” I asked the server to confirm, please, that this was a dry red wine. It is. Dolcetto is the grape variety, not a warning. We were told that this wine, made by “Paolo Scavino” (Piedmont) would remind us of blueberries, which I didn’t detect until after taking my first bite of food. Suddenly the wine opened up like a blueberry cobbler. My wife suggested a white wine with her lobster ravioli and once again we by-passed

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the pinot grigio and chardonnay offerings and went for the unfamiliar “Villa Sparina” made from the cortese grape. It was delicious, clean and clear, with a flowery aroma, peachy and appley tasting and a long finish much like an un-oaked chardonnay. The only non-Italian wine on the Tony’s menu is a California white zinfandel (Beringer). Vasta says it is offered because, “We have to.” To Michael’s credit, Beringer is a very good vintner whose Rhine-House Cabernet is one of the best red wines I have ever had. I wonder if a Moscato would appeal equally as well to the same demographic of younger drinkers? It is dolce et frizzante, increasingly well known to young wine drinkers, and Italian.

Rain Thai Bistro 6933 Lee Highway

When choosing a second wine list to review, we decided to go Asian just because of the challenge: Unlike Italian food-and-wine, which interact like twins conceived and raised in tandem over millennia, Asian food-and-wine pairing is a cross-cultural arrangement and there is nothing more difficult than pairing Asian food with wine. At Tony’s you can’t make a bad choice. At Rain Thai Bistro, the wine list is very smart and the six wines we tasted were all solid and worth the money. Still, there is no hiding the fact that wine with Asian food is like tits on a fish: Separately they’re very nice, but when joined together something’s just not right. My wife and I went to Rain for dinner and made total spectacles of ourselves: We ordered the tom kha gai soup, spring rolls, the spicy basil noodles chicken and the panang curry chicken as well as the crab roll from the sushi menu. We tasted four whites and two reds— the Voga Pinot Grigio, the

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We surveyed our advertisers to get their suggestions for wine and food pairings. Here are some reponses: • “If you are looking to fire up the grill this summer, the Don Manuel Villafane, Reserva Malbec, Mendoza is a perfect choice. It has amazing flavor and is well balanced to drink while you are cooking or strait into your meal.” Bald Headed Bistro • “Salmon with capers and Jermann Pinot Grigio or a peppercorn steak with Conn Creek Herrick Red.” Jax Liquors • “Sautéed sea scallops with grapefruit, braised radishes, vanilla bean and butter paired with Nobilo Icon Sauvignon Blanc. The racey acidity highlights the grapefruit in the dish and cuts the butter and seafood so that the wine and food really sing together.” St. John’s Restaurant • “Napoleon: Pair with French onion beef stew or any red meat dishes. Tara Bella: A perfect companion for chicken or turkey entrees. Blackberry: delicious dessert treat on top vanilla bean ice cream.” Georgia Winery

Capasaldo Pinot Grigio, the Benziger Sauvignon Blanc, the Mirassou Chardonnay, the MacMurray Sonoma Pinot Noir, and the 14 Hands Merlot. This was loaded up on the table and people were staring. Having not eaten all day, I was going at it doubletime and I am sure that attracted some looks as well. The house chardonnay was good with the sushi, but the star of the show, across the board, was the Benziger Sauvignon Blanc, which held its own against all of the spices, ginger and herbs, as well as the soy. The citrus profile of the wine cut through and complimented everything. I was humbled and I take back what I said about tits on a fish, at least as to this wine. The two pinot grigios were light, low-acid and had a little residual sweetness that did not compliment the food well. The merlot (although nice by itself) was like pouring mud on the food, but we expected that. The pinot noir was better, being less tannic and lighter, but I would order it only if you absolutely must have red wine at all occasions (and I

know such people). How would a Loire Valley red have worked, or a pinot noir from Washington State? They both tend to be under-ripe and their crispness, high acidity and low tannin may be just the oriental food match for red wine drinkers. The wines at Rain are priced at about twice what you would pay in a wine store, which is respectable, and none of the wines we tasted were cheap-tasting offerings. They were all good, drinkable wines, even the lower-priced ones. Not a single “It-Serves -You-Right” wine. Wine tannins and grapeessence are in conflict with soy sauce. There, I said it. There are several reasons for the oriental food-wine conundrum, such as coconut, ginger and curry, not to mention the fish sauce, but the big white elephant in the room is soy sauce. The wine writer Hugh Johnson was once asked to pick the best wine with Asian food, and he answered “lager.” I would add, “And sake.” Rain offers six domestic and 11 imported beers—and sake.

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Q a

33 other states allow wine to be sold in grocery stores. Why shouldn’t Tennessee? Supporters say every state is doing it, but in fact no state has put wine in groceries in 26 years. Since then, Tennessee, Colorado, Minnesota and Massachusetts – arguably the most liberal states in the nation – have all voted it down out of concern for safety and small business. Because it has been nearly a quarter of a century since a state has passed such a law, we have no way of truly knowing the impact such a dramatic increase in the availability of highalcohol content products will have on public health. You indicate that allowing wine in grocery stores will drive retailers out of business. Isn’t that extreme? Retailers will still sell liquor and many wine brands that aren’t available in grocery stores, correct? Wine, particularly the big-named brands, accounts for a tremendous part of retailers’ business. If consumers pick up a cheap bottle of mass produced wine in the grocery store, they don’t have a need to come into locally-owned retail stores. Just look around at what corporate retailers have done to other small business retailers. Local retailers can’t compete with WalMart, Target, Lowes or Home Depot. So no, this isn’t extreme. You will see liquor stores – which are owned and operated by Tennesseans – go out of business. You will see people lose their jobs. Right now retail stores are only allowed to sell beverage alcohol products. Would allowing retailers to sell certain food and other grocery items be an acceptable compromise? Absolutely not. Retailers don’t want potato chips or cork screws on their shelves because they don’t want anyone coming into their stores for any reason other than to buy wine or liquor. The state set up this system for a reason. When it came to high-proof alcohol, like wine and liquor, they wanted to make sure each sale

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was carefully watched and controlled. Alcohol retailers know people are in their stores for one reason only. Retailers are trained to recognize minors and people who have had too much to drink. We regularly exercise our right to refuse to sell our products to minors or people who have had too much to drink. If a grocery store lost its license to sell wine because of a violation, it still has hundreds, if not thousands, of items to sell in order to make money. Even if retailers were allowed to sell items other than wine and spirits, they would in no way make up for the loss in revenue that would occur if grocery and convenience were allowed to sell wine. Much of this issue has to do with Tennessee’s antiquated liquor laws. Don’t you agree that we should re-examine our beverage alcohol code? Stability in our system allows Tennessee’s wine and spirits industry to prosper. While some say Tennessee’s laws are antiquated, the truth is that they are effective. In fact, Tennessee has the third lowest number of binge drinkers and heavy drinkers, and the lowest rate of underage binge drinkers in the entire country. Public health experts say Tennessee is a leader in effective alcohol regulation, and that other states should follow Tennessee’s lead. Disturbing the balance between moderation and control of alcohol will have a damaging impact on both public safety and Tennessee’s economy. Supporters of wine in food stores say it will mean $16 million dollars to our state’s economy. Doesn’t our economy need all the help it can get? In truth, these numbers simply don’t add up. In order to generate $16 million dollars, grocery stores will need to sell 20 million more bottles of wine than what is sold on average every year. This means either wine drinkers will have to drink a lot more wine, or there needs to be thousands of new alcohol consumers in the state. Both of these propositions have public health costs attached to them that have not been

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accounted for. The more likely scenario is that wine consumers will drink the same amount of wine. The difference is that locally-owned small businesses suffer at the expense of large, out-ofstate corporations. Hundreds of local businesses will close and thousands of jobs will be lost. Isn’t the liquor industry just protecting its businesses? Of course. There are business interests on both sides of this issue. The difference is doing what’s right for Tennessee businesses as opposed to protecting the interests of powerful out-of-state corporations like Wal-Mart and Kroger. These corporate giants are currently waging the same battle in Kentucky and New York, using identical tactics. By maintaining our strong laws, profits and jobs stay in Tennessee, rather than being shipped to Arkansas and Ohio. We live in a free market society. Why should businesses in the beverage alcohol industry be protected when others aren’t? Because its products are extremely unique and unlike those of other businesses. It is not selling apples or socks. It sells privileged goods that can be harmful if misused and not respected. In Tennessee, the beverage alcohol industry has a larger role to play than simply selling products. It is charged with helping control beverage alcohol so that it is bought and sold appropriately. Studies show that allowing wine in grocery stores won’t hurt liquor retailers, that it can even help them. So why are you so opposed to this possibility? The only study that draws this conclusion was conducted for the Food Marketing Institute in 2004. It’s no surprise to see such sensational data from a study commissioned by a special interest group. The fact that it was should bring its legitimacy into question. In fact, according to a new independent study from Cornell University, retailers would lose between 17 and 32 percent of wine sales if wine were allowed in grocery stores.

Q a

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