Category Archives: Song

Chateau Suau Sauternes, 2005

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Here's a find from LCBO:  Chateau Suau Sauternes, 2eme cru, produced by the SARL des Vignobles Famille DuBourdieu at Illats.  This is now $13.95 Canadian at LCBO for 375ml (on "bin-end" sale, down from $17.70, as it's not from the most recent delivery).  It has a nice balance, veering to the sweeter, more syrupy side of the Sauternes spectrum but still elegant, slightly racy but, with what seems lowish acidity, not hugely so.  Excellent balance between subtle fruit flavors (hints of pineapple and orange) and a definite caramelized-sugar aspect, hinting at tobacco.  The fruits predominate in the nose and early on, and the caramelized aspects are more prominent on the finish, and also, it seemed to me on Thanksgiving, as the wine gets more air.  The predominant flavor might be characterized as Seville orange marmalade, with a characteristic hint of bitterness.  The low acidity might suggest that the wine is not as ageworthy as some more acidic Sauternes, but that's far from predictable, and the good flavor intensity, caramelized and tobacco elements, and high sugar could yield fantastic results on aging.  They remind me a bit of a botrytised late-harvest 1985 Peter Lehmann Barossa Valley Semillon-Sauternes---a fairly reasonably priced Aussie wine that I bought as a grad student in the late 80's and that, drunk in November 2005, was a truly great wine.  The Suau has a very similar set of tastes even now---it is absolutely and deliciously drinkable now, but also worth saving for a few years or a decade or two to it to see if they will meld and intensify with age.  Good Sauternes is expensive to produce, and even at the initial price of $17.70 this is a good deal, at least by North American standards, for a wine of this quality, but at $13.95 it's a steal.  This (along with some other wines I'll post about soon) goes a long way toward making me take back my grumblings about LCBO.

New Wine Review Feature Implemented:  If this wine were an opera singer it would be:

Marina Poplavskaya as Elizabeth of Valois in Verdi's Don Carlo, stated by the poster to be from the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, 23 Sept. 2009.  Well, maybe not quite.  But her voice is elegant, sweet with a hint of bitterness, pure but with hints of complexity...

Nipozzano Chianti Rufina Riserva 2006

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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.

James Westfall Trio, Snug Harbor, New Orleans, b/w general New Orleans music musings

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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.

Physics and Song: Perimeter to U2 Tour 360, Rogers Centre, Toronto 9/16/2009, courtesy of Blackberry and/or Mike Lazaridis

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Courtesy of Mike Lazaridis (CEO and co-founder of Research in Motion, the company that makes the Blackberry, and founder of Perimeter Institute, where I work), and/or his company (THANKS!!) the staff at Perimeter Institute was bused to Toronto and treated to the first of two U2 shows in the Rogers Centre, downtown next to the CN tower.  The roof was open on the arena, and those on the west side could see changing, glowing colors lighting up the elevator strip all the way up the CN tower, and encircling the observation deck. In my account of the concert below, I'll link to mostly YouTube videos to that give a play-by-play record of most of the concert---be warned that some of these are pretty low quality, though a few are surprisingly good.

Overall, the concert rocked.  Although I haven't followed U2 closely, I have a couple of their CDs from quite a while back---the excellent Achtung Baby, and a double live one, plus a few LPs kicking around that I haven't listened to recently.  They haven't lost their touch.  I particularly enjoyed some of the songs from their new album: the opening sequence "Breathe",  "Magnificent", and "Get on Your Boots".  My notes call the latter "surrealistic hard rock, with fuzz bass and Nirvana-y guitar riffs".  Its title and tacky-but-tasty riffs (think snarfing a box of Snyder's of Hanover Honey Mustard & Onion Pretzels) remind me of Sonic Youth's "Dirty Boots".   I liked the live "Boots" a bit better than the studio video version you can hear here--- a little grittier and harder-rocking.

Their traveling stage set (apparently one of three---the setup takes long enough that they need to start in one venue before the shows are finished in the next) is a giant pale-green thing, adorned with orange buttons and a tower sticking out the top, that looks like a cross between a giant four-legged beetle and the a lunar lander, and forms a tall canopy over the circular stage.  Under the belly of this thing, there's a huge circular video screen made of elongate hexagonal chunks, which can be interpreted as the thrust nozzle of a rocket engine.  Half-way through the show, the thing elongates vertically to more than twice its size, revealing that the screens are mounted on diagonally criss-crossing metal rods hinged to each other as in a folding set of coat-pegs, or wash-hanging rack.  It's used to show closeups of the performers, and various other graphics integral to the show.

We unfortuately missed the opening act, Snow Patrol, as the bus ride from Waterloo to Toronto is a lengthy proposition when you leave at 4 PM on a weekday.  The show started out with the bug thing towering over the empty stage as Bowie's "Space Oddity" was played on the sound system.  Then some moody, pretty music as the lights went out, the band came on, and the spots came up on them one by one, segueing into the band playing "Breathe" off their new album  (Here's longer, but better, video of the whole initial sequence from the last part of Space Oddity, through the band entrance and "Breathe").   Initially the sound balance left something to be desired---the low bass and kickdrum frequencies that resonate in your chest, and below, were overemphasized for my taste, while the actual low and low-midrange frequencies where the bass melody lives were underemphasized.  And the non-kickdrum parts of the drumset, especially at lower frequencies, were a bit undermixed too (partially remedied by Bono's call for "more drums" early in the set).  But basically the sound was pretty good, especially for an open arena which is probably pretty hard to fill sonically.  Vocals and guitar lines were pretty clear.  The band was able to carry things through Breathe and "No Line on the Horizon" as the sound settled down, or I stopped noticing it, and by Get On Your Boots things were rocking just fine.  (Here's some good video footage, with crummy no-bass sound, of the CN tower ... not sure this is actually "No Line" as claimed by the tuber who posted it, though.)  Here's the beginning of Magnificent (another song I liked from the new album, here's another snippet of it, and here's probably a better video of the whole song, from near the stage.)  This was followed by Get on Your Boots---no acceptable video from Toronto, so here it is from the opening show of the tour, in Barcelona's Olympic Stadium.  "Beautiful Day" from 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind" ended with a little snippet from Elvis Costello's "Alison", though with an somewhat altered, and I thought less interesting, melody.  "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from Achtung Baby, here beginning with the audience doing a good bit of the singing, was the first of the oldies but goodies for me, followed by a nice version of Elevation (also from "All..."), with the band really getting into a disjointed but rocking groove appropriate to the somewhat "surrealistic" lyrics ("why can't the sun // shoot me from a gun..").  "Your Blue Room" was a classic, lazing-across-inner-space "orbit" song, at a meandering tempo with looping "satellite" motifs and footage shot from the International Space Station, and a little sprechstimme from Commander Frank.  Nice touch (as was the LEM-like stage-set)  in the anniversary year of the moon landing.  (Here it is from Chicago a few days earlier, from farther out so you can see the video display.) [Unknown Caller]  Until the End of the World resumes the sequence from Achtung Baby (begun with "Still Haven't Found...")  An even better video of End. Stay.  Unforgettable Fire (nice sound and video, but cut off after 2:50.  ).  This is when the rocket nozzle video screen got vertically elongated.  More good video of Unforgettable Fire; relatively decent sound for this kind of thing, but bass-challenged.  City of Blinding Lights.  Vertigo / Pump It Up.  Bono announced that Elvis was in the house; this, and the bit of Alison and Oliver's Army, were presumably in his honor.  (Some parts of this sound like Dirty Boots as well.)  I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (sound issues), a lightweight but hard-rocking pogo-ey, poppy bit of infectious fluff off the new album.  Another version of Crazy with different sound issues and funny audience vocal.  Sunday Bloody Sunday (OK sound, long view; late beginning).  Ends with a snippet of Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army".  MLK, for Aung San Suu Kyi.  Walk On, and One, for Aung San Suu Kyi (seriously bad audience vocals from near whoever recorded this, but with some redeeming value (humor)).  Amazing Grace.  Where the Streets Have no Name.

Ultraviolet (Light My Way), another oldie but goodie from Achtung Baby.  Bono doesn't slack off when covering old songs...the phrasing is different in different performances, his heart and mind is in it.  With or Without You.  Moment of Surrender.