For the Sake of it 為

私は為を好む。

I am in Tokyo this week. I have no idea what this Sake is called or even what the alcohol level is: but guessing from this photo of me in front of my computer, it is pretty high.

If you know the English name for it, if there is an English name, please send me an email or message.

Rice wine: it's very good. I liike, I liike.

Turning Japanese and a bit mad:
Anna Karina in Godard's Pierrot le Fou (1965)

See you back in London in a week.
一週間のロンドンで会おう。

Love,
愛 jmd
x x x

Home for run away girls

my shrine to Louise Bourgeois

La Chapelle, Le Corbières AC, Cave de Castelmaure 2005 £6.49 (Oddbins)

Facebook. Is it a blessing or a curse? It keeps friends close but do I need to know someone I once loved is getting ready to throw a party for the real love in his life? I've been adding people, and, removing people since I've been here. Sadly, it sometimes feels more like an audit than a party.

It's a very different experience travelling with email, facebook and text messaging than it was 10 years ago when I wrote postcards and letters. Now, it's never been easier to be closer to friends, but its never been harder to work out to know who are your real friends.

Recently, my status update on Facebook read: JMD is in a home for runaway girls.

It was a bit random to say, but I had just seen the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Tate Modern. I have followed her work for a while, she is 96 years old after all, yet this exhibition was the most comprehensive I've seen. I was so inspired by her body of work, when I got home, I made a little shrine to Louise Bourgeois in my new apartment. Above is a postcard of her (who sends postcards anymore?) and her piece entitled: "Home for run away girls. Empty Houses. Les Fillemere d'Antony." Empty houses left behind.

Which brings me to my wine tonight: La Chapelle, Le Corbières AC, Cave de Castelmaure, 2005




Made by a small co-operative nestled in the Corbières hills (between Perpignan and Narbonne) in the Languedoc, South-West France, the quality of the end wine is decided by everyone before it is released. There's not just one person's reputation on the line, it's the whole terroir.

You can tell the fruit is of the highest quality and handled with care by a group of like-minded people.

South-West France is producing very interesting, modern wines at the moment. I like to sample wines from this area; there seems to be more experimentation, and less hindrance by old traditions and customs like other regions in France. The French agitateur is alive and well here, thank God.

Made from Carignan (50%), Grenache (30%), Shiraz (15%) and Cinsault(5%), it has unexpectedly fresh, clean characters shining through without foresaking the strong brambly, dark tones of French rustic wines. The depth develops over the night like a wine you'd pay double the price.

This wine proves friends working together, winemakers working together, can sometimes do a lot more than an individual or an individual winemaker. And I bet it's not on Facebook, or perhaps it is... Can you really be a runaway in the 21st century?

Run to the Corbières hills

La Tâche, a modern love poem

Love poems of old
Used to be descriptions of flesh
They described this and that
For instance eyelashes

And yet redness
Should be described
By greyness the sun by rain
The poppies in November
The lips at night

A modern love poem, by Tadeusz Różewicz

"What wine would you be?" I was asked at a party on Saturday night.

What the hell. "I'd be La Tâche 1990 from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti."

Why not? But I won't lie to you. I have circled this wine for years and years, read about it, heard it mentioned in whispered, reverential tones, yet - I have never tasted it. The 1990 La Tâche sold at auction for $US9000. Only 1200 cases are made a year. All I can tell you is what other people say once they've tasted it, there are even photos of people anticipating, sniffing it, drinking it.

I can only imagine it is what I'm missing in every other wine...

This is fantasy stuff, and all I know is, if I was a wine, I'd love to be drunk in the same escstasy and rapture as La Tâche. Yes, I'd like to be La Tâche.

As Woody Allen toasted, "Here's to an ideal without compromise." Hopefully, one day, you too can meet myself as a wine...

1990 DRC La Tache Domaine Romanée-Conti 1990 1 Magnum Lot $US9000

Stunning, full-on, classic La Tâche nose that displays almost unbelievable complexity so with many different elements that it is impossible to even begin to describe them all; the primary components include ethereal and still fresh pinot fruit, clove, knock out spiciness, anise, hoisin, soy and a trace of earth but these elements only hint at the sheer depth. The flavors are big, rich, refined, classy, penetrating and superbly powerful yet everything is in perfect balance... The finish is intense, pure and so long that it is haunting; I can literally still taste this wine days later after I've had it because it has such a dramatic and emotional impact. This is one of the finest, perhaps even the finest young Burgundy I have ever been privileged to try and it only seems to get better with each passing year. In short, this is absolutely brilliant. 99 POINTS.

Robert Parker Jr's 100 in Langton's Auction magazine:

I cannot think of a more profound, young red Burgundy tasted than DRC's 1990 La Tâche. Although it still requires another 3-4 years of cellaring, it is incredibly endowed, with an extraordinary perfume of Asian spices as well as jammy black raspberries, cherries, and blackberries infused with smoke, toast, and dried herbs. Full-bodied, but ethereal, with layers of flavor, as well as mind-boggling delicacy and complexity, this youthful La Tâche will be at its finest between 2004-2015. 100/100

Ain't no sunshine

jazz tan

"I don't like the summertime because everyone goes to the beach...What's the deal with the beach? It's where dirt meets water, is it that fucking amazing to you? Maybe I'm just jealous; everyone's got tanned skin, white teeth. I've got white skin, tanned teeth. NOT my environment. You put me under a neon beer light, I look pretty cool." Bill Hicks, Philosophy.

Quinta de Bons-Ventos 2005 Vinho Regional Estremadura 12.5% alcohol £4.99 Oddbins

Pack your black lace veil rather than your bikini. Like the traditional Portugal - where women dress in black in the harsh midday sun and where fado singers tell mournful sea ballads about lost sailors – there's a lot more to the Quinta de Bons-Ventos than a cheap holiday made for the British market. Taste the sunshine, but like the locals, take refuge in the cool shade.

What adds to the dark allure of this wine is it is a blend of ancient Portuguese grape varieties: Castelao (Periquita), Camarate, Tinta Miuda and Touriga Nacional. My palate could not decipher it at first, and it felt like I was drinking a red wine from another planet. If you are bored drinking the same varieties all the time, this is a very exciting buy. And you support indigenous grape varieties not wiped out Mondovino style by the major grape varieties such as Shiraz and Cabernet.

Recommendation? If I have to go to a funeral, I'm taking a bottle of this wine to the wake. Celebrate life going on. Have a glass with your old friends, remember old times, and smile through the tears. It's a dark wine but also full of cherry-delicious joy. Excellent value.

Bloody Good Red: a wine for tigers

Dreamtigers

"In my childhood I was a fervent worshipper of the tiger: not the jaguar, the spotted "tiger" of the Amazonian tangles and the isles of vegetation that float down the Parana, but that striped, Asiatic, royal tiger, that can be faced only by a man of war, on a castle atop an elephant. I used to linger endlessly before one of the cages at the zoo; I judged vast encyclopedias by the splendour of their tigers. (I still remember those illustrations: I who cannot rightly recall the brow or the smile of a woman.) Childhood passed away, and the tigers and my passion for them grew old, but still they are in my dreams. At that submerged or chaotic level they keep prevailing. And so, as I sleep, some dream beguiles me, and suddenly I know I am dreaming. Then I think: This is a dream, a pure diversion of my will; and now that I have unlimited power, I am going to cause a tiger.

Oh, incompentence! Never can my dreams engender the wild beast I long for. The tiger indeed appears, but stuffed or flimsy, or with impure variations of shape, or of an implausible size, or all too fleeting, or with a touch of the dog or bird."

Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers

Bloody Good Red 2005, Santa Cruz, USA 13.5% alcohol £8.99 a bottle (Oddbins)

I am born in the Chinese Year of the Tiger, so I couldn't go past a label featuring a tiger holding a glass of red wine in its paw and licking his chops. There's even a knocked over bottle behind it (see there - the similiarities between me and tigers are endless).



Like Borges, as a child I judged National Geographic on the quality of their tiger photography. For this reason, the label alone, passes my test. Turn it over, and the label is either written by the label's drunk tiger or a drunk copywriter. The idea of either writing a wine label was enough to make me laugh....


But apart from the label, the wine is powerful and the blend is certainly courageous. I haven't had the opportunity to try much Californian wine; and, when I have it's been of the ubiquitous Gallo family range, which is so bright I feel like I should put on sunglasses.

They don't mention the varieties on the label but every part of the palate is tickled, and all at once: Carignan, Petite Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Sangiovese, Zinfandel (of course), Barbera and Shiraz.

Randall Grahm, the winemaker at Bonny Doon, notes:

'Though we are working in a Mediterranean climate, there is an aspect of a cooler-climate Loire Cabernet Franc that manifests: floral, spicy with dusty rose, cherry, and cola notes balanced by finely integrated tannin and buoyed by the strong raspeberriosity for which Bonny Doon has long been known and distrusted.'

It's full-bodied, but not sickly sweet (which, unfortunately, is the stereotypical Californian wine) and has a savoury, almost flat finish. If democracy was a wine, then this is how it would taste; every variety takes an equal and fair part in the overall taste to create a harmonious, even finish.

But that's not how I imagine a Tiger, mine is closer to William Blake's "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright in the forest of the night". But how do you put a real tiger in a bottle? Or a dreamtiger, for that matter.

Blake's Tyger from "Songs of Experience"
(written in London in 1794, having never seen a real tiger)

At least, I wasn't mauled by high alcohol and sugar... No, as a "tiger" myself, it was the tiger on the label, drinking a glass of red, that got me in; and, once there, I was happy to stay for a lazy afternoon on the savannah and drink a glass or two of bloody good red.

Vetiver (1961) by Guerlain

"When all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain...
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?"

--Bob Dylan, "Queen Jane Approximately"

I don't care, take the flowers back. I'm not in flowery mood anyway. I am wearing Guerlain's Vetiver today. No flowers here.

When I first heard it was a man's perfume, I was slightly shocked, until I thought of a huntsman (or huntswoman, like in those period-piece French films) riding through the forest after a rain shower, the rich and warm smell of the earth and a moment's pause by a stream for tobacco, the smoke curling through the mist. It smells like the freedom of luxury, and its sudden relief.

Spit or swallow?

Marie Antoinette and her endless bottles of champagne

Getting drunk is a bad look - pudgy cheeks, broken heels, mascara smudged from crying, fights on the pavement with boyfriend...

So let's get back our dignity. From the realistic to the ridiculous, here are a just a few little tricks from Wine Woman & Song.

Wine Tastings
Spit or swallow? Always spit. It can be intimidating enough without looking like an amateur. Anyway, you generally get a glass (or two or three) at the end.

Sparkling Mineral Water
For every glass of alcohol, drink one glass of sparkling mineral water in between. Not tap water; it must be San Pellegrino or one of those Italian sparkling mineral waters - San Pellegrino has more calcium in it than milk (a tip from Vicki Vasarelli, winemaker in McLaren Vale).

Where there are trays of drinks
Be careful when drinking from a waiter's tray at large events. A friend and I were doped this way and it WAS NOT FUN. Always watch the drink be poured if someone buys you a drink.

Only drink Champagne
Drink quality, not quantity. I know, I know this is an ideal situation.

Vodka
Vodka is the cleanest drink you can buy at the bar. Your head will thank you the next day.

Beer before Wine, makes you feel fine...
For the least tragedy the order goes: beer, champagne/champagne cocktails, white wine, red wine, spirits/cocktails, shots...er, if you must.

Shots
Personally, as soon as the sambuca is lined up on the bar, I know it's time to call a cab. One too many bad experiences. Anyway, it's pretty tacky. Who still gets excited by that? Ugh. But I do love my tequila...

Martini
One - you are life of the party; two - you are under the table; three - you're under the host. Four - you are under the weather: you won't be seeing much of the next day except the toilet bowl, Im fraid.

Play your own cards

Remember these tips. Then do it again!

BTW - for anyone who thought I was going to give BJ tips from the title of this blog, sorry. They are top secret :)