Sarah leaves for Chile on Thursday to work the harvest at the Gonzalez Bastias winery; I am staying behind—for now. Some personal matters are keeping me stateside, but I hope to join her in the Maule Valley soon. She will be sending back reports; I'll dutifully pass them along. Sad, yes, and nervous, to be unexpectedly apart, but we are heartened to both be on our respective journeys, Sarah's towards the vinous arts and me to a consistent literary practice. I confess that I am feeling lost at the moment. Hopefully a few weeks of domestic solitude and the resolution of certain private affairs will orient me.
Although Chile will be the first place Sarah experiences a full harvest season, she did have an opportunity to spend a couple weeks on Long Island this September at RGNY. We met the owner, Maria, through Sarah's robust Columbia University network. Somehow a scheme was hatched to have Sarah work part of the harvest and make a Tannat-branded natural wine from their grapes. We decided to close the restaurant before this transpired, but Maria and her winemaker Lilia were kind enough to let Sarah participate in some of their experimental batches last fall.
The cheapest and closest rental we could find near the vineyard was a camper parked on a working flower farm with an outdoor shower, so naturally we booked it. RGNY was only a twenty minute bike ride away down Sound Avenue. Susan, our host, had lived in the area all her life. She let us glean the last of the tomatoes languishing in the garden and brought bowls of fresh figs to our door. She said the population of the North Fork had more than doubled since the start of the pandemic. The roads were clogged and more and more farmland was being developed into housing. Sound Avenue was often so backed up that our bicycles made far better time than any of the BMW's and Teslas staring at each other's bumpers. I fantasized about a light rail system. They could certainly afford it!
Long Island is not naturally an excellent place for grapes. The soil, first off, is too good. It should be devoted to vegetables and grains. Ideally, vineyards are planted on marginal land. Not only does this ensure the local populace is well fed, but the struggle is good for the grapes. Vines that don't have to fight for water and nutrients produce enormous quantities of poor quality grapes. Long Island, however, has embraced this, using modern winemaking techniques to cover up the flaws. Moreover, it's rather humid. The vines are prey to every manner of mildew and mold. None of this matters, however, because most of the vineyards are prestige estates for the one percent. The wineries do not need to be profitable, and those that are, I suspect, make most of their money hosting weddings and other lux soirees for the very well-heeled. The winery is window dressing for the venue. The wine is just something to pour into branded glassware.
Nevertheless, good, honest wine can be made anywhere, and Lilia, the head winemaker of RGNY, is an artist in the making. Young, bright, multi-lingual, worldly, and vivacious, Lilia came to the North Fork by way of Mexico City and Bordeaux, and she stands out in the region where most of the other winemakers are white men north of fifty. You can read more about her in this excellent profile. Sarah and Lilia bonded instantly and permanently. They share a rare instinct for joy. Her husband, Paulo, is currently the head of sales but is flirting with opening a restaurant one day, and their son Memito is an adorable, toddling delight. We've vowed to stay friends forever.
Of all the stories I could tell about our brief, vivid time on the North Fork, getting caught in a cloudburst on the beach, touring the fermentation plant, our barbeque feast of grilled corn on the cob and local oysters, blind tasting last year's pinot noir, barrel by barrel, I'd like to tell the story of a happy mess of skin-contact Gewürztraminer. Sarah and Lilia collaborated on three wines, the aforementioned, a Sauvignon Blanc, and another Sauvignon Blanc co-fermented with pressed Gewürztraminer skins. The skin-contact Gewürztraminer was the baby, however, because it was set to ferment in a small qvevri, a clay vessel of ancient design. In order to make the wine as “natural” as possible, they decided to use indigenous yeast, i.e. the yeast that lives on the grape’s own skin and in the winery air. Wines inoculated with conventional lab-grown yeasts start fermentation almost immediately, but ambient yeast will often take its time. Lilia and Sarah were both worried that, after ten days, the fermentation might stall, requiring them to re-inoculate the juice with a lab-grown strain.
Sarah was tasked with the nightly punch down and measurements so Lilia could have the evenings at home with her family. One night, near the end of our allotted time there, we found the fermentation room a complete mess. Cloudy orange-brown puddles had sprung up all over the floor, the qvevri was covered in sticky streams and bits of grape skin. At the top, a cap of skins bulged from of the opening. As we lifted the muslin covering the cap, the carbon dioxide was so strong that we needed to take a step back to avoid suffocation. Sarah giddily called Lilia, who rushed right over. Their shared anxiety over the fermentation lifted, both women gave full rein to their obsession. They tasted everything, went back over all the data, compared notes, and shared ideas; they were the finest accomplices, thick as thieves, and a bubbling clay vat of crushed grapes and microorganisms was their ill-gotten loot. It was clear, then, that Sarah had truly found her vocation. Every neuron was aflame, every cell electrified. We spent the next three hours cleaning, celebrating, and cleaning some more.
The Gewürztraminer fermented for another week and is still resting on the skins, which have all fallen to the bottom of the qvevri. The wine slowly circulates above them, taking on texture, color, and flavor. Hopefully, when Sarah returns in May, we'll be able to taste it, and maybe one day, so can you.
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Monday was Valentine's Day, the largest of the “restaurant” holidays, but we no longer have a restaurant, so instead I made a feast at home. To those who hate the holiday, who know that it is an exclusionary, hetero-coded, corporate exercise in social control, I couldn't agree more. And yet, romantic that I am, it is also an excuse to make an extravagant meal for those that I love, and in that sense, I embrace it. Anyway, hating Valentine’s Day won’t bring the revolution any closer, so here is this year's menu with commentary.
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