If you’ve ever been to a Costco and purchased two industrial-sized jugs of mayonnaise, or a hundred pack of tacquitos, or ten pounds of boneless chicken breast, you’ve experienced first-hand the advantage of buying in bulk. It is a truism that you will save money by buying bulk quantities of nearly anything.

Just as it’s true for condiments and delicious Mexican finger foods, it’s true for wine.

Nearly every wine retailer offers case discounts. For instance, if you were to purchase one bottle of wine, that bottle could cost $50. If, however, you were to buy a case of that same wine, most retailers would give you a 10-15% discount off the whole case. At a 10% discount a case of wine would be $540 (versus $600), or $45 per bottle. Unfortunately, most people don’t have $540 to drop on a case of wine, even if it is a discounted rate. Even if they did, most of those people wouldn’t be able to get through twelve bottles, or would not have the proper storage facilities.

Hence, the power of a wine collective.

If you were to get twelve friends together to purchase a case of the wine, each person would only pay $45 a bottle and have only as much wine as he or she could properly use. And, while a $5 savings is not much, it can lead to significant savings for the individual over a number of purchases.

Eventually, if the collective were to become big enough and influential enough, it would be able to procure even greater discounts and perhaps even special deals with retailers, distributors, and producers.

This is the goal of the DC Wine Buyers Collective, which was started this past weekend.

It’s something I’ve done on an informal basis for the past few years for co-workers and classmates. I’ve purchased cases of sparkling wine for Obama’s inauguration, and cases of wine for tastings. I thought it might be cool to have something a bit more fixed, something more tangible… and something that would still make me absolutely no money.

What’s in store for the DC Wine Buyers Collective? Perhaps a website, perhaps better ways to get wine to the masses. One thing’s for sure: we’ll be buying—and drinking—a whole lot of nice wine!  (Maybe even the wine below, about whose merits I’ve previously rhapsodized.)

IF YOU LIVE IN THE DC METRO AREA and would like to join the DC Wine Buyers Collective, please click this link. Please also feel free to contact me at joon [at] vinicultured.com if you have any questions!

I feel that way about this blog.

The reason I feel this way about my blog is not because I don’t enjoy writing on my blog–nothing could be farther from the truth.  The fact is, however, that I undertook to write a number of blog posts–reviews of wine I received, reviews of books I received, reviews of wine paraphernalia I received–at the close of the spring semester and haven’t yet gotten around to writing them.  If you’re one of those fine, generous people who gave me things to review: I apologize sincerely!  I will write and post my reviews very soon.

Whew!  With that out of the way I feel as if my soul can now be made into delicious, fruity (yet serious and profound) Beaujolais cru.  I have been drinking a fair amount of wine during this second half of summer, what with my being in Wilmington, Delaware during the weekdays and DC during the weekends and all.  I’ve had some fantastic aged Rully and some great Pinots.  However, I want to devote this Phoenix of a post to a simple, inexpensive, but altogether ravishing white wine: the 2009 Bonnet-Huteau Muscadet Sèvre et Maine “Les Gautronnieres” ($11.99, available at Ansonia Wines and Weygandt Wines, both in DC).

(Thanks to the fabulous Rebecca for this picture, taken with her brand-new Nikon D90!)

I worked at Ansonia this past Saturday and decided to pour both a light red and a white.  I decided to pour this wine because I had never had a Muscadet I’ve liked–till now.

Muscadet is produced in the Loire Valley (site of excellent Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, and apparently Pinot?) from the Melon de Bourgogne grape.  Muscadet is produced in three sub-appellations, of which Muscadet-Sèvre et Maine is one.  Although it’s a bit obscure, Muscadet has been acknowledged by some gourmets (and gourmands!) as the perfect oyster wine.

This wine has a nice hint of spritziness, not quite as pronounced as in a Txakolina, but perhaps around the same amount as some Vinho Verdes.  Very nice citrus stone fruit nose.  Clear, light body with some citrus and very pronounced minerality–definitely not like a Chablis or Sancerre but still pretty assertive.  Not the longest finish, but one that ends when it should and ends well–sort of like this.  It avoids that plasticine taste I hate in many inexpensive wines, and when it warms a bit it even seems like it could be a Chard.  A nice ending indeed.

This is THE PERFECT wine for summer.  Forget rosés (and you know how much I love rosés)–this is what you want to drink when it’s hot and humid outside.  It’s a wonderful aperitif and would go well with seafood, especially shellfish and ESPECIALLY oysters (when they’re in season again, which is generally any month containing the letter “R”).  This is a wine you want to pick up by the case and drink by the bottle.

But, as I seek to foster online conversation about wine: what are some of your favorite wines for summer?

For a $10 meal of iced coffee and a fresh-baked pizza I would go south on College to Espresso Roma.  Further down College Ave. was the great Cole Coffee with its poached eggs, toast, and jam, and way down College, near where College became Broadway, was Hudson Bay Cafe, which with its triangular nook and plate glass windows always seemed to me to be the edge of the world.  Of course, there were a number of other cafes not on College (Free Speech Movement Cafe, owned by the same man as Caffe Strada; the International House Cafe; Nefeli; Au Coquelet; the original Peet’s Coffee on Vine Street).  It’s something I miss in DC, where the only options for me are Peregrine Espresso, Big Bear (which is inconvenient as heck), SoHo (where I was once caught in the crossfire of a transvestite-lesbian catfight), Bourbon, and, thankfully, the excellent and recently-opened Filter Coffeehouse.

But I can add another one to that list: Northside Social, all the way out in Arlington a few blocks past the Clarendon Metro stop.  It opened in April in the spot of the old Murky Coffee, in a two-story wood house that once served as a fire station to the Clarendon Citizens Hall.  There is ample parking and ample seating outside and inside, though it tends to get crowded during peak hours.  There’s a downstairs section with the front seating area (filled with wooden chairs and tables, some couches, stools, and the serving area) and back seating area, which is quieter and seems to me to be a bit isolated.  There’s also an upstairs with more seats and tables and what looks to be a large bar for serving wine.  There’s also free Internet and two restrooms.

They brew Counter Culture beans, which means that the raw product is pretty much exactly the same as at Peregrine Espresso–not that I’m complaining.  They have pour over and a killer cold-brewed iced coffee; they also serve flat whites if you’re into that sort of thing.  They seem to have an extensive selection of teas brewed by the pot, as well as a number of wines they serve in tasting and full-glass sizes.  I haven’t tried the wines yet, but I did spy a Grüner Veltliner that I had tried previously and enjoyed.

The coffee and espresso are unimpeachable, so I want to turn next to what I think really sets Northside Social apart: its food.  Sure, Big Bear serves sandwiches, and SoHo serves sandwiches, but Northside Social serves sandwiches.  Really delicious ones, in fact.  I fell in love with their crisp pork belly sandwich which comes between slices of an Italian feather loaf with brocolli rabe, pesto, and smoked mozzarella.  FREAKING DELICIOUS:

My God, this is everything you could ever want from a sandwich, from bread, from pork belly, anything.  This sandwich, simple yet elegant, was the greatest sandwich I’ve ever had at a coffee shop.  And I’ve had a lot of sandwiches at a lot of different coffee shops.

On another occasion I ordered a leg of lamb salad sandwich, which is served with mint cucumber yogurt sauce, pickled shallots, and olive tapenade on a baguette.  Rebecca, who accompanied me a few times to Northside Social, ordered the Amish chicken salad sandwich, which comes on absolutely fantastic oatmeal stout bread and green goddess dressing.  Their menu is available here.

There are a lot of hipsters, yes, but they’re the gracious kind.  There are also a lot of moms and kids on playdates with other moms and kids, students, and business people–all in all a pretty good crowd.  Go, go, go to this place.  It’s right off the Orange Line, so it’s not far for you GWers.  Yes, it’s Clarendon, but I never thought I’d want to go out there and I can’t wait (figuratively) to go back!

I will be in California for five more weeks, after which I will be headed back to DC for a few days, and then eight weeks in beautiful Wilmington, Delaware, known in legal circles as one of the locations of the Court of Chancery (where I’ll be interning) and known in pop culture circles as the nameless setting of Fight Club.  Hopefully during this time there will be wine, wine, and more wine.  If this past week has been any indication, there will be plenty of that this summer!

I have to write a few posts, one of Deep Sea Wines (which was gracious enough to send me two bottles to review), another for a great product known as the Wine Diaper (it’s probably not what you think it is), and yet another for a book by Matthew Frank entitled Barolo.  And, I’ll have to write about a very wonderful evening at Founding Farmers in DC at which a bottle of Riesling figured prominently–that’ll be coming soon.  All of these will take place in good time, but before I do I wanted to “clear the palate,” so to speak, by writing about a few of the wines I’ve had at home.

One of my habits while at home is to buy a few bottles with which to tide over my mom until my next visit.  I had purchased a few bottles during Spring Break, and to my surprise (and pleasure) I found that one of the bottles had not yet been opened.

This bottle was the Candidus from Malm Cellars.  Malm Cellars is a one-person show, helmed by Brendan Malm.  He doesn’t have a winery or vineyard, but he sources fruit from select growers to make his wines.  One such wine, his 2007 Sonoma County Pinot Noir, garnered a great review from the LA Times.  The Candidus, which is made from a bunch of undisclosed white Rhône varietals (but also apparently includes Chardonnay concentrate according to Dave from Mission Wines), is about $16.  It’s intensely aromatic–I’m thinking Viognier or Muscat (though I’m not sure if Muscat is a Rhône varietal)–with an assertive nose of quince and honey.  It’s pear-colored and appears on the viscous side.  Excellent: full of dried apricot and citrus, full bodied yet light, good acidity, very pleasant.

Forget the Pinot Grigio or Pinot Gris for the upcoming summer–this wine is a refresher for those who want more heft.  Think of a blond Christina Hendricks:

Yum.

The Candidus was good even on the second day, but alas, a 750 mL bottle only lasts so long.  My third day at home and there was nothing left to drink!  A trip to Mission Wines was in order.

One of the great things about Mission Wines–at least if you’ve gone there for years like I have, now–is that they always have a few bottles open to try.  Matthew was manning the bar and he poured me a few drinks:

• 2009 Torii Pinot Gris | Willamette Valley, Oregon | notwithstanding my Pinot Gris/Grigio bashing above, this was a wonderful example of the varietal.  Great acidity, lemon curd, flowers, and minerality.  Hits you right in front of the mouth and doesn’t let go.
• 2009 Bella “Special Release” rosé | Sonoma Coast (?), California | made from a blend of Grenache and Syrah, this rosé packed a serious color (almost as dark as a light Burgundy or Beaujolais, as dark as a rosé made from Malbec) and serious flavor: peach, watermelon Jolly Rancher.  Think of this as Domaine Tempier’s um, racier backwater cousin.
• 2007 Louis Jadot Côte de Nuits Villages “Le Vaucrain” | Côte de Nuits, Burgundy, France | a village-level Burgundy, tart but with a nice mouthfeel and a satisfying mid-palate.  Fig, membrillo.  A perfect bistro wine, served chilled with steak tartare on the side, and at the mid-twenties at the perfect price.
• 2004 Bodegas Luzon “Alma de Luzon” | Jumilla, Spain | more on this below.

Upon Matthew’s recommendation I picked up a bottle of the 2007 Weinhof Scheu Spätburgunder from the Pfalz region of Germany ($15.99) and, a day or so later, a bottle of the aforementioned Alma de Luzon.  The Spätburgunder, which is German for Pinot Noir, was fantastic!  Never mind the long, narrow Riesling-type bottle in which it arrives: this is serious red wine.  A light brick color, it is full of tart cranberry and has hints of earth, very light-bodied and excellent chilled.  This is serious value for the money: leave it to the Germans to deliver efficient, precise wine.

The Alma de Luzon is a Jorge Ordoñez selection, so you know it’s good.  The first release, this normally retails for $67 but given the poor economy, its distributors unloaded quite a few cases to Mission where it is going for $27.99 a bottle.  This is an insanely low price for a very good wine.  It’s rare that everyone in my family likes a particular wine: this had something for everyone.  Dark, inky color.  Tobacco and stewed dark fruits on the nose, a hint of graphite.  In the mouth it had prune, blackberry, fig jam, clove.  It reminded me of Madeira, or the 2005 Ridge “Paso Robles” Zinfandel I had a few months ago.

Although this blend of 70% Monastrell, 20% Cabernet, 10% Syrah spends 22 months in oak (60% French, 40% American) and has a very dark, extracted color, it is not a Vaynerchukian “oak monster”: the tannins are there, but they’re silky and well-integrated.  Indeed, the Alma de Luzon’s acidity is more pronounced than its tannins.  Altogether, this is a tremendous value and a crowd-pleaser.  Buy it, drink it with a meal (I’m thinking red meats or molé, even), drink it with dark chocolate-covered blueberries, drink it by itself–whatever you do, be sure to buy it and drink it.

So, I’ve been at home for a week and a day and I’ve been able to try some wonderful wines.  I would recommend all of them.  With selection like this, how can I not love South Pasadena?

I had always wanted to be part of a wine club, one whose members were genuinely interested in wine and learning about wine, and one whose members would not be adverse to chipping in for very nice bottles.  But for one reason or another the club did not materialize.

If you’re reading this blog there’s probably about a 10% chance you’re a law student.  If so, you’ve no doubt taken torts.  Torts–which can loosely be defined as civil actions to recover damages for injuries to person or property–can be divided into two broad categories: intentional torts and unintentional torts.  Unintentional torts encompass negligence, the five elements of which are:

• Duty
• Breach of duty
• But-for (factual) cause
• Proximate (legal) cause
• Damages

The proximate cause can be defined as that which gave rise to the injury.  For instance, if I accidentally push someone through a window, then the proximate cause of the resultant injury is my push.

But-for causation, however, is an interesting concept because it recognizes that every outcome is the result of many different causes.  For instance, in the above scenario there are multiple but-for causes, such as the victim’s sitting on the window, my being on the second floor, the host throwing a party, etc., all the way to very distant events such as my being born, my parents meeting, ancient tribes settling in what is present-day Korea, and so on.  The analysis for but-for causation becomes: “but for X’s action, would Y have suffered injury?”

Okay, now that I’m done boring you, the proximate cause of the wine society was Kate M. sending out a Facebook invitation for the inaugural meeting of what has become dubbed the DC Wine Appreciation Society.  There were various but-for causes, including a wine tasting I hosted for the staff of the Nota Bene last September at which Kate and Jill M., among others, were present.  Before this I didn’t know Kate or Jill, and now they are two of my good friends.  Through them I met a whole bunch of others, such as Kate’s boyfriend Rahul S.  I also made the acquaintance of Giri I., another law student who happened to have substantial previous experience in the wine industry.

Our inaugural meeting established the limits of membership as well as rotating system of events.  (It also involved quite a lot of wine, naturally.)  The first post-inauguration event, a Cotes-du-Rhone tasting, was hosted at Diane E.’s apartment rooftop.

There were a number of excellent bottles: a few examples of Cotes-du-Rhone, some Gingondas, a CdP, and a bottle from a relatively new appellation, Vinsobres (the 2007 Domaine Constant-Duquesnoy).  The standout, however, was a 2007 Chateauneuf-du-Pape blanc from Domaine Paul Autard.  I’ve had it before and absolutely loved it.  It consists of equal proportions of Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, and Clairette.  It’s not inexpensive–Giri, Carl B., and I chipped in $22 each for a bottle–but it’s worth it.

It’s a pretty dark straw color.  There’s a nose of honey and lanolin, a hint of banana perhaps.  It is full and generous, with nice weight in the mouth.  Exceptional acidity and balance, redolent of roasted chestnut, citrus, and clay, maybe a bit of hazelnut or almond.  Perhaps like a sherry.  A nice roasted element melds with a crisp green element for a very complex and very long finish.  It is perfect as an aperitif or as an accompaniment to chicken with mushroom cream sauce.  It’s sort of an unusual bottle but despite its idiosyncrasies–or perhaps because of them–it was the most popular wine of the evening.

Now with finals upon us, I don’t know the next time the full Wine Appreciation Society will meet.  However, I am looking forward to next semester and the slate of awesome events we will be planning.

http://palatepress.com/2010/04/from-connoisseur-to-entrepreneur-five-days-as-a-wine-store-manager/

There’s an excellent post on the Palate Press that explores the topic of why no one reads wine blogs.  The author, Tom Johnson, looks at the utterly abysmal readership numbers–citing, for instance, the fact that “the top 100 wine blogs combined would be the 280th most popular blog in the country”–and offers two reasons for this phenomenon.

First, he observes that most wine blogs only offer wine reviews, leading to a “recipe for insignificance.”  I would tend to agree with Tom.  Wine reviews are useful but not intrinsically interesting, and they are available through a whole variety of sources such as wine magazines and review databases.  I personally dislike wine blogs that are 100% review-driven, although I do recognize that some people create such blogs primarily to keep track of what wines they’ve tried.  Nonetheless, as Tom writes, the best blogs are those that provide context and and tell stories.

Second, Tom points out that political blogs are nine times as likely as wine blogs to link to other related blogs.  He writes, “Wine bloggers in general are failing to use the defining characteristic of the worldwide web: the ability to link.”  Linking more often would create conversation and increase readership for all concerned.  I recommend that you read Tom’s article, which is well-researched and provocative (if the ninety-two and counting comments are any indication).

That being said, I would like to elaborate on one of his observations.  His article states the following:

Even looking at wine blogging as a niche product, we’re a disaster. There are 40 million regular wine drinkers in the United States, and the aggregate audience for wine blogs is maybe a couple hundred thousand people. Cellarer estimates, based on Google data, that the top 100 wine blogs enjoy monthly traffic of 865,000 unique visits, which means an average of 30,000 visits a day. Assuming that people who visit wine blogs visit more than one, even within our self-declared niche, we’re reaching less than 0.5% of our target audience.

There are, certainly, a lot of reasons for this. Wine lacks the daily drum beat of ginned-up controversy that powers political blogs. We don’t benefit from an endless stream of celebrity gossip or user-produced entertainment content that powers sites like Perez Hilton or Boing Boing. The audience that is interested in reading about wine is surely a fraction of the audience that drinks wine.

I think that our target audience is not the 40 million regular wine drinkers in the United States: rather, it’s a much smaller group that encompasses only people who are actually interested in wine.  His last sentence–”[t]he audience that is interested in reading about wine is surely a fraction of the audience that drinks wine”–really captures that relationship.

An analogy could be made with poetry.  A helluva lotta people know how to read, and most of those people will read poetry a few times a year, but only a small handful are actually interested in poetry.  This does not mean that the casual reader will never love poetry, but we won’t see millions of people reading Li-Young Lee or Jack Spicer on the subway.*

Regardless, I don’t believe wine bloggers should ignore Tom’s advice.  In fact, I believe that the two-step program proposed in Tom’s article would make wine blogs more relevant to wine drinkers and make casual wine drinkers more interested in wine generally.  However, I think that the effect of that program would chiefly be to improve the quality of wine blogs for repeat readers–that is, the 0.5% mentioned above–and only slightly increase absolute readership.

The Canadian poet Carmine Starnino wrote (fittingly, in Poetry magazine): “Aesthetic change is an elite activity, done out of professional boredom.  Poets who say different, who claim to  heed the wishes of the common reader out of populist duty, are lazy bastards.”  Bringing wine to the masses is a worthy goal, but to a very large extent wine drinking and wine appreciation are elite activities.  While we shouldn’t lose ourselves to tunnel vision (and while I’m sure none of us are lazy bastards) we also shouldn’t forget who we truly write for: a small but dedicated group of wine lovers.  With that in mind, we should take Tom’s insights to heart.

———————————-

* It’s interesting to note that poetry has its equivalent of the third Thursday of November, which is the celebratory release date of Beaujolais nouveau: National Poetry Month.  National Poetry Month sees a flurry of postcards and e-mails and posters on the streets and in school hallways.  The release of Beaujolais nouveau sees a flurry of flowery bottles in restaurants and supermarket aisles.  Poetry doesn’t get you drunk, but as Jack Kerouac and the Beats could testify, poetry and wine go hand-in-hand.

Thus, I store my wine in cardboard boxes that have been turned sideways. It’s not the prettiest sight, but they’re stacked in one of my hallway closets where they are kept from light and heat. It’s also an approach that the wine writer Karen MacNeil uses for her own cellar, apparently.

However, wine storage does not have to be purely practical. Indeed, wine bottles can be stored in a way that is not only aesthetically pleasing but can actually be considered art.

Take, for instance, Delia Wine Racks, which are handmade in Portland, Oregon. When one thinks of wine racks, one usually thinks of straight lines and bottles arranged in precise rows—which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, Delia wine racks are not like this at all. They are non-linear and curvy. They flow—they are like blossoming flowers, and vertebral columns. Wine bottles and rack become part of an art display, something one doesn’t have to hide away in a closet but can proudly keep in the living room or dining room (provided, of course, that those rooms are kept at a cool temperature!).

Then again, the Delia racks are smaller in scale. When I become a high-powered attorney I would like to expand my wine collection and perhaps even have a cellar. If this happens I’ll have to up the ante by installing some serious wine racks. Some wooden racks, probably in mahogany or redwood, would be a pretty classy affair. I would probably have to have a few of the shelves devoted to magnums, and some wooden shelves I could use to store whole cases of wine.  I’m a fan of having individual spaces for individual bottles of wine (that way I can pull a bottle without having to rearrange a whole bunch), so a rack like this diamond wine rack would probably be a good idea.

Of course, that’s for my personal cellar. My post-retirement dreams include opening a coffee shop or restaurant. If I were to open a restaurant, I would want something both practical and beautiful. Perhaps I could install something like these sideways wine racks that would allow the labels of the wine bottles I serve to show. It would be nice to have a hallway, perhaps leading from the main dining room to a separate lounge, to be covered in wine. People are visual creatures, and I would believe that marching people past rows and rows of bottles would whet their appetite for wine—and open their wallets, correspondingly. (It’s sort of like those seafood restaurants where you can see the catch of the day in big aquariums!)

Do you see the progression here? From cardboard box to full-hallway displays. This, my friends, is why getting into wine is an expensive—but rewarding—proposition!

The Broken Bells are a collaboration between Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins.  Their music features electric beats, disaffected vocals, and atmospheric guitar–basically, hipster music.  Music hipsters could like.

You know what else hipsters like?  Artisanal coffee.

Hipsters might tend to congregate on U Street or, if they’re truly hip enough, in Brooklyn, but they might consider coming to Filter Coffeehouse & Espresso Bar, a cool new coffee shop that opened up about two weeks ago in North Dupont on 20th and S Street NW.  It’s in the basement of a rowhouse, as pictured below:

Inside it’s a small rectangular space with a few tables and chairs (according to the proprietor, they will put out tables and chairs once the weather turns consistently warm).  It’s not really the best place to, say, study for a few hours, but it’s definitely good to come and grab a great cup of coffee.

Speaking of which, the coffee is fantastic.  I dropped by last Saturday with my law school friend and fellow wine connoisseur Giri.  We were taking a break from the wine tasting at Ansonia Wines and also waiting for two of our friends to join us.  I had heard about Filter a while ago and had wanted to try it, so this was the perfect opportunity.

The location itself is immediately inviting.  It feels like you’re going into someone’s home, which I don’t know about you but makes me want to drink coffee.  Once you go inside there’s a bar to your left and tables/chairs to your right.  The bar has a glass display case, some ceramic single brew filters, burr grinders, and an espresso machine.

Giri and I ordered cups of coffee to go: I ordered the Kenya AA.  I forget where they source their beans (I’ll update the post once I find out).  It was delicious and unique.  I wouldn’t characterize it as floral or fruity, nor chocolately.  It was dry, woody, and finished on notes of black tea.  It was also light-bodied and good though subdued acidity.

We ended up chatting with the proprietor, Rasheed, who knows his coffee.  In fact, he was so enthusiastic about coffee that he insisted we try some of his Sumatra.  Sumatra is one of those regions that a coffee lover should love but about which I personally have had mixed feelings.  Sumatran coffee growers often “wet process” their beans, which means they ferment the freshly-pulped beans for about a day or so before drying and washing, which often imparts a mushroomy taste that I don’t quite like.  As a whole–and this characterization varies widely depending on the exact method of processing as well as the producer and region–Sumatran coffees are full-bodied, deep, and earthy, with that mushroom quality I mentioned previously.

Filter’s Sumatra, on the other hand, smells like an Ethiopian Sidamo: just full of berries–strawberry, blueberry.  Rasheed ground some beans, made a batch, and poured us each a taste in ceramic.  Good, bright acidity, but with an intriguing vegetal finish.  Rasheed thought it was like rhubarb.  I agreed, but I also thought I detected alfalfa.  Altogether great, and an excellent present for that coffee aficionado in your life.

I didn’t get to try the cappuccinos or any of their espresso-based beverages, nor did I try their iced coffee (which is cold-brewed).  However, Filter is serious about their coffee: Rasheed participated in the U.S. Barista Championships and if I remember correctly will be sending one of his baristas to the next one.  I highly recommend Filter, and I urge you to check it out very soon.

For instance, I spent four and a half years in Berkeley, and it wasn’t until my last year that I truly started to enjoy it.  Suddenly, its wonders started presenting themselves to me like a blossom of gastronomic joy.  Where the hell was Gregoire all my life?  Why didn’t I go to Kermit Lynch before?

I am also a native of the Los Angeles region–Alhambra and South Pasadena, to be exact–but I can’t say I truly loved LA until I left for law school here in DC.  Now I love LA; every moment I spend there on break is a little blessing.

You might have heard me railing on DC.  I’ve always had the feeling that it’s trying to be like many different cities but failing.  I hate the crazy humidity of the summer, and I don’t like the absolute lack of tall buildings.  I hate how the Metro closes early–or at all–and how the bars close early.  I also don’t consider myself a very political person, which considering the town is not such a good thing.

However, DC has begun to grow on me.  There are little pockets of DC, a coffee shop here or a restaurant there, an alleyway here or a circle there, that I love.  Of course, one can choose to explain this cynically by pointing out that every city has its charms.  Still, I think I’ll be missing Amsterdam Falafelshop a lot once I leave DC.

There are other places, too.  Last Saturday Ansonia Wines was having a special open house where they were pouring old favorites and new selections they had picked up on their recent trip to Southern France.

Ansonia Wines is a boutique wine shop that specializes in French wines, putting a particular emphasis on Burgundy though they do have a good Southern Rhone selection, as well as a few offerings from Bordeaux, Alsace, and Italy.  It’s a family-run affair, with the father Mark (a Philadelphia lawyer for over twenty years) having run a successful wine importing business for years and years, providing wines to such high-end DC restaurants as Komi, CityZen, and Citronelle, and the son Tom (recently graduated from college) opening up the retail location just this past December.

They import wines from small but renowned producers like Michel Gros and Roger Belland, who produce red and white Burgundies that will take your breath away.  Two of their wines were recently reviewed quite favorably by The Washington Post, and I personally have had the opportunity to try many of their wines because I am now their manager-on-retainer (this being a one-person retail store, I fill in whenever Tom needs to take time off).  But I was looking forward to the open house because they were pouring some new wines from their buying trip.

My law school friend Giri–a oenophile who besides working as an engineer in Detroit’s automobile industry worked in wine retail for man years–and I met up at Ansonia where, among teeming throngs of people, we were served a new Cremant d’Alsace made from Chardonnay.  Delicious, rich, and full–a Champagne masquerading as a Cremant.  We were then served a number of other wines, such as the excellent 2004 Chateau Destieux, a Grand-Cru Bordeaux that offered seducing notes of plum, cedar, and graphite, a simple but refreshing Chardonnay from Domaine Albert Sounit, and the 2007 Domaine les Goubert Sablet, a pure, mid-bodied red that went down smooth.

However, the big standouts from the open house were two Gigondas from the same domaine.  Honestly, I love Domaine les Goubert–their L’Inedit (the “unedited” or “original”), described by the winemaker as a “man’s wine,” really is, with assertive dark fruits, flannel, strong yet balanced tannins, and warm spreading finish–and its offerings.  Goubert has two different styles of Gigondas, one made traditionally with no oak (no oak!) and the other, its “Cuvee Florence” (named after the winemaker’s daughter), seeing upwards of 24 months in 50% new French oak.

Ansonia offers a number of different vintages in both.  I had picked up the ’89 Gigondas ($42) to try on a special occasion but managed to get a little taste of it.  Intriguing, with a funky umami.  They were also serving the ’94 Cuvee Florence ($69), which had the same qualities but seemed brighter.  By this point Giri and I were joined by my friend Waiching and her friend Mark, not to mention the dozens of people who cycled in and out of the store.

Sufficiently soused up, we purchased quite a few bottles: a 2007 Domaine Annie Claire Forest Pouilly-Fuisse (one of my “Wines of the Week”), two bottles of a new Cotes-du-Rhone Village from Domaine Coulange, two bottles of Cremant, and–gasp!–a bottle of the ’94 Cuvee Florence.

We had already had a big evening, but the evening was about to get better.  The four of us stumbled back to my place, where my roommate Alex was recovering from a half-marathon he had run that morning.  I whipped together a relatively quick meal of mushroom cream chicken, cooked in my new enameled ceramic covered casserole, roasted brussels sprouts, and rice.  During the hour cooking and prep time, as well as during the meal and after, we had wine and more wine.

We downed the Pouilly-Fuisse–pretty as ever.  The Domaine Coulange Cotes-du-Rhone Village (around $15) was juicy, fruity, and gave the impression of sweetness.  Altogether a solid wine, especially for those who don’t like their wines too brooding.  But I was waiting impatiently for the Gigondas.  Both Gigondas.  Hell, if I wasn’t going to drink the ’89 now, I would never drink it.

So that was opened and poured into our glasses.  Swirl, swirl, and sniff.  Dark stewed prune on the nose.  Swirl, swirl, sip.  Prune, umami, baking spices, Japanese red bean jelly.  The color was almost brick-red.  I’ve seen older wines described as faded and brown around the edges, but I had never seen it before.  The ’89 definitely fit this description.  Altogether a pleasant wine but one that should be drunk now–I think it has reached its peak.

The ’94 was awaiting us.  Pour, swirl, swirl, sniff.  More of the same as the ’89.  Swirl, swirl, sip.  It had the same general qualities of the unoaked ’89, but this was simply brighter, juicier, and more vibrant.  There was a strong backbone as well from the oak.  There was a good undercurrent of acidity to it that kept things lively.  Very, very, very good and worth every penny.

I couldn’t tell whether I liked the ’94 better because it was younger, oaked, or just qualitatively different than the ’89.  I would like to try Goubert’s Gigondas from the same vintage to make sure.  However, I will stake a claim at this time and say that I would prefer the Cuvee Florence style versus the more traditional style.  Of course, this might change upon further examination.

The rest of the evening?  More wine, followed by glasses of German brandy and hand-rolled cigarettes on the roof courtesy of Mark.  I might not like DC as much as Berkeley or LA, but after a night like that it’s certainly growing on me.