I had no plans to make the journey north when Martin Labelle wandered into Chambers Street wines on a Sunday afternoon to pick up a couple of bottles to take home to Canada. This tall, enthusiastic Francophone guy who began many statements with ?theez guy? amassed such an interesting collection of bottles on the bar that I had to strike up a conversation. We knew many of the same natural winemakers: ?theez guys? Olivier Lemasson, Frank Cornelissen, Philippe Bornard, to name but a few. A long chat ensued touching on a range of topics from visiting Bornard in Pupillin to drinking at Ten Bells on the lower east side to the bizarre Qu?b?cois alcohol laws. This was a kindred spirit; I began to tell myself that it was high time I stopped talking about going and actually went to Montr?al.
A few weeks later, after a whirlwind tour of the Jura, I found myself in a Paris wine bar called ?Spring? talking to the effortlessly beautiful and genuinely friendly Laura Vidal. Laura is the sommelier at a popular Parisian restaurant, Frenchie, and must be incredibly talented because Kermit Lynch has attempted to co-opt her as a scout. After a few minutes spent bonding over mutual ambivalence about Natural Wine in spite of a deep a love for many natural wines, Laura revealed that she?s from Montr?al. ?Oh! I?m about to go there for the first time!? As soon as the statement was out of my mouth, I knew I had to make this pipe dream a reality. ?I?ll recommend some restaurants.? I ripped a page of out my moleskin notebook and handed it to Laura, who made a tidy list of all the joints in Montr?al at which I simply had to dine.
My first impression of Montr?al was that it was very hard to get into. I waited in an endless customs line only to be interrogated about my visit, its nature and length, the friend I?d be staying with, his neighborhood, the duration of our acquaintance, etc? All this for three days! Once I was safely out of the airport and drinking beer with Curtis in the Mile End section of Montr?al (equivalent to our Williamsburg), I was quite content. Our hip waiter spoke interchangeably in French and English, serving us a sandwich called ?P?ch? Mortal? (mortal sin). It was Friday night and there were lots of people of various ages hanging out, lingering over food and drink on outdoor patios. We went to a nearby wine bar, Buvette Chez Simone, where we ordered a bottle of refreshing 2010 Guy Breton Beaujolais and some snacks including ?smoked meat,? salty, smoky cured meat like thick-sliced pastrami. On the terrace, waiters recently released from work and enclaves of very cool Qu?b?cois sat smoking and drinking ?canons.? ?This city, after just a few hours, struck me as both decidedly European and unmistakably North American. Like Qu?b?cois French, as Curtis pointed out, which sounds like you?d imagine French to sound transposed to North American, the same language spoken in a more rustic, blunter, and less mellifluous key.
Saturday was a big day. From Curtis? neighborhood, C?tes des Neiges (awkwardly translated as ?Snowden?) a Hasidic Jewish community of families and quiet streets, we walked through Mile End and toward the Vieux Port, the river, and the scenic old city. I learned that wine can only be sold through state run institutions called ?SAQs,? akin to the ABC stores in North Carolina that hold a monopoly on hard liquor sales. We checked out an SAQ and I became very sad for the population of Montr?al. ?The shelves were lined with bad Rose, mass produced, Merlot-based Tuscan wine, and n?gociant Burgundy.? I made my way to the Loire Valley section of the shop and things began to look up: Chinon from Bernard Baudry and Mardon Quincy. A dusty bottle on the shelf nearest to the ground caught my eye: Bossard Expression Orthogneiss, an oasis in a desert of bottles!
We passed the Quartier des Spectacles, where several events were taking place including ?Just for Laughs,? a well-known comedy festival. We stopped to watch a bizarre sporting event consisting of a relay race followed by hardcore weight lifting. The vicarious exercise made us thirsty and we sought beer at a pub close to our destination: Le Vieux Port. ?Sweaty and tipsy, we wandered along cobblestone streets, crowded with tourists; we took note of several limos waiting to whisk sets of brides and grooms off to their honeymoon flights. This was the Montr?al of my imagination, the Montr?al my parents had described from their visit decades ago. We had barely reached the river when we realized that we needed to find our way back to C?tes des Neiges in order to make our cocktail appointment and dinner reservation. Rather than take the subway, Curtis suggested that we rent Bixi bikes, three speed rental bikes that could be returned at a station in his neighborhood. I hadn?t ridden a bike in over four years and have only ever had a tenuous grasp of the skill. Mildly buzzed, I bumped down hills against oncoming traffic on my Bixi, no helmet, my heart racing, then up again, pedaling hard, trying to keep up with Curtis, and employing leg muscles that hadn?t been used eons. It was great.
By the time Charity, a musicologist and consummate foodie, arrived to meet us at The Sparrow for a cocktail before dinner, Curtis and I had polished off a poutine between the two of us. It may sound odd to pave the way for a meal in a super restaurant with a large plate of fries topped with gravy and cheese curds, but we were starving after our day of site seeing. Besides, it was essential that I try this Canadian specialty. I confess I was afraid, but when the poutine arrived at our table, my fears were allayed. My error was in imagining that the gravy would be thick, southern, gelatinous gravy based on corn starch or flour when, in fact, it was deep brown reduced meat sauce that was rich but in no way heavy or cloying. The cheese curds were deliciously salty, the fries, perfect, and the whole affair dusted with black pepper. Also alarming in theory but less so in practice was the cocktail Curtis ordered, a Bloody Cesar, a Bloody Mary-like drink with Clamato juice, a kind of clam flavored V8 juice, instead of the standard tomato. As it turns out, clam adds a further savory element to the drink without giving it perceptible fishy notes.
?
Martin, though he could not attend, had made us a reservation for the terrace at Le Filet, an (almost) all seafood restaurant in the Plateau district of Montr?al, over-looking the base of the mountain itself. The 80s throwback d?cor was a bit odd and I was alarmed to see the table of three well-dressed Canadians next to us happily sipping mojitos with their oysters, but a quick look at the wine list put my mind at rest. I tasked Curtis and Charity to order the food, eight small plates to be shared between the three of us, while I set about placing a wine order. The first bottle that caught by eye was from Olivier Jullien in the Coteaux du Languedoc, a white version of ?l?Etats d?Ame? (?states of the soul?). I had drunk many a bottle of the red but had never seen the white. I didn?t doubt that the wine would be good, but I suspected it would be heavy and perhaps not an ideal match for oysters. ?Vous avez des questions?? Our waiter, an aggressive and slightly cocky young guy asked. ?Yes I wonder if I could taste two wines that you serve by the glass.? Qu?b?cois seem to have no problem using French and English interchangeably. Our waiter slipped into perfect English. ?Why do you want to taste them?? ?Well to see if we want to order a bottle.? ?What are you looking for? What kind of wine do you like?? ?I want to taste the Mas Jullien and the Chablis that you serve by the glass before we order a bottle.? ?For me, I?d get the Mas Jullien. It?s really light and crisp.? Really? ?Hm. It?s generally been my experience that white wines from the Coteaux du Languedoc are on the richer side? (not to mention the fact that there is nothing delicate about Jullien?s wines, generally, which are powerful statements of the wild, almost scorched, arid Languedoc). ?Fine. I?ll bring them both for you to taste.? This was a bizarre style of customer service.
To cut a long story short, we ordered the Mas Jullien, which was a fantastic bottle of wine made entirely from Carignan Blanc or Grenache Blanc depending on which waiter I asked. The wine was not, however, light or in any way crisp, but rich, floral, clearly oaked, unctuous, and 14% alcohol. Our first few plates were delightful: oysters in a Japanese preparation, oysters baked on the half shell with one saut?ed mushroom, cream, and truffle oil, raw scallop salad with beets, fluke Carpaccio. Then there was a lull and we finished our bottle of Mas Jullien and began to contemplate a second bottle. I asked our friend, the rude waiter, to return the wine list to me. We discussed a Bourgeuil and a Cru Beaujolais from Guy Breton, whose village wine we had drunk the night before at Buvette Chez Simone. The waiter brought glasses for us to taste. Both wines were good but neither was what I wanted. ?Do you want to try something different? I have this wine from the Jura?? I had noticed Poulsard ?Dora Bella? from Domaine l?Octavin on the list but had skipped over it in favor of wines I don?t see in New York. ?Yes I know the wine. Sure. Let?s do it.? I turned to Curtis and Charity ?I have pictures of the winemaker?s kids on my phone. I visited them in May; they are really sweet people.? This marked the turning point in my relationship with our waiter, who listened, amazed, before continuing his monologue. ?It?s a little different, this wine. I hope you like it. ?It?s bottled without sulfur,? I told Charity and Curtis. ?I think you?re right,? chimed the waiter. ?I know I am. Alice and Charles bottle all their wines without sulfur.? Smile.
I will save the story of my meeting with passionate Alice and sweet-natured Charles of Domaine L?Octavin, their gregarious three year old, Anatole, who offered cherries and marshmallows to each member of our party, the perfectly shaded deck on which our tasting was staged, and their lineup of super, sulfur-less wines for another time. Poulsard ?Dora Bella? had travelled very well from Arbois to Montreal, not always a given with wines lacking in preservative. It had the unmistakable fruitiness of carbonic maceration, the tell-tale blood orange, citrus-y red character of Poulsard and showed barely a hint of reduction, a symptom of many Poulsards. I asked my new friend, the waiter, to bring us an ice bucket so that we could appreciate the wine at the proper temperature. It unfolded in our glasses to reveal the ripeness of 2009, and the sheer, soft, natural-feeling drinkability of un-sulfured wine. Our banter continued, and a second wave of food arrived: grilled octopus with bone marrow (who says the lily shouldn?t be gilded every once in awhile?), homemade pasta with slow braised meat sauce, and more delicacies that run together in my mind.? Nighttime enveloped the patio of Le Filet as we contentedly polished off our fantastic bottle of Poulsard.
Source: http://www.sophiesglass.com/?p=62
direct tv twilight saga scientology melanoma meningitis rene descartes leonhard euler
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন