Her and Mine

Well, spent the past couple of days watching Hermine wend her way into and from the gulf, across Florida, up the Coast, pushing water here and there, with Weather Channel folks rocketing around to get blown and wet, and so forth.  Fortunately, it kind of veered out to sea and we had minimal impact.  Wind was the bigger factor, as the seas (well, the Pax River) never got much more than this (although it was a bit rougher than it appears)

Our neighbor’s pier never got threatened

So all in all we did pretty well, and were rewarded this morning with a gorgeous sunrise

It was kind of amusing this morning when it appeared (haven’t checked lately) that the storm surge in New England was not going to be as severe as it first appeared, because of course we are all concerned about New York.  In fact Stephanie Abrams spent a fair amount of time talking about how hard it was to predict weather, variables, etc., all of which maybe to blunt the Weather Channel’s usual sky is falling approach (pun slightly intended).  Anyway, it’s all good.  Hope that’s all the named storms we have to deal with this year..

Silly   

Before we get to more food related things, just a typical Feeder observation about a piece I saw in the Washington Post (Fall Travel Issue) Magazine this morning.  Coffee and Tom Sietsema’s column usually start my Sunday (as an aside he did a Basque place that sounds very good – two and a half stars!).  Anyway, the full page ad of a rocky coastline superimposed over a transparent fuzzy focused rather rugged hirsute millennial in a plaid shirt looking pensive, and over top is a handwriting script that says: “the trip was meant to be a getaway. It brought me back to who I really am” – discover Maine.  what crap. 

Okay checked the non foodie block, which today doesn’t leave much to be explored.

Besides my raft of food magazines, I also get the Holy Grail of wine reviews from Mr. Parker, his “Wine Advocate”

I have subscribed for years watching it grow from a dozen page publication entirely written by Mr. Parker to the mega tome it is today.  I normally don't read the whole thing but is it a nice reference and a good source for keeping up with wineries, their products. I do use his ratings as a general guideline for purchasing, finding them a little more objective that the Wine Spectator which rates everything a wonderful.  Okay, I'm a bit snobby.  Guilty.   It is also a treasure trove for “wine speak”.  For instance I just flipped open to page 38 and randomly looked at the description for (Santa Barbara County) Pali Wine Co 2014 Pinot Noir Huntington ($23.50; 88 points) which is probably just a run of the mill pinot.  

Nevertheless, it boasts: “lots of spice box, cherry jam, licorice and toasted bread aromas and flavors in its medium bodied charming, textured, and  oh so easy drinking profile”.  And mind you there are 124 pages in this issue containing 15 to 20 wines per page.  There must be a word wheel or some software to help them develop those descriptions.  I have never seen, and probably never will see that wine, but these days a 24 dollar Pinot would be considered cheap, or maybe “value priced”.

But, although I got sidetracked there, that wasn’t what I was going to talk about.  If you can read the “in this issue” box above, most of the issue is devoted to new releases, but it also mentions includes "Spottswoode: A Vertical Tasting" on pages 6 – 9.  Vertical tastings refer to tasting a single wineries wines chronologically.  Spottswoode has become one of the most revered producers of Cab in Napa, and maybe you can read about it in his introduction. 

The Vertical tasting was split into five sections reflecting regimes of various winemakers and he tasted all 33 vintages from 1982 through 2014, and did a fairly detailed description of each (see winespeak comment above).  Note that the 80’s and early '90's are all under $40, with ratings in the upper eighties with the ’91 garnering 96 points.  As the years passed, both the quality and prices seemed to escalate.  The 2002 release was the first to rate a Parker 100 points, but still sold for “only” $110.   The latest releases (2011 through 2014, under Aron Weinkauf) are all over $150.  The 2014 he tasted had only been in the bottle two weeks, "showed promise" ($185/95+) and would last 30 – 35 years.  Interesting reading…what a world.  I’ll probably never taste them.

what's where..

And back to locally, have heard that what is going into the old Lone Star/CoCo’s place in Lexington Park is some sort of Pub or Ale House.  They don’t show up in this month’s agenda of the Alcohol Control Board.  I should go to one of those meetings sometime.   at least you don't have to be

DFD