Wine at Trader Joe's I: Cheap and good. (Wingman 2009 Shiraz, Trader Joe's Petit Reserve 2009 Tempranillo, Panilonco 2010 Merlot-Malbec, La Finca 2010 Cabernet, Trader Joe's 2009 Reserve Cabernet Mendocino)

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Many of you have probably discovered that Trader Joe's is a great place to get wine.  I wasn't impressed the few times I sampled their famed "two-buck Chuck" wines  under their Charles Shaw label (now three or four bucks), and that probably slowed my adoption of TJ's as a wine source, but about a year ago I gave their other wines a try and discovered that they are a great source of quality, excellent-value-for-money wines.  You won't find the most high-end, handcrafted, and often expensive wines here, but if you're planning on spending $4 to $20 for a wine, you'll probably do better at TJ's than most places.  I believe that they can use their volume buying capability, and long-term contracting capability, to grab large lots of wine or grapes that are pretty good but not quite what some pretty good winery wants in its expensive blend; or to buy the excess production of a good winery that can't sell all its production at premium prices, or perhaps even to work directly with both winemakers who don't grow, and growers, to get what they want made for them.  They are privately held by a German family business, which I speculate (quite baselessly) may give them some special connections with or insight into medium and low priced Bordeaux of quality, since Germany seems to traditionally have good reasonably priced Bordeaux available, that you don't see in the states.  (More on TJ's Bordeaux in a later post.)

Some recent finds in the super-value department:

2009 Trader Joe's Petit Reserve Tempranillo, California.   Don't precisely recall the price, probably in the $4-6 range.  Rather velvety mouthfeel, with some nice but not overbearing mouthcoating tannins, a little bit of hotness or roughness but not too much.  Good strong berry fruit flavors, not overdone, though not an especially dry wine.  Veering a little toward candy but not too much.  And, late in the meal, some dark, toasty, minerally, really surprising complex tastes emerging that remind me of nothing so much as the excellent (and far more expensive) Syrahs and Grenaches made by Jaffurs in the Santa Barbara area.  Definitely has California forwardness compared to most Spanish Tempranillos, but a really good wine for the money.  If the dark complexity holds up or develops upon finishing the bottle over the next few days, this could be not just a very good, but a stunning, value.  I plan to buy more if it's still available (this may have been purchased several months, perhaps even six months, back).

2009 "The Wingman" California Shiraz (90%) / Viognier (10%), County Fair Wines (Sebastopol, CA).  $6.99.  On first opening, this has a classic Cotes-du-Rhone-like nose and mouth, with some autumn-leaf and slightly spicy components, dark berry fruits and very slight hints of mineral or tar.  The mouthfeel is smoother and fuller than a generic Cotes-du-Rhone, and slightly glyceriny, probably due in part to the Viognier, which may be responsible for a bit of a floral, aromatic note (the label mentions tropical fruits).  There's also more blueberry, a typical feature in some Syrahs (notably some Aussies, and Cornas).    Reasonably well balanced, perhaps a little bit elegant though not velvety, with some relatively coarse tannin that feels loosely held in a fairly "watery" (not a criticism, and doesn't imply lightness) wine.  Holds up well over a few days, too...mostly losing the leafy and floral elements, though, and some of the fresher berry elements.    My son thought the label was "awesome"...it features a male harpy with a turn-of-the-century (1900ish) moustachioed face, cutaway revealing skeletal and visceral components, armor or stocking-clad human legs, wings of course...and various diagrams and quill-pen writing in a 19th century European calligraphic style.  Quite weird and slightly pretentious...I would probably not normally buy a wine with this label, but a TJ's staffer recommended it, and rightly so.  I bought two more bottles on a return visit.  This wine is an excellent value, and a fairly unusual wine.  Closest comparison is probably certain mid-range ($20ish) Australian Shirazes, but this is a bit less alcoholic and tannic, which may be good thing for current drinking.

2010 "Panilonco" Merlot-Malbec, Colchagua Valley, Chile. $4.99.  Produced by Vinedos Errazuriz Ovalle.  This is a great deal on a hearty but very drinkable red.  It seems to me to have delicious ripe-tomato flavors in addition to a decent amount of berry fruit and somewhat chewy tannins, along with a teeny bit of darker, more complex flavor.  I like it much better than the "Trader Joe's Coastal" Cabernets and Zins I've tried at the same price which have a similar overall profile, but are less balanced and have some foxy (Concord-grape-like) flavors and sometimes a slighlty offputting amount of vegetality.  Again, I could use another bottle or two.

2010 La Finca Cabernet, Argentina. $3.99.  This was great with burgers,  both veggie and beef, at a Democratic Party barbeque.  (It would probably be just as good at a Republican party barbeque.)   I seriously doubt you will find a better red for $3.99 anywhere, although TJ's Epicuro Salice Salentino is in the same price range, and as good (but different).  Very drinkable, combines some blackberry and other dark fruit flavors with little tea and tarriness, medium body supported by a  modicum of somewhat chewy tannin, a relatively loose structure but reasonably good balance.  Most importantly, a wine you just want to drink more of, not a tiring overalcoholic or overbearing-with-fruit wine, but not wimpy either.  Kind of like a good example of a less vegetal Bordeaux Superieur, but more enjoyable to drink than most Bordeaux superieurs I've ruin across even in the $10-18 range, as the latter often have the flaw (possibly due in part to poor conditions during transport from Europe to the US) of being relatively full-bodied, strongly flavored, and decently tannic, but with something a bit bitter and austere, a slightly excessive hit of vegetality and olives on occasion, and more importantly, somewhat closed or unexpressive.  I went back to get more and the labels were still on the shelves but all the La Finca wines, save five or six bottles of Chardonnay, were gone from the shelves.  (They also make a Merlot and a Malbec, and I think also another white, like a Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon blanc.)  That tends to happen at TJ's---people identify the best bargains, and load up.

2009 Trader Joe's Reserve Cabernet, Mendocino, California. $9.99.  Vinted and bottled by DNA Wines, Ukiah, CA.  Made from organic grapes.  This wine is softer and more elegant than any of the above.  On the other hand, at $10 it doesn't really qualify as "cheap".  I have had good luck with all the TJ's Reserve wines I've tried (besides this, two vintages of Dry Creek Reserve Cabernet (2008 and 2009) and a Dry Creek Reserve Zinfandel).   This one indeed has plummy flavors as claimed on the label... I think of the dark purple-black-skinned plums with reddish-orange to pale-orange flesh.  Add to that some clovish elements, dark berry fruit, hints of complexity, fine tannins in moderation, and you have a really nice wine, quite different from the Dry Creek cabernets, and I fancy showing some typically Mendocino characteristics and flavors.  Ready to drink now, or age a few years; perhaps slightly low in acid and loose in structure for long aging, but it might be worth a try.  Excellent value, distinctive, flavorful, and easy to drink Cabernet.  Again, I plan to get two or three more bottles.

Another reason I shoulda voted for Hillary? Read Brad DeLong's review of Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men"

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From Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men", via Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality:

[Elizabeth] Warren was caught off guard by Romer's intensity, and her thoughtfulness.... Question after question, the two engaged in an intellectual thrust-and-parry, until finally... Romer broke her stride. "Why is it always the women?" Romer said. "Why are we the only ones with balls around here?"

Hmm, maybe I shoulda voted for Hillary in the 2008 Democratic primaries... Except back then, I feared she had a lot of the centrist, believe-what-all-the-Serious People are saying, don't-fight-the-consensus tendencies that have turned out so badly for Obama, as witness e.g. her position before the Iraq war.

Maybe Elizabeth Warren should be running for something bigger than Senate...

Do read Brad's critical review of the book... very enlightening about the book and about administration policy.  (Also available at Brad's blog.)

Song: Venus Bogardus at the AHA festival, Santa Fe Railyard

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At the free  AHA festival at the Santa Fe Railyard last Sunday, I discovered that Santa Fe has a first-rate post-punk rock band, Venus Bogardus, originally formed in Bath, England in 2005.  The band includes James Reich, guitar and vocals, and Hannah Levbarg, bass and vocals.   They seem to usually play in a trio, with different drummers over the years...the current drummer seems to be Luke Carr.  They played with an excellent taped drum track on the stage at El Museo Cultural, a very tight, energetic but not overbearing (and not too loud!)  set with plenty of excellent songwriting---e.g. their opener, Research---in evidence.   Their sound and songs reminded me at times of Sonic Youth and the Minutemen---and it turns out they opened for Mike Watt and the Missingmen in 2009.  They have several albums out, but they played quite a few new songs.  Hard for me to see why a band this good hasn't made it bigger yet---their songs, while definitely punk-influenced, are often very catchy, and have plenty of interesting structure and variety.  Perhaps the lyrics are a bit arty, abstruse, and/or political for mainstream popularity.   One of the recently written songs' chorus goes "We got the politics, we got the politics, we got the gender politics".     One of their shoutier, more repetitive songs (I think it has basically two sections, a verse and a chorus, each of which is rather simple, just a few repeated measures), but still catchy.  Then again, I guess I rarely  (to a first approximation, never) hear even the catchiest stuff from Sonic Youth or the Minutemen on the radio....but Sonic Youth and Mike Watt both appear to be able to keep going.  So hopefully there's a way for a band this good to survive without the blessing of Clearchannel et. al.

Unfortunately no-one in the audience of 40 or 50 at the Museo was dancing, though there was plenty of room up on stage and about eight young fans were sitting or standing there nodding lightly to the music.  It really begs for some dancing, or at least more vigorous head-nodding.  Pogo, anyone?

Venusbogardus.com has lots of info and (on the homepage blog) free downloads of three live "bootleg" tracks from a Santa Fe Brewing Company performance, of which my favorite is Permanent Notice.   For more listening (and more up to date concert info) you need to visit their Myspace page, where you can listen to five tracks, including the excellent Spitting at the Glass and Judy Davis Lips from their latest CD, Spitting at the Glass.

Here's a player (from their page at Bandcamp.com) with all the tracks from the CD:

Judy Davis Lips shows the Sonic Youth similarities clearly go a lot further than "post punk band with a female bassist"... the intro, with its chiming, oddly-tuned guitars sounds like classic SY, rhythmically too, and the song itself definitely resembles SY's catchier, poppier aspect, though you could perhaps hear some Dead Kennedys in the verse.  But you can't tell me the voiceover starting at 2'20 was not inspired by Kim Gordon.  The modulation, relaxing into a cushion of harmony, into the chorus is exemplifies their songwriting skill.  But chasing influences isn't the main point---whatever their influences, they have their own sound, and do their own thing very well---as the quirky but very catchy song Spitting at the Glass illustrates.

For more music, you can listen to (and purchase) three of their albums at bandcamp.com.

If you don't mind really bad fidelity, this gives an idea what they're currently like live:

Venus Bogardus, "Jacques Rigaut", live at the Atomic Cantina, Albuquerque

Eats: Hanne på Høyden, Bergen, Norway

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Bergen, Norway

Bergen

Was recently in Bergen Norway as part of the FQXi conference Setting Time Aright.  (I didn't know it had gone awry...).  Since Norway seems to be one of the world's most expensive travel destinations, I figured I would take full advantage of the hotel breakfast, skip lunch, and have dinner at a really good restaurant---most restaurants in town are nearly as expensive as a really good one anyway.

Hanne på Høyden, Bergen, Norway

Hanne på Høyden, Bergen, Norway

Hanne på Høyden turned out to be one of the best places I have ever eaten.  They tend toward Norwegian, and local, ingredients where possible.  Nice, casually elegant location in the former Brun bakery.  (Frederick Brun is gone, but his business now has branches in various parts of Bergen---just not the original building.  Prices deterred me from sampling.)  A large, high-ceilinged room with plenty of windows on the street holds most of the diners; a half-level higher, but open to the main room, is a small bar with counter looking toward the kitchen, and a couple of high tables, and also a cool, semiprivate room, with photos of Brun and the building in its old incarnation as bakery, on the walls.  I ate at one of the high tables in the bar area (probably lucky to get the chance without a reservation).

The complimentary amuse-bouche was a mousse of creme fraiche and crabmeat topped with a little herring roe.  Light and airy and flavorful, the herring roe a perfect intensely flavored salty complement to the crabmeat.  Perfection.  Rye bread with local butter was a perfect accompaniment to this and the rest of the meal.  The house-made wheat beer was slightly floral, not as sweet or alcoholic as some wheat beers can be--very refreshing and tasty.

Starter was a cold tomato and raspberry soup, described by the waitress as like a gazpacho.  Which indeed it was---a light, somewhat foamy gazpacho, very intensely flavored, with some herbs that looked like very tiny and tender parsley, shavings of parmesan, and ripe raspberries and half cherry tomatoes sprinkled on top.   Raspberry and perfectly ripe, sweet tomato turn out to be an inspired pairing.  The soup tasted like there was an intense olive oil swirled in, but also something minty that perfected the flavor combination---it turned out to be not olive oil, but birch oil.  This was as good a dish as I've eaten anywhere.

The main course was "Fjordfe med grønnkål og ramsløksaus", which I  understood to translate as "Fjord beef"---a relatively rare kind of cattle raised in pastures by the fjords of Norway's west coast---with green kale and wild fennel sauce.  I think it is "Fjordfe" in Norwegian.  It was superb---cooked medium rare, just as I asked, it did not have a red-meaty taste at all, but was rather mild and nutty, sliced into pieces in a delicious sauce of cream, wild fennel, and "Viking garlic", which I take to be some local wild tuber.  I'd ordered a glass of Tuscan Sangiovese to go with the beef, but it turned out the wheat beer was a perfect pairing---without the red-meaty taste, red wine was unnecessary (although it was a tasty enough glass).  The roasted small potatoes accompanying the dish were superb, though perhaps the salt encrusting them was a bit much.  Another great dish.

Dessert was "Sesongens bær på fløtepudding", a half-inch layer of a pudding (somewhat like a thick, smooth creme anglaise) generously studded with seasonal berries: blueberries, raspberries, fat, ripe gooseberries, red and black currants, possibly some melon if my memory isn't confusing me, all perfectly ripe and tasty.  Simple but perfect---a fabulous end to a fabulous meal.   Well, not quite the end---a glass of intense house-made raspberry liqueur was the finishing touch.

Not cheap but worth it---a truly memorable meal, one of the best restaurant meals I've ever had.  Michelin doesn't seem to have paid much attention to Norway (I think there are five restaurants it has starred, all in Oslo)---but Hanne på Høyden is obviously the kind of restaurant that deserves a star--or two.

Soros on the Euro

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George Soros on Europe's troubles and how to avert a crisis.

I don't think his solution of a new treaty creating a unified European Treasury, is going to happen before the European situation gets much worse.  I'm not sure a unified Treasury is required to deal with the current crisis, but I'm not confident Europe will be decisive enough in recognizing the fact that Greece will default, protecting and strengthening (taking over when necessary) affected banks, helping out Spain and Italy, avoiding counterproductive austerity and tight monetary policy, and so on.   Things look pretty bleak for the world and US economies over the next year.

From AP (11:30 AM Sept. 16)

U.S. Treasury chief Timothy Geithner is meeting with European finance ministers in Poland, which may suggest that the U.S. is growing more concerned about Europe's direction.

The U.S. is now pushing for a more decisive solution. On Friday, European leaders pushed back, saying they want to postpone a decision on more Greek payouts until October.

Perhaps the fact that the US is pushing Europe on this should be considered positive, but it also underlines the seriousness of the situation.

Latvian Austerity

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Interesting post by Ed Hugh at Fistful of Euros on austerity in Latvia... goes somewhat beyond the usual point that the "success" of austerity in the Baltic republics (in the sense that they are not considered to be in imminent danger of defaulting on their debt, and in the sense that GDP is again growing) has come at the cost of enormous drops in GDP (which the current growth in GDP has still not made up).  Krugman is also good on this, but Hugh's post goes into a lot of detail and argues that even in terms being able to pay their debt, things may not look so good in a few years.

What's basically been going on is "internal devaluation", i.e. massive wage and price deflation, in order to reverse the decline in competitiveness that followed Latvia's pegging its currency to the Euro.  This has been accomplished in part by austerity that has been extremely contractionary, and has resulted in a massive shift toward exporting by the Latvian economy, earning it foreign exchange with which to pay euro-denominated debt.   But the huge cost in macroeconomic contraction might have been partially avoided by devaluing instead of maintaining the peg (although massive devaluation, while macroeconomically stimulative through the export demand channel, may in some circumstances cause macro problems as well...).

Irish taxpayers now working for Goldman Sachs, BNP Paraibas et. al...

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I had held off on posting about Ireland because I read some pieces that suggested the final deal was going to involve Irish banks' bondholders taking some losses.  From RTE news, I read that:

The Minister [for finance, Brian Lenihan] also said that subordinated bondholders would be dealt with aggressively but said the European partners had ruled out making senior bondholders pay as it would have a spill over effect on the euro.

See also the Financial Times.  The IMF favored senior bondholders taking some losses, but the Europeans wouldn't accept it, and the Irish government caved.

What I was going to say was that the Irish problem is essentially about the fact that the Irish government decided, at the beginning of the crisis, to guarantee all of Irish banks' debts.  What they should now do is repudiate that guarantee...if not explicitly, than by refusing any bailout that doesn't, effectively, involve a partial writedown.  If they don't, it's likely the next Irish government will repudiate, if they can find a legal mechanism for doing so (and my guess is that they'll find *something*).  The current plan is basically asking all Irish citizens to tithe themselves for years to ensure that those who unwisely lent to Irish banks fueling the Irish real estate bubble, suffer no loss.  A real political winner if I ever heard of one.  Sinn Fein --- that's the party that was formerly the political wing of the Irish Republican Army---has already won a byelection, in Donegal, presumably over voter anger at the economic and debt situation.  Moreover, the plan will likely be contractionary in a Keynsian sense, making it still more onerous for Irish firms and workers to produce the surplus to render to the bondholders.

About two thirds of the Irish deficit is payments to uphold this guarantee of bank debt; the Irish deficit is not primarily a matter of excessive government spending otherwise.

More on Ireland and Europe from Ken Rogoff

...and on Ireland from Barry Eichengreen.  No accident, I suspect, that this blast was originally published in German at Handelsblatt.

Link to Wikileaks (works for the moment)

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Various wimpy organizations, in the US at least, seem to be dumping web hosting and DNS service for wikileaks. Hosting was apparently moved to Switzerland but wikileaks.ch doesn't work either (no DNS resolution for it either, I guess).

Here's a URL for Wikileaks that works at the moment:

http://213.251.145.96/

I don't have a carefully considered opinion but my gut reaction is that Wikileaks is doing journalism, and its publication of classified material that it obtains is probably protected.  Some of those in government or the military who supply it with classified material seem likely to be guilty of some crime along the lines of mishandling classified information, but probably not espionage though I haven't read the relevant laws.

Some links of relevance:

The Guardian appears to have the most detail on the sex crime allegations against Assange.

A piece in the Atlantic from a pro-Wikileaks point of view.

Happy Birthday, Dizzy Gillespie! And thanks for your gifts.

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Thanks to Google's homepage artwork, I find that today is Dizzy Gillespie's birthday.  Here are a few glimpses of him, from youtube. First, one of the first Diz tracks I ever listened to:  Long Long Summer, by Lalo Schifrin, Argentine composer/arranger and Diz's pianist for several stretches in the early 60s and the 70s.  Live in 1962 (see below the embedded video for details). Nice montage of B&W stills and album covers in the youtube video.

This version is live from "Dizzy on the French Riviera" (and apparently on a budget Compact Jazz compilation as well).  I'm not certain whether it was this live track, or a May 1962 version recorded in New York, also for Phillips, that I listened to (borrowed from the Dartmouth College music department library) in high school. This live version is from a Verve reissue "Dizzy on the French Riviera", of the Phillips LP "Dizzy on the Riviera", recorded at a jazz festival at Juan les Pins, July 24, 1962. I'm guessing this is a bonus track for the CD as the discography at the end of Dizzy's fantastic memoirs "To Be or not to Bop" doesn't list the track as on the original LP. Besides Diz on trumpet, the Juan les Pins concert featured Leo Wright on alto sax, Lalo Schifrin, piano, Chris White on bass, Rudy Collins on drums, and Pepito Riestria on additional percussion, and Elec Bacsik (not heard on this track) on guitar. (There's a possibility that the New York date is the source of this bonus track, or that the two albums were combined for the CD. I'll find out when it arrives in the mail.)

Very nicely structured solo from Diz on this, showing his increasingly bluesy bent that developed through the 50s and early 60s, and a few of the complex fast passages that were a trademark as he and others pioneeered bebop in the 1940s. Dizzy's in total command of the horn here, getting a brassy, golden, slightly blaring tone when he wants to, a more suave and neutral tone in some fast legato passages that reminds one of Miles Davis on open horn (of course we know who was a key influence on Miles!), or a slightly more brittle and very agile tone in complex bebopish passagework. He's also in total command of the structure of the solo, making his phrases respond to and build on each other, telling a story, getting into slightly different bags as he goes along. His solo's followed by an ensemble interlude after which he repeats a beautifully played latin riff, reminding us that he was one of the most important --- probably the most important --- forces bringing latin rhythms into jazz, and probably also in bringing bebop into latin music.

Next, one of a couple of tracks that got me to understand bebop, again early in high school, is the 1950 Bloomdido from a Charlier Parker / Dizzy Gillespie reunion "Bird and Diz" on Verve. Parker, who Gillespie sometimes referred to as "the other half of my heartbeat", and Gillespie were the star soloists as bebop developed in the 1940s, and their collaboration, as well as the work of each with his own groups, was a major force in creating this music. I first came to dig Parker on the blues Parker's Mood (which I knew through the best alternate take, from the Charlie Parker Memorial Album, which is as great as but different from the master take), but the blues is easier to get into than fast bebop. Bloomdido bridged the gap for me. Again, a nice photomontage for the vid.

Parker, Gillespie, and pianist Thelonious Monk are masterful on this. Amazingly inventive phrasing, well-structured solos. Critics often lament that the drummer on this is the "rhythmically inappropriate" Buddy Rich rather than a bop drummer like Max Roach, but it doesn't seem to bother the soloists one bit on this track. I'd even say that his somewhat more foursquare, slightly less swinging beat here might help drive the soloists to some taut, edgy, quick-thinking statements. Getting away from the setting you're most comfortable in can spark invention, if you can handle it, and it goes without saying that these guys could. And inventions's not in short supply here. The Verve reissue contains alternate versions of this and other tracks that are strongly recommended; the solos are different and usually just as good as on the issued versions. This is some of the world's greatest music by any standard.

Finally, a great Youtube find; this is what they looked and sounded like in action: Gillespie, Parker, Dick" Hyman on piano, Sandy Block on bass, play Tadd Dameron's bop classic "Hothouse" on television in 1952: