RKS 2023 Wine: Better Pinot Noir for Less? Chile? A Darling of the Medical Profession?

I am a wine writer from the other side of the tracks! A retired and impoverished old codger. I even had lunch in a suburban restaurant 36 kilometres from Toronto! There wasn’t an orthodontist in sight! Actually, the food was excellent as was the conversation with a veteran wine writer friend! There are no wineries delivering cases of hugely expensive Pinot Noir to my door. Pinot Noir from France? $40 for entry level. $23.99 to pour down the sink. For $40 a British Columbian Pinot Noir from the Okanagan, for example from Meyer Family Vineyards, outshines Burgundy. Oh but Canadian! Enough to give a Los Angles cardiologist and a Manhattan plastic surgeon a cardiac “event”! Can the “low life” Chileans deliver a blow to hot shot Pinot Noirs know it all’s seeking some obscure Burgundian Pinot Noir to cherish in their Sag Island summer retreat?

Californian big tech magnates will identify that the grapes for this Pinot Noir are grown 4 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean and yes with that “magical fog”! The tech types will delight that the wine comes from “polygons” which are small subdivisions within lots! This Pinot Noir is from Lot 21 and from Clone 777, thank goodness not 666! And how about this! The grapes in Lot 21 were harvested on 5 different dates! How exciting! And yet more thrilling 30% of the grapes were pressed in whole clusters!

The answer is yes in my lumpen proletarian experience! So for a whopping $29.95 for a Chilean Pinot Noir can we all embarrass ourselves or laugh at the monied class where obscurity and Randy Kurniawan can thrive?

Let’s see with a Leyda Lot 21 Pinot Noir from Chile’s Valle de Leyda?

Aroma: Yet more Chilean raspberry influence in many Chilean red wines but big fat juicy strawberries almost too ripe. Just the right amount of oak. Almost muscular and in my experience Chilean Pinot Noirs are rarely delicate and dainty. Let’s not forget a bit of black cherry.

Palate: Moderate chalky tannins that escalate after the wine is ingested. The wine is firm and holding back its fruit perhaps waiting for the next dermatologist convention! Yes there is raspberry, bright cherry and strawberry but it is under the covers. The psychiatrists who love Pinot Noir will no doubt attribute this to some phobia.

Personality: Geez this wine writer treats me like a medical case and it is obvious he is obsessed with the film “Double Indemnity”! I am not a lumpen proletarian wine as I am not yet available in the cheap 1.5 litre section of COSTCO!

Food Match: The winery website suggests Truffle Tagliatelle with mushroom sauce. Truffles are for pigs aren’t they? Why not a simple mushroom stroganoff?

Cellarbility: Tell urologists this wine needs 3-5 years to evolve they’ll be in erection heaven! Oooh complexity they will moan!

Price: $29.95 (Ontario).

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 93/100. Timatkin.com 96.

(Leyda Lot 21 2019 Pinot Noir, D.O. Valle de Leyda, VSPT Avda, Santiago, Chile, 750 mL, 14%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 10576).

RKS 2023 Films: “Midnight at the Paradise”: Monogamy and Sticky Flypaper

I believe Buddhists speak of “auspicious connections”. You have encounters one might believe are chance or random but really are more than that. So, last week I am driving in the Parkdale area of Toronto and drive by “The Paradise” an old theatre converted to an event venue. These days a theatre or even a former theatre in a city is rare as the theatre experience has largely been suburbanized to huge soulless complexes more like a factory than a pleasant local theatre. I didn’t give to much thought about this relic from the past until a PR firm sends me an e-mail advising of a special midnight showing of “Midnight at the Paradise”. Is there something to this Buddhist “auspicious connection”?

“Midnight at the Paradise” is one of those films in the “relationship genre” which can be revealing and engrossing or trite and sappy. There are brief moments of sappiness but most of the film is engrossing. Can monogamy trap its participants on sticky fly paper or can they liberate themselves with infatuation lies and double-dealing behaviour?

I can’t give you the answer to this as who am I to disclose the plot and ruin your ogling peeping Tom eyes rooting for monogamy or a break from it. And it is a good watch never quite knowing where it is heading.

The characters walking on the fly paper are Jeff (Ryan Allen) a physician and Iris (Liane Balaban) a PR type as Jeff’s wife. They intersect with rock n roller Alex and his fiancé Anthea (Emma Ferreira). Then there is terminally ill Max a film critic (oh Lord!) and his ex-wife Charmaine (Kate Trotter) both who are no longer on the fly paper. Max (Kenneth Walsh in his final performance) and Charmaine are Iris’ parents. The casting for the film was a great success as these characters are believable and are all fragile. I do appreciate Trotter’s wonderful performance reminiscent of earlier Canadian cinema. Oh love and lust!

I should compliment the soundtrack particularly the numerous songs by “Neighbourhood Watch”.

So if you are a fan of the “relationship genre” above and beyond Harlequin palaver and want to further gape at 4 poor flies on the sticky fly paper and two escaped flies and revel in the subjects of monogamy, deception, commitment, forgiveness, lust, honour, confusion and honesty “Midnight at the Paradise” is up your alley but careful of that sticky flypaper.

This Canadian film is showing at the Paradise in Toronto on April 21st. How fitting!

This film is directed by Vanessa Matsui.

RKS 2023 Film Rating 90/100.

RKS 2023 Hot Docs: “Seven Winters in Tehran”:   Deadly Iranian Misogyny and Theocracy

Reyhaneh Jabbari was born in Tehran on November 6, 1987, as the first child of Shole Pakravan and Fereydoon Jabbari. Together with her two sisters, she grew up in Tehran in a protected, loving, artistic home. She studied computer science and worked part-time as an interior designer in the office of a family friend. She was a young, modern woman with ambitious plans and dreams. But her “business meeting” with a surgeon and the former secret service agent Morteza Sarbandi changed everything. When he tried to rape her, she defended herself with a knife and stabbed him once in the back. She fled the apartment. A short time later, Morteza Sarbandi succumbed to the stab wound. That same night, Reyhaneh was arrested. For 58 days, she had no contact with legal counsel or her family. During this time, forced confessions through beatings and psychological harassment were made that lead to her death sentence in a show trial under Qisās’ retribution law of blood revenge 1.5 years later. Reyhaneh spent 7.5 years in prison – first in Evin Prison, then in Shahr-e Rey Women’s Prison. Here she got to know women from different social strata of Iranian society and began to write texts about the systematic oppression of women by Islamic laws, which she published through her mother Shole. She tirelessly campaigned for better conditions for her fellow inmates until her execution on October 25, 2014 in Rajai Shahr prison.

This execution was in the face of international protests. Reyhaneh could have avoided her execution by withdrawing her accusation of attempted rape to save the “honour” of Sarbandi but refused and for her honesty was executed.

Should you conclude that the Iranian theocratic state is misogynist then yes you are right. It hates and despises opposition to its tyrannical rule and executes both male and female but it hates women even more. During Reyhaneh’s trial then presiding judge asked why such a “devout Muslim” as Morteza Sarbandi was in his residence alone with a female. The prosecution was silent. Hypocrisy and misogyny as bedfellows.

I have travelled over the years in fascist and communist dictatorships but a theocratic dictatorship has a special connection with “God”. The Nazis exterminated the inferior. The communists exterminated the capitalist roaders. The Iranian theocracy murders all who oppose the will of the theocrats who have their faces plastered all over Tehran in true and crude Stalinist fashion.

Reyhaneh’s mother and sisters escaped to Germany. But their father “head of the family” is denied his passport a rather misogynist act in itself!

If this documentary makes you angry and disgusted it has succeeded but it is also a powerful testimony to the moral courage of Reyhaneh Jabbari to fight for human rights and if she were alive today that is what she would want you to remember. At the end of her life she forgave those who tortured and abused her and even the Sarbandi family but not Morteza Sarbandi.

This 97-minute 2023 German and French documentary is written and directed by Steffi Niederzoll.

Part of the Toronto Hot Docs Festival and is showing on 1/7 May as a North American premiere.

RKS 2023 Film Rating 95/100.

RKS 2023 Wine: Laura Hartwig Chilean Carménère: Pinot Noir on Steroids?

From the Colchagua Valley in Chile we have a Laura Hartwig Single Vineyard Carménère. In 1966 Laura Bisquertt inherited the “Santa Laura Estate” from Osvaldo her father who had planted traditional crops and raised dairy livestock on it. Laura’s husband Alejandro Hartwig bought adjoining plots of land and planting of traditional Bordeaux grapes commenced in 1978 selling grapes and then establishing the Hartwig Winery in 1994 and in 1995 they produced their first Laura Hartwig wine.

The Colchagua Valley was traditional farmland country until the last 15 years when it started evolving into one of Chile’s largest and most active wine-producing regions. The relatively low elevation of the coastal hills allows the Pacific Ocean breezes to interplay with the Andean winds, cooling the valley and extending the region’s ripening period. Most wine here is red.

Aroma: Raspberry, black cherry with a bit of milk chocolate.

Palate: Moderate tannins with the raspberry dominating. Medium bodied and firm with a slow longish finish. Make me walk the plank on this but so much Chilean Carménère is analogous to a Pinot Noir on steroids or a Pete Rose Pinot Noir for you baseball fans. It is that raspberry in Carménères that cause me to make this outrageous comparison!

Personality: Don’t be thrown by my raspberrish soul. I am not a Pinot Noir. I am not elegant but I am far from a clumsy oaf. I am serious and full bodied and best suited for food. I suppose there is no need for me to say I am a wine of exceptional quality and value.

Food match: Mushroom Stroganoff! Beef Stroganoff for meatheads.

Cellarbility:  No need to wait so enjoy now. It will benefit from 2-3 years of ageing.

Price: $15.95 (Ontario).

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 92/100. Jamessuckling.com 91.

(Laura Hartwig 2020 Single Vineyard Carménère, D.O. Colchagua Valley, Chile, Comercial Santa Laura, Santa Cruz, Chile, 750 mL, 13.5%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 213512).

RKS 2023 Wine: The Superhero Wine Writer Humbly and Inadequately Explores a Chilean Carignan

Occasionally you encounter the superhero wine writer proud to be a judge at a wine competition or simply at some wine tasting event. Superhero has just tasted 83 wines and rated each of them maybe in the space of a couple of hours! Amazing! My crappy palate is put to the test on certain press trips. I am so incapable of evaluating massive amounts of wine I limit it to 6 or 7 per winery punctuated by meals and snacks. You see I have a weak palate that gets worn out after that and needs a rest that food, snacks and timely intervals afford. I am a mere mortal with feeble olfactory senses! Like Wayne and Garth I am not worthy!

Flashy wine label this Crazy Rows wine has! But it makes sense as the vines are more like bushes scattered about as opposed to factory specified neat rows. This is similar to vines on Pico Island in the Portuguese Azores.

So I see a 97 rating on this wine. This must be close to perfection. A Luca Maroni miracle! Or maybe a superhero wine writer evaluated it! Not much Carignan from Chile a refreshing break from Carmenère and Cabernet Sauvignon.

It is a Crazy Rows 2020 Carignan from Bisquertt in Chile.

Aroma: Oh so Chilean raspberry with strawberry, blackberry and a rich foundation of black cherry.

Palate: A rather smooth and far from crazy palate. One might wish for a bit more fruit but until that day arrives with another vintage enjoy the somewhat dilute raspberry, pomegranate, cactus pear and black cherry. Could it be more polite just to call this a light bodied wine like some distant relative to Pinot Noir? The finish is short.

Food pairing: You know my code word by now; “A Friday night wine”.

Cellarbility: Drink by the end of 2023.

Price: $16.95 (Ontario).

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 89/100. 97/100 Decanter World Wine Awards (Best in Show).

(Crazy Rows Carignan 2020, D.O. Valle del Maule, Viñas Bisquertt, Santiago, Chile, 750 mL, 13%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 30217).

RKS 2023 Wine: A Georgian Wine Tasting at The Russian Gun Club

Most of my wine tastings have been at estates, chateaus, restaurants, ships and all sorts of event venues. The most memorable have been in various quintas in Portugal’s Douro region where I have been treated on occasion like visiting royalty. Perhaps the strangest venue in a Canadian city years ago was a Georgian wine tasting at a Russian Gun Club. Very creepy being the only guest with what appeared to be cameras rolling somewhat hidden in the wall. Being the only guest, I felt just a bit vulnerable. Were my hosts packing some heat? Despite an invitation to carouse at a Georgia restaurant after our tasting I made a speedy exit. If I had refused the invitation, would I be chief sommelier for the Wagner Group today?

Having recovered from the Russian Gun Club trauma why not try a Georgian Mukuzani red wine! Please ensure your safety is on if you please. Let’s think of that Ray Charles rendition of “Georgia on My Mind” instead of the smell of gun powder!

This red wine is made from the Saperavi grape a dark skinned, pink fleshed, low yielding variety which has good resistance to winter cold. It produces wines high in tannin, color and acidity which require bottle time to soften. Unless it can benefit from late ripening look out for unpleasant acidity. It seems plentiful in Moldova and Georgia and of course in the cellars of certain Russian gun clubs!

Aroma: Perhaps a bit like the Wagner Group the aroma is one that “takes no hostages”. Rich and pervasive black fruit predominates. Very rich black cherry almost has you thinking this is some cousin of Marechal Foch or Baco Noir or perhaps forgetting Ray Charles a bit of Jimmy Hendrix “Foxy Lady”?

Palate: Tannins settle in gradually and they are not harsh. An easy drinking wine with some oomph and not arrgh! It could certainly suit some grilled goat or lamb! Not elegant yet not brutish. Perhaps convincingly assertive? Definitely interesting!

Personality: Like the Ukrainian fighting forces I am no pushover. If handled with skill and care there is no reason you won’t be hearing more of me and my Sapervarian friends. Enjoy me at my reasonable price. Don’t refer to me as a “bargain” please and cheapen my image!

Food match: Not having been to Georgia I am at a loss of some relevant Georgian dish. I would think though a hearty stew.

Cellarbility: I have had a couple of Marechal Foch’s and Baco Noirs from Ontario that age beautifully. I might take a risk and hold this up to 2026.

Price: $16.95 (Ontario).

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 89/100.

(Rtvelisi Mukuzani 2020 Red Dry Wine, Rtvelisi, Tbilisi, Georgia, 750 mL, 13% Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 18384).

RKS 2023 Wine: L.A. Cetto Petite Sirah: Treasure of the Sierra Madre?

I recently watched John Huston directed “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. The 1947 film centres on the hunt for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountain range in Mexico. Bogart is a sociopath and Walter Huston an entertaining and honest old coot. Is there treasure in this L.A. Cetto Petite Sirah from Mexico? I saw a customer at a local Liquor Control Board of Ontario clean out 8 of the last 9 bottles and he waxed on about it like it was gold! It was certainly inexpensive and a long time import into Ontario. There are an increasing number of wineries in Mexico but all we get here in Ontario are the Syrah and Petite Syrah from L.A. Cetto.

Aroma: Black cherry, cactus pear, cranberry and root beer.

Palate: Really no nuggets worth staking a claim for. A strange bit of salinity gives it an odd character not entirely unpleasant. Anything else? Some black cherry and a tad of prunes. I recall on my last visit to Mexico at some all inclusive on the Mayan Riviera the wine at the buffet was Carlo Rossi jug wine from California. Why not Mexican wine? Given the huge tax on Mexican wine perhaps the Cali plonk was cheaper? At 12 grams of residual sugar per litre it might have been the pride of Mexican dentists.

Personality: About as charming as the Mexican banditos in “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”!

Cellarbility: To cellar would be fool’s gold!  

Food match: In Mexico I live off red snapper so it might, just might, suit red snapper Vera Cruz? In code I say like the LCBO that this is a Friday night wine suited for “casual fare”.

Price: $13.95 (Ontario).

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 77/100.

(L.A. Cetto 2020 Petite Sirah, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California, Mexico, LA. Cetto, 750 mL, 13.5%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 983742).

Walter Huston won an Academy Award for best supporting actor and his son for best director. Who knows about what awards this wine might win? Pay an entry fee to any number of wine “competitions” or pay to play rating agencies and it just might win a gold or two! Banditos can do more than rob trains.

RKS 2023 Film: “back home” at Vancouver International Film Festival

Canadian Nisha Platzer has crafted a moving documentary about the suicide of her brother Josh that occurring in Vancouver when Josh was 15 and Nisha 11. Josh was suffering from clinical depression at the time of his suicide. Nisha has dim memories of the death of Josh and convenes both family and friends to give her context as to his life and death. Both mentally and physically she must go “back home” to further her understanding. Certain fragments of the documentary are filmed on Super 8 and 16 mm and manually altered to create a haunting visual imagery primarily of the scenery Josh enjoyed most and where he requested his ashes be spread.

On a personal note the documentary took me back home to Montreal years ago when at 9 I lost my father. Sadly I never had the opportunity to go back home to gain some sense of it all worsened by the fact in those days many children simply were not permitted to attend funerals for fear of trauma and to hell about delayed trauma about never saying good-bye as I think Nisha finally did as at 11 how could she understand the death of her 15 year old brother. So yes this was a personal journey for me watching Nisha weave together fragments of the past.

The film was very well assembled so there are no gushing conclusions or didactic finger wagging. As we know reality, or what we think about reality, may converge upon us many years after the event. Happily, for Nisha Platzer I think reality did finally flash apparently with both sadness, relief and joy. It felt like a very long journey but worth the effort for all of us.

“back home” screens as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s “Home Truths” on April 14/15.

Directed by Nisha Platzer. You can see the trailer here https://vimeo.com/752788800

RKS 2023 Film Rating 91/100.

RKS Literature: Doctors as Empty Headed? (Thomas Mann)

“Indeed, the doctor’s calling is not different from any other: its practitioners are for the most part ordinary empty-headed folk, ready to see what is not there and to deny the obvious. Any untrained person, if he loves and has knowledge of the flesh, is their superior and in the mysteries of art can lead them by the nose.”

Thomas Mann, “Felix Krull”, 1911

RKS Literature: School as Prison (Thomas Mann)

“I am only able to live when my mind and my fancy are completely free; and this it is that memory of my years in prison actually less hateful to me than those of the ostensibly more honourable bond of slavery and fear which chafed my sensitive boyish soul when I was forced to attend at the ugly little white box of a school building down in the town. Add to these feelings of isolation from which I suffered, the grounds which I have set forth above, and it will surprise nobody that I early had the idea of taking more holidays than the law allowed.”

Thomas Mann, “Felix Krull”, 1911