Sip & Savor | Summer 2020 by Rosebud Media

Summer 2020

Su m m e r 2 0 2 0

Jackson and Josephine Counties’ Guide to Wining and Dining!

ADVERTISING INDEX Applebee’s.................................................16

Ostras Tapas & Bottle Shop ......................19

Café Dejeuner............................................27

The Point Pub and Grill .............................17

Cartwright’s Market ...................................16

S TA F F

Crater Cafe ................................................19

CEO & Publisher: Steven Saslow Director of Sales: Bill Krumpeck

Honeysuckle Café........................................6

Design & Production: Paul Bunch, John Sullivan & Amy Tse Sales Supervisor: Laura Perkins

Jacksonville Inn ..........................................9

Porters Dining at the Depot.......................11 River Station .............................................22 Rosario’s Italian Restaurant ......................11

Luna Mexican Cuisine .................................3

Shoji’s of Medford.....................................32

Masala Bistro & Bar ..................................14

Wayback Burgers ......................................25

ON THE COVER

Sip & Savor is published quarterly by the Rosebud Media Advertising Department 111 N Fir St., Medford, OR 97501 General Information: (541) 776-4422

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Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

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Wine Journal This pandemic, I’m drinking through the souvenir wine I’ve collected since I was 14 by Tom Sietsema

It was the summer I got my braces off. I’d just graduated from the eighth grade and my family was going on vacation to Europe, our third trip to the continent. My journal from 2005 noted, “I’m 23 years old trapped in a 14 year old body help!” Most of that frustration came from being a maniacally boy-crazy 14-year-old, but the sentiment rang true for some of my other tastes. For example, at 14, I wanted to start a travel wine collection. The source of the inspiration has been lost in the black hole of the past. Each time we traveled, I took a notebook to document the adventure. And yet while my journal from 2005 included minute details like the scores of my soccer games and what I was reading, they failed to include when, where and why, on our family trip to Barcelona, I asked my parents if I could buy a bottle of wine to save until I was of legal drinking age. Whatever the catalyst, I ended up leaving Spain that year with a cheap bottle of red I hoped would age well. The purchase started a new tradition of bringing wine home from vacations as a souvenir. Over the next seven years, my collection grew because I had the incredible privilege of traveling regularly, in large part thanks to my dad’s “Million-Miler” status from his frequent business travel, which earned us “free” flights each summer. I memorialized the trips through photographs, cringe-inducing travel journals and bottles of inexpensive wine I schlepped home for inappropriate, indefinite keeping. At my childhood home, I took over a shelf in a coat closet near the garage. That closet was sweltering in the Fresno summer heat and I stored my bottles upright (news to me later: This is a sin in the winestoring world). I tagged the bottles with notes like “Natalie’s wine, donotdrink!”

Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

and “Croatia 2010,” then didn’t touch them for a decade. The plan was to save my souvenirs for a special occasion that warranted their opening. Maybe a wedding anniversary, a milestone birthday - something big enough that was worth cracking my travel treasures open. Over the years there was plenty to celebrate, and yet nothing sparked the urge to uncork any of the improperly stored wine. Then 2020 happened. I don’t have to tell you why 2020 is different from other years. You already know the entire world is mourning some kind of loss. For some, it’s loved ones taken by covid-19. For others it’s their livelihoods. At the very least, we’ve all lost our usual way of life. Life does not look anything like I’d predicted when I bought that first bottle of wine in Barcelona.

I’m living alone, recovering from a breakup and hiding from a pandemic. As my consumption of alcohol went up (apparently with the rest of the world), and trips to the grocery store became increasingly stressful, I started eyeing the cabinet of my kitchen where my souvenir wine collection is now stored. While the wines had been saved for a special occasion, I never said it had to be a happy one. I grabbed an Ikea wine glass and a bottle opener and disentombed the souvenirs. These are the tasting notes and travel memories from six of the bottles, in the order they were purchased.

- Barcelona; 2005 The wine: 2003 Loxarel Ops; organic, unfiltered; cabernet

sauvignon, merlot and Ull de Llebre blend. The trip: The summer of 2005, my family went to Spain and the South of France where I juggled my interests of seeing the works of Gaudi and eating gnocchi with buying phone cards to call my boyfriend of three days back at home. Besides spotting Magic Johnson’s yacht parked in a Saint Tropez marina and reading “The Catcher in the Rye,” this trip was pivotal because it was when I decided to start collecting wine on vacation. I had absolutely no idea what to look for in a bottle, just that it needed to be cheap and have a cool label. Thirteen-year-old me took four pages of my travel journal to write a short story about waking CONTINUED ON PAGE 5

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up at 5 in the morning, and yet I couldn’t jot down a single note about the wine I bought. The tasting: It’s difficult to focus on the nuanced flavors and aromas of a wine when you are constantly picking cork shards out of your mouth. I learned this when the cork of my watershed wine crumbled into pieces in my attempt to open it. As crumbled cork wedged itself between my teeth, I searched “is it dangerous to ingest cork?” Search results said no, so the tasting went on according to schedule. If there wasn’t a pandemic making it feel ludicrous to go to the grocery store for something as nonessential as a coffee filter to stop the cork from pouring into my wine glass, this would have gone differently. What I’m saying is I’m now a person who eats cork. I can also say the muddy brown liquid was tannic. I can say it was definitely red wine. I can say that it tasted a lot like if you dumped some Tabasco into red wine, and maybe some olive juice, too. In short, the wine was not good.

- Santorini, Greece; 2007 The wine: Ageri semi-dry rosé white wine; no year given The trip: On our family’s ll de Llebre trip to Greece, 16-year-old me was heavy into indie music and reading Dostoevsky’s “Crime and of 2005, Punishment.” I started recording and the “stop reviews” in my journal, uggled writing down the place, noting the e works cchi with main highlights and giving the overall experience a star rating. all my ack at

c Johnson’s ropez e Catcher pivotal cided to vacation. ea what st that it have a cool me took ournal to waking

I gave Santorini five stars. The highlights? Our hotel breakfast and visiting black sand beaches. Lowlights: “The cruise crowd” and “bed bugs?” Somewhere between getting a fake tattoo and swimming in the Aegean, I bought a bottle of rosé at a tourist shop, along with a bar of soap, for a total of 10 euros. Solid pick. It had to be good 13 years later. The tasting: Opening it on a pandemic weeknight, the smell was so sweet I could tell it was going to be a syrupy situation. Even the color reminded me of marmalade. The label explained that it was named for “the freshness of the Cycladic summer winds and the long Santorini vinification tradition.” When I bought this bottle of rosé, I had no idea what “semidry” wines were. At 29 years old, the sugar gave me a headache immediately. I’ll drink just about anything, but I couldn’t stomach this. I dumped the contents of my glass and moved on to the next experiment.

with Corsica for the sun, the beaches, the mountains, the cliffs and, now that my parents were letting me drink a glass or two with them on vacation, the wine. It was on the French island that my wine collecting took a more serious turn. I started keeping track of all the “zesty” Vermentino, “earthy” Nielluccio and “sweet” muscats that we tried during our trip. I learned French phrases such as “wine for keeping” so I could

ask the wine shop owners how to choose a bottle that would be good in the future. Somewhere during our trip, I bought a 7.15 euro bottle of 2006 Domaine Saparale for my collection, and another to drink on our last night of the trip. We didn’t finish the latter, so I tried to see if I could stash it in my carry-on bag. I wept at the airport when we were heading home to California. ■

The tasting: Opening it on a pandemic weeknight, the smell was so sweet I could tell it was going to a syrupy situation. Even the color reminded me of marmalade.

- Corsica, France; 2008 The wine: 2006 Domaine Saparale, Corse Sartène; Nielluccio and Sciaccarello blend The trip: During the summer of 2008 I was 17 years old and had been working as both a sign holder for a sandwich shop and a lifeguard at a neighborhood pool. In July, we landed in Corsica, France, for our beach vacation close to midnight and learned that our luggage had been lost along the way. Rocky start aside, I fell in love

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Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

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Solo Cooks

How solo cooks are managing in the pandemic - without resorting to cereal for dinner

by Charlotte Druckman

Special To The Washington Post

I did not attend the virtual lasagna party plastered all over my social media a few weeks back. Neither did Candice Springer, Richard Lee nor Valen West. Tayari Jones, a novelist in Atlanta, has no intention of making the layered pasta dish. “So many of those foods that I’m seeing in articles and things for this batch cooking, for these big dishes, they’re special occasion foods, and that’s fine if you’re with a big family,” she said. “You have all the lasagna just one time. Or, you bake this really elaborate cake this one time. But if I’m alone with a cake, that’s not good.” That’s probably how you imagine those of us who are quarantining alone, though: in bed with an entire cake or hunched over our kitchen sinks with a bowl of cereal. If you imagine us at all. While the U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were upward of 35 million single-person households in this country in 2018, many food media seem to be operating under the assumption that everyone is responsible for feeding a family of four. I talked to a few of my comrades in solo sheltering to find out how we’re managing. No, most of us are not making lasagna, but we are cooking, and we’re doing all right for ourselves. Based in Union City, New Jersey, Leigh-Ann Martin, 35, an executive assistant at a biopharma company, has been avoiding casseroles of any kind and the “heavy rice dishes and soups” she grew up eating in Trinidad. “I need to stay positive, and in the past, eating rich foods all time didn’t do any good for my mood.”

In Boston’s Brighton neighborhood, Springer, 33, who works at the city’s WBUR public radio station, has been craving her mom’s cooking: linguine with clam sauce, a

riff on Portuguese jagacida with kielbasa in place of linguica, meatloaf. She’s texting her mother for the recipes, which make her feel closer to a family she can’t visit. Previously, she adhered to a monthly $100 limit on her grocery expenditures. Now, she’s shelling out $170 every two weeks when she walks 12 minutes to the nearest store with her own small shopping cart. “I buy whatever I can fit in the cart, because it’s all I can manage to get back home,” she explained over email. “This hasn’t allowed me the freedom to cook or eat whatever I want as much anymore.” Jones, 49, has been responding to the idiosyncrasies - or errors inherent to online shopping in Atlanta. “I cook whatever they give me,” she said. “If there is an edible item in my house, I will cook that sucker. I will search the internet. I will do whatever has to be done. I cannot waste food in this climate.” Too many lemons? She preserved some in salt and froze the juice of the rest in ice cube trays. 100 bulbs of garlic? She roasted some of the heads whole, squeezed out the softened cloves to use in soups, and preserved the rest of the raw cloves in vinegar. She’s actively maintaining what she calls her “food archive,” or the assortment of leftovers in her freezer. There is the “cooking and freezing phase,” followed by the defrosting phase.

Lea Addington, the 28-year-old Detroit-based chef who founded LIT Vegan Kitchen to provide culinary education and wellness consulting for plant-based eaters, isn’t “really into leftovers,” or “wasn’t before the quarantine,” she said. When she does have them, she leverages them to barter for things she needs. A container of quinoa scored her a loan of gym equipment for a month, and she traded other food with a friend to secure some cookie dough for her freezer. Funnily enough, she does not share them

with her cousin, with whom she has been cohabitating during the outbreak. The two have been living together as though alone: Addington’s cousin, an omnivore who contracted the coronavirus and was isolated in her room for weeks, eats (and shops) very differently from her vegan relative.

Richard Lee was delighted when one of his neighbors shared her shipment of Vidalia onions from Georgia with the rest of the building’s remaining tenants. For the past few years, he had been taking almost all his meals at the diner downstairs from his apartment in Midtown Manhattan. Now, the 70-year-old artist and interior designer cooks every meal - a limited rotation of pasta with meat sauce, grilled cheese, eggs or tuna with beans and one of those onions. He is not ordering in at all after discovering a regular-size pizza with sausage and extra cheese from the place down the street is $30.

A few blocks north on the Upper East Side, Betty Halbreich wouldn’t dare order in. The personal shopper has made it 92 years without ever having done so. “I’m embarrassed to order for one,” she admitted. After four-plus decades of living alone, she has “it down to a certain pattern,” she said. “I have a tray, and I have a cloth on it, and a cloth napkin, and I prepare dinner.” The only difference, under quarantine, is her reluctance to shop for groceries. Even though she’s uneasy asking friends and neighbors to buy things for her, she’s forced to, and as appreciative as she is, she hates not being able to select her produce herself. Her daughter, Kathy, 71, executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in New York City, decamped for her small farmhouse on the North Fork of Long Island and has realized she “would be a

good person to stock a bomb shelter,” she said in an email. Shopping for groceries “is no longer pleasurable; it breeds anxiety.” She shops every three weeks, with intermittent visits to the farmers market for greens. She plans her list out carefully, based on things she likes and ideas for future meals. Without the incentive of guests, she’s cooking with “less gusto” than before and preparing less-elaborate fare: turkey soup with vegetables, apple and fennel salad, hummus, pizza from store-bought dough.

Meanwhile, in Dubuque, Iowa, her son, Henry Kohring, 31, an engineer at John Deere, makes his own pizza dough. He keeps it simple, too, but believes in doing as much from scratch as possible for the sake of cost-efficiency. “I would brag about how much money I saved on something before I bragged about a fancy meal,” he said. “If I can buy the 25-pound bag of flour for $10 and use it to make 50 loaves of bread at 50 cents each, then I’d brag about that.” (This would explain his bread machine.) But when he’s pressed for time - and the price is right - he’s equally comfortable opening up a can of chili or box of Kraft mac and cheese, or picking up a burrito.

Sisters Christina and Kim Ku live less than 30 minutes away from each other in New York’s Queens borough, but their strategies for feeding themselves couldn’t be farther apart. Christina, 37, a freelance computer graphics artist who’s out of work, is a proud weekend meal-planner. “I don’t like to spend time thinking about what to eat every day, and if I make a big batch of something tasty, I can eat it every day for a week, no complaints,” she conveyed over email. “I’ve mostly settled into a routine of cooking two CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

Summer 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

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big pots of food, one for lunch and one for dinner, one sauce and one soup or carb dish.” Kim is not interested in planning. Problem solving and curiosity guide whatever culinary strategy the 36-year-old product designer has, and thanks to the farm subscription she joined to cut back on shopping, she has plenty of motivation. “Sometimes, they just give you a box of random vegetables, and I feel that I’m such a novice, I can’t recognize half of them,” she said, then added that the “whimsy” she seeks as a cook “comes from the joy of finding out what something is.” A 50-something author and journalist in Los Angeles, Lynell George believes cooking for oneself is vital to maintaining mental wellness and encourages others who live alone to go to “the trouble” to cook for themselves, even if they don’t have other mouths to feed. “It’s important to remind people that, hey you’re worth ‘that trouble,’ and it really isn’t trouble at all. Treat yourself with worth,” she encouraged in an email.

That hasn’t been easy for Valen West, 46, a restaurant owner in San Francisco - and not just because, despite her years working in a restaurant, she was in the front of house and, as a result, is “clueless in the kitchen.” It’s also because, as she has observed, “being in isolation and having unlimited time to self-analyze who you truly are will bring the demons to the surface.” Although she’s committed to cooking all her meals and spends

money only on food, she ends up in a “stare-off” with her fridge, she said via email. “I still don’t know. What do I feel like eating? . . . I can only rearrange the few food items I have so many times where I’m trying to trick my mind but cannot trick my palate.” Her fear of wasting food and her refusal to stand in line limit what she buys, and, therefore, what she can cook. In Bothell, Washington, Steven Vertel, 57, a supply chain manager for an internet retail company, does not suffer from West’s culinary equivalent of writer’s block; he sees cooking as a creative outlet. But he

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is also mindful of both food waste and palate fatigue. He makes more than he knows he’ll eat in one night so he can have it for another meal or two. “I’m not trying to cook for a whole week or have things to freeze beyond that. I don’t have a lot of space in my kitchen,” he said. Plus, he adds, “after the second day, I’ve lost interest in it.” Apparently, there is one exception to that rule: lasagna. He cooked one and made five meals of it. As for me, I’ve continued to conduct what I call my “kitchen experiments.” One of the more successful of these is a recipe that affords all of

the flavors and gooey-cheesed comfort of lasagna with little effort for those of us who are sequestered in solitude and don’t want five meals’ worth of a hefty pasta casserole. It’s a frittata that’s full of spinach, ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan, and covered with tomato sauce. It’s intended to serve one, with leftovers for another meal, maybe two. But it can probably feed up to three. (You can always scale it up and put it in a bigger pan if you’ve got the standard foursome, or then-some.) If anyone wants to make a party of it, I’ll be there - virtually, of course. ■

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We Miss You Too Restaurants have lost so much in the pandemic, but what I miss most is you by Ian Boden

As told to Washington Post multiplatform editor Jim Webster

The dining room of my 26-seat restaurant should be full of hungry, happy guests. It should be filled with the sounds of our wait staff rattling silverware and glasses, scraping plates. The kitchen should be humming. But the only thing my restaurant is full of right now is empty seats. The kitchen is dark, and the only sound is my tapping on the keyboard, trying to pay bills from a quickly draining bank account. In the months since we had to close to wait out the spread of the novel coronavirus, writers have penned eloquent love letters about restaurants, about the social and cultural significance of sharing food. A taste or smell can evoke the best, worst and most bittersweet moments of our lives. Everybody misses normal. But here’s the story from inside the restaurant: We miss you, too. It isn’t about the money, and it isn’t really about the food. From our friends who raise and deliver the food we cook to the friends we serve it to, our industry is really about people. At a restaurant like mine, the Shack, in the small town I adopted to be near my family, I have history with many of our diners every night. If I weren’t running a restaurant, these are people I would be inviting to my home to cook for them. We’re a part of our community, and our community is a big part of us. The stories you read about restaurants tell you about the food, the service, the wine, the ambiance and maybe the chef. Rarely do they talk about the customers, the life force of a restaurant. Let me introduce you to some of ours. The first dollar I ever earned as a restaurateur came from David and Anne Jeffrey at my first restaurant, Staunton Grocery, and for 13 years, the Jeffreys have celebrated nearly every birthday and anniversary in my dining room, on top of being

Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

weekly guests. They’re educators, and he is the foremost scholar on one of my favorite authors, Harry Crews. We were friends for almost 10 years before I found that out, giving us one more thing to talk about when they came in. Everyone at the restaurant is happy when the Jeffreys’ names are on the reservation list. They are the first guests to arrive, and they lighten the mood when they walk in. They greet us with hugs and handshakes - I can’t wait to get back to that - and we’re already working on her cocktail as they head to their table. He asks what new bourbons we have. After dessert, Anne will weave her way to the kitchen to thank us for “taking such great care” of them, clasping her hands in appreciation. At one point, they told me they decided to sell their house in town to move to the country. The story goes that they changed their minds when they realized how far they

would be from the Shack. Were they serious? I have no idea, but it made me realize how big a part we have played in one another’s lives, and what the comfort of our table has meant to them. That was never more obvious than when Anne’s father was sick. The Jeffreys came to the restaurant after each time they went to see her dad, and the post-dinner kitchen visit seemed more serious those nights. She would walk in with tears in her eyes, telling us she loved us and thanking us. He died at the end of February, and the Jeffreys had dinner with us after his service, just a couple weeks before we had to close. Tears came to my eyes, too, when these people who have always been there for me thanked me for being there for them. When you run a restaurant in a small town, your customers, friends and suppliers can end up all being the same people. Linda

and Clay Trainum own Autumn Olive Farms about 15 miles east of the restaurant and run it with their three sons. Every Wednesday, one of them, usually Clay or their son Tyler, shows up at the kitchen door after putting our weekly supply in the walk-in. They come in, and we catch up about what’s going on at the restaurant and what’s going on at the farm. Sometimes they’ve been working all day, it’s late, and they’ll ask if any seats are open in the dining room. We find a way to feed them. Oftentimes, my wife, Leslie, and our kids are eating, and they’ll share their table. When I turned 40, the Trainums smoked a pig for my birthday party. It was a great day, and I was glad to return the favor in the early days of the pandemic. Most of Autumn Olive’s business is with restaurants. So when CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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everything shut down overnight, they were in as much trouble as I was. We didn’t have a plan, so we had them bring their smoker to the Shack and smoke two 120-pound pigs. We made side dishes and packed them for curbside pickup, with all the money going to the farm. We sold out in 15 minutes. The list goes on. Charlotte Allen, who has a dry sense of humor and an infectious laugh that would

We love watching your excitement in eating a dish that we were excited to create. We love the gratitude you show when you poke your head into the kitchen on the way out. fill our dining room, found us at Staunton Grocery because her son was dating one of our waitresses. She wasn’t laughing, though, the night we didn’t have chocolate ice cream on the menu. She decided to skip dessert. Then my souschef, Zach Weiss, found some dark chocolate whey caramel ice cream in the freezer and took her a scoop. Charlotte was in disbelief, and Zach got a hug that made him blush. I met KT Sparks and Nick Auclair when they raised guinea hens for another restaurant and the deal fell through, so I bought them. In return, I earned loyal friends and customers. When we did brunch service at the Shack, they were always there. And when we had to close in March, one of the first calls I got was from KT, offering to do anything we needed, including covering for our employees if they had to miss time and prepaying for a party they would throw when all this is over. And I knew something was up one day when Deirdre Armstrong pulled up to the restaurant and it wasn’t Wednesday. She’s a farmer and delivers some of the most

Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

incredible produce, but always on Wednesday. She came in to tell me her husband, Phil, had died the night before. She knew I would want to know. For us, it’s all a lot to lose. Sure, we’re doing curbside pickup twice a week. But we love the noise of a crowded dining room and the action of the busy kitchen. We love when our guests greet us with a smile and a hug. We love watching your excitement in eating a dish that we were excited to create. We love the gratitude you show when you poke your head into the kitchen on the way out. I tell my staff that restaurants don’t really belong to the owners. A restaurant is a living thing. We work for it, and in return, it nurtures us. It gives us a space to celebrate and mourn. Our customers come in to be supported, and in return, they’re supporting us. It isn’t our home away from home; it’s our home, and there isn’t any place I’d rather be. So whenever you hear someone say that the thing they can’t wait to do when the pandemic is all over is go back to a restaurant, know this: The restaurant can’t wait for you to come back, either. ■

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Black-Owned Restaurants Black-owned restaurants are seeing a surge of interest and support. Advocates say it’s a start.

by Emily Heil

Peter Prime’s restaurant, Cane, opened last year in a prominent spot on Washington’s H Street Northeast, near yoga studios, upscale condos and grocery stores. But securing the space for the eatery, where he serves dishes influenced by his native Trinidad and Tobago, wasn’t always a sure thing. When he and his sister were shopping around for a place to rent,

Prime, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute and a veteran of some of the finest restaurants in Washington, interviewed with several would-be landlords. Two of them turned him down, he says, suspicious because of his skin color about his plans to incorporate a rum bar into the concept. “They thought I was going to open an after-hours club,” he says. Such tales are common among black restaurant owners. The inequalities they face are many and well documented. Particularly when it comes to financing, black-

owned small businesses are at a disadvantage. A 2017 report by the Federal Reserve showed that black-owned firms had a harder time getting loans than any other group: 47% of their applications were fully funded, compared with 75% of white-owned businesses’ applications. And the coronavirus has further battered the restaurant industry, shuttering restaurants to diners and leaving customers without income to spend. Long-simmering efforts to highlight black-owned restaurants have gotten fresh attention in recent days, as protests against

police violence and racial injustice fill streets and screens and conversations. Lists of black-owned businesses - and restaurants in particular - have been assembled and circulated by food media and activists. In Instagrammable images and spreadsheets and Google documents, Facebook pages and Twitter threads, they offer people the names and addresses of eateries, city by city.

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In Los Angeles, food writer Kat Hong over the weekend shared a Google spreadsheet of blackowned eateries across her city. With contributions from readers, the list now spans 200 establishments, from ice cream shops to barbecue joints. People have shared the searchable map of Chicago black- and brownowned restaurants open during the coronavirus crisis created by the blog Seasoned and Blessed.

San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho created a database of more than 200 Bay Area eateries. Their names might be iconic, like Sylvia’s in Harlem, or Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville, Tennessee. Others might not be so well known yet: Heard Dat Kitchen in New Orleans, DC Puddin’ in Washington, 18th Street Brewery in Indianapolis, or Salare in Seattle. Anthony and Janique Edwards, the married co-founders of the app EatOkra, which lets users find blackowned businesses in cities around the country, say they’ve noticed a leap in traffic over the past few days. They hatched the idea for the app in 2016 when they had just started dating. He was a developer looking for an idea to make into his own project; she was just hungry. She had just moved to Brooklyn and didn’t know the neighborhood. “We were sitting on the sofa and I was like, ‘Let’s get some food, what’s around?’ “ she recalls. “I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if there was an app to tell you about black-owned restaurants? And I said, ‘Maybe you should create something like this.’ “ The couple is now married with a young daughter, and EatOkra has listings for 2,600 restaurants around the country and 60,000 users. Last week, they released a new version of the app that includes food trucks and delivery options. Janique Edwards says the protests have made inequalities more visible and have left many people looking for ways big and small to fight them. “People understand the difficulties the black community is facing on a totally different level and from many angles. In these past couple weeks they’ve seen it

in economics, health care, police brutality,” she says. “People are desperate to unify and combat these things.” Anthony Edwards said their app is meant to boost the profile of small black-owned businesses, many of which don’t have the luxury of hiring a social media manager or a marketing director. Real estate costs are high, he notes. “So black businesses might be on the side street, where you can’t depend on walk-in traffic,” he says. “This lets you know that if you take a left instead of a right, you pass three black-owned businesses.” There’s evidence that the economic impact of the coronavirus has hit black-owned businesses disproportionately. Studies have indicated that they rely more heavily on black customers, and unemployment among African Americans because of the virus is soaring. A May Washington Post-Ipsos poll showed that black Americans reported being furloughed and laid off at higher rates than whites.

The campaign to “buy black” is not new in the black community, notes Rachel Marie Brooks Atkins, an assistant professor and postdoctoral faculty fellow at New York University’s Stern School of Business. She says many people who study black entrepreneurship are skeptical that even more widespread adoption can have a lasting impact, noting that the challenges facing black businesses are more fundamental than cash flow. But she says that consumers can use this moment to take a deeper look at all their choices. “It’s a chance to evaluate - who do you engage with commercially and why, and are there ways for that to better reflect your values?” she says. For a businessperson, that might mean thinking not just about who you order office lunches from, but also where you get office supplies and how you go about hiring. “Reevaluating all those things together can make institutional changes,” she says. “Buying black for your next meal? I don’t think it’s nothing, but it’s not enough.”

Anela Malik, a food blogger and activist in Washington who compiled her own list of blackowned food businesses to support during the coronavirus crisis, says most people recognize that they’re not going to solve institutional problems with takeout orders. Still,

It’s hard to quantify the effect of the recent push. Prime says his business, which is right now relegated to takeout and delivery because of the coronavirus, is brisk. He’s doing as much business as before the shutdown, he says, though the margins are smaller

The couple is now married with a young daughter, and EatOkra has listings for 2,600 restaurants around the country and 60,000 users. she says, it’s a way for them to do something, and at least put money into hurting businesses. “Until we have radical social change, this is a concrete way people can recognize injustice in society and do something about it today,” she says. “There should be space for people to do activism at all levels.”

after you account for the share that delivery services take and the cost of all that to-go packaging. Fellow chefs from other restaurants have been ordering staff meals from him in solidarity, he says. And he says he’s gotten support both tangible and not: “I have felt a lot of love from the restaurant industry and the community.” ■

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Don’t Shame Take-out If you’re tempted to publicly criticize your restaurant takeout order, here’s a thought: Don’t. by Tom Sietsema

Birdie G’s in Santa Monica wasn’t set up for takeout in mid-March when its owner, Jeremy Fox, began serving his comfort food in to-go cartons. “We were just drowning,” the chef says. “I didn’t train for this in culinary school.” One customer acted as if it were business as usual when he ordered matzo ball soup and publicly shamed Birdie G’s for not giving him enough broth - on Yelp, with a one-star review and a photograph to prove his point. “I completely agreed it was not enough” broth, Fox says. What was the right amount for his restaurant bowls looked skimpy in takeout containers. In normal times, he says, “a plate coming back to the kitchen was like being stabbed.” Staff would be “ashamed, and disappointed that we disappointed you.” And now? “We’re just trying to do our best while our lives are on the line, and we’re losing money.” Restaurateurs from around the country say they’re largely heartened by the response from customers in the midst of a global pandemic. “The support from the city has blown us away,” says Suzanne Humphries Evans, who co-owns Automatic Seafood &amp; Oysters in Birmingham with her husband, chef Adam Evans. They spent their establishment’s first

anniversary, on April Fools’ Day, in their empty dining room, serving takeout.

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night, but the patron, who threatened to air his grievances in public, refused. Automatic gave him his money back and offered an appetizer and dessert in the future. “We’re doing everything we can,” Humphries Evans says. “Sometimes, it’s not pretty.” And sometimes, such as when they are fighting for their futures as never before, it’s simply not fair to restaurants. For as long as I’ve been writing about the industry, I’ve thought of myself as an advocate for diners. Consumers’ time, money and attention have long been foremost when I tap out a rave, a rant or something in between. Since the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve had a change of heart. Rest assured, I’m not going soft, or abandoning my constituency. I’m just not writing about places that aren’t good (or better), and I’m offering a highlight reel of dishes that travel best from Point A to Point B. Star ratings have no place in these surreal times, and I have no idea when I’ll use them again. The middle of an earthquake is no time to issue a report card.

Controversial as it has been in the restaurant world, Yelp declared in March it had zerotolerance for anyone claiming to contract covid-19 from a business or complaining about a restaurant being closed during what would be its regular hours in ordinary circumstances. In a May blog post, the company reminded users to be understanding of the struggles of one of the hardest-hit industries. The company’s message came after Prince Street Pizza in New York lambasted a customer for a 1-star review two months earlier. “Just know if your Yelping during a time like this there is special place in hell for you,” the restaurant posted on Instagram.

Some diners still want it to be all about them. Giant in Chicago has been dark since mid-March. Even so, the delivery service Caviar continued to promote the restaurant, which resulted in a customer encountering a locked door when she came for pickup one 20 Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

night. She let Giant know she was outside, and despite circumstances, chef Jason Vincent says she emailed to say, “hospitality still has to be a first.” One of his partners apologized and said Giant was indeed closed, to which the customer responded that other people were also outside the restaurant: “I’m not the only one affected.” Peeved at the time by her lack of understanding, Vincent says the story is “quaint” in light of the subsequent worldwide protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. “We’re in a more important time now.” “People are snapping. I understand. We are empathetic with that,” the Chicago chef says. But, he says, “everyone is on edge.”

Restaurants that are still with us, operating on onion-skin-thin margins, can’t afford to lose even a single sale now. The staff at JuneBaby in Seattle were taken aback when a customer returned his order because he thought it would have to be reheated at home. The meal was fully cooked. “He claimed not to have pots or pans or even a microwave oven,” says chef-owner Edouardo Jordan. With more people than ever ordering carryout, chefs scrambling to figure out what works and without the assistance of servers, there is an added dash of uncertainty. “What people read and what they understand” from a restaurant’s website don’t always mesh, says chef Eric Ziebold of the upscale Kinship in Washington. Before the pandemic, one of his waiters might have pointed out to a diner ordering three portions of his popular roast chicken that each was a whole bird, enough for two or more people. But when a woman ordered it to go recently, she wasn’t put off by the cost - each chicken costs $45 - but by the abundance. “What am I supposed to do with the leftovers?” she asked Kinship. The restaurant describes its current selections as the kind of food the owners might serve at home. The theme brought out the vinegar in one patron, who let the restaurant know he didn’t think corned beef and cabbage was something a Michelin-rated

Restaurateurs from around the country say they’re largely heartened by the response from customers How in the midst of a global pandemic. “The support from the city has blown us away,” says Suzanne Humphries Evans. establishment should ply. “Maybe he thinks I’m eating Dover sole with lobster beurre blanc at home,” Ziebold says.

As always, diner feedback has brought about restaurant changes large and small. Birdie G’s now makes triple the amount of broth for its matzo ball soup, says Fox, whose exchange with the original complainant resulted in the Yelp review being deleted and the poster apologizing online: “We should be supporting each other right now, and I should have given you the

benefit of the doubt, especially in these trying times.” Kinship now offers more thorough reheating instructions and uses color coded dots to specify which containers of food are supposed to go together, a detail I wish more restaurants used. (Not complaining, just saying!) Automatic Seafood &amp; Oysters couldn’t have predicted the feedback it got from a customer who ordered peel-and-eat shrimp - and then was surprised when her shrimp came in their shells. No biggie. “She’s been back several times,” Humphries Evans says. And for that, the owner is grateful. ■

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Wine Tasting

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by Dave McIntyre

Special To The Washington Post

“I drank a bottle of wine for company,” Ernest Hemingway wrote in “The Sun Also Rises.” “It was Chateau Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company.” Over the past few weeks, we’ve discussed how a wine speaks to us through its bottle

and label, its appearance in the glass, and its aromas. Now, it’s time to take a sip and decipher the wine’s message. Books have been written about how to “taste” wine. This can be a sport - “Identify this!” becomes a challenge for enthusiasts and an imperative for professionals working toward a certification such as master sommelier or master of wine. It’s easy to lose sight of how to enjoy a wine the way Hemingway did and savor the

companionship it offers. Bring your glass to your lips, but before you take a sip, give it another swirl and sniff. Delight in those aromas once more. Much of our sense of taste is actually what we smell. (Think of how bland your food tastes when you have a cold or spring allergies, and your nose is stuffed up.) Now take a sip and pay attention to the wine’s “attack.” This is really just geekspeak for its first impression. Is

it tart or sweet? Racy or dull? As the wine fills your mouth, swish it around a bit over your tongue, to make sure all your taste buds have a chance at it. Try to aerate it a little in your mouth, by sucking in some air as you swish it about. Some people do this noisily, but it can be done discreetly - as it should be. This is where you might pick up flavors of this fruit CONTINUED ON PAGE 23

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and that herb, a cornucopia of berries and melons, spices and various forest fungi. But you already got most of that on the nose, by smelling the wine. On the palate, what we’re really looking for are balance, length and texture. Balance is essentially the interplay of tart acidity, sweet fruitiness and (in red wines at least) astringent tannin. If the wine tastes harmonious, it is balanced. If any element dominates, it isn’t. You may prefer one element to be highlighted, but all should play supporting roles. Tannin might assault you on the attack, like you’re being whacked with a baseball bat - that’s bad. If it tickles you on the finish, the way spinach makes your teeth itch, that’s good. Length is simply that - how long the flavor lingers in your mouth after swallowing. Some wines disappear and then come back (these are called “doughnut wines” because of the hole in the middle), while others are “short” - they just fall off your palate like lemmings over a cliff. A long, pleasant finish is a sign of a superior wine. If your wineloving friend smiles and falls silent after taking a sip, that’s why. He’s conversing with the wine. Texture is really key, and difficult to describe. Does the wine caress your tongue like velvet, or go down like straight-from-the-source spring water? Does it have energy, or is it heavy and dull? These aren’t really flavors, but they are attributes we assess as we decide whether we like a wine. I was reminded of the importance of texture during a recent online tasting of three Virginia red wines led by blogger Frank Morgan as part of his Virginia Wine Chat series. The wines, all from 2017, a

Damien Blanchon’s Tradition wine from Afton Mountain Vineyards was taut, tight and a bit tart, with flavors of sour plum candy over just-ripe raspberries. The sensation was of stones and minerals. This wine requires focus, and maybe some time in the cellar. The Pollak Vineyards Meritage, crafted by Benoit Pineau, was a warm embrace. Family, good times. The wine is classic, Bordeaux-style with a Virginia drawl. Matthieu Finot said he was trying for a riper style with his Mountain Plains red blend at King Family Vineyards. He succeeded. The wine is plush and jammy, with spicy notes and a chewy texture. Elton John in concert. Three winemakers with different things to say through their wines. And they nailed it.

And yet, here’s the rub: I can’t tell you what a wine is saying. I can only tell you if a wine has something to say. An honest wine will speak of its vintage, its place, its winemaker. It’s up to you to listen. ■

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very good vintage in Virginia, were all Bordeaux-style blends from the Monticello wine region, and each was included in this year’s Governor’s Case of the best Virginia wines from the annual statewide competition. The wineries are about 10 minutes drive from one another, and each has a French-born winemaker. Each wine was delicious, and very different.

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Ice pops are a quintessential summer treat Here’s how to make your own by Becky Krystal

Few summer treats are as iconic as the ice pop. Hot days, a rainbow of colors dripping down your arm: It’s pure bliss. And it happens to be bliss that you can easily create in your own kitchen, especially if you’re hesitant to bring home store-bought varieties that may have artificial colors and flavors. Unlike ice cream, which takes more precision to perfect, ice pops (Popsicle is a trademark we try to avoid using generically) are relatively straightforward to improvise depending on what you have. The bar to entry is pretty low, if you invest in an inexpensive set of plastic molds or just roll with paper cups and wooden craft sticks. Since batches are typically small, the ingredients don’t necessarily require a huge buy-in either. Here are a few tips to help you. Lean in on the fruit “For richer flavor, don’t stint on the fruit. A proportion of about two-thirds fruit puree to one-third water, milk or other liquid generally results in an ice pop with proper fruit power,” Toni Lydecker wrote in The Washington Post in 1985 (yes, these things are indeed timeless!). Consider what’s in season for peak flavor, although the fruit doesn’t even have to be in peak condition. Ice pops are a great way to use up overripe fruit that’s close to going off, especially because it will be pureed (for extra-smooth texture, strain out seeds and/or other fibrous bits). You can even try to score seconds or blemished fruit at

Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

the farmers market, says Fany Gerson in her book “Paletas: Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice & Aguas Frescas.” Fruit at that stage will be high in natural sugars, which translates to unbeatable flavor. Add some kind of sweetener Just because there’s natural sugar in fruit doesn’t mean you can get away with forgoing any other type of sweetener. For optimal texture that doesn’t involve a rock-hard pop, add some sugar to the mix. Sugar attracts water, lowering the temperature at which ice forms and thus reducing the presence of ice crystals. Too much sugar will turn your ice pop into soup, though. Sugar doesn’t have to mean the granulated stuff, either. Many recipes will call for a simple syrup of sugar and water, though not always in the standard equal amounts. Lydecker suggests a ratio of 1 part sugar to 2 parts water, and many of Gerson’s recipes also skew in that direction. In that vein, you can also consider already liquid sweeteners such as honey, agave nectar or corn syrup (not high-fructose), which actually tastes less sweet than sugar. Or even consider jam, which will contribute both concentrated fruit flavor and sugar for improved texture. Gerson says to keep in mind that frozen foods will taste less sweet than those at room temperature, so what may look like more sugar than you need won’t necessarily come across that way on your tongue. Enrich with dairy. “Another old standby among homemade

ice pops is really a smoothie in frozen form,” Lydecker said. All it takes is some fruit, yogurt or milk and a little sweetener as needed. If you’re looking to use up odds and ends of halfand-half or even heavy cream, by all means use them for extra richness. If you’d like to bypass fruit altogether, your favorite pudding can be frozen, too. Add other flavors. A tablespoon or so of lemon or lime juice can bring your flavors into sharper focus and provide some needed contrast with the sweetness. Liqueurs are another option, though you’ll want to be judicious —a few tablespoons if you’re improvising, though specific recipes may call for more. Too much alcohol can prevent the pops from freezing. Herbs are another great addition, which you can incorporate by steeping in simple syrup or even just boiling water. Take a layered approach. If you have time and creative initiative, you can make stunning pops with multiple flavors and add-ins. Gerson says the key is to partially

freeze each layer so that they stay distinct. The same goes if you want solid pieces such as chunks of fruit embedded in your pops without them sinking to the bottom. Freezers and recipes vary, though Gerson suggests 50 minutes per layer as a starting point. Set yourself up for success. Liquids expand as they freeze, so Gerson recommends leaving at least 1/4-inch of room at the top of your molds, or more if your mixture is particularly thin. If you’re using wooden sticks in cups or molds, allow the pops to partially freeze before inserting so they’ll stand up. Get your freezer as cold as you can, keep the door shut and leave room for air to circulate and more efficiently chill the pops. As with ice cream, the faster pops freeze, the smaller the ice crystals will be. For the best texture, Gerson says, don’t let them hang around in the molds for more than two weeks to prevent crystallization. You can, however, unmold pops and then store them for longer in a zip-top bag. ■

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Virtual winery tours

are bringing wine country to you by Dave McIntyre

Special To The Washington Post

The pitch seemed too good to be true. A video graphics firm specializing in virtualreality exhibits and “minds-on experiences” was offering to produce virtual tours of wineries, for no charge. “I honestly thought there was a catch to it, you know, like the free cruise phone calls you get,” says Pennie Haase, national marketing director for Alexander Valley Vineyards in California’s Sonoma County. But she checked out the firm, Geoffrey M. Curley + Associates, or GMC+A, and discovered “The Great Fermentation,” an exhibition last year that brought the experience of visiting a Tuscan vineyard and winery to downtown Chicago. She decided to jump at the offer. Alexander Valley Vineyards is a fourthgeneration winery located just north of Healdsburg on land once owned by Cyrus Alexander, for whom the valley is named. That’s a good story to tell, but the Wetzel family and their team had experienced difficulty getting the word out. “Our tasting room and hospitality operation was closed for a total of almost 60 days due to fires and floods in 2019, and we had not recovered from that when the coronavirus hit,” Haase

Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

says. California’s lockdown closed the tasting room for an additional 10 weeks and forced cancellation of events, a major source of income for many wineries. “We are now open to a limited number of guests by appointment only, but all of them are from Northern California. We honestly don’t know when tourism can or will return.” The virtual tour, she says, “will allow us to take the winery to customers rather

than bring them to us.” I contacted Geoffrey Curley after reading about his work at Schramsberg winery in Calistoga in the Napa Valley Register. In a conversation via Zoom from his home base in

Minneapolis, Curley told me he wanted to help wineries navigate the economic stresses of the novel coronavirus CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27

Virtual-reality technology is so good now that we can actually walk you through the vineyard, and if you see something interesting, click on it and learn more about it.”

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26

pandemic. He dubbed the effort “Vineyards to Home,” and based it on “The Great Fermentation,” which received more than 14,000 visitors during its month-long run last year in Chicago. “We wanted to take that experience to a more personal level, knowing that in the pandemic people either cannot or are reluctant to travel. So how can we let them enjoy the

sample wines, and that is part of the experience Curley and his virtual-reality technology and 360-degree cameras are not able to replicate. “This isn’t going to sell more wine for them, but they can add it to other assets they have,” Curley said. He mentioned virtual wine tastings or dinners, two other innovative ways wineries have shifted their marketing efforts during the pandemic. “They can show this, and people can

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‘The Great Fermentation’ was to help people like me, who might be intimidated by the jargon or the price point, but interested in learning more about the craftsmanship and the science.

ask about the red soil, or the diseases they hope to control with that airflow through the vineyard. Smaller wineries can cast their net a little wider, and maybe reach people who wouldn’t go out of their way when in wine country to visit a small winery on top of a mountain.” Curley laughed when I asked whether he considered himself a wine person. “I’m a wine lover, but not someone who feels he knows a lot about wine,” he said. “Part of the reason we worked on ‘The Great Fermentation’ was to help people like me, who might be intimidated by the jargon or the price point, but interested in learning more about the craftsmanship and the science. Why are different types of soils going to produce different flavors in grapes? Why is altitude important? Why does a shorter or longer growing season make a difference? “I’m at that point right now where I love discovering a new wine or a new aspect of wine. So yeah, I guess I am a wine guy.” ■

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experience of a winery visit in the comfort of home? Virtualreality technology is so good now that we can actually walk you through the vineyard, and if you see something interesting, click on it and learn more about it.” Curley and his associate, Gina McLeod, spent a week last month in Napa and Sonoma counties filming at Lamborn Family Vineyards, Dos Lagos Vineyards, Sky Pine Vineyards and BobDog Wines, and Pasterick Vineyards, in addition to Schramsberg and Alexander Valley Vineyards. He is specifically targeting wineries that produce fewer than 5,000 cases of wine old me a year. Schramsberg and Alexander Valley Vineyards are neries c stresses considerably larger than that, but they are both family-owned rus wineries with strong links to California’s history. In other words, great stories to tell. The tours Curley and McLeod filmed are now in production. Once launched, viewers will be able to enjoy them on mobile devices, computers or virtualreality headsets. Visitors to “The Great Fermentation” were able to

1108 E. Main Street, Medford Summer 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

Vodka has a new definition It’s still neutral, but no longer flavorless by M. Carrie Allan

In 2018, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau opened a period of public comment on rules governing the labeling and advertising regulations for alcohol. Among many other topics, it specifically sought input around the long-standing definition of vodka. Multiple brands, distillers and professional spirits associations weighed in, arguing that the language defining vodka as lacking character should be dropped. A sample comment: St. George Spirits of California honed in on the strangeness of the existing language, noting that if all vodka tasted the same, “there would be no reason for a consumer to choose one over another, except for price.” (My note: or marketing.) The distiller continued: “A potato vodka does not taste like a grape vodka, nor a corn vodka taste like a rye vodka, or an apple vodka taste like a milk vodka. If they all were without distinctive character, aroma or taste - there would be no reason to produce them.” Lo and behold, as of April, we have a new standard of identity: “’Vodka’ is neutral spirits which may be treated with up to two grams per liter of sugar and up to one gram per liter of citric acid.” While neutrality remains part of the definition, for the first time since 1949, the standard no longer defines vodka by the character it does not possess. Lance Winters, master distiller for St. George, was glad to see the update. Too often, he said, these regulations are “federally mandated” nonsense, and he appreciated that

Sip & Savor ▪ Summer 2020

the TTB’s process for updating them was more democratic. St. George is best known for its fruit brandies, whiskeys and gins, but it does make several vodkas, and Winters says the base ingredients - pear and corn - show up in the bottle. “The corn just provides a nice, fairly neutral canvas for the rest of the stuff to lay down on. But it’s that little bit of perfume from the pear that colors the rest of it,” he says. Sazerac Company, the parent company for scores of liquor brands, filed comments to support the change as well. Master distiller Harlen Wheatley of Buffalo Trace, which makes Wheatley Vodka, says the recipe’s inclusion of red winter wheat has an impact. “We know based on all the years of bourbon-making that it has a soft, gentle character, and when you taste Wheatley, you pick up a nice, delicate finish. It’s a combination of the recipe and the equipment.” For what it’s worth, Winters thinks some of the industry’s cynicism about vodka is not about the product itself, but about the way it has long been marketed. As the recipient of many a “made from the holiest glacier squeezings, distilled 400 times and filtered through a unicorn’s hoof” pitch, I must agree - especially since, having recently tasted my way through 25 brands, I can attest that there actually are some distinctions.

Let me be clear, though: They mostly disappear in mixed drinks. But if you are drinking vodka neat, over ice or in a vodka martini, you will pick up distinctions in sweetness, aroma and mouthfeel. Indeed, some of my favorites have to do with texture - Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka, Absolut Elyx and a strange craft vodka called Black Cow (distilled from whey) had degrees of silky viscosity. But a friend’s explanation for his favorite captured what I suspect to be true for most. “My favorite is Smirnoff,” he said, “because I’m pretty confident that once I mix it with anything, I can’t tell the difference between that and something four times the price.” The mention of Smirnoff may remind some readers: Some 15 years ago, the New York Times conducted a blind taste test of 21 vodkas. Smirnoff came out on top. Similar tests have been repeated, producing angst when brand loyalists eschewed their supposed favorite

What c

once the branding was hidden, often selecting a cheaper vodka as their favorite. Which brings me back to the question: Why do people buy what they buy? We’ve been educated to expect flavorlessness in vodka for a while now. When I asked, many of those who said they had a favorite vodka named traditionally understood qualities: smoothness, cleanness, purity, that presence of absence. But others honed in on different elements: The brand was their parents’ favorite. The brand is local. The brand is craft. The brand is American. The brand is made by a distillery that shares their values. (It supports dog rescues, diversity, the troops.) The brand reflects their roots. The brand was the rail vodka at a beloved bar that closed. They liked the shape of the bottle - an iridescent skull - and still use it for a vase in the kitchen. At least right now, it seems, our favorite vodkas sometimes have little to do with the vodkas. ■

Un-Corked What corks can reveal about the wine in your bottle by Dave McIntyre

Special To The Washington Post

Over the past few weeks, we’ve discussed the various stages of wine appreciation. From reading the label and selecting wine in the store; to opening it and assessing its color in the glass; to smelling it and coaxing aromas of the vineyard, the vintage or just the grape; and finally sipping and savoring the wine’s texture and structure, we’ve tried to decipher the story each wine has to tell. Good wines really do have stories to tell. It may be simple, pleasant conversation, and that’s fine most of the time. It may be the polemic of an argumentative teenager, challenging our worldview. Or a friend offering comfort and solace in turbulent times. All can be delicious, and all are valid. We just need to listen and pay attention. Those who say, “Who cares? Open the bottle, down the hatch, the cheaper the better,” aren’t listening. They insist on doing all the talking, because they may not realize they have

something to learn. You may have guessed by now that I’ve been reading the comments on my columns and defending my worldview over dinner. Both could make the wine taste more bitter, but they’ve actually been positive

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experiences, seasoned with some head shaking. And there has been good conversation, which can be like a fine wine. When I wrote about wine’s appearance, a reader with the handle “Mrs Bates” noted that I neglected to discuss the cork.

“The cork tells some important details about the wine,” Mrs Bates wrote. “It tells if the bottle was sealed and stored properly.” She has a point. We can get CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

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very nerdy about the different types of cork and synthetic closures, their environmental virtues and how they protect against cork taint or allow precisely the right amount of oxygen into the wine to allow it to age properly. Mrs Bates likes her corks spongy, with a bit of a spring when you squeeze on either end, and a ring of color around the base. That ring, either red or a wet stain from a white wine, indicates the bottle was stored on its side or upside down, the wine in contact with the cork. That’s conventional wisdom for proper storage, and explains why wine racks hold bottles horizontally. “Don’t forget to sniff the wine-end of the cork,” advised another reader, DaveInNY. If the wine is contaminated with cork taint, a chemical called TCA, “the cork will smell like wet dog. Yuck.” Well, maybe. Sniffing the cork is suggestive, but not conclusive, about the quality of the wine. A cork may smell fine even after it has tainted the wine, and a wine may be fine even if the cork smells moldy. However, DaveInNY makes a good point in urging us to inspect a wine’s ullage - the gap between the cork and the wine in an unopened bottle, which should be about a quarter to half an inch. A greater gap suggests wine has evaporated or seeped through a faulty cork. This is usually a problem for older wines. The wine may have been stored upright and the cork may have deteriorated over time. If you see excessive ullage in a younger wine (10 years or less) in a store, don’t buy it. If you already have the wine in your cellar, open it but have a backup bottle on hand, just in case the first isn’t good. A reader emailed with a question about disintegrating

corks. While stuck at home, he had decided to open some older vintages dating back to 1995 from his collection instead of waiting for those special occasions that never seem to come. “Unfortunately, a couple of times the corks were totally dried out, and I managed to decimate them while opening.” The bottles had spent most of their lives stored horizontally, but had stood upright for three months during renovation. Could that be the problem, he asked. Probably not, I replied, as I’ve frequently found driedout crumbly corks in older bottles. The culprit is more likely low humidity in the storage area. I recommended he splurge on a Durand, the ne plus ultra of wine openers, specially designed with older corks in mind. The Durand is a combination of a traditional spiral corkscrew and the twopronged ah-so opener. You insert the spiral through the cork, then the prongs between the cork and the bottle. A slow twist-and-pull motion removes the cork without the force of a lever that can break it in half. A Durand costs about $125, but if you drink a lot of old vintages, it’s worth it. Several commenters chastised me for advocating alcohol consumption during a global public health emergency that has claimed more than 100,000 American lives and driven millions out of work. This is a wine column, after all. I don’t advocate overindulging, of course - I hope everyone will drink better wine and be more mindful about it. And I hope we will continue to support local wineries and wine stores that have been hurt by the economic downturn, especially now that lockdown restrictions are easing for the time being. ■

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