Wine, Physics, and Song

Here’s a wine available (as of a few weeks ago) at LCBO that I can wholeheartedly recommend:  the 2006 Nipozzano  Chianti Rufina Riserva, produced by the Marchesi de Frescobaldi.  (Don’t know what LCBO is?  Lucky you.  But they deserve some credit for stocking this.)  This is the third vintage I’ve had of this wine, and I’ve been happy with all of them, but this one’s the best.  Dark fruits, soft full flavors but definite tannic backbone to keep it together, some nice chalky minerality behind it all showing up on the longish finish with some slight hints of mintiness, and hints of bitterness.  A clear, clean, leafy version of  “Tuscan funk” lurks barely perceptible behind this, perhaps ready to contribute some heady, perfumy, but unpredictable, notes with age.  In short, fairly complex, and mixing classic Chianti characteristics with notes–including the slightest, but pleasant, hints of greenness or vegetality—that are definitely characteristic of Cabernet.  I could imagine this wine repaying 5, perhaps even 10, years of cellaring by evolving into something stunning, but this is always unpredictable, the more so as I don’t have any experience cellaring this wine.  (Comments invited from anyone who does.)

Chianti Rufina is, if I recall correctly, one of three main zones for higher-end Chiantis, the largest being Chianti Classico covering a hilly area between Florence and Siena, with Chianti Montalbano and Chianti Rufina, each much smaller than the Classico area, being the other significant DOCG’s. (I’ve also had very good Chianti from the Colli Fiorentini, i.e. the “Florentine Hills”.)

Victor Hazan’s superb, extremely well written and observed 1982 book “Italian Wine” (yes, he’s Marcella’s husband) reports Frescobaldi as “the most celebrated producer” of the area, with the Nipozzano Chianti “nearly as fine” as their single-vineyard, limited production Montesodi, but “much more accessible in price and quantity”.  At $21.55 Canadian at LCBO, that “accessible in price” still seems right 27 years on, given the quality of the wine.  I acknowledge that’s a heck of a lot to pay for a bottle if you’re not a wine geek like me, but I’m much happier paying it for this wine than the $15 to $20 CDN I’ve paid for many a mediocre bottle from LCBO (or the $10-15 US I’ve paid for some mediocre bottles in the States).

I’ll probably raise expectations too high if I quote Victor Hazan further on Chianti Rufina: “A choice Rufina can match in authority, and sometimes surpass, Chianti Classico at its finest.    In character it is closest to a Chianti from Radda [...], making forceful first impressions that precede layer after layer of unfolding flavor.” One of my best wine experiences ever (involving quantum physics, as well, so perhaps I’ll post about it at some point) involved a wine from Radda, the Monte Vertine Riserva (I don’t even recall seeing the word Chianti on the bottle), from the early 1980s.  1981 sticks in mind but at this remove—I had the wine in Turin in 1995 or so—who knows.  And this wine, though less aged, reminds me of how that Monte Vertine might have tasted in its youth.  So I think Hazan is right on in this comparison, and it says good things.  Now this is just wine, for chrissake—if you want revelation, for less money you could go out and buy the remastered deluxe edition of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.   But still, good stuff.  If you have the money, and the inclination, and you’ve already got a copy of A Love Supreme, give it a try.  OK, try it even if you don’t have a copy of A Love Supreme—but you really should get one of those, too.

Notes on previous editions of this wine:

2001, half bottle with dinner at Mövenpick, Zurich airport, August 2005:  “Excellent—has dark fruits and some complexity/silkiness.  Balanced.”

2002 (tasted 2004 or 2005): “Even better than the 2001, probably.  Velvety, fairly rich, notes of cocoa in the nose.  Good with George’s deep fried “little pizzas” from Campania, with red pepper, cayenne, tomato sauce.  Stands up to it.  Hints of minerality.  Superb!”  George is my son;  he likes to cook on occasion, especially Italian.  Perhaps it’s his Italian heritage from my wife, who is 100 percent Italian-American; perhaps it’s  his food-obsessed (though not more so than your average Italian) heritage from my side of the family.

After a late dinner at Stella! on Chartres (yeah, do it, Papa Scott!! Cook that funky tasting menu thang the way you do!), I headed for nearby Frenchmen Street to catch the James Westfall Trio which was playing for free at one of the better jazz venues in the Crescent City, Snug Harbor.  Free means playing for tips, of course, but you don’t often find a combo of such quality playing for tips.  But at a place like Snug Harbor you do (or the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, where they played the previous afternoon, presumably paid a decent sum by the NPS and relieved of the need for a tip kitty though you never know)—and they were excellent.  Westfall on vibraphone was fast, precise, creative—reminded me somehow of McCoy Tyner’s piano playing.  He put a lot into his playing and he got excellent support on bass and drums—the bass player in particular played some excellent solos (and I’m no automatic fan of bass solos).  Afterward, I hit the Apple Barrel across the street for a small blues/country/rock/folk combo that was pretty darn good for another playing-the-late-show-for-tips band.  Even one of the two Dylan covers was good.  Then hit the Cafe Negril for a solid reggae band.  I guess I was making up for a week of evenings spent hanging out with quantum types in bars that didn’t feature live music.  Actually, Friday night Jamie Vicary (postdoc at Oxford in Samson Abramsky and Bob Coecke’s group), Johnny Feng  (postdoc at NRL in Keye Martin’s group) and I finally left Keye and friends at the Napoleon bar in the quarter, and went on over to Frenchmens only to find it blacked out and everyone hanging out on the street waiting for the lights to get turned back on.  We waited too, for 45 minutes or so, listening to an excellent trombone/sousaphone/banjo trio sitting in the doorway of a closed cafe playing some pretty traditional-sounding New Orleans stuff quite well, and then left.  Bottom line: if you’re in New Orleans, check out the music calendars at:

Livewire WWOZ music calendar,

but if you don’t know what else to do head for Frenchmen and see what’s going down at Snug Harbor.  Other places to check out include (for jazz) Sweet Lorraine’s; and whoever’s playing at the Maple Leaf is always worth checking out online to see if you want to go down and hear them.  On Saturday, I decided to eat at Stella rather than spend the evening at the Maple Leaf, but was strongly tempted to go for the blues band that was playing, Jason Ricci and New Blood.