RKS Wine: Paul Mas: Can He Deliver Yet Again?

At $13.95 one can be surprised and delighted at least by the Paul Mas Viognier we recently tried.

Can he deliver with a Rousanne?

It has a pale gold colour.

On the nose a solid blast of peach, apricot, pineapple and honey.

On the palate there is a certain grittiness and traction. This is no flimsy wine but one with body and presence. It has a good underlying acidity which is gentle and rather begs for some seafood particularly shellfish or a chicken stroganoff. Something creamy! There is apricot, marmalade and pineapple on the palate. $13.95 you say? Cheap and cheerful? Not really as a polite term for cheap wine. This goes beyond that and is a true find at a low price. You can find a treasure from southern France. This is one of them.

From the La Forge Vineyard in the Aude Valley on the edge of the Montane Noire.

Drink by the end of 2022.

(Paul Mas Single Vineyard Reserve Marsanne 2018, IGP Pays d”Oc, $13.95, Paul Mas, Peznas, France, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 462457, 750 mL, 13%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 91/100).

“My Life as a Golf Marshall”: True Stories from the Edge : THE FISHERMAN:

I was marshalling and there were two foursomes of thirty somethings playing their annual tournament. I told them my spotting someone fishing on the 4th hole. One of the golfer’s eye’s lit up and he said I have to show you something. He unzips his golf bag and shows me his mini fishing rod. Then he excitedly shows me a picture of him and a smallmouth bass he caught at a golf course out of the city. He then asked if there were fish on the 12 th hole. I replied if he was lucky perhaps goldfish.

RKS Wine :Douro is great but what about the Alentejano?

Let’s face in. The spotlight for international wine lovers in Portugal has been the Douro region about an hour by train from Porto to Douro wine country. Of course, even better is taking a cruise along the Douro River over to wine country. Porto was a bit rough on the edges a decade ago but it has been rejuvenated of late and unfortunately swamped by tourists particularly cruise ships so you really must escape from Porto’s centre to avoid the crush of the cruise ship passengers. As Barcelona suffered the crush with La Ramblas an artisanal centre in the 1970’s  morphed into a gaudy and cheap walk for the masses of cruise ship passengers so too will be the fate of Porto. It’s waterfront is crammed with tourists I hate to say this but on my last media trip to Porto I stayed at the Sheraton out in the “business district” which seemed a more authentic area and I even managed to find a couple of local restaurants where I was the only non-Portuguese diner. I think my sardines and salad with a glass of wine was 6 Euros.

I have become increasingly impressed with the wines from the Alentejo region of Portugal which is the biggest wine region in Portugal. And its red wines are not afraid of having Alicante Bouschet in their blend which can add a warm almost creamy nature to wines it is used in. The wines from Alentejo often have “international grapes” in their blend which can make some interesting wines. For example the Quinta do Quetzal has Syrah in its blend. At $16.95 it is not exactly bargain basement but is moderately priced and I’ll guess has more oomph to it that Niagara red wines in that price point.

On the nose this quasi-purplish wine has a forceful presence of blackberry, black cherry, Santa Rosa plums and raspberry cream filling. It is warning you that it’s going to full bodied but I’ve been fooled by the nose more than a few times that can’t translate into the palate. So on the palate? There are definitely tannins to the wine not overwhelming it but giving it a firm structure. There is raspberry jam, black cherry preserves, bits of black licorice, blueberries, some coconut and a nice slab of freshly baked cherry pie. It has a moderately long finish. It will improve in the bottle and cruise nicely into 2025.Beautifully made the wine has aged 12 months in French oak casks.

A blend of Alicante Bouschet, Syrah and Aragonez.

It would suit Portuguese ox filet. Or getting domestic, grilled beef or Prime Rib Roast beef with Yorkshire Pudding!

Try the magic of Alicante Bouschet! There is more to Portuguese wines than those made in the Douro!

(Quinta do Quetzal Guadalupe Wine Maker’s Selection Red 2018, Quinta do Quetzal, Vila de Frades, Portugal, $16.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 408138, 750 mL, 14.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 94/100).

RKS Films: Greek International Film Festival of Toronto: “Highway 13”: Spooky Canadian Short

Welcome to the inaugural Greek International Film of Festival running virtually and in theatre from October 1-3.

The first release I saw was “Highway 13” a short written, directed and produced by former Rogers senior executive Stanley Papulkas. Highway 13 is a highway in Alberta referred to as a Canadian Bermuda Triangle where strange things happen.

Indeed strange and spooky things happen as in 1962 we see Alex (Chris Pereira) and Glenda (Emma Houghton) driving along Highway 13 late at night. They are brought to a screeching halt by a ghoulish figure, Desdemona who Alex refers to smelling like a “rotten hamburger”. Well that so very Canadian innocent Glenda listens to this ghoulish figure who says she is looking for her husband Mollie who went looking for wood but has not been seen for some time. Alex goes into the woods….regrettably in search of Mollie. As he foams at the mouth and his eyeballs turn white he tells Glenda to run.  Then in 2021 Ruby (Tess Spentzos) and Frankie (George Scandalis) are travelling the same highway and who appears but Glenda claiming to be looking for Alex. History repeats itself.

Truly a Canadian production where trusting Canadians meet a fate you can decide on. Marvellous cinematography and a delightful offbeat soundtrack. I am steering clear of Highway 13 Canada’s Bermuda Triangle.

Offbeat, thoughtful and genuine. Motto of the story is do not go into the woods at dark.

You can see the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgId_0X7Qs4

Part of the Greek International Film Festival of Toronto. You can access the films available virtually and online at https://gifft.ca

My Life as a Golf Marshall: True Stories: SVEN THE ASSHOLE:A Bullet to the Head:

The golfer, (we will discuss Mr. Lunch later) who pleaded me to take him to his car for his medicine a.k.a. his lunch told me an awful story about Sven. Mr. Lunch was on the green on a par three and Sven let one fly from the tee box which is a no no. You never tee off on a par three with golfers on the green. Mr. Lunch was hit on the neck by Sven’s shot and went down seeing stars in his eyes and experiencing numbness in his hands. Was this a case of permanent paralysis? It didn’t bother Sven who not only failed to apologize but asked to play through while the golfer he injured lay prostrate on the ground. An A + dickhead.

RKS Wine: Enough of those Wimpy Rosés

I try not to impose too many of my dislikes upon your taste buds as if you like a certain style of wine good for you and enjoy it as long as it is well made and without flaws. I suppose what I am saying honour your preferences and don’t let a wine writer bully you into drinking what that wine writer likes! You are your own best critic.

You know I have a beef against most Niagara Riesling as being over acidic and tart but best not let me get started on that. I am also increasingly tired of Brut and Extra Brut sparklers. What about Sec or Demi-Sec? What on earth goes on in the heads of LCBO buyers.

For years I avoided most rosé wine as it seemed like a pink white wine if that makes sense. Then I had a dark rosé from Spain which I think was Vina Aljibes which was a robust pinkie full of red fruit and power. Then another dark rose Rebecca’s Rosé from Kacaba in Niagara was fantastic. So I have gone to the dark side of pink or at least a pink with personality and power. Sounds like a Pink Floyd album!

I selected a Mas des Bressades from Costières de Nîmes for Mas Bressades rarely makes a delicate wine. It looks darker in the bottle than in the glass. On the nose fairly forceful notes of raspberry, cherry and watermelon. On the palate there is some good traction to this copper-colored wine. I would venture to say the grapes must be in pebbly soil as there is some raspy minerality to it. You might say this is an unremarkable wine because nothing grabs your tastebuds initially but in the finish a mini explosion of all manner of red fruits. And the acidity is very muted making it a great sipping wine. I can think it would suit grilled octopus very well or a salad with local tomatoes and if I knew the local cheeses it strikes me a good match for semi-soft goat cheeses. As for meat and poultry you’d have to fly me to Southern France so I could sit in a local restaurant near the winery to give you a food pairing. Although I do not think it would be a match for beef or lamb it might quench the fire of some spicey meat like sausages. So locally here in Canada I’d go with hot Italian sausage or most Indian food..

Although I’d prefer a darker rosé this one does have personality and power.

A perfectly crafted wine.

(Mas Des Bressades 2020 Cuvée Tradition, Costières de Nîmes AOP, Cyril Marès, Manduel, France, $ 17.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 950576 ,750 mL, 13.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 89/100).

“My Life as a Golf Marshall” :“Your Marshalling Style”

There is nothing like marshalling that often draws out the extrovert out of the introvert. Most golfers are devout adherents to the sport and love chatting about all things golf. Having the golfers know you are marshalling to keep the flow steady is important and I think it generates more respect than herding them like naughty sheep. So it is the role of a Marshall to be a diplomat and if you like that style  it requires a bit of being a conversationalist, confidant , encourager and strategist . Now does this Marshall chit chat distract the golfer? I don’t think so. After awhile you begin to recognize regulars and establish a deeper relationship with them.

Yet there are the silent Marshall types that watch, fill a chart and about the only time they engage with golfers is to tell them to speed things up. Well that makes the Marshall seem more authoritarian and distant and may lead towards hostility towards an authoritarian figure. One golfer approached me and said,” You are the first Marshall that has spoken to me in 15 years!” That is a good sign. I take the time to chit chat with almost all the golfers I encounter. We exchange stories and I hope to convey the feeling I am “with them”. I really do not accept my own golfing experience of having old men Marshalls only saying pick up your pace. I rather resent them as not understanding that it is not me at fault but some distant foursome ahead of my group. My position is I am on your team and I’ll chase down the laggards and will return to all of you behind the laggards to tell you I have asked them to pick up their game. The Marshall should realise their job is customer service and not the laying down of the law.

What I have heard and experienced a “dickhead Marshall” and there are many at private clubs and this may be because the shit they take from “entitled” and wealthy golfers. There is one club just outside of Toronto where the Chief Marshall (from the Caribbean) was called a shoeshine boy by a “dickhead golfer”. In a public club more diplomatic Marshalling is required. Quite frankly playing the heavy tough Marshall in a public course amounts to asking for termination. Let me put it this way if you are a “dickhead” golfer go ahead and humiliate a Marshall if it makes you feel powerful but in the end you are making a fool of yourself. If you are “dickhead Marshall” do so at your peril. The only people that love a “dickhead” are the “dickheads” themselves!

“My Life as a Golf Marshall” :Back on Track After the Great COVID Lockdown

Rather stupidly golf courses were closed due to the Great Ontario Lockdown that started on April 17th and lasted until May 22. The closure of my golf course was just that and the golf course was open as a park but somewhat quiet on the weekdays. As a park there was more crowding and lack of social distancing than had the golf course been open for golfers. The ignorance of the politico medico elite frightens me. They are off base with golf courses so how can we trust their medical “expertise”? We took advantage of this taking our dog on long walks at least three times a week. In addition to being good exercise for man and beast it enabled me to get to know the holes better. A golfer walks from one to eighteen in a linear fashion but a Marshall may zig zag to and fro so it is a good idea to know your holes, shortcuts and vantage points!

Getting up for the summer shift means being at the golf course at 6 for my 7-12 shift. I am not a morning person so I am making a sacrifice for what? Certainly not the money which is less than what you would make as a bus boy in a restaurant. It is the free golf. Yes for each shift you work you get 18 free holes at my golf course and you are inked in without the hassle of making any bookings.

Golfers were in a rip- roaring good mood when the course re-opened. Being imprisoned is no fun for human beings. I mean nary a single complaint was heard. And the divorce from the golf course certainly made for a bounty of bad shots. Golf can be humiliating sport. It can be cruel. Last year I recall making some super shots but they seemed to be attracted ever so slightly to tree branches. An inch here and there that’s all I needed to self-destruct. My last shot of the year was out of a sand trap over some impossibly high trees but I cleared them ending up three inches from the cup. I believe that to be one of golf’s greatest shots.

Happy golfers basking in the delight of their addiction is a Marshall’s dream. And strangely the golf course on this Victoria Day long week-end was somewhat quiet due to the threat of rain showers which must have frightened off 50 or 60 people, The flow was perfect. No waits or jam ups and since summer weather is coming a Marshall starting in the morning need not dress in gloves and a winter coat so this Marshall and all golfers had a happy day. Even those shots that infuriate golfers today resulted in laughter and not curses. How long is this happy buzz going to last?

RKS Wine: The Penniless Pensioner in Naples: I am worried!

After his engagement with Celine Serpent seemed to implode PP seems to have become a bit unhinged. He was put on tranquilizers by his therapist. And I receive an e-mail from him saying he is in Naples negotiating some cheese importation deal. I hope he knows who he is dealing with as when last in Naples the Mafia was big on counterfeit cheese and illegal dumping of garbage which you could see in the countryside here and there. PP narrowly managed a takedown in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and his offshore Panamanian bank accounts are sure bait for the Canada Revenue Agency to accuse him of tax fraud.

Well, while having dinner at Naples’s down home and perhaps best restaurant Umberto’s he had some Il Poggio Taburno Falanghina Del Sannio and asked if I could review it and let the good people of Canada know about it. He said Luca Maroni rated it a 95 and James Suckling a 92. So the next day a couple of men in silk suits driving a Maserati dropped off a case of the wine “for my troubles”. I got the impression if I didn’t like it I might suffer some fractures to my legs…..just a joke they laughed.

Deep fried Campanian vegetables with Arancini: Photo Robert K. Stephen

So under no pressure at all I try this Campanian wine. It is grown in volcanic soils so I am expecting something special!

It is light gold in colour. Very direct and clean in your face aromas of guava, lime, lemon and pineapple. This cleanliness is an advantage of wine fermented and aged in stainless steel. On the palate equally clean with precise minerality all clear as a bell. On the palate green apple and pear. There is nothing fancy or flashy about the wine. The best I can describe it would be clean and pure. Unlike red wines grown in volcanic soil there are no coal or petrol notes to the wine.

It has a short finish.

I rub my legs. I think they will remain intact but what about PP all alone in Napoli? I feel he is a little fish in a very big pond!

Speaking of fish this would be great for simply grilled white ocean fish or a plate of deep-fried Campanian vegetables or calamari.

(Il Poggio Taburno Falanghina del Sannio 2018 DOP. Il,Poggio di Fusco Carmine, Torrecuso, Italy, $16.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 17695, 750 mL, 13.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 92/100)

RKS Films: “Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz”

Growing up as a teen in Montreal I remember walking through Alexis Nihon Plaza in downtown Montreal and hearing Led Zeppelin 2 blasting from a record store. Was that in 1969? I just had to buy it and arguably isn’t that one of the best rock albums of all time? Yes I loved them and Cream, Hendrix, Joplin and the Allman Brothers.

I was NEVER LOST IN ROCK! Despite all the great rock in the late 1960’s and 1970’s I was a bit of an outcast listening to classical music and jazz and enjoying it. But the jazz was traditional if I can use that word. Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Mingus and loads of classical jazz musicians. As a reviewer of jazz and blues performances I had an opportunity to see many of the greats long gone into the world beyond while so many of my cohorts were listening to rock.

Even beyond that after moving to Toronto I continued to listen to jazz and classical while rock had long died especially with the biggest traitor of all Rod Stewart going disco after a great run with the Jeff Beck Band. He disgusts me and I look forward to him writing theme music for Harlequin Romance films.

I can’t remember all the jazz concerts I reviewed in Montreal but if I could recount all the names you might say I was a very lucky man and I will not disagree.

So after listening to jazz for 40 years I watch “Free Music: The Story of Free Jazz” and I feel lost. What is this type of music? I can throw a bunch of names that play this genre of jazz and am left with a headache with discordant and maniacal jazz. So jarring I almost said no more so I stopped the film after 35 minutes and went to bed yesterday to continue tonight.

Of course, as a reviewer I will not snow you and say truthfully, I can’t identify with this style of avant- garde “free jazz”. I have never heard of the many avant-garde musicians in this film. It is not my fault as my radio stations have failed me sadly perhaps looking for a more comfortable style of jazz. I have never heard any Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Prince Lasha, Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Sam Rivers or Sun Ra on my local jazz station. Quite frankly the music is a cacophony and may lead to a migraine headache as one commentator suggests. But a bright light went off in my head as there is a clip of Gato Barbieri, an Argentinian saxophonist I saw live in that jazz club in Montreal, was it Sunrise? He had a slightly wild saxophone that must have tinges of free jazz! Note that wild his playing was on the film “Last Tango in Paris”.

I must admit that is not my style of music but as an historical trail, of “free jazz” it is a must for I am sure are a bunch of jazz ignoramuses.

Free jazz may be what Picasso or Miro was to art or Jimmy Hendrix to rock but it is a journey should you take if you are interested in jazz and what the mainstream has missed. You might not like the music but the fact you may not have been exposed to it reeks of jazz propaganda control.

Although the film is 84 minutes in length it spans 20 or so years jam packed with archival footage and cinematography that takes you back to a 1970 Mahogany Rush concert in Montreal with a light show!

A film by Tom Surgal and executive producers Ron Mann and Peter Afterman.

A thorough look at a largely ignored genre of jazz.

You can see trailer here https://vimeo.com/ondemand/firemusicfilmca/596149413

Theatrical releases in Canada are:STARTS Sept 29: HOT DOCS (Toronto, ON) In-Cinema
STARTS Sept 30: HOT DOCS (Toronto, ON) Virtual
STARTS Oct 8: WINNIPEG CINEMATHEQUE (Winnipeg, MB) In-Cinema
STARTS Oct 15: FIRST ONTARIO PLACE PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE (St. Catharines, ON) In-Cinema
STARTS Oct 22: VANCITY (Vancouver, BC) In-Cine