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

RKS 2023 Wine: Italian Merlot Could be the Change You Need!

It is not frequently we encounter Italian Merlot as a single varietal in Canada. So we have a chance now with a somewhat unique Terre Magre Merlot from Friuli.

Aroma: Black cherry, blackberry and cola with some intensity.

Palate: A robust aroma for a wine does not always equate with a robust wine! Not much in the way of tannins at first but they do move up a notch once the wine has aerated a bit. Rather light. The fruit is light with some notes of blueberry, cherry and mocha. A bit of sweetness on the short finish which is attributable to a small portion of the grapes being dried and crushed 60 days later. The lack of oak gives the wine a lighter and cleaner profile than an oaked Merlot.

Personality: Perhaps you love full bodied wines like Cabernet Sauvignon or a Carmenére and good on you but it is a welcome change to lighten up your glass with a Merlot like me. I am easy going and rather light bodied and don’t they say that a change is as good as a rest?

Food match: Spanish octopus for sure https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/259483/spanish-octopus/?utm_source=emailshare&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mobilesharebutton2

Cellarbility: You could happily rest this for a couple of years but there is certainly no harm in consuming now. I do not believe ageing will improve the wine.

Price: $22.95 (Ontario).

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 91/100. Jamessuckling.com 90.

(Terre Magre 2021 D.O.C. Friuli, Piera Martellozzo San Quirino, Italy, 750 mL, 14%, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 29821).

RKS 2023 Film: “Out of the Loop: Chicago Comedy Is No Joke”

I have no problems with Chicago and who cares if it is the Murder Capital of the United States! City of Vultures some say! A properly developed waterfront unlike my butchered Toronto. Great food. Skyscrapers.  All assuming you aren’t in the wrong neighbourhood at the wrong time and end up with a bullet in your noggin!

“Out of the Loop” is a view of the Chicago comedy scene from its inception sometime in the late 1960’s to present times. Like Garth and Wayne in “Wayne’s World” what do I know about urban comedy. I am simply “not worthy”. Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, Rodney Dangerfield, Jacky Gleason, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and brutally assaulted Chris Rock I know but all these comedians in this documentary all I recognize and love is Jeff Garlin from “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.

However, as a film critic I accept my limitations and give a stab at reviewing this American documentary. Although it purports to be a documentary of comedy performers in Chicago it could be a documentary on how to be a successful comedian and the rocky road that takes in any country! It is a focus on the rocky road to success of American comedians; the poverty, the trials and tribulations, the sexism, the racism, the feeling of success and failure, the divide between white and black comedy rooms and what it takes to bridge white and black “comedy rooms” and become a successful national comedian in the United States.

A whole host of comedians recount their Chicago experiences some with humour and some deadpan it. Although the focus is on comedic performance it is also a lesson on societal success transcending race. You will have a chuckle guaranteed but you will be granted an insight into success in any genre in any country and have a good chortle while so doing.

The “Loop” in Chicago is the established commercial centre of Chicago which does not include white North Chicago or black South Chicago so both are out of the loop.

Sadly I only recognize comedian Jeff Garlin from “Curb your Enthusiasm”.

“Out of the Loop” was edited and produced by Scott Perlman. This 98-minute American documentary will release on digital platforms on 11April2023.  

You can watch the trailer here https://drive.google.com/file/d/19cVmMgrTq2vLQhinGhWhurOnTaB3pBaC/view

RKS 2023 Film Rating 86/100.

RKS 2023 Wine: Viña Tarapacá Gran Reserva Biodiversity Organic Wine: Confessions of a Rat!

Here we have an organic red blend from the Maipo Valley in Chile consisting of 58% Carmenère, 29% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Petit Verdot and 2% Cabernet Franc. It has aged a year in French oak barrels.

Aroma: Raspberry, blueberry, blackberries and root beer. I can detect some acidity on the nose hoping it will be restrained on the palate. Root beer can be an early warning sign of acidity.

Palate: Tannins are moderate. The acidity is present but how to describe it? Bright? Threatening? Putting this sensitive issue aside there is some black cherry, blackberry, cactus pear, blueberry and cranberry. The finish to the wine is short and a bit spicy. Not to flog a dead donkey but the acidity obfuscates the fruit.

Personality: While the aroma I have suggests a full bodied and accessible wine my palate tells another story. I am taut with an almost prickly personality. I should not be consumed without food as my acidity might distract many that is if they have the skills to detect it. One tip is to detect a bit of spritz on the tongue. This reviewer obviously feels it but how many of you will notice it. The reviewer obviously has some sort of acidity fetish.

Food match: I would suggest a pasta sauce that has been prepared with fresh local field tomatoes and lightly cooked with some fresh herbs such as oregano, sage and basil doing the trick. Or perhaps a fresh tomato salad with beets and walnuts. The acidity in the wine might match the acidity of the tomatoes.

Price: $22.95 (Ontario).

Cellarbility: Noticeable acidity in a red wine sends me scurrying like a rat. Age a wine with noticeable acidity is a gamble. It usually worsens. 

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 85/100. Jamessuckling.com 93.

(Viña Tarapacá Gran Reserva 2020 Biodiversity Organic Wine, D.O. Vallé De Maipo, Viña San Pedro Tarapacá, Santiago, Chile, 750 mL, 13.5%).

RKS Literature: The Essence of Zorba the Greek

“If today I were to choose a spiritual guide from the whole wide world- a “guru” as they say in India, a venerable father as the monks say in Mount Athos-the one that I would choose without fail would be Zorba. He possessed precisely what a pen pusher needs for deliverance: the primitive glance that snatches nourishment lovingly from on high; the creative artlessness, renewed at each daybreak, that views everything unceasingly as though for the first time, bequeathing virginity to the everlasting quotidian elements of wind, sea, fire, woman and bread: the sureness of hand, the freshness of heart, the gallant steward’s ability to poke fun at his own soul for seeming to harbor a power higher than the soul; finally that wild, throaty laugh welling up from a source deeper than a man’s inner depths, a laugh that erupted redemptively at crucial moments from Zorba’s elderly chest, expanding with sufficient power to demolish (and did demolish) all the barricades-morality, religion, nationalism-erected around themselves by wretched, lily-livered humans to let them hobble securely through their diminished mini-lives. “

Nikos Kazantzakis “Zorba the Greek”, 1952

RKS Literature: Making a Proper Toilette (Thomas Mann)

“The preparation, the lavish equipment for what should have been the serious business of life used up all his energy. How much mental effort had been expended simply in making the proper toilette. How much time and attention went to his supplies of cigarettes, soaps, and perfumes; how much occasion for making up his mind lay in that moment, recurring two or three times daily, when he had to select his cravat! And it was worth the effort. It was important. The blond-haired citizenry of the land might go about in elastic-sided boots and turn-over collars, heedless of the effect. But he- and most explicitly he-must be unassailable and blameless of exterior from head to foot.”

Thomas Mann, “The Blood of the Walsungs”, 1905