10 January 2011

Happy New Year, Cyrano Friends!

To start the year right, I’m introducing our “In-Store Review” feature in which I’ll be reviewing newly added wines in our inventory. These reviews should be especially welcome to those of you who ask me every once in a while about what wines I personally like and why.

I’ll also be rating these wines to guide you better, although I still feel a little wary about doing this for a wine review. There are just too many wine critics in the world devoted to giving ratings with ultra-precise point scores and I feel that it’s misleading when critics insist on precise numbers to quantify something that is so subjective. I honestly feel that descriptive words can more faithfully communicate the quality of a wine than a numerical score can.

Yet the reality is that consumers prefer scores, which make life easier for anyone who simply wants to buy and enjoy a nice wine. So I’ll harmonize my descriptions and scores together this way (scores are from 1 to 10, allowing increments of 0.5 points):

Now my reviews and ratings reflect my preferences, which may or may not agree with your own. So it’s more important to remember that my purpose is merely to help you make better-informed decisions about which wines to choose. At the end of the day, the final proof about whether you like something or not is entirely up to you.

So let’s get ready for the first review.

30 December, 2010

It’s that time of year again, Cyrano friends, so get your New Year’s Eve party checklist ready.

Fireworks? Check.

Balloons and confetti? Check.

Champagne? Well, uh…

Okay, so I love the sentimental value of Veuve Clicquot if only because of how flamboyantly it’s mentioned in the movie Casablanca (“I recommend Veuve Clicquot ’26,” actor Claude Rains says famously). Nevertheless, there are lots of happy choices when it comes to sparkling wine that isn’t as outrageously priced as Champagne. You can get great value with Italian Prosecco or have delicious fun with Spanish Cava. Even England, whoopsie-daisies of all places, is now making reasonably priced bubbly that experts say rivals some of the finest Champagnes.

In other words, you don’t need expensive Champagne to toast the New Year.

But whichever you choose to pop open, allow me to repeat this simple, scientifically proven tip to help you fully enjoy your bubbly this New Year’s Eve. That is, when serving it from the bottle, tilt your glasses at a sharp angle and pour the wine like a beer.

I repeat: pour it like a beer. According to the scientists, that’s how Champagne and all sparkling wine should be served from now on.

This advice is still unpopular with conservative restaurateurs and hoteliers. These folks tend to resist scientific evidence that contradicts their artistic approach to fine dining, which is why they were annoyed when a group of French scientists published their controversial study earlier this year in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (study entitled, “On the Losses of Dissolved CO2 During Champagne Serving,” July 2010).

Even prominent English wine critics dismissed the findings of the French scientists (I find it funny, by the way, how many English wine critics love to display a title called “Master of Wine,” a peculiar British-invented credential that just sort of means, “I Studied For Three Years So I Could Be A Wine Lecturing Geek At Cocktail Parties Blah-Blah-Blah”).

“Pouring Champagne like a lager is seen as a really naff way to serve it,” scoffs British wine critic Tom Stevenson, who is labeled outside France as the world’s leading authority on Champagne. “You would not see a sommelier doing it in a million years.”

But those French researchers were merely following an age old hunch. Consumers have long suspected that the standard practice of pouring Champagne straight down a glass to create lots of mousse (foam), which is taught in every sommelier class, wastes effervescence and can even have an undesirable effect on the taste.

Image source: Decanter.com

“In champagne and sparkling wine tasting, the concentration of dissolved CO2 is a parameter of great importance,” wrote the scientists, whose tests clearly showed that the standard serving method results in an excessive loss of dissolved carbon dioxide. This, they said, causes sparkling wines to taste flatter and smell less fragrant.

Since sparkling wine retains better “mouth feel” and bouquet if CO2 loss is minimized, the scientists concluded that the best solution is to simply angle the glass and pour slowly along the side. In other words, use the “beer method” of pouring and it will taste better.

Image source: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

“The beer-like way of serving champagne is much softer than the champagne-like one,” says the study.

Hooray for the scientists. It’s silly that the wine world still has to suffer so much closed-mindedness in this day and age. No matter. Sooner or later, everybody from wine stewards to wine snobs will be following what the researchers have correctly advised. I’ll be happy to toast to that, then, Champagne glass in hand, with all Cyrano friends this New Year’s Eve.

Check!

20 December, 2010

“So have you posted the pictures yet?” she asked.

Oops.

I’d totally forgotten that ‘Dite has been expecting me to upload at least some of the photos she’s taken at the shop over the course of a month. When she asked me again the other week, without thinking I quickly responded with a vague but acceptable, “Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me. I’ll do it soon!”

Double oops.

You see, ‘Dite (as in Aphrodite, the mythological Greek goddess), is Cyrano’s recently designated photographer-in-residence and is sometimes identified at Cyrano Wine Photo Shop as, “That girl over there with the big *** camera!”

[CUT TO ITALIAN-AMERICAN GUY AT THE BAR DUCKING TO AVOID SWINGING WIDE ANGLE LENS WHILE CHICKS IN HOOKER HEELS GIGGLE AROUND LIGHTING EQUIPMENT.]

Jokes aside, her fellow Cyrano friends always light up with smiles when she’s around. The lady’s an artist, which is something I’ve witnessed on the number of occasions that she’s turned our place into a photographer’s studio (like the time she got her model, Marie, to project a mood that “set things on fire”).

Okay, here it is, ‘Dite. Sorry it’s just a measly few and mostly “family” shots. Sorry, too, for procrastinating. Boo-yah!

South African Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Rosé.
Nice wine racks, too.

Ya know, folks love our bar stools and that ottoman couch.

What a pain it was to hand-carry that Doisneau poster on the plane from Paris.
‘Twas worth it, though.

Haven’t raised the shutters.

What the…’Dite has another tattoo???

Observation #1: At Cyrano, some folks wanna stay and work…

…while others just wanna work on staying.

If only Cyrano friends would quit smoking…sigh.

We call this the garapata flower vase.

Observation #2: On any average night at Cyrano…

…you can count on hanging out with anything but average folks.

Definitely anything but average. How’s it going, Shimizu-san?

L to R: Our lady neighbor M who stays across the street; the dude who made the garapata vase; our photographer-in-residence.

Suddenly, the dude who made the garapata vase asked,
“How about a picture of just M and Shimizu-san?”

Don’t blame us M. It was his suggestion.

“…And then the rabbi said…”

09 December, 2010

A jovial German customer of ours tells this joke whenever someone orders American beer at the shop.

“What does American beer have in common with canoeing?” he likes to ask with a big grin before the punch line. “They’re both just above water.”

It’s an unfair generalization, I must say, one that accounts only for those watered-down U.S. brands that are being dumped on the world’s supermarkets in the name of globalization (our shop, by the way, only serves the good stuff from coast to coast, from Boston’s Samuel Adams to San Francisco’s Anchor Steam Beer). Unfortunately the Germans with their Old World heritage dismiss all American beers as a symptom of a culturally challenged way of life. As far as they are concerned, grown-ups – meaning Germans – bask in the glory of what they call Oktoberfest, while juveniles – meaning Americans – go nuts for that annual beer-and-bikini riot they call Spring Break. End of discussion.

Seriously, my Teutonic amigo is right about one thing. That is, if a beer can be poked fun at then it isn’t worth the time and effort to accord proper respect.

So I’ve come to a sobering decision. This shall be my last “Best Beers of Southeast Asia” post.

Screenshot of “a laid-back place with a laid-back beer.”

I’ve thrown in the towel. I now acknowledge that keeping an annual review is a pretentious thing when the pickings in Southeast Asia are painfully few and far between. How few? For me, only TWO beers deserve to be recognized for genuine excellence.

Beer Lao is an enigma to me. I’m echoing the amazement Time Magazine expressed when it declared Beer Lao as the best beer in Asia. Like most of my countrymen, I grew up believing that the Philippines had a lock on making beer in the region. All this changed years ago once I had a taste of that beautifully clear, golden Laotian brew. It was humbling but I am grateful that my preconception was overturned.

Yet Beer Lao is not the best in Southeast Asia. That honor goes to Cerveza Negra San Miguel of the Philippines (this is the domestic release of San Miguel’s dark lager and must not be confused with the mediocre export versions). With its supple balance of semi-bitter chocolate and sweet toffee flavors, I have always thought more highly of it than the brewery’s flagship, San Miguel Beer. Though Negra was plagued by unreliable quality in the past due to the token attention it gets as a “toy brand” in the company portfolio, I now believe consistency is no longer a deciding factor (to read the back story on this, click here).

There you go, Beer Lao and Cerveza Negra San Miguel.

Sorry but major brands like Singha of Thailand and Tiger Beer of Singapore don’t cut it. Nor is there any hope for Anchor Beer of Malaysia, Angkor Beer of Cambodia, Bintang Beer of Indonesia, Beer Mynarmar of Burma, Saigon Beer of Vietnam and whatever else is floating out there. Drinkable? Yes. Good? At least they’re above water.

The truth is that the big breweries of Southeast Asia don’t show the kind of passion and craftsmanship that are the foundations of great beer making. There’s a kind of indolence in this, reminiscent of those colonial-era comments that self-righteous Occidentals used to make about Southeast Asians, saying that we are too laid back, that we don’t have the drive to do more or keep improving things (how ironic that Beer Lao, which is made with superb effort, markets itself by promoting Laos as “a laid-back place with a laid-back beer”). Southeast Asia is a lucrative beer market yet breweries are pulling big profits with lousy but popular stuff. Why fix what ain’t beer-roke? With no incentive to elevate local palates, they’re happy to keep brewing the same barnyard flush for consumers, who don’t know enough to ask, “Why the hell are we paying good money for bottled horse piss???”

The biggest disappointment is the Philippines, which has the proudest brewing tradition in Asia but is now drowning in a sea of equine fizzy relief. What a sinking feeling. What I feel just from glancing at brands like San Mig Light or Manila Beer is comparable to what I feel whenever I see our politicians running yet again for national office.

Let’s be honest, my fellow Filipinos. We know in our hushed thoughts that these political gargoyles always reveal themselves to be the same unholy thing – ineptly out of their depth or corruptly self-serving or, as is normally the curse, both (while the good people stay in the private sector as far away from the inferno as possible). As I tell all my foreign friends, the Philippines is a feudal society masquerading as a modern Western-style democracy. Unless we Filipinos first destroy our deep-rooted feudal culture, then democratic elections will merely perpetuate our socio-economic problems, not solve them.

Sigh…forgive me. I digress.

Many nights ago our Cyrano friend, Bobby, was at the shop lamenting how disenchanted he is with San Miguel Beer. A retired ad man with an educated taste for drink, Bobby, after polishing off a great Czech beer, went on to say that he has written off this Filipino classic. “It’s beyond salvation,” I seem to recall him saying.

“San Miguel makes Pale Pilsen on the cheap now,” I said, as Bobby switched to a Dutch lager. “The key ingredients are imported and expensive, so they’re cutting corners. They’re cutting down on barley malt and increasing the use of cereal extenders.”

We proceeded to talk about other local brands but it only made him more miserable. Feeling the need to switch to cheerful conversation, we closed by agreeing that San Miguel Premium is for gullible, status conscious posers and that the newly resurrected Manila Beer should have remained entombed in Asia Brewery’s graveyard of dead brands.

That’s it. End of story. If memory serves me right, we moved on to an intellectually discriminating, emotionally gratifying discussion about the ever expanding list of hot babes who hang out at the wine shop.

Haha…now, THAT is something worth making an annual review of.

POSTSCRIPT: Here’s a consolation prize. San Miguel Super Dry tastes better now, a whole bloody lot better. Though it still doesn’t taste like it did when it first rolled out some twenty years ago, the heft and richness are noticeably superior to its immediate sibling, San Miguel Pale Pilsen (I venture to guess that its malt content was restored to a higher level). Does this have to do with Super Dry’s repositioning as the premium beer of the two, reflected in its higher pricing? Go Super Dry, baby!

07 July 2010

It’s been well over a month since Robin Hood ended its run in local theaters. Nevertheless, lately a few folks at your neighborhood wine shop have been chatting me up on the subject. Because of this, I’ve been harboring this silly phrase at the back of my mind for a few weeks now:

“Pluck yew.”

Before I explain further, let me come clean. I wasn’t a fan of Robin Hood as a kid. Alas, those classic movies ruined it for me, with bygone actors like Errol Flynn who popularized the hero as a middle-aged Peter Pan with larger than life fighting skills. I mean, come on, a guy dressed in green kindergarten tights is single-handedly shooting down an army of knights and out-dueling them with a puny replica dagger from the studio’s prop department? Even my childhood mind knew something was whacked in this Hollywood fantasy.

It didn’t help that, as a kid who read his mythologies, I wasn’t favorably disposed toward bow-wielding characters in the first place. I remember taking it very badly when I got the news that Achilles had been killed by an arrow to his self-labeled heel. I thought, “Are you kidding me? The dude is the bravest, greatest warrior on Planet Greek and he gets shot by a sniveling, wife-stealing Trojan prince shooting from a safe distance behind a fortress wall? Paris is a schmuck!”

But I’ve had a change of heart. I now appreciate Robin Hood from an overlooked point of view and I have the new movie to thank for it. As the latest blockbuster from director Ridley Scott, who recruited his Oscar-winning Gladiator star Russell Crowe for the title role, Robin Hood is the most historically immersed movie to date, giving unprecedented attention to the real people and events at the heart of the legend (although it still bends a few historical facts for easier storytelling). Simply put, it reboots everything Hollywood ever told us.

“What Ridley and I sought to do was recalibrate the story,” explains Crowe in the movie’s fascinating tie-in documentary, The Real Robin Hood, which is currently airing on The History Channel-Asia.

Never mind that it’s essentially a promotional show for the film. Written and co-directed by Scott for The History Channel network, The Real Robin Hood is an impressive non-fiction production in its own right, vividly separating Hollywood fiction from the refreshing truth. Who was the real Robin Hood? Did he really exist? Why did his legend arise at a crucial time in English history? And why does his story ring timelessly among audiences to this day? The show hits all the marks like Robin’s arrows straight on target, with impressive insights from historians and demonstrations by experts in medieval warfare, interspersed with choice out-takes from the film (with an excellent narration by Oscar-winning actor William Hurt, who also stars in the movie).

DVD cover of The Real Robin Hood.

Truthfully, The Real Robin Hood is the real reason why the subject has been popping up here at the shop. Cyrano friends love the show.

Well, okay, the few who’ve seen it on cable do. I’m not complaining. I welcome small talk with “fans” of the documentary. Just listen to my chat on a different night with Ivan, another new Cyrano friend who gushes about how thrilled he is to finally find a wine bar like ours.

[NOTE: Due to gaps in my memory, I've reconstructed my conversation with Ivan using liberal storytelling license. It also includes a joke that was emailed to me many years ago. Remember pluck yew? Now THAT is a joke that I shall retell as faithfully as necessary.]

Illustrated sword and buckler combat
from Lombardy, circa 1390.

“In the documentary,” I explained to Ivan after opening a bottle of wine for him at the counter, “they talk about something called a “buckler.” A buckler is a tiny shield about this size (I showed him a dining plate) and it’s what an English yeoman like Robin Hood would have carried to the battlefield. Being archers, yeomen had to be light on the move, so they couldn’t burden themselves with large shields. Besides, a buckler was for emergencies when a yeoman was forced to drop his bow and fight at close quarters.”

“Makes sense,” Ivan commented. “It’s minimal protection but better than nothing.”

“The thing is,” I added, “they hanged their bucklers at the hip beside their daggers. As they dashed around the battlefield, the daggers would swing against the metal, creating a “swashing” sound. Thereafter, these fast-fighting yeomen were nicknamed “swashbucklers.””

“Hey, cool,” he said. “No wonder Hollywood picked it up. By the way, you were saying something earlier about the yew tree?”

“Oh, yew,” I remembered. “I was saying that the signature weapon of the English yeoman was the longbow and it was made from the yew tree. It’s a wood with remarkable spring-like properties. Longbows made of yew could shoot arrows over greater distances than conventional European bows, giving the English a superior advantage on the battlefield against their arch-rivals, the French. Which reminds me, do you want to hear the joke about it?”

With his wineglass in hand, Ivan gladly gave me the green light.

“Supposedly,” I proceeded, “because their longbows were made of wood from the yew tree, yeomen archers referred to the action of drawing their bowstrings to shoot as “plucking the yew.” In a medieval society where vulgar humor pervaded all classes, the nobles couldn’t help attaching a scandalous connotation to the phrase. Hence, the English knights bawdily cheered their yeomen as merry men who could pluck yew.”

“Pluck yew!”

“That’s not all. In battle, the yeomen used special arrows called “bodkin points” to penetrate enemy armor. Like all arrows, these had tail feathers to stabilize their flight. Supposedly, the best feathers to use were those of the wild pheasant bird and the best pheasant for this purpose was a plump mother hen because it was more docile and had more feathers for plucking. Once again, the English knights couldn’t resist thinking of a vulgar association for the fact that their yeomen were plucking special arrows made from pleasant pheasant mothers. Dare you say it quickly?”

“Plump pleasant pheasant mother plucker!”

“By Robin Hood’s time, the English and French were constantly at war with each other. Now the one thing the French knights detested was the English yeoman archer. Battle after battle, the yeomen proved that they could blanket a field with a murderous rain of arrows, smothering horse mounted French knights well before they could reach the English lines. Centuries later, the English were still winning the great battles – Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt…the list goes on – and this really pissed off the French. Imagine what the trash talk must have been like as both sides heckled each other across the battlefield.”

“English pheasant mother pluckers!”

“Pluck yew, Frenchie!”

“Rumor has it that the French were so determined to get revenge that, prior to the Battle of Agincourt, they issued a warning to the English that they would cut off the middle fingers of all the yeomen archers they would capture, so that they could never draw a bowstring again. Needless to say, the trash talk at Agincourt between French knights and English yeomen became extremely vicious.”

“Mother plucking peasants!!!”

“Pluck yew, tin heads!!!”

“But when the battle commenced, the French discovered too late that the field had turned alarmingly soggy from rainfall the night before and they watched in horror as the earth turned to mush under the weight of thousands of French knights charging on horseback and on foot. Weighed down by their heavy armor, they were now hopelessly slowed by the thick mud and quickly became engulfed by an avalanche of English arrows. The English then simply advanced and slaughtered them. As the rest of the enemy fled, the triumphant yeomen archers stuck their middle fingers in the air at the retreating French just to let them know that they could still pluck yew.”

“Who’s the mother plucker now??!! Pluck yew, Frenchie! Pluck yew!!!”

“Finally,” I said, wrapping things up. “To honor the many pheasants whose feathers went into the arrows that helped make victory possible, the yeomen thereafter referred to the act of sticking their middle fingers at the enemy as “giving them the bird.” Needless to say, the English knights couldn’t help snickering about it.”

Noticing that Ivan couldn’t wipe the grin off his face, I casually reminded him that all this was just a charade, the sort of harmless banter bored historians come up with instead of knock-knock jokes. Yet as silly as the make-believe details were, there is no disputing the amazing truths that give them substance. At the end of the day, it is not fiction but truth that makes all the great stories of history so inspiring.

So be it with the real Robin Hood. Say it with me, Cyrano friends.

“Pluck yew!”

18 April 2010

To download this wallpaper of Brittany, click here.

They call it glasz.

In the old Celtic language of Brittany, that’s how locals describe the bluish seascape of this panoramic region in the northwestern corner of France. Wandering between blue, green and gray, it’s a color so vast that visitors can’t help losing themselves in its hues as it permeates the rugged coastline from sea to sky. Glasz is part of my enduring recollection of Brittany from years ago. I regret that my youthful preoccupations back then distracted me from developing a much deeper attachment to this place at the time. Nowadays my mind races at the thought of those bluish sea cliffs and rocky shores, which are idyllic to my sense of adventure.

Yet glasz is more than a color to me. It’s also something I remember tasting. Brittany not only has superlative seafood but boasts of the best oysters on earth. Visiting the famed oyster town of Cancale, I eagerly devoured the substance of that boast – succulent, nutty-sweet oyster meat with the perky flavor of sea foam, topped with a twist of lemon before being dispatched in my ravenous jaws. Bretons say you can taste their bluish coastal environment of water and air in these prized shellfish. I like to call it glasz you can taste.

Still, even though the taste of glasz belongs to Brittany, it does have aspiring counterparts around the world. Even here in our own country, we have something suggestive of it. Just visit our neighbor up the street if you don’t believe me.

A short walk from our wine shop is Gustavus, a chic little restaurant & bar that opened not long ago as the street’s unofficially designated steak house. For months I’d only ever driven past its frosted glass exterior on my way to work, not because I didn’t believe customers of ours who enjoy the steaks there but because I simply had my own place to attend to. Then one of them started raving about the fresh oysters. “Local oysters,” he said as he took note of my curiosity. Visit after visit, he praised them as being of the finest quality, all at a menu price that was a steal. I had to try them, he insisted.

My thanks to Biba for these pictures of her oyster feast
at Gustavus with other Cyrano friends.

So I did. I strolled over to Gustavus, sat at the bar and was served a hefty plate of pearly shelled beauties on a bed of rock salt with lemon slices. A single order yields more than half a dozen pieces (at P240 per serving, the menu price is a big attraction). Further, though I deemed them to be of fair size, the manager apologized for their “smallness.” The warm season at the oyster farm was to blame, he said, otherwise they would have been bigger. He needn’t have worried.

Let me spell it out: W-O-W. The moment I lifted that first juicy oyster from its half shell and sank my teeth in, I knew that this was the real deal. With fresh-from-the-water fleshiness, each one was soft and creamy in the mouth, combining a buttery flavor with a kiss of the beach. Engrossed in my feast, I suddenly felt the flash of a memory, of me in a little restaurant in a small town in Brittany, plucking the contents of half shells and chomping away to my heart’s delight. In that instant, I remembered glasz.

Afterward, I reflected some more at the wine shop. The idea that someone was cultivating local oysters this good and delivering them fresh daily to my neighbor left me both impressed and relieved (having grown up in a household where the institutionalized attitude was to drive out of town and bring home sacks of muddy critters that always seemed to smell like ditch water, I had lulled myself into thinking that the local product would never be good enough to make me feel safe about eating it in its natural state). According to the restaurant, the supplier is a foreign entrepreneur who farms in the waters of Aklan a few hundred kilometers to the south before flying the oysters here for processing and distribution.

But is this equal to the taste of glasz? It occurred to me to ask myself that after I heard a story from another customer of ours. He told me about a foreigner who was farming top grade oysters in Aklan and exporting them to E.U. markets. Crucially, he said the expat claimed that his product was as good as Europe’s best. That meant Brittany’s. I asked if this exporter was supplying Gustavus, but my friend had no idea. Regardless of whether it was the same supplier or not, I told my friend that the boast was actually a harmless marketing tool. But hearing it spurred me to ask and answer my own question.

No. Delicious as they are, the local oysters do not equal the taste of glasz, that special meld of hazelnut sweetness and tangy sea foam edge, as I remember it to be. They are merely reminiscent of it. Yet in my opinion, that in itself is a worthy distinction.

It’s been weeks since that first encounter and I’m happy to say that I’ve been regularly enjoying oysters at Gustavus for what they are. I’ve even given my recommended white wine pairing to the restaurant manager (I didn’t recommend Muscadet, however, even though that’s the traditional French pairing for European flat oysters, because the pronounced acidity of Muscadet cuts too harshly against the lighter, more delicate flavor of these Pacific oysters served at Gustavus). And while I will always love the taste of glasz, my palate embraces all that differentiates the local delicacy. Come to think of it, it’s a taste that conjures the sunny turquoise waters and blissful white sand beaches of the world from which they came.

I wonder if the locals in Aklan have a word that describes the kaleidoscope colors of a tropical island paradise. It’s just a teasing thought for this avid oyster eater.

07 April 2010

“The great evening lay before us like a world: an evening filled with talk, stories, games music and lamplight.”

Edwin Muir       

In a purportedly civilized world, it’s ironic how elegant drinking is often out of place in modern night life. Hanging out in a fashionable but rowdy city pub, for example, demands something bawdy and frothing from the tap, while bar-hopping gives way to hard-hitting liquids in tiny but innumerable doses, all to be downed quickly before stumbling on to the next trendy destination.

But for wine lovers, the art of the magnificent evening, of drinking to the unhurried pleasures of conversation and companionship, can never go out of style. Cyrano friends know by heart that good wine nurtures a more thought-provoking gathering. And we know by experience that no wine is more thought-provoking than a ripe, full-bodied red.

So be it. Say good evening to “The Magnificent Three” – Spy Valley Pinot Noir from New Zealand, Snake Charmer Shiraz from Australia and Marques Carménère from Chile – our new signature series for Cyrano friends who like to cultivate magnificent nights with deliciously full-bodied wines.

It’s only our second signature series, by the way. If you recall, last year we overhauled our inventory in order to position our little neighborhood shop as the home of “fun wines, smart buys” (adopted the motto, too). We assembled half a dozen quirky labels – Los 3 Bandidos, Goats Do Roam, Fat Bastard, Goat Door, Bored Doe and The Goatfather – and made them the cornerstone of our revised selection. Customers have loved the “Silly Six” ever since.

While not quite as whimsical, The Magnificent Three is likewise a collection of amusing labels. They’re pricier, admittedly, but don’t let that mislead you. Together they offer an outstanding balance of class and affordability, the kind of quality that one normally encounters only at much higher, much more exclusive price ranges.

And they have what we need for our kind of evenings. The Aussie red has the classic profile of big Shiraz, while the Chilean boasts a fullness of style second to none among the world’s best Carménère. Even the Kiwi entry is hefty for Pinot Noir by New World expectations.

Of course, you don’t have to take my word on all this. Put the wines to the test. By all means, you’re welcome to drop in and uncork a magnificent, leisurely night among fellow Cyrano friends. It’s what you love doing anyway.

Isn’t that nice? As we already know by heart and experience, evenings at Cyrano can never go out of style.

Spy Valley Pinot Noir (Retail Price: P995). “The devil made Pinot Noir,” a famous winemaker once said out of frustration. Cultivating Pinot Noir is notoriously difficult for producers, which is why when you do find something good it’s almost always expensive. That’s why I’m so pleased, even relieved, that we have this great-value Kiwi offering. Though New Zealand is best known for award-winning Sauvignon Blanc, its reputation as one of the New World’s top exponents of Pinot Noir is equally well deserved.

Found in the famed Marlborough wine region, Spy Valley Wines takes its name from an unofficial moniker for the winery’s locale, which is home to a satellite communications center for military intelligence – a “spy base” shall we say. The spy theme is even subtly played on every bottle (labels display a pixilated vineyard photo in the manner of a raw satellite image, while the name “Spy Valley” is printed in Morse Code around bottle necks). These are jeans and T-shirt winemakers, which in New Zealand is a sign that we have passionate, capable people here. Until now, most of the accolades the winery has received have been for its white wines. But I met Spy Valley winemaker Kathy-Lee Bird when she was in the country and it was clear that they’re excited about the future of their sensational Pinot Noir, which is currently in limited production. She indicated that more vines will be planted befitting its new status.

I like this fleshy Pinot Noir style, which is the inevitable result of the region’s sunny yet colder growing conditions. Think of it as Old World finesse meeting New World savor. Think, too, of beloved Pinot Noir sensations – cherry, raspberry, beefy juiciness, peppermint – just make them more full-flavored. And make the wine heftier but keep it smooth. That’s Spy Valley Pinot Noir.

[Snack Suggestion: When drinking Spy Valley Pinot Noir at Cyrano, try it with a take-out order of gravy-rich poutine from Gustavus steak house, which is just a short walk up the street from Cyrano. Remember to ask for more goat cheese toppings.]

Snake Charmer Shiraz (Retail Price: P850). When Australia burst onto the global stage as a formidable wine producer in the 1980s, it was done on the back of its powerhouse Shiraz. Aussie Shiraz was big and bold and the world loved it, resulting in Shiraz becoming one of the most sought-after varietals on the planet. Today, the Aussies also produce milder, softer versions for a more diversified world market, but it’s the old-school stuff that I find most endearing.

Thank goodness for Snake Charmer, a classic Aussie Shiraz that tastes the way I like it.

Just read the promo material, which declares, “Bigger, darker…and more seductive!!” I agree. Like the shapely circus temptress depicted on the bottle, this Shiraz is daring from the first pour, exploding with plum jam and red licorice. Let it breathe and it mellows into a voluptuous harmony of vanilla-infused blackcurrant and thick, spicy espresso.

Sourced from top quality grapes from different vineyards in McLaren Vale, South Australia, Snake Charmer belongs to one of the country’s most flamboyant wine negociants, Vinaceous Presents…! (yes, that’s their official name all right, punctuation marks included). Exactly how flamboyant? Vinaceous madly promotes its wine range in the image of a post-Victorian troupe, each wine represented by a circus character. The ringmaster is Cabernet Sauvignon, the mermaid act is Pinot Grigio, the fire eater is the Rhône-style red blend and…ahem, drum roll please…pree-zenting the snake charmer! Taa-dah!

[Snack Suggestion: When drinking Snake Charmer Shiraz at Cyrano, try it with a take-out order of fantastic pork rillette from Restaurant CiÇou, which is at the corner of San Lorenzo Drive and Arnaiz Avenue and several minutes walking distance from our shop.]

Marques de Casa Concha Carménère (Retail Price: P1,500). This is currently the only offering in our selection that exceeds our theme-imposed retail ceiling of P1,000 per bottle of wine. But it’s worth the exception. Made by Chile’s most celebrated producer, Concha y Toro, the Marques de Casa Concha range of varietals has been one of the most consistently praised Chilean brands of the last decade (their marketing people like to point that the brand has been listed every year for the last ten years in the Top 100 Wines of Wine Spectator magazine).

It’s the first time in the brand’s history that it has been made as a Carménère, which is my most favorite varietal. I was jumping for joy when I got my hands on my first bottle because 1) Concha y Toro makes the best Carménère on Earth; and 2) this is probably the best Carménère they have in terms of quality-to-price ratio.

I’ve always appreciated how Concha y Toro’s Carménère style is consistent from the top of the portfolio down to the entry level. I salute their winemaking culture, which takes inspiration from the best traditions of Bordeaux (the winery even maintains a link with the eminent Mouton-Rothschild estate). This helps explain why their Carménère has always been mellower than those of their rivals.

But while the suaveness may have Old World origins, the exquisite richness of our Marques is pure Chile in a glass. The gentle scent of fine Italian leather and spicy Java cigar wrapper on the nose serve as a prelude to the melding of heavily concentrated blueberry with deep mocha flavor, punctuated by the subtle sweetness of tangerine. Tannin levels are substantial but comfortable in the mouth, giving it a big yet balanced feel that should reach optimum smoothness after two to three more years in the bottle. It’s projected to keep until 2015 but by all means enjoy it now.

[Snack Suggestion: When drinking Marques Carménère at Cyrano, try it with a special order of my foccacia beef burger wedges that you folks have come to love. And when I say “special order” that means it’s only available when we have the ingredients. Please don’t just spring the idea on me when you get here – you gotta let me know in advance, well in advance. Sigh, I'm such a pushover with Cyrano friends.]

29 January 2010

“You think it’s not magic that keeps you alive?  Just because
you understand the mechanics of how something works doesn’t
make it any less of a miracle, which is just another word
for magic. We’re all kept alive by magic.”

When it comes to moon gazing, there are two kinds of people. There are those who love it and those who don’t see what the big deal is. If you’re one of the latter, I can’t explain my story any further other than to ask you not to rationalize a moonlit sky. You either feel its magic or you don’t.

Someone once said that there is magic in the world, but we have all become divorced from it. Having embraced the logic of modern living, we now exist outside the boundaries of magic and can no longer enter it except for fleeting moments at a time. “No one on the outside may enter its boundaries,” we are told, “save for the length of a dream or a flash of an inspiration.”

That’s why I love gazing at the moon. On nights when la bella luna is so round and luminous in the heavens, I feel transported, connected to something wonderful about the world that I cannot do justice to define. I only know that whatever that spark of feeling may be, it is nothing less than magic to me.

Still, in light of recent experience, I feel that I owe it to try to explain myself as best I can. So to do this, if I may, allow me to take you back with me one month ago, to the last day of December when the moon was full.

It was late in the afternoon and, it being New Year’s Eve, I was preparing to attend the night’s festivities. Knowing that there was a full moon, however, and with time to while away before the party, I decided to watch the moonrise first. So I drove to my favorite viewing place, a wide open field of grass that is my one sanctuary for gazing at the sky in this busy metropolis. Arriving there, I sat on a bench and gazed across the field above the tree line.

People don’t realize how pretty the moonrise can be in the late afternoon light. It’s all about the warm colors. True enough, hovering above the treetops was an ivory white moon, fully round and plump, floating in a multi-colored pastel sky. Like the haunting subject of an impressionist painting, the pale moon seemed to lose itself in its lovely background, in a powdery haze of blue-gray, lavender and vermillion lined with pillows of clouds whose edges rippled with electric orange from the setting sun.

I smiled. I was lucky to have gotten here when I did. Had I been just a little late, I would have missed it.

As if on cue, the sky quickly darkened. What was left of the sun suddenly began to fade with exponential speed, causing the sky to transform into a silky blur of indigo and magenta. This went on until the light vanished completely, giving way to the dark blue of a newborn evening. Having crossed into night, I watched as the ascending moon, no longer white and pallid, beamed like a golden mirror, lighting up the sky with a satin sheen in every direction.

Meanwhile, the cloud pillows that had appeared at dusk now converged into a single immense vertical pillar, towering from the horizon all the way above me. Impenetrable to illumination, the billowing juggernaut of a cloud stayed shadowy even as the bright moon vividly outlined its monolithic shape from behind.

A little later, the sky altered again. I looked for the cloud pillar but it was gone. Broken up by the air currents, it was reshaped into a spectacular new form, that of a colossal celestial hawk. Silvery and translucent, the fantastic bird of prey filled the sky as its outstretched wing fanned through miles of open space. In breathtaking unison, the shining moon came to rest perfectly inside the hawk’s head, becoming the bird’s dazzling eye. And there it stayed for a while.

Inevitably, the winds returned to disperse the cloud for good. When the time came, the once mighty cloud gently divided itself into delicate white sails, each set adrift on its own silent course across a sea of stars and a creamy ocean of moonlight. Now, high above and with the sky all to its own, the moon finally asserted herself as mistress of the night. Like a lovely host entreating me with her hospitality, she then softly bathed my surroundings in her glow that I might continue to stay. I happily obliged.

As I kept watch, I reflected on the past hour in which I had just witnessed one of the most memorable moonrises in my life. Yet not out of ingratitude, it all felt so fleeting. From the very start, the moonrise never stopped changing, never stopped remaking itself as it moved irresistibly from one beautiful moment to the next. Each moment was precious in its own different way and each departed in its own different way, never to return. Yet, however short-lived each moment may have been, I felt happy to be alive exactly where I was. I felt free.

It was then that I remembered something – something I heard elegantly phrased not too long ago when I was watching the hit fantasy series True Blood (like Twilight, it’s part of the recent wave of sympathetic vampire stories that have captured the imagination of a global audience). It comes by way of a scene early in the story, shortly after the heroine meets the vampire hero who would become her protector. Talking aimlessly about their new-found friendship, the heroine decides to ask the hero what it is that keeps vampires alive. “Magic,” he replies nonchalantly. She promptly responds with laughing disbelief, refusing to accept that someone as analytical as he hadn’t found a logical mechanism to explain his biology when science had long ago done the same for people. So he returned the question to her.

“You think it’s not magic that keeps you alive?” he asked poignantly. “Just because you understand the mechanics of how something works doesn’t make it any less of a miracle, which is just another word for magic. We’re all kept alive by magic.”

Checking the time in the cold December air, I finally readied myself to leave the field. As I took one last long look at the moonlit sky, I knew I had been touched by something that can only be rightfully called a miracle of creation. However fleeting it may have been, however much I logically understood how it worked, it pleases me to think that maybe it’s the kind of miracle that only Divine Providence could leave behind for us as proof that there is something else at work in the world, something meant to inspire our spirits and give life to our dreams.

That’s if you believe in miracles. And if you believe in being moonstruck as I do, what is a miracle really if not just another word for magic?

POSTSCRIPT: I just want to acknowledge all those Cyrano friends who have shared the moonrise with me at my favorite field. Let me just say that I love being there with you, sitting together on that picnic mat under the stars, drinking wine and conversing unhurriedly with the breeze in our faces while everything around us is bathed in a soft, dreamy glow. You need only ask anytime and I’ll be happy to share it as often as you wish.