If you have seen the latest Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s October 22 Vintages release catalogue you may say WTF has just happened! Prices are obscene. This makes the wines of Chile most compelling from a price and quality perspective. Most Chilean wines appear to be rated by James Suckling a hero it seems to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario so one has to discount his overly generous rating of Chilean wine. He gave the San Pedro 1865 Selected Vineyards Carmenére 2020 a 91 rating.
On the nose a tight wine with blackberry, blueberry, milk chocolate and a gentle tad of allspice. On the palate moderate tannins with elements of Christmas cake, pepper and spice.
Enough fruit to make this a decent sipper. Drink now or hold until the end of 2024. This would be a good match for so many foods but as we are in the death throes of local produce eggplants are a plenty so why not Eggplant Parmesan? My produce contact at Lady York in Toronto says from here on in expect peppers, Swiss Chard and Dandelion. With fires in California and a hurricane in Florida who knows what awaits us in Canada. I made loads of jam, pesto and tomato sauce.
(San Pedro 1865 Selected Vineyards Carmenére 2020, Valle de Maule, San Pedro S.A.Molina, Chile, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 249201, 750 mL, 14%, RKS Wine Rating 89/100).
August 15 is a big day on the Greek Orthodox calendar. Everything is shut tight except what directly serves the tourists like mini marts and restaurants. I watched a bit of coverage on Greek TV and just like the old days the priests, politicians and military seem glued to each other. Still in 2006 the pillars of Greek society! On August 16th a high-ranking Greek Orthodox priest arrived in Vathi to enlighten the flock. The main street was full of political, military and religious officials. In Canada there is not the cosiness of the military, state and church you see here in Greece.
“Nelly and Nadine” is a Belgian/Swiss/Swedish documentary and is one of 13 films on the short list for the best film for the 2022 European Film Awards that will be announced in Reykjavik on December 10th.
The documentary begins with the narrator commenting on a film reel shot on April 28, 1945, in Malmo Sweden filming a boatload of 2,000 women survivors arriving from German concentration camps. The narrator explains he has spent years tracking down the stories of the survivors on the film reel. He is on a voyage of discovery.
One of the women on the film reel is Nadine a Chinese woman who was the daughter of the Chinese ambassador to Spain. We are not told why she was imprisoned by the Germans. Nelly was a well-known French singer arrested in 1943 by the Germans in Paris.
Nelly’s granddaughter Sylvie Bianchi lives a quiet agricultural life in Belgium. Sylvie has a large collection of letters, journals and super 8 films documenting the incarceration of Nelly in a series of worsening German concentration camps the last stop being Mauthausen in 1945 Austria a stone quarry where prisoners had to climb down and up 186 stairs of death after debilitating forced labour and very little food.
Understandably Sylvie simply can’t complete the review of her grandmother’s legacy. She is so traumatized she can’t complete the task. She finally decides it is time and what she discovers liberates her tortured soul so finally she is at peace and with understanding of her secretive grandmother.
By confronting reality she accepts it and understands who her grandmother was. Her grandmother was Nelly Mousset-Vos a renowned singer and also a member of the Resistance. And she and Nadine were lovers! They fell in love in a camp and were separated when Nelly was transported in a harrowing 1945 journey to Mauthausen packed in a cattle car where 17 women died in a five-day journey.
We listen to some of her memoirs describing despair and the horrid conditions she managed to survive and it was her love for Nadine that propelled her last reserves of energy at Mauthausen where falling down in exhaustion meant a bullet in the head. Many of us are familiar with these German barbarities but to hear it firsthand is painful and very personal.
So we move beyond the war and Nadine and Nelly wishing to escape Europe move to Venezuela to establish a life. Sylvie as a child had no idea Nadine and Nelly were lesbians but it becomes apparent to her, particularly through the Super 8 films that Nelly and Nadine were lesbians.
Sylvie’s journey of discovery is one that viewers can share and there is no need to repeat it. But perhaps more important is that by accepting the facts of Nelly’s and Nadine’s relationship and fully understanding what they went through liberates Sylvie from her fear and apprehension so that she finally accepts and embraces her grandmother to the extent she finally smiles and appreciates Nelly and Nadine. Accepting reality as opposed to ignoring it was the best way of honouring the fortitude and bravery of Nelly. The narrator that started the film was on a voyage of self discovery as Sylvie was.
Steve is the original lonely guy of Samos. Alexandra and I encountered Steve at the establishment we were having coffee at. Steve has retired from Germany and moved to Samos. Steve is in his mid seventies and every day he takes the bus from Pythagorio to Vathi and sits at the same table in the same seat and talks with as many people as possible. Steve admits he is a lonely guy as his two children have not spoken to him in 4 years. They received a loan to start a business in New York from Steve but the business failed so Steve thinks his two children are too embarrassed to talk to him so to avoid loneliness he sits and drinks coffee all day and chats up passersby’s . We left him and said see you later. We chatted with him regularly. Alexandra ran into Steve one day without me and he said, “Where s the old man?”. Was he referring to me!
Up at the absurd hour of 04:00 for a shower in a groggy fog. No breakfast and hopped in a taxi to the airport delayed by bridge construction sending the meter on its happy way with the result a staggering 80 Euro taxi fare to Schiphol. Happy my booking on Martinair to Samos was successful. Not speaking Dutch didn’t prevent a successful booking. Martinair is a Dutch charter airline. I suppose we were the only Non-Dutch on the flight. Just my luck as a nasty terrorist looking type subject to a thorough body search to the enjoyment of my family. A spectacle for sure. What incredible shopping at this airport with electronics, food, records and books to name a few items. The departure area resembled a shopping centre more than the usual airport duty free. A smooth three-and-a-half-hour flight with a boxed breakfast. Arrived at the Samos Airport and grabbed a taxi into Vathi to Fotini’s parent’s house. It is great to have returned to Greece but I think all of us are craving a good night’s sleep.
I received yet another Skype call from the Penniless Pensioner currently residing in Tirana Albania at 4 a.m. Toronto time. The poor fellow was distraught as Lola Freiberg aka the Tirana Tigress had been arrested by the Albanian Interior Ministry police and was in the notorious Tirana Prison for Hardened Criminals. What the charges were he did not know but he had been made a deal by the Albanian Ministry of the Interior to release her. Highly dangerous if not a fatal assignment so he wanted to talk to me as a friend and consigliere.
So I hop on a Turkish Air flight to Istanbul and connect on Air Albania and 20 hours after leaving Toronto I limp into the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Tirana and meet PP in a private conference room he has rented. Some burly men in tight fitting suits were leaving the room when I arrived and was given a big hug by PP. He explained those burly men were checking the room was not bugged. We have some watery Albanian beer and beef tongue flavoured potato chips and get down to business.
He tells me Lola the Tirana Tigress has been arrested and is in custody but he has not been advised what the charges are. He says the Albanians are not quite familiar with the “rule of law”. Representatives of the Albanian Ministry of the Interior have made him the following deal. Lola will be released if PP does the following. A large delegation of Iranians is arriving for a visit to the Albanian Freedom University in Tirana for an academic roundtable. They are then going to the Blue Sarada Hotel in Vlora on the Adriatic Coast for a series of meetings on tourism. In the Iranian delegation there are 7 high ranking officials including military officers. These 7 will lead a coup d’état in Iran ousting the theocracy. Many “leading countries” are willing to support and recognize the new regime. My assignment is to deliver to General Abapoof a terminal which when pressed will transfer 89 million USD to an Isle of Man Trussler Bank account which will be used to fund the coup. In return the new regime will have “friendly government” technicians rewire and reprogram 400 drones left in the 2400 sold to the Russians so that after the Russians fire these purchased drones targeting Ukraine they will within 3 hours be redirected to where they were fired from so many will land in military bases in Russia. Twenty will be redirected to the Kremlin. Many will also be directed to Russian army barracks, power plants and water treatment plants. The message is to give back to Russia some of what they gave to Ukraine. This will result in the “elimination” of Mr. President unless he is deep in his bunker! No drones will be directed to hospitals, kindergartens, seniors’ residences and train stations or civilian airports unlike in the Russian Ukrainian genocidal playbook.
If the Russians have any inkling of what is going on PP says he will be dead but certain” Western intelligence sources” say PP is not on the Russian or Iranian intelligence radar. PP is known for his covert financial transactions although as for his working for Bernie Madoff well he denies any wrongdoing. Once the funds are transferred Lola will be free like a bird.
After our chat PP seemed to be his old self. The man was on fire for Lola and would do anything to get his “sweet pea” back. So before heading back so I could hit the sack we decided to chill a bit and have some of that Pinot Noir I brought with me as he had requested.
PP was adventuresome and had tried all varieties of Albanian wine and had his favourites but there was nothing like a good Pinot Noir to ease the many substandard Albanian wines he had been subjected to. I will try and describe his opinion as suffering from jet lag and twisted limbs causing me some pain and a badly swollen ankle I did not have the coherence to make any serious commentary, So I try and quote his opinion on a Christopher Michael 2019 Pinot Noir from Oregon;
“Some of this Albanian wine is rough and abrasive and smells like dirty socks and wet cement. The commies here ruined the wine industry so they had to start rebuilding it. It will take some time. This Pinot Noir has a finesse and delicacy that perhaps in a decade or two the Albanians can try and emulate. It smells like wine! Well actually there is some raspberry, strawberry jam and fresh picked Albanian country cherries as its bouquet. It tastes like real sophisticated juice! Elegant, refined and sensual but it has traction and grip in a delicate way unlike so much Albanian plonk. It has a touch of chocolate on the finish. Acids and tannins are restrained. It would suit some Tave Kosi a popular lamb dish. I would give this wine a 92 but I am so starved for good Pinot Noir perhaps my rating is unreliable.”
PP drops a bombshell telling me his snookums’ Lola is pregnant! PP is going to be a father!
(Christopher Michael Northwest Winemakers 2019 Pinot Noir, Christopher Michael Wines, Tualatin, Oregon, $ 20.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 25111, 750 mL, 13%, Penniless Pensioner Wine Ranking 92/100).
Does being politically correct make you nauseous? Being averse to dig into this subject let me give you an example. I was waiting to board an Air Canada flight in Athens headed for Toronto on September 20th. I talked to a father and daughter from Ohio who lived a couple of hours south of Cleveland near the border with Kentucky. We ended up chatting about baseball and boy they were upset with the change of name of the Cleveland Indians team name to the Cleveland Guardians. Very few Indians fans accepted this name. Then it moved to the Washington Redskins changing their name to the Washington Commanders. I pointed out in the Canadian Football League the Edmonton Eskimos changed their name to the Edmonton Elks. This upset couple ended the conversation by saying Cleveland Indians was respectful and a tribute to aboriginals in the United States. Thank goodness the boarding call was made.
Sorry off topic a bit. But I have seen both the 1947 and 2021 version of “Nightmare Alley”. Both versions were bordering on horrific although the ending of the 2021 version was more graphic and disturbing than the 1947 version. The 1947 version was a box office flop although some say it was Tyrone Power’s best film performance. The 2021 version grossed over $60 million and Cate Blanchett’s performance was perhaps one of her best. With these two films in mind I saw a “Freakshow” Zinfandel with a delightfully gaudy label on the shelf. I can’t say I applaud the name of the wine but let’s not delve further.
Zinfandel can be a lusty wine well suited to Zeena ‘s character in the 2021 “Nightmare Alley”.
Despite the 15.5% alcohol level the fruit remains firmly in place restricting the alcohol to a sideshow. There are strong notes of raspberry and a certain sweet note with elements of raspberry tarts. There is some black cherry and a tad of vanilla peeking its head out.
On the palate yet again the fruit holds its place against the high alcohol. The wine is smooth and there is not a heat streak in it although there is some pepper on the finish. Loganberry, pomegranate and Washington cherries. The acidity is also deftly held in check.
Yes this is a high powered wine with high alcohol levels but somehow it has relegated its alcohol to the back lots of the carnival.
Tomahawk steak please or Mushroom Wellington. With 6 grams of residual sugar and restrained tannins the Mushroom Wellington would perhaps be the better bet and considering the richness of that pairing I would say Guillermo del Toro’s lush cinematographic version beats out the 1947 version.
(Freakshow 2019 Zinfandel, Lodi, California, Michael David Winery, American Canyon California, $24.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 10484, 750 mL, 15.5%, RKS Wine Rating 93/100).
Finished packing in the midst of terrible heat and humidity that has been blanketing Toronto. Basically, all you had to do was move and you’d be soaked. Off to Toronto Pearson Airport rewarded with being crammed in an Air Transat plane where my body type and seat configuration clashed. My old trick of ordering a diabetic meal which has been well rewarded with fresh fruit and vegetables was a disgusting mess this time. I must try Kosher next! A piece of fish (I think) with diced mushrooms in a greasy tomato sauce, a few shreds of Iceberg lettuce and the usual gross stale roll with rank tasting kiwis and melon. Oh the insults airline passengers face! Andrew had macaroni and cheese looking very greasy and unappealing with a piece of that obligatory soup kitchen chocolate cake. Airline travel has hit the skids which is a shame as being cooped up on a transatlantic flight passengers should look forward to a culinary diversion not pig slop. The first movie was with Jennifer Aniston was ho hum then some Disney film about a Tibetan dog. The plot was so simplistic audio was not required.
Arrived a few minutes early in Amsterdam and took a whopping $65 taxi ride to our hotel. The train was 4 Euros but with two children and luggage that would have been difficult. By 9 a.m. we were in our Apollo Meridien Hotel upgraded to executive class. Desperate to conquer the time zone yet numbed out and in a mental fog I took a walk. While the gang was sound asleep at 10 in the morning a walk along tree lined streets with a canal never too far from sight. Amsterdam after 30 years! I stopped and had a Dutch favourite of raw kippers and onions. Some vodka would have matched that silky smooth fish. So I settled for a couple of small Heineken drafts enjoying the cool damp breeze after that horrific Toronto heat and humidity. Managed to make it back in the hotel in a light rain just in time as the Heineken kicked in! What comes in must come out. I crashed and slept from 2-5 waking up groggy. Headed out at 18:50 to a local restaurant La Falote with not a tourist in sight. Some of the tasty dishes had were cod with rhubarb, schnitzel and mussel stew. Andrew and Alexandra had a Dutch waffle with crystalized cinnamon and ice cream. A complimentary jenever liqueur as sent our way. In bed at midnight setting the alarm for 04:30 for our flight to Samos.
After I review a wine, I may look what other reviewers have to say about it. Some critics I take seriously and others not so and then there is Luca Maroni who often scores wines in the 90’s when they deserve to be in the 80’s. What would you deduce from insanely high ratings?
For Alta-Yarí Gran Corte 2018 Tim Atkins gave it a glowing 97. Atkins is not Luca Maroni and his 97 is worth noting as a marker for possibly a great wine.
So what rating does RKS Wine give this wine?
It is an Argentinian wine from Mendoza with a 60% Cabernet Franc, 35% Malbec and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon blend. Individually these grapes can make great Mendozian reds but jumble them together?
It has a deep blackberry colour. On the nose redolent with blackberry, blueberry, cherry cola and black plum. On the palate there are moderate tannins just short of being thick and persistent. Penetrating blackberry, blueberry, cactus pear all with a long finish. At 14.5% the wine is a heavy hitter too powerful for the moment. Given its tannins and controlled acidity it will evolve over the next 7 years but into what I am not quite sure. My guess is that it will soften and lose its ferocious edge. This wine is definitely not for the faint at heart with its 14.5% alcohol content. That extra .50 alcohol over 14 almost takes the wine to obscene levels. My thoughts are that a few years in the bottle will mellow this Argentinian monster. Ageing wine is chump’s game but listen to me dear readers as I am no Luca Maroni although who knows with all his genetic tracing I may just be his long lost brother! I hope the new French oak will tone itself down over a few years.
Bodegas Fabre makes a wickedly delicious Malbec and also bottles Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon as single varietals.
A big brash wine which hopefully Father Time will bless.
(Alta-Yarí Gran Corte 2019, Guatallary, Uco Valley, Mendoza, Bodegas Fabre, Mendoza, Argentina, $29.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 24894, 750 mL, 14.5%, RKS Wine Rating 90/100).
I attended a birthday party last week-end and a very experienced traveller remarked about his recent trip on Air Canada a few days after my Air Canada trip. I remarked in Basic Economy my knees were jammed up against the seat ahead of me and God help me when the passenger tilted his seat. Last time I travelled on Air Canada in 2019 in Economy my knees had 4 inches to spare. This experienced traveller remarked if animals were subject to such “Basic Economy” conditions there would be an uproar and animal protection would be called.
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