The Fourth, San Diego style

Do they go… to some faraway archipelago?
Nah, they go to San Diego.
– Mel Tormé
“California Suite” (1957)

Although an op-ed contributor in The New York Times pronounced the “American road trip dead” on Sunday, I know a lot of folks will still be hitting the highway this fourth of July weekend. In case you’re heading down San Diego way, here are some of the joints I’ve been hanging out at. (For details, click on the boldface for the website or if no website, I’ve included address and phone.)

Italian is spoken at Mamma Mia in Pacific Beach, where Francesco and Cinzia Mezzetti serve delicious handmade panzerotti and pizze (with perfectly seasoned, crispy crust). I love Cinzia’s flower power t-shirt.

The 2004 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco (classico) is very reasonably priced at Mamma Mia. I head to Mamma Mia whenever I wish to indulge in my number-one guilty pleasure: pizza and Nebbiolo.

Mamma Mia
1932 Balboa Ave (where Balboa and Grand intersect)
San Diego, CA 92109
(858) 272-2702

Arturo offers me a traditional Spanish porron at Costa Brava in Pacific Beach. The porron — an expression of friendship and revelry — is used liberally at Costa Brava, where the Spanish food is authentic and tasty and the wine list (arguably the best Spanish list in San Diego) includes modern and traditional choices. Owner and Spanish wine fanatic Javier Gonzalez grows Tempranillo in a planter in the back (I’m not kidding). He also runs a great Spanish cheese and charcuterie next door. No place in San Diego is more friendly.

Dashing French Chef Olivier Bioteau at the Farmhouse in University Heights has one of San Diego’s deftest hands in the kitchen. The food is excellent and the francophile wine list, although not ambitious, has some interesting lots. I really like the farmhouse chic vibe but I’d love to see what Olivier could do in a four-star setting.

My friend Jon Erickson disgorges a bottle of 2000 Movia Puro Rosé at Jaynes Gastropub, my standby dining destination in Normal Heights (adjacent to University Heights) in San Diego. As Jon’s wine program continues to evolve, I can always find something I want to drink at Jaynes: most recently, Bertani Valpolicella and Caprari Lambrusco. Namesake Jayne Battle’s haute pub food always hits the spot.

Jay Porter’s Linkery in North Park, San Diego (a stone’s throw from Jaynes) recently moved around the corner and will reopen on July 10. Eat-locally and think-globally Jay is San Diego’s undisputed king of “organic,” “market fare,” “sustainable” cuisine and he’s also one of the city’s top food bloggers. If you’re looking for socially conscious and politically engaged fare, this is the place to go.

How to describe the Pearl? In self-described “vintage-modern” style, the owners of the Pearl took over a 1960s-era rundown motel near the U.S. Naval Base in Pt. Loma, San Diego, and turned it into a hipster, poolside hangout and restaurant and lounge. The food is a little affected at the Pearl (”Deconstructed Nachos” anyone?) and the wine list too modern for my palate but the scene can’t be beat. The night I was there, they were screening old episodes of Get Smart poolside.

The first time I walked into Wine Steals, also in Pt. Loma, I thought I’d been transported into a parallel universe: I found myself in classic San Diego down-and-dirty, get-your-drink-on bar where wine has usurped the supremacy of beer. Using a formula seemingly unique to San Diego, you purchase bottles at retail prices and then pay a small corkage (hence the name “Wine Steals”). The extensive wines-by-the-glass program features affordable, quaffing wine. Is wine the new beer? There’s another Wine Steals (the original) in Hilcrest and the Pt. Loma edition is located in the old (and now obsolete) second-world-war era Naval telephone hub.

In nearby Ocean Beach, The Third Corner Wine Shop and Bistro is my favorite San Diego “neighborhood” wine bar. Although it also caters to the Silver-Oak-guzzling wine-is-the-new-cocktail crowd, it offers real wine lovers like me a number of solid choices (like Joly, Produttori del Barbaresco, and Tempier, among others). The food is not great but the wine prices keep bringing me back: combining retail and on-premise sales (like Wine Steals), Third Corner lets you purchase bottles at retail prices and charges a small corkage to open them at your table. The owners just opened a new location in Encinitas, North County San Diego.

They still make a mean Mai Tai at Zenbu in La Jolla. Zenbu has lost some of its local charm as the owner, my high school buddy Matt Rimel has moved on to bigger projects, the prices are high, and the beach-bunny waitstaff could use a crash course in old-fashioned hospitality, but its raison d’être remains unchanged: locally sourced fresh fish prepared by “extreme sushi” chefs (live clams and prawns are often offered) with a California flair.

Nous Non Plus in LA, SF, Germany, and revelations from Montalcino

Above: Nous Non Plus performed this spring in Slovenia. That’s me stage left (on the right). Click here to read an interview with the band published in this week’s H Magazine.

Nous Non Plus will be performing this week in Los Angeles (Friday night) and San Francisco (Saturday noon, free show). Click on cities for info. We also learned that we will be performing at a Green Party event in Frankfurt an der Oder (about an hour outside Berlin) on Saturday, August 30.

In other news…

Il Sole 24 Ore reported yesterday that it was the discovery of ghost vineyards that led to the current controversy in Brunello. According to the story, winemakers were releasing more wine than their vineyards could produce. The current investigation began not because the Italian treasury department suspected winemakers of adulteration but rather because wineries allegedly over-reported surface area “under vine” or “planted to grape,” as they say in the wine world. It’s possible that the wineries were reporting false information because they were applying for bank loans using their vineyards as collateral.

Click here to read about it in VinoWire.

Il Sole 24 Ore (literally, “The Sun 24 Hours [a Day]” or “Sun Around the Clock”) is Italy’s most highly regarded business newspaper. It’s Italy’s counterpart to The Wall Street Journal.

Rainin’ fire in the sky

Writing today from Grand Junction, Colorado on my way to Boulder… Here are some images from the road…

A fireworks field outside Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 1849, Brigham Young commissioned Cove Fort to protect the Mormons when he was building his temples in Salt Lake City and St. George, Utah.

They’re not kidding when they say that the tap water in Beaver, Utah is the best tasting in the United States. It won the title in 2006.

Seems that nowhere in our country is immune to “bomb scares,” at least according to the Richfield Reaper (I believe the term “reaper” in this case refers to farming).

Utah landscapes and horizons are literally breath-taking.

–
Currently playing…

Rocky Mountain High
John Denver

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin’ home to a place he’d never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hangin’ by a song
But the string’s already broken and he doesn’t really care
It keeps changin’ fast and it don’t last for long

But the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high (high in Colorado) rocky mountain high (high in Colorado)

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say that he got crazy once, and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend but kept his memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forests and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
You can talk to god and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high (high in Colorado) rocky mountain high (high in Colorado)

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
I know he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky mountain high

It’s a Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
Friends around the campfire and everybody’s high
Rocky mountain high (high in Colorado) rocky mountain high (high in Colorado)
Rocky mountain high (high in Colorado) rocky mountain high do de do

Slovenia Day 2: forbidden mussels, winemaker not required

The name and location of the tavern where Nous Non Plus ate dinner on April 9, 2008 cannot be revealed: suffice it to say that the band’s metallic-gray van somehow found its way to a small village in the hills of Brda.

On the menu that night: a tide of scampi (Nephrops norvegicus, Norwegian lobster, adored by Céline Dijon aka Verena Wiesendanger, left) and forbidden date mussels (Lithophaga lithophaga, a long and narrow rock-boring mussel that uses an acidic secretion to chisel its way into the reefs of the northern Adriatic). The fishing of date mussels, I’m sorry to say, has been prohibited in Europe since 1992 because the reef has to be broken in order to extract the mollusk (in Italy, the sale of date mussels was outlawed in 1998). But in Slovenia (an EU country, btw), it seems delicacy trumps delinquency (I’ve heard that they’re easy to find in Apulia and other parts of Adriatic Italy as well).

Above: the delicious date mussels were cooked in white wine and garlic. They didn’t serve Aleš’ wine but the house Ribolla (Rebula) made for an excellent pairing.

Above: The scampi seemed to dance on this mixed seafood platter. Céline goes crazy for scampi. I’ve never seen her eat so much!

Earlier in the day (and frankly, the day didn’t start so early since we had stayed up all night long playing Beatles songs camp-fire style after NNP played two sets at the winery), Aleš had fulfilled his promise to explain the secret behind Movia’s Lunar, a wine he makes — as I discovered — from the free-run juice of unpressed, whole bunches of Ribolla using a unique system for carbonic maceration. He calls it Lunar because he follows the cycle of the moon for its production.

“Before man made a job for himself as a winemaker,” said Aleš, “the grape made the wine itself.” The grape berry “has a natural valve at its top,” he explained. When a grape drops to the ground, the naturally occurring yeasts on its skin migrate into the pulp and begin to ferment its juice. The valve at the top of the berry, “lets the carbon dioxide out without letting any oxygen in.”

So, when Aleš decided he wanted to make a wine with no intervention whatsoever, he used the grape as a model: he designed a barrel with a hole proportionate to the size of the aperture at the top of a grape berry. To plug the hole, he created a spring-loaded cap that releases the CO2 when pressure builds within the vessel without allowing any oxygen to enter. In essence, he built a large grape berry. He fills the “berry” with whole bunches of grapes and then seals it and lets nature do her work.

Above: Aleš always decants Lunar because it is unfiltered and contains a great deal of sediment.

He then concocted an elaborate system of tubes that allow him to draw off the wine without letting it come into contact with oxygen. But he also had to calculate “where” the wine would be in the barrel, since some of the solids fall to the bottom during fermentation while the skins float to the top. In a diagram he showed me, the “layer” of wine lies somewhere in the middle of the vessel. The wine is siphoned off into a larger stainless steel vessel from which he can then bottle the unfiltered wine.

Lunar isn’t cheap but it is one of those life-changing wines. When you taste it for the first time, you immediately experience its purity and integrity (and by integrity, I mean the etymological sense of the word, its wholeness, its untouchedness, from the Latin in- + tangere, to touch). Later in the trip, Aleš dubbed NNP the first “bio-dynamic” band: it was great to see my bandmates get turned on and tuned in to natural wine.

Required reading…

There’s a great article about Slovenian wine and Movia in the current issue of Fine Wine by
Bruce Schoenfeld. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you can download a PDF’d version.)

I’ve become a fan of Bruce’ writing. I recently came across this passage in a piece he wrote in praise of a Patagonian Pinot Noir (which, he pointed out, doesn’t try to imitate Burgundy):

“I’m not sure why, but I hold Pinot Noir to a higher standard than I do other grapes. I come across far too many Pinots made in slavish imitation of Burgundy. These wines aren’t bad, just uninteresting. I mean, I love the Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,’ but I don’t ever need to hear Elton John sing his version again.”

I couldn’t agree more: I love Elton John but his version of LSD just doesn’t do it for me nearly the same way the Beatles’ does.

Slovenia Day 1: Movia (my barrique epiphany)

Just added…

Taste and chat at Jaynes: Thursday I’ll be pouring wine all night at Jaynes Gastropub in University Hts. (San Diego). Please stop by. Hopefully Chef Daniel will be serving his Alaskan halibut special…

Aspen 08: I spoke to the Wine Sorceress yesterday and she told me the entire New York wine scene can’t wait to get its Aspen on. “That’s all anyone is talking about,” she said. I’ll be covering the Food & Wine Classic for Anthony Dias Blue’s The Tasting Panel and I’ll be blogging every day from the road. The festival officially begins on June 13 but the pre-parties and press events begin next Monday. Stay tuned…

Above: Aleš Kristančič draws off a barrel sample of his 2005 Pinot Noir. Note the size of the barrels. Aleš ages his wine exclusively in barrique.

My once immovable feelings about barrique (small, new oak barrels — French or Slavonian — used for aging wine) began to change last year when I read this article by Eric Asimov. With Socratic nuance, Eric pointed out that “Oaky may be bad, but oak is good.” Later that month, in response to a post I did on Luigi Veronelli and Italy’s historic relationship to new oak aging of wine, Eric authored a post in which he cast the use of barrique in judicious perspective. (If the wine blogosphere were a Renaissance court, Eric would be its wise and just prince: he brings an even-handed tone to a world prone to rants and extreme points of view. He was recently nominated for the Veronelli Prize for “best food and wine writing in a foreign language.”)

When my band Nous Non Plus arrived at the Movia winery in Brda, Slovenia on Monday, April 7, 2008, where we played a private party that evening, I had an epiphany of sorts: I discovered — to my surprise — that my friend Aleš Kristančič, whose wines I love and have enjoyed on many occasions, ages all of his wines in barrique.

Frankly, I was blown away. My friend and collaborator Franco Ziliani (known for his tell-like-it-is style) often points out that rules are rules: I have to confess that I had never detected oakyness in Aleš’ wines and Aleš gave me a proper schooling in situ as to how new oak can be used with the context of radically natural and undeniably biodynamic wines like his own. Ignoscetis mihi: as Franco says, if you taste something blind and you like it, you have to admit it.

Above: Aleš rocks out with his Soviet-era Tajfun bass (see headstock below). He played bass in the Yugoslav military band. Aleš became a fan of Nous Non Plus after he saw our Mobitel commercial and he invited the band to play a gig at his winery and later that week in Ljubljana.

“Oak is like the sheets of a bed,” said Aleš using a politically incorrect but apt simile, “when you break up with a girlfriend, you need to throw away the sheets and put new ones on the bed.” In his view, the yeasts and bacteria that grow on old oak barrels (and in particular, large oak barrels) can give unwanted flavors to the wine (other winemakers would argue that those flavors are elements in terroir expression).

One important element is the toasting of the oak. Aleš uses only gently toasted oak: “the staves are toasted by the cooper to shape the barrel,” he said, “not to give flavor to the wine.” (Many modern-style winemakers use heavily toasted oak to impart vanilla, chocolate, and tobacco and similar notes to their wines.)

But, most important, he explained, is the amount of time the wine spends in cask. “Many winemakers want to accelerate the aging process by using new oak for aging,” he said. “I’m not using the oak to soften the tannin. I am using it to oxygenate the wine slowly and gently.” (The pores in the new wood allow small amounts of oxygen to come into contact with the wine.) Where other producers age for 12 or even 18 months, Aleš often ages for up to 5 years in cask before bottling.

The other important element, he told me, is that he adds no sulfur whatsoever to his wine. “Even fine winemakers add very small amounts of sulfur in order to stabilize the wine more quickly. I don’t need to do that: I let time stabilize my wines. I’m not in a hurry,” Aleš said. The addition of sulfur, he explained, can cause the oak to impart some of its flavor to the wine.

Alder Yarrow just did a great post on Slovenia and Movia’s current releases over at his excellent blog Vinography.

I’ll be posting more on my stay and our shows in Slovenia and the wines we tasted and food we ate over the next few weeks. Look for my post on Movia’s Lunar: during my stay, Aleš revealed the secret of this 100% Ribolla Gialla that he makes from the free-run juice of whole bunches. He essentially fills a barrel with the grapes — stems and all — and lets the wine make itself. But there’s a trick to it: Aleš learned it all from a grape…

Slovenia is not as as developed as neighboring Friuli and its beauty is literally breath-taking. This shot — believe it or not — was taken from the toilet at the Movia guest house.

Back in the studio: good music, bad food, and some kick-ass wine

Just added: Nous Non Plus will be performing at Bordello in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, June 20 with fellow French rockers Tour de France. June 21, daytime show at the the Alliance Française in San Francisco (details to follow).

Nous Non Plus recently headed back into the studio to finish work on our upcoming release (working title, “Nous Non Plus: Deux,” fall 2008). Engineer and wine lover Bryan Cook manned the dials at Kingsize Studio Sound Labs in Eagle Rock, CA (check out the studio’s site… it’s kinda cool).

When you’re in the studio, you’re working hard (usually 10-12 hour days) and you don’t really have a lot of great food options (the section of Eagle Rock where we recorded looked like a scene out of the Lethal Weapon franchise). We did make some groovy music and we managed to drink well.

Tradition dictates that food writing should be positive… that we should write only about good food. But in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, even when the music is great, the food usually sucks.

Here’s a little photo essay of our session…

Bad: reheated Mexican food.

Bad: flavorless Thai food… hey, you know, sometimes you have to eat cause you’re hungry!

Good… actually, very good: 32-channel Neve 8068. Man, that desk sounds warm and rich…

Good: early 1980s Fender Super Reverb and Fender Champ (I believe they were post-1982 since that was the year that Fender started making them again). I also played through the Supro behind the Champ. When you turn those little amps up to 10 they sound fantastic.

Fun: the guitar selection at Kingsize is colorful… among other axes employed on this record, the Gretsch G1626 Synchromatic Silver Sparkle Jet with f-hole (second from right) sounded awesome on some of the more rocking numbers. It was made for only a few years and now is almost impossible to find. The main guitar I played was my custom John Carruthers “Johnny Rivers” model telecaster. Also played a beautiful vintage Fender Jazzmaster with tremolo.

Excellent: 1982 Salomon library selection Riesling was off-the-charts delicious.

Nice performance: Jean-Luc Retard (aka Dan, bass, vox) opens a bottle of one of NNP’s officially favorite wines, Movia Puro Rosé. In the photo, Dan is disgorging the sediment from the bottle in a sink full of water (the plates and cups on the bottom served as a stopper for the drain; Kingsize is a great studio but the plumbing is, let’s say, creative).

Hits the spot: after the wine is disgorged, it’s totally clear.

Good company, bad food: from left, our friend Joachim Cooder, Céline, Bryan, and Jean-Luc and I “grind out” on some mediocre Mediterranean.

Magazine sitings and writings

My friend Lawrence Osborne gave me a shout out in the current issue of Men’s Vogue (June/July 2008), in an article about a wine that means a lot to me: Lini Lambrusco. I can’t say that I mind being called “a wine connoisseur and Italian scholar extraordinaire” by the Accidental Connoisseur himself.

Alicia Lini and I first met in February of 2007 when I traveled to Italy in search of metodo classico or méthode champenoise Lambrusco (i.e., double-fermented in bottle). She and I became good friends and it’s great to see her (with her cover girl looks) and her wines get the attention they deserve.

I also made an appearance in the Spring issue of Gastronomica with a piece on the history of pasta, Risorgimento Italy, and pasta’s role in the Italian national identity.

Ed-in-chief Darra Goldstein had asked me to write a review of a CD devoted to pasta-inspired music and she generously let me turn the piece into short essay.

In case you can’t find a copy of the mag at your local newsstand, I made a PDF (downloadable here).

I may not be a rock star…

but sometimes I get to hang out with rock stars.

Megan Hickey aka The Last Town Chorus the other night at the Bellyup Tavern in Solana Beach, CA. Megan’s unique over-driven, space-echoed lap steel tone is mesmerizing.

Megan Hickey aka The Last Town Chorus and her music were introduced to me a few years ago by our mutual friend (and her manager) Michael Nieves. I used to perform with her in Manhattan and Brooklyn and did some recording with her for her current album, Wire Waltz.

Megan’s a true original: she plays over-driven lap steel, dripping in sexy psychedelic space echo, and her vocal melodies meander beautifully and often hauntingly over rootsy, edgy countrified chord changes.

She gave me a shout out the other night during her excellent show at the Bellyup Tavern in Solana Beach, CA (my favorite venue to see live music in the San Diego area, a great-sounding wood-paneled room replete with old-school surfer paraphernalia). She’s touring solo, accompanied by an Ipod mix. It was a trip to hear myself play from the audience!

Besides rocking it, she infuses her show with irresistible personality and humor: she likes to be introduced as “the Grammy-award-wanting The Last Town Chorus.”

If you happen to be reading from the west coast, she’s coming soon to a town near you.

Megan is one of the nicest folks I’ve met in the business. I had a blast recording with her for her current release, Wire Waltz. I may not be a rock star but…

Italy Day 7: Words cannot describe the way I feel…

…about La Dama Bianca in Duino near Trieste.

Scallops on the shell were divine. Note how they chef left the scallop’s tasty “foot” attached.

On Monday, April 7, Céline (vox aka Verena Wiesendanger), Bonnie (vox, violin aka Emily Welsch), and Jean-Luc (vox, bass aka Dan Crane) arrived at the Venice airport and we headed north to Duino, a little lost-in-time village just south of Trieste along the Adriatic coast. We had a reservation for dinner and an over-night stay at what is simply one of the most delightful hotel/restaurants I have ever had the pleasure to experience.

La Dama Bianca (The White Lady) is a family-owned seafood restaurant with just five single rooms on the second floor: the father does the fishing, the mother does the cooking, and the son serves as sommelier (and his list is a wonderful romp through Carso, Collio, and Colli Orientali).

Lost in time: the Dama Bianca has remained seemingly unchanged since the 1960s, as has the village of Duino. The rooms, each with a sea-view terrace, were spartan but immaculately clean and after six days of traveling and wine fairs, the gentle rhythm of the tide against the breakwater lulled me to sleep like a baby.

One of the chef’s signatures was the combination of two types of seafood in every dish, like these sautéed shrimp served with baby sea scallops.

When I told Dario that we wanted to drink a Vodopivec Vitovska with our our main course — scorfano (scorpion fish) in cartoccio (en papillote or in parchment paper) — he produced no less than four vintages. On his recommendation, we drank the 2003, which was beautiful, oxidized, with fruit notes as golden as the color of the wine (below).

2003 Vodopivec Vitovska.

It was dusk when we arrived at the small breakwater and harbor. A gentleman was fishing and enjoying the “golden hour.”

An auto-timer of Jean-Luc, Bonnie, Céline, and me (Calvino di Maggio, detto Cal d’Hommage).

Albergo Dama Bianca
Frazione Duino, 61/C
34011 Duino Aurisina (TS)
040 208137

Stay tuned for Slovenia Day 1!

Sail On or Chips and Salsa

Editor’s note: The events and characters depicted in this photoplay are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

Above: 7:19 p.m. chips and salsa at Bahia Don Bravo taco shop in Bird Rock, La Jolla.

Sail on down the line
About half a mile or so
And I don’t really wanna know ah
Where you’re going

Maybe once or twice you see
Time after time I tried
Hold on to what we got
But now you’re going

And I don’t mind
About the things you’re gonna say
Lord, I gave all my money and my time
I know it’s a shame
But I’m giving you back your name
Guess I’ll be on my way
I won’t be back to stay
I guess I’ll move along
I’m looking for a good time

Sail on down the line
Ain’t it funny how the time can go
All my friends say they told me so
But it doesn’t matter
It was plain to see
That a small town boy like me
Just I wasn’t your cup of tea
I was wishful thinking

I gave you my heart
And I tried to make you happy
And you gave me nothing in return
You know it ain’t so hard to say
Would you please just go away

I’ve thrown away the blues
I’m tired of being used
I want everyone to know
I’m looking for a good time
Good time
Sail on honey
Good times never felt so good
Sail on honey
Good times never felt so good
Sail on sugar
Good times never felt so good
Sail on

– Commodores