Lucinda Williams & St Helena Cab

It’s pretty impossible to forget a night in New York City downing a bottle of St. Helena Cabernet Sauvignon with Lucinda Williams in her dressing room. When I recall that evening, it isn’t pinned in my memory by the awe or nerves I felt from hanging out alone with this queen of country. It’s glued in place by the interplay between sounds & flavors of the moment: the folky reverberations of the artists onstage floating upstairs, the wine’s blackcurrant & tobacco aromas wafting out of the readily available plastic cup, and stories told by Lu’s gravel road voice. 

The topic of conversation was cherishing her contemporaries. Lucinda had just finished her performance in a variety show, a duet with Emmylou Harris, and I arrived at the perfect time with a bottle to reflect within. As I drove my corkscrew into the best Cab of the bunch, she reminisced about the loss of so many artists who’d come up with and before her. It was December of 2017 and Tom Petty had recently passed. Her disbelief at the immediacy of his loss was palpable in the room; it hung heavy and stained the air already musty with the backstage area’s old wooden construction. Words formed slowly in between sips of wine, warbling out in disconnected stanza. She had opened a few of Petty’s final shows and found him to be in good health and spirits. They’d even taken some joyous selfies together.

As she reflected, sound & flavor made its mark on this moment. Her stories come to me now in plastic sidewall refractions of dark fermented fruit and a hint of perfumed beauty products in the air. Steve Earle’s growl could be heard emanating through the floorboards, his distinct Americana accompanied by vibrations of thick overdriven electric guitar and stings of red-hot fiddle a la The Dukes. My throat clenched around the Cab’s alcohol burn, stinging with the echoes of the sawing bow below as I struggled to swallow Lucinda’s sorrowful bereavement. We gulped this back together, allowing the pleasant acids to nest upon our palettes in the moments of silence needed to pay tribute in reflection. Those pauses for tasting & consideration as we poured out some of Napa’s finest rendered this experience one of a kind. 

Lucinda reminisces…

…and I sneakily try to snap a pic while we sip… admittedly a little shaky.

So many of my experiences can be recalled by revisiting a tightly woven tapestry of sounds & flavors. As I turn to share this blend of sensory richness with you, I rejoice in the chance to re-taste, to remember, and to make new memories as our present seasons turn into the new vintage.

Reelin in the Years + 2012 Valois Pomerol

Reelin in the Years

Chateau Valois 2012 Pomerol

 You’ve belted the chorus, you’ve indulged in nostalgia, but what do you drink when you’re “Reelin in the Years”? Steely Dan’s sardonic dig at an ex lover’s poor choices pours an acidic vintage into my glass.

Chateau Valois 2012 Pomerol brought me to an “everlasting summer fading fast”. The 2012 growing season “didn’t turn out like you planned”-- early freeze, long summer drought, and rainy, unpredictable harvest time kept winemakers on their toes. Valois “gathered up the tears” and created a blend of 83% Merlot/ 17% Cab Franc that shuffles the palette into this classic groove. Its tight rhythm gallops into deep plum and fresh red berry, as Fagen’s fingertips deliver descending lines of lush harmony to match. Elliot Randall’s overdub guitar work peppers this song throughout, and Valois’ new French oak treatment spices this wine with licorice and herbal notes that punch our pallet like the sharp tones of those legendary solos.

It happened…

This pairing comes from one of my first live wine & music shows in 2019 with a band of Berklee professors called The Experts.

Even though they both hit bouts of hardship, neither the Dan’s girl nor the 2012 Pomerol are easily forgotten.

Viva el Dan. Drink good Bordeaux.

Fresh Leon + Rioja Blanco

Liquid gold behind a starched curtain in sepia tone. The needle hisses over spun wax, the dance-worn floorboards exhale.

Felix Azpilicueta’s ‘17 Colección Privada Rioja Blanco was an aesthetic delight of this nostalgic quality, and with Rioja, aesthetic is everything. It’s also the sonic language Leon Bridges expertly crafts works in. “Nostalgia is the antidote” [to being replaced], he says. As I take time with his new album Gold-Diggers Sound, a piece in tribute to the timeless, I’m reflecting on the plight of Rioja’s whites and finding a perfect pair in their quandaries.

Strength of tradition in the bottle

Admiring this beauty in a restaurant in Getaria, Pais Vasco, Espana.

It’s tradition that continues to define both these wines and this artist; aesthetic that keeps us returning for more. Leon’s studio achievement is in the delicate, subtle balance of textures- soft synth elements and reverb soaked organic instruments to complement his croon. But is the harkening memorable? Will it have longevity? Rioja’s reds ride shotgun on a polyester seat, but take a peek through the back window at oft overlooked whites, still steeped in tradition, rich with memorable aesthetic.

Azpilicueta creates his private collection whites with care, blending Viura (or Macabeo) and Malvasia in harmony, aging in barrel for toasty truffle tones and freshly shaved cardamom pods over its lemon flesh. Its sappy balsa wood aroma has a starchy waft like the curtain we walked through to get here, shrouding the vanilla créme, letting us forget that the starfruit juice is leaking on the old record sleeve. And so be it, let that juice soak and become a stain, a memory. Nostalgia keeps us coming back, aesthetic entrenches it, and the sounds and flavors will stay as long as we let them. Always love soul sounds, always share Rioja blanco.