Archive for September, 2015

Imagine the ultimate relaxing meal served outdoors with clean air in an idyllic setting in a flowery meadow under a high azure blue sunny sky at a classy very long table. This is the reality at the annual Araxi Longtable held this year in Vancouver on August 3 and in Pemberton outside Whistler on September 5. This ambitious dining series by Araxi (@araxirestaurant) Executive Chef James Walt, Director Neil Henderson, Sommelier Samantha Rahn (@samantharahnGC) and their whole brigade is so compelling and so well orchestrated. The ultimate Slow Food experience. Striking scene last weekend at North Arm Farm (@northarmfarm) with a record 272 guests seated at one very long table. Some had travelled from Miami, Chicago and New York for this specific event. The excellent menu features local ingredients harvested at the peak of the season in a true farm-to-table scenario. This 60 acre Sturdy family working organic farm grows amazing seasonal mixed vegetables and fruits. Jordan Sturdy gave us an informative insightful tour of the farm. Great story about how the black bears used to enjoy the open smorgasbord especially of corn and pumpkins until he spent $20,000 on a special fence around the property to keep them out.

The amazing menu:

Reception Canapes: Foie Gras Gougeres with Fresh Okanagan Peaches; Chilled Prawns with Sundried Tomato Sauce;  and English Pea & Duck Egg Pasta Ravioli. Le Vieux Pin Vaila Rose 2014 or Pemberton Distillery Gin Cocktail.

Seared BC Albacore Tuna, Grilled Corn Salsa & Local Apple Gel, Braised Salsify & Shiso Leaf; LaStella Vivace Pinot Grigio 2014.

Dungeness Crab Stuffed Squash Blossoms, Fresh Crab Blended with Salt Spring Island Cheese, Baby Multi-coloured Tomatoes & Burrata; Le Vieux Pin “Ava” 2013. My “wine of the day” is so outstanding! Combines 50% Viognier, 41% Rousanne, and 9% Marsanne so effectively. Shows some of that Northern Rhone richness and texture but it is brought in at only 12.9 alcohol so is very vibrant & refreshing as well. A real winner and a superb wine matching for this most delicious course!

Pemberton Meadows to Cache Creek Organic Beef, Aged Sirloin with Red Wine & Herb Braised Cheeks, Pressed Potatoes, with Yellow Carrots; LaStella Fortissimo 2013: Bordeaux styling blend with 16% Sangiovese, and Le Vieux Pin Cuvee Violette Syrah 2013: Peppery with only 2.84 Tons/acre co-fermented with a couple percent Rousanne and aged 14 months in aged French oak (none new). This must have been some sort of record for dry aged beef on the bone totalling 62 days and just trimmed for cooking the day before. In any event so sweet tender and flavourful. What a treasured recipe!

North Arm Farm Berries, Chocolate Coated Strawberry Ice Cream Bars, Sweet Lemon Tart with Raspberries; Quails’ Gate Botrytis Optima 2014. Also assorted handmade Petit Fours including fruit jellies by Pastry Chef Aaron Heath.

Highly recommend the quality and breathtaking experience of this memorable dining event and encourage everyone to put it on their bucket list!

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By Joseph Temple

“From the Golden Slope of Burgundy to the chateaux of Bordeaux, 1959 will be remembered not as the year of De Gaulle and Algeria but as the year of the Great Wine,” declared Time magazine. “A boon to the grapes, and not only has it been a great year in quality, but in quantity as year,” wrote the influential humorist Art Buchwald. With an exceptional summer, it appeared that nineteen fifty-nine was turning into something truly remarkable across the vineyards of Bordeaux. And brilliantly capitalizing on all of this free publicity, French winemakers ceremoniously dubbed it “The Vintage of the Century,” a title that unleashed a wine renaissance throughout the United States.

For the Bordelais, the good news couldn’t have come at a better time. The previous year had produced a small harvest and the year before was so bad that France was actually forced to import wine. In terms of quality, the vintages of the late 1950s were so awful that many in the newly created Fifth Republic chose beer instead of wine when visiting the local watering hole. Back in America, a young enthusiast named Robert M. Parker Jr. concurred when tasting a bottle of 1957 Château Lafite-Rothschild. Remarking it “tastes like cat piss,” Parker learned that with no rating system, first-growth Bordeaux’s like Lafite could easily coast on their reputation despite having such a subpar product.

But with news about the vintage of the century spreading like wildfire, American wine drinkers finally decided to enter the marketplace in a big way. During the 1950s, as oenophile culture started to gain steam on the east coast, the train of thought was that French wine was the undisputed gold standard. And with a devaluation of the franc ordered by Charles De Gaulle, U.S. dollars could now snatch up a sizable chunk of Bordeaux’s exports, which for seven and a half centuries had been dominated by the British.

For those who took advantage of the situation, they would not be disappointed. Michael Broadbent described the 1959 Château Lafite as “one of the best-ever Lafites … mammoth. And superb” while calling the Château Latour: “Glorious … perfect enough to keep on maturing for another quarter century.” According to Parker, “The wines do display the effects of having been made in a class, hot, dry year, with just enough rain to keep the vineyards from being stressed. They are full bodied, extremely alcoholic, and opulent, with high degrees of tannin and extract.”

So long before terms like ‘vintage of the century’ had been used ad nauseam, the marketing slogan proved to be a resounding success in places like New York and Washington D.C. By 1961, the price of first-growths had more than quadrupled with Americans for the first time becoming the principal buyers. Adding to these soaring prices was a futures market—something that would have been unheard of in the United States a decade before—making many British customers irate. Describing the mood in England during this time, author Elin McCoy writes, “The international market was now being built on these high prices, and if the Americans dropped out it would surely crash. Who else but the Americans would pay so much money for wine?”

Looking back at the craze over the vintage of the century, many wine writers believe that 1959 didn’t live up to its hype, especially when compared to 1961. However, no one can deny the impact that this vintage had on buying habits in the United States, signaling a seismic shift in the export market for French wines that is still felt to this day.

Sources:

Broadbent, Michael. Michael Broadbent’s Pocket Vintage Wine Companion. London: Anova Books, 2007.
Buchwald, Art. (1959, Oct 7). Buchwald, The Boor of Bordeaux Learns How To Swish And Spit. The Miami News. Retrieved from http://news.google.com.
Harding, Julia. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
London Observer Service. (1959, Oct 9). 1959 – Century’s Best Vintage.
McCoy, Elin. The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker Jr., and the Reign of American Taste. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Parker, Robert M. Bordeaux: A Consumer’s Guide to the World’s Finest Wines. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.
Robards, Terry. (1982, July 11). Wine; A Vintage of the Century Revisited. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://nytimes.com.
Unknown Author. (1959, Oct 19). Business: A Votre Sant. Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://content.time.com.

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“Madeira Wine” by y kawahara – originally posted to Flickr as Madeira Wine. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Question: What are the main factors that make Madeira so unique from other wines?

Answer: Two main ones – the estufado system of heat maturation + the specific terroir of the volcanic soil on which the grapes are grown.

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