Wine, Winning and Me

I was eating at a neat little restaurant on the Left Bank today called La Folle Avoine – not heard of it yet? – patience – you will. After due consultation with my pocketbook, I chose a wine called the Coq Rouge made by a guy named Sacha Lichine, ring a bell? Dad was the owner of the Chateau Prieuré-Lichine and the author of the incredible “Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits,” first published in 1951, that’s how old I am – and I still have it. Anyway, the bottle had a blurb in French that said that Lichine pere always said that wine was meant to be enjoyed not worshipped and then in English quoted the Rolling Stones – how’s that for connecting with geezers? – saying "I am the little Red Rooster too lazy to crow for days." Query: didn’t the Grateful Dead record it first? Whatever, he also has a wine quoting Bob Marley’s "Stir it Up". Well, that put me in a frame of mind, most anti-establishmentarianist. I’m tired of all this wine snobbism and I’m not going to put up with it any more. So I’m here to give you Talbott’s lore and laws on wine. (Disclosure: I am related to the Monterey/Carmel Parker 92 Chardonnay Talbott, although I have no equity holding in any of their vineyards, but I am totally unrelated to the Bordeaux Talbot.) Don’t’s 1.) Don’t go to wine courses where they have you sniff and sip and taste, rinse your mouth out with distilled water (yuck), spit and never swallow and then some member of what my hero/prior neighbor H.L. Menken called the “Booboisie” tells you what fruit, vegetable, herb or wood you are tasting. 2.) Don’t go to wine tastings where pretentious men (never women, Jancis Robinson is a rare avis, indeed) sniff and sip and taste and spit and then proclaim a la “Sideways” that X is better than Y. 3.) Don’t go to vineyards where the proprietor is always charming and where you walk out with two cases (luckily, often, cases here are 6 bottles only) to put in the boot of your car that you have to get back home. 4.) Don’t ever look at the sommelier, it’s like driving through the Place de la Concorde, fix your eyes 100 meters ahead. Do’s 1.). Order the cheapest or 2nd cheapest wine on the wine list; in my crowd we call them Tala or Pagbott. Exception: the occasional Loire (which ain’t bad in summer), rosé (which Colette won’t “support”) or raw Bordeaux. 2.). Buy box wines (here = bag in box) or screw top bottles – to negate spoilage and wastage and the arguing with wine-merchants over returned stuff. 3.). Buy from south of the equator: New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, etc. 4.) Shop at Monoprix, Auchan or their like. 5.) Complain if the wine is bad, eg vinegarized or madeirized (unless it’s supposed to be) but please don’t send it back because you don’t know what it was to taste like. Why, because the facts are that: 1.) People can’t tell the difference between plonk and exquisomes (that means that, except for my neighbor, Robert Parker, you and me babe, cannot.) 2.) Restos boost the prices of their holdings every year, except for the low end as I learned from my Lichine-trained (remember him?) pal who supplied restos but noted that they boosted the up-end wines but always left one good, lower-end one at the same price. 3.) As Gerald Asher explained to me after “working” in Sherry-Lehman, Christmas Week on his debutante experience in America, some customers want “the” most expensive wine, even if it’s a Auslese or Spätlese that will simply not go with the beef and brie. 4.) Guys are ashamed to order “cheap” bottles on dates. 5.) Both sexes think that wines with pricier prices are better (a clever friend of mine tested this out by reversing the wine in $10 and $30 bottles – et viola!) 6.) There’s an overproduction of wine – we’re in the driver’s seat – this isn’t OPEC, it’s WINEPEC. A few anecdotes: 1.) At l’Elysees de Vernet, a while back, when Colette and I were splurging for some reason or other, but wanted to keep the heritage in our family, I searched the wine list for Waldo (the wine that is hard to find). When I found it, I called the sommelier over and declared, “I found it, the wine with the most ‘interesting’ (Trans. cheap) price.” He turned to me and said quite earnestly, “there is not one bottle on this list I didn’t taste and choose and (unspoken – while you’re making fun of me,) this is my favorite.” 2.) It was here in Paris, that the great test of Paris was held by Steven Spurrier, the Brit wine maven not Florida quarterback, between French and American wines. The results are history. 3.) After I first came here to do semi-serious eating and sipping in the 60’s, I went out to the local wine-merchant where the bottles still had plain black white labels with little explanatory info and certainly no arty labels or drawings, and saw the local folks going into the back room to fill their bottles from huge vats. Then things went upscale and then there were only bottles with Lafite art and quirky notes. But now, things have gone full-circle and vats and boxes are all over. Talbott’s bottom line: 1.) Wine is an alcohol-delivery vehicle. 2.) Don’t ruin it for the rest of us by acting silly. 3.) As Alexis Lichine said “Enjoy it, don’t worship it.” My place of revelation was: La Folle Avoine 91, rue de Grenelle, 7th, (Metro: Solferino) T: 01.45.51.02.59 Closed Sundays Menus: one dish plus 2 drinks for 20; 2 dishes plus one drink for 25; and 3 plus a drink 30 € ©2008 John A. Talbott