How best to start a layman wine blog than to hit up the most outré wine bar in SF? That's right, I wangled my lovely self into Terroir for the first time last night, and it proved to be all that's been promised.
Let me back up a step... my current hell-job at a magasin de vin-cum excellence- threw me into contact with a visiting Frenchman- a vineyard manager no less. As my hands have been of late more trained to pruning than to typing- you imagine my delight as I got his wanadoo 'mail' and what could be a safety rope out of retail hell.
(A brief note on the hell-job: Germans get a bad rap for their efficiency and no-nonsense attitude. This does not even Come Close to the soul-sucking ennui that pervades any French retail establishment. You thought the French were snobbish or cold? No- that is their deep need to share the life-despair their workplace impresses upon them. That noted. What did the Frenchman say after he visited hell-job? "I thought I was in Paris! It's not such a funny place there, non? Everyone's face is so beouf-")
So now: Terroir- the bar that's the cool of the cool- vanguard in the natural wine debate (although you better not call it a debate while you imbibe inside those walls). The bartenders' skin shimmers not with perspiration but with tiny pearls of Ph-factors and anti-sulphur agents.
I mean, they were pitted against Williamsburg's Terroir and made them eat wine-grass.
For those of you who are all "what the Frizzantino is she talking about?" there is a thing that exists, called The Natural Wine movement. The list of fundamentals that its apparatchiks subscribe to include but are not limited to the following:
1. Natural yeasts
2. No additives (water, food coloring, sulfer, pig parts- all of the stuff that IS in most California wine we've been schlugging).
3. Indigenous grape varietals
4. Scattering the tears of a unicorn- prior to veraison.
Ok- so I might have exaggerated on the last one. If you want real info- you can look into Isabelle Legeron's beautiful and scrappy description here. If you want the counterpoint (or what you can call a counterpoint from an industry that controls 99% of the market- I might call it whining), you can find it here.
Briefly- a natural digression.
IMHO- each 'natural' wine needs to be judged on its own. Most industry long-timers will tell you they saw the evolution of the wine industry- the introduction of thorough sanitation- better picking practices, etc, that more or less eradicated what used to be a sea of "flawed wine." That'd be wine with lots of unfriendly microbes- turning it sour, making it rough, generally leaving you wanting a mint.
More on this later- I don't want to spill all my beans in one basket.
So Terroir- possibly one of the most intimidatingly cool endroits, met its match in one of the most intimidating forms of human- the french winegrower. Not only do they know shit- but they can pronounce it. Unless it's in English.
But how was it??
Despite the entrance- which was slightly awkward, as a bottle of Jaquesson had just been sabered open with a wineglass, (honestly- we saw the video after) and in so doing had knocked over a candle- the whole night was a fucking blast.
We had about 5 wines each- here listed more or less in order:
Domaine de la Tournelle- Jura
Sarazinière Macon
Broc syrah "Drystack" Bennett valley
J.P. Brun -something
Marandais-Languedoc
Ollivier- Domaine de la Pepière Loire "Granit"
Montesecondo Chianti Classico
Xeres Amontillado *
Moscato d'Asti *
*forgot to take notes
I think it's pretty fan-tripping-tastic that two fairly picky/experienced drinkers can work their way through 9 wines with the only negative comment coming from the Loire red- and as such was pretty brief
"Carbonic is shit."
Signing off from too much coffeeland,
-J
(More on that drinking experience in a forthcoming post... "Bonjour Ivresse!")
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