More Wine on the South Shore

Lost in Southampton

Friday, Sept. 8

I’m either very relaxed—perhaps soothed by the ions in the sea air—or I’m coming down with something. I can never tell the difference.

I rode one of Bryan’s bicycles yesterday. Don’t know how far I went—50 miles easy, maybe a hundred. I went out past the hospital. It, too, has a huge hedge, I guess to protect the identities of the sick. Everybody is supposed to be rich here, so they have to protect their identities. It’s a rule written somewhere.

The hospital hedge is a few yards from the site of the original town, where the religious dissidents (what else?) from Massachusetts built dugouts to live in while they made more permanent dwellings. It conjures up a strange picture—guys in Pilgrim hats and buckle shoes living like Hobbits.

Some firemen were setting up camp near Cooper’s Beach. More than a dozen trailers were parked in the lot by the dunes and across the road more firemen were pitching tents. It may be an outing of volunteer firefighters. I saw a few trucks with different town names on them.

I could hear them blasting their sirens this morning, so there may have been a parade.

The tide and the surf were high. The cloud cover had thinned, so everything—sky, water, foam, sand—had a silver cast.

I rode some distance farther along the dunes until I got tired and came back.

I seem to recall sitting in deck chair for—I don’t know—five minutes or ten days watching birds fight over plots of grass by the pool. I didn’t do anything, not even drink a beer, that whole time.

I took Joanna out to see the surf. The waves looked like they were breaking just about at eye level. At one point the end of a wave came up onto the beach and didn’t stop. I was wearing the only pair of shoes I packed, so I was racing to keep my feet dry.

Joanna had the foresight to take her shoes off. That’s why she’s pointing with her sandals.  

The surf tends to be high here. We were sitting in the house at night and Joanna asked if I could hear the ocean. I thought the noise was from trucks going by on the main road a block or so from the house. Not so. It was from the surf, which could be a quarter mile away from us.

Some brave souls yesterday morning were out in the waves. All you could see were a couple of heads bobbing up and down.

After lunch, we visited the tasting room of the Wolffer Estates Winery, which is just a little farther east of here than Channing Daughters. When we got there, a man was using a forklift to load plastic containers onto a truck. I think they were shipping wine in bulk.

Turns out, they serve food there, and we could have had lunch with the wine. But we didn’t know that at the time.

We split one flight of wines. it started with a sparkling wine, “brut” because it was dry, and “blanc des blancs,” we were told because it was made only from chardonnay grapes. It had a sweet edge, like Prosecco and Asti spumante, the Italian sparkling wines that I know. That’s because the climates of Italy and Long Island are warmer than that of Champagne, where the flavor of the wine is drier. I do not know this. I am only repeating what I remember.

The second wine was a still chardonnay, a little sweeter than I expected, but also better. I don’t know if it’s a quirk of my tongue or if anybody else gets this, but one of the reasons I stay away from chardonnay and chablis is that when they go down they have a musty, sour, almost moldy aftertaste. I find them good with a few things that kill that effect—chardonnay with Thanksgiving dinner, for instance—but generally I prefer reds. The Wolffer chardonnay had none of that. It was very good all the way through.

There was a red that had been aged, if I heard right, about 15 years. I can’t swear to that. 

The last was an ice wine. They pick the grapes late, and because they can’t count on a natural frost in time, they freeze the grapes after they are picked and then crush them. This one was definitely sweet. According to the lady who served us, it would be good with a piece of hard cheese after a meal, but not with chocolate cake. The red would be good for that. This last bit I knew, because I often have red wine with chocolate.

The cheapest bottle of Wolffer wine is $37, and it goes up to at least $195. That’s a little rich for my blood. I can buy classics like Barbaresco and Chateauneuf du Pape for less than that, so I decided to pass.

Yesterday morning, when we stopped at the library to get directions to Wolffer, I discovered there is WiFi there, besides the desktop computers connected to the Internet. I went back there to send yesterday’s e-mail and stopped at a restaurant called Tuscan House to make reservations for dinner. It was Friday night, and I have no idea how busy the town’s restaurants get on weekends this time of year. 

I have to say, though, in case anybody comes this way, that Tuscan House is overpriced. We shared an entrée—spaghettini alla puttanesca. It is a tomato sauce with green and black olives, capers, and “a hint of anchovies.” The green olives were very salty and there were at least twice as many as there should have been.  I know we’re near the ocean, but the salt should not have been that overpowering. I couldn’t finish my half.

Joanna’s version of this sauce is far better—lighter on the tomatoes, more anchovies, and very judicious application of olives and capers.

The wine, however, was very good, a Sangiovese, a pinot noir, and a Chianti. They cut some of the salt.

Joanna had packed some beach towels in the trunk of the car, so we went back to Cooper’s Beach, where the firemen were. You can smell the ocean before you see it: Salt air and something like fresh clams on the half shell. In the dark, all you can make out is the white lines where the waves are breaking.

The sky had cleared, so we spread the towels on the sand and lay down to look at the stars. Remembering the morning’s shoe episode, I made sure we were well up the beach.

There were a couple of flood lights trained on the sand. the cafe was closed but maybe the lights were on so no firemen would get lost or fall in.

The light was strong enough that we couldn’t see the Milky Way. Even so, there were so many stars, that I was lying on my back trying to find one of the two constellations I know, Orion’s belt and the big dipper, but had no success. 

Same when we returned to Bryan’s backyard, where it was even darker.

I almost fell asleep on the beach. As I say, I’m either relaxed or coming down with something.

Saturday, Sept. 9:

We decided to come home today.

First we went to the art museum, but it was closed. They probably don't have an exhibition right now.

So we said hello to the heads of the 19 Caesars in the yard next to the museum, bought an ice cream cone, walked on Job's Lane and Main Street, and headed home.

We left around three, so we missed the tornadoes. We had stopped for gas in Clifton and just as I was getting back into the car, the wind hit and I got a spray of rain in the face. 

That was it. All that downpour and I didn't get rained on, except a little when I ran into the house.

It was great being home again, eating my own meat sauce, getting mildly buzzed on red wine, watching season three of "The Tudors" on Netflix. One of the joys of going away is that you enjoy coming back, too.

Unless something really weird happens close to home, the next dispatch should be from Hong Kong in a few weeks.

Sept. 9

Dear Harry,

Happy you enjoyed where I spent my summers until I was 18. I have very fond memories of the east end of Long Island.

I would love Joanna's recipe for puttanesca! Sounds perfect!

Love,

Anna

Wines on the South Shore

Greetings from downtown Southampton

Sept. 7

I’m sitting on Bryan’s back porch in Southampton on Friday morning. The yard is surrounded by a hedge and a fence because there is a pool here. But this isn’t one of the towering Hamptons privet hedges. This one consists of what appear to be cedars or junipers and rhododendron with trumpet vines and roses climbing through them.

We left Montclair yesterday morning, and since it was any day but Sunday, we took the long way around—the George Washington Bridge, Cross Bronx Expressway, Throgs Neck Bridge, and the Cross Island Parkway to the Long Island Expressway.

If we had taken the shortcut through midtown, we likely would still be waiting for a light on 34th Street.

The ride is fun. It takes you though the Pine Barrens, and then near the end, through the Shinnecock Indian Reservation. In a stretch of less than a mile, there is a souvenir store, a luncheonette, and about a dozen stores selling tax-free cigarettes.

One of the cigarette stores is called Smokin’ Arrows. No fooling. I wonder if there isn’t some underlying hostility there.

After all, these fellows’ distant cousins killed one of my distant cousins, Anne Hutchinson, during King Philip’s War in the 1600s. Anyhow, this time we crossed the res and weren’t captured.

We rolled into the driveway about one and a short while later headed out to the Southampton Publick House, which brews its own beer. The Secret Ale is a German-style altbier, lighter than I expected but fine for lunch.

Besides, I didn’t want to ruin my palate for what came next.

We had made a brief stop at the local library to access the internet. The Channing Daughters Winery had been written up in a magazine article that Joanna clipped. The byline was Baroness something or other. I trust that this is the pen name of somebody from Passaic named Sally Smith or something. It would be very sad to think anyone who was a real baroness had to sign her name that way.

Turns out Channing Daughters is just east of Southampton. It’s in Bridgehamptom. Everything for a long ways out here is a Hampton of some kind. Come to think of it, though, I didn’t see a Hampton Inn, but surely they must have one or two at least.

When you get to the winery, you drive down a gravel road through the vineyard. White grapes on one side, purple on the other. The grounds are dotted with curious but very witty carvings.

The bartender in the tasting room told us that the place is owned by Walter Channing, who started growing grapes in the 1980s to make wine for himself. It later became a business, which is run by other people. Walter does the carvings. There is even a sculpture garden—a large meadow with various strange figures, some worked more than others.

The symbol of the winery is an overturned tree. It goes back to the early days of the winery, when a tree was uprooted by a hurricane and landed upside down on some kind of large tripod that may have been a long-abandoned farm-related structure. Maybe it held the wind-driven pump, or that’s where they tethered the unruly cows. I don’t know.

Some of the figures made me feel that I had wandered onto the set of “Fantasia,” but of course “Fantasia” didn’t have a set because it was a cartoon, so the thought was unsettling and made my head hurt.

The tasting costs ten bucks to sample six wines. There were three whites. the most intense was the first one, called Sylvanus, named for the Green Man, the Roman god of the forest. It was one of the most flavorful white wines I ever tasted and was a lot of fun. Sylvanus is a field blend of Muscat, pinot grigio, and pinot bianco. Of course, I don’t know what that all means, but we were told that “field blend” refers to the way the grapes are treated. They are collected together from the field and treated as one type of grape. 

Many wine blends, apparently, are fermented separately and mixed later. There may be other ways, too, but I didn’t get it all. There’s probably some cool stuff I’m leaving out, but if there is, Larry may be able to fill us in.

Sylvanus overpowered the second white wine, a pinot grigio, which in turn overpowered a tocai Friulano--something I’d never had before. It tasted all right, but more in line with the light fruity taste that I expect from most whites.

A man came in later and asked if the winery had a Riesling. It didn’t, but the bartender offered the  man a sample of the pinot grigio. He bought two bottles.

Then we had three that weren’t on the menu. Two were called orange wines because they were in fact orange. They get that way because they are made of white grapes, and the skins and seeds are left in the mashed pulp for a while.

One smelled familiar. The bartender said “lychee” and both Joanna and I said “yes.”

It was strange—lychee-flavored wine. The second orange wine smelled and tasted like the orange rusk in Grand Marnier.

Then we had a red called Over and Over. This is like sour mash. Some of the wine of one year’s vintage is reserved and added to the fermenting grapes of the next year’s. Each year some of the old wine is added to the new. I think this is the one that went down with an aftertaste like good whiskey.

I once read about a Eucharistic tradition in the Middle East that goes something like that. Tradition has it that some of the dough that made the bread for the Last Supper was reserved and put into the dough for the next batch of bread. They kept doing that with each new batch of bread, so today’s bread still retains a small fragment of the original bread. I have no idea if there really is such a tradition. The writer could have made it up. I forget where I read it or who the writer was. Maybe a baroness. Maybe Sally Smith.

The wine menu had a rose made of cabernet sauvignon. This was pretty tasty, too. The description said strawberries, and maybe so. But not sweet at all.

Due Uve, another red, is made of syrah grapes with 16 percent merlot. This smelled and tasted kind of smoky.

Mudd was a red blend of five kinds of grapes. It got its name because some of the grapes came from a vineyard on the North Shore named after the Mudd family. The description says “aromas and flavors of black plums, cherries, brown spice, forest floor, black raspberries, black peppercorns, and cocoa.” What a mouthful. I think I caught what they mean by “forest floor” and a bit of the peppercorns.

Anyhow, I bought a bottle of that and the Sylvanus.

Today’s photo is a nose and pony tail study shot by Joanna. It’s Harry meets the vineyard.

The grape vines grow on frames in narrow rows and each row is covered by a huge hairnet. Maybe this keeps the birds out. It’s too low to have any effect on Luftwaffe dive bombers.

Somehow they get all the grapes to hang from the bottom of the vines. this arrangement, I am guessing, is the result of husbandry and is therefore unnatural. 

Next stop was the beach. The surf was loud and the tide coming in. Some of the breakers were so big that drops of spray hit us from more than 100 feet away. We may have stood on the beach for best part of two hours just to watch to foam get closer.

The horizon was hard to make out because the sky was gray and so was the water.

We wound up at a bistro in Southampton Village where we we sat at the bar to have an appetizer of smoked trout and some French onion soup. Also a cabernet sauvignon, a merlot, and a pinot noir, all from California and all very good.

I’m going out on the bicycle now, and will send this when I get a chance.

Everybody, be well.

Harry

Nord Encore, Part Deux

Liturgy, Tomahawk, etc.

Sept. 2

Finally catching up.

We went out Sunday morning for a stroll and then went to hear mass sung in the cathedral.

The mass was in French. I tried to follow along in the order of service sheet, but of course, kept losing my place. When I wasn’t lost, I was days late with the responses. I even made believe that I could pronounce part of the creed. The liturgy included both creeds—the Apostles’ Creed, and the Nicene. If I remember right, the priest said the Nicene Creed by himself. Maybe everyone was supposed to join in (as they do in the Episcopal Eucharist, for instance), but they were tired by that time.

It was fun and very beautiful, but by one o’clock when church let out, I was dizzy and in need of hydration. So we strolled around looking for a place where I could get a beer.

Then other things started to compete with my need for refreshment.

The Hudson’s Bay Company department store, for instance. I didn’t see any beaver hats, but they did have Lady Gaga’s and Madonna’s perfumes for sale next to each other. I don’t know if you’ve seen the ads for Lady Gaga’s entry, but I particularly like the way the Blue Man Group climbs up her armpit.

Still no beaver hats, but one department kept up some of the old traditions. You can buy a canoe and a $200 paddle there. What’s more, there was a glass case with furry Canadian Great White North hat, earflaps and all, plus a tomahawk with a two-foot handle. There were colorful stripes on everything, the tomahawk handle, Swiss army knives. You could buy a blanket with stripes on it and give it to the Indians so they’d leave you alone at Glens Falls.

I wanted to buy the tomahawk and furry hat for Joanna. I told her: You wear the hat and carry the tomahawk, nobody will mess with you. Like me. I wear a hat and nobody messes with me. I don’t even need the tomahawk. A guy in a pony tail and a tie. They can’t tell if you’re a lawyer or a gangster; all they know is that they’d better behave.

But no, for all my attempts at persuasion, Joanna didn’t want tomahawk or fuzzy hat. {Editor’s note: Harry is still working on it to this day, and hopes some day to place a mail order.]

After the department store, we walked into the Quartier des Spectacles. All right. This is where the Montreal Festival of Films of the World is centered. There is an inflatable outdoor screen for showing movies. There is also a Place des Arts (at least, I think that’s what it’s called), which is a complex of venues for performances of various kinds—opera, pop music, ballet, maybe acrobatics and gun fights.

Across from that was the Desjardins mall. Ah, there would be a food court, and perhaps beer. As it turned out, no beer that I could see at the food court. Joanna noticed that there was a franchise of the St. Hubert chicken rotisserie somewhere in the mall. It took a couple of seconds looking at the map in my unrefreshed state to pinpoint where it was, hidden up the leg of a wing, which I guess is appropriate, in a confused sort of way, for a chicken joint.

St. Hubert is the guy who saw the stag with a crucifix between its antlers and became a bishop. A representation of that legend, which has nothing to do with chicken, is represented on the Jagermeister label. But I digress.

All they had was Labatt’s Bleue, spelled that way because it’s French Canada. It was like an upscale Bud, but hey, it was beer and 5 percent. It was a good for breakfast. After all, all I had taken so far was some coffee, with yogurt and fruit from a breakfast chain called Chez Cora.

The mall had a Clarks store, one of Joanna’s favorites, so we stopped there to look at the shoes. One of the displays had fuzzy boots. They would have been perfect with the furry hat and tomahawk from Hudson’s Bay. Yes, let’s get the boots, and then we can go back to the department store. It isn’t far. But I still couldn’t convince Joanna.

In the block next to the mall and the Place des Arts is the stretch with the sex shops and strip clubs. Quarter of Spectacles, indeed. I was told in my youth that this stuff could make you go blind.

Dinner was at a place that by itself may be worth the trek to Montreal. It’s called La Gargote. According to my Pocket Larousse, that means a place with low prices and mediocre food. Neither was the case. We had more snails, and a rabbit leg. Judging by the scale of that leg, it would have been the biggest damned rabbit I ever saw. We also sampled as many wines as we could. We had three cotes: de Ventoux, de Provence, and du Rhone. Also a Beaujolais cru. Larry told me years ago that “cru” is a French government controlled term for a distinguished vineyard.

All the wines were fantastic. We had the Beaujolais with dessert, an upside down apple pie called tarte tatin. I tried to order that in pidgin French, and the waitress said “What?”

We walked back to the hotel and on the way we stepped into a building. I forget why. But the place was closed for private party, which I believe was an Arab Christian wedding. We got there just as the bridal party was being introduced. Flashing strobe lights, drummers in checkered head scarves and white robes. The women’s heads were not covered, and everybody except the drummers were in Western dress. The bride wore white, with her shoulders uncovered.

The drummers did a catchy little dance, although the bride and groom were still waiting for their song to take their first dance as husband and wife. They looked a little dazed by it all. Maybe this was her mom’s idea. Some of the guests got up and danced along while they recorded it all on their cell phones.

The rest of the walk home and the wine put me to sleep just fine.

Olmsted and His Works

Sept. 3

Checked out early, got the car and drove up the hill. The lady who served us at St. Hubert in La Gare Windsor told us that you never get lost in Montreal because you look uphill and seen the Mont Real.

We parked the car as far up as we could drive and climbed the stairs to the entrance of Le Parc du Mont-Royale. Don’t ask me why the spelling changes. I don’t know.

We climbed up the Avenue des Pins and came to Chemin Olmsted and kept climbing. It’s wooded and calm. Joggers and bikers go by, but there’s plenty of room. Rich people’s yards back on the park.

It was hotter than I expected—in the high 70s or low 80s—so I carried my jacket and didn’t wear a vest, but was still soaked before we got to the top. Joanna, as usual, was unfazed.

The park is on top of the volcanic outcropping for which the city is named. The original park superintendent’s house is now a public building with exhibits, which tell you that Indians lived here thousands of years ago, that the stone from which the city is built comes from here, and that, like Central Park in New York, it was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Wow. That’s why there was a Chemin Olmsted. And I had suspected the road was named for a local politician.

There is an artificial lake which was dry and dug up for reconstruction. Many of the lawns were dotted with large stone abstracts. I don’t think they were part of Olmsted’s original design. They may be more recent additions, or else stones the Vikings set up during weekend excursions from Vinland.

On the ride home we saw some turkeys and a few runt deer. I mean very small. So was the corn in the fields. I hope the farmers and the poachers are all right. The apples in the orchards seemed to be plentiful.

We went to Calandra’s in Caldwell for dinner and more wine. Then we were done for this voyage.

Be well, all.

Harry.

Blue Ridge etc. Part 5

Day 7, Roanoke to Middletown

July 6

Roanoke to Middletown started on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have had so much of the picturesque and scenic that I can’t wait to get back to Newark.

We left the Parkway to go to Lexington Virginia. On the way south on I-81, I had seen a sign that said Lexington was the home town of Stonewall Jackson. Why, next to the shrine at Guinea Station, Jackson’s home would have to be the Sedona, Arizona, of Stonewall Jackson mysticism. I had to go there.



The man at the Lexington visitors center didn’t say Jackson was born there, but his house was a couple of blocks up the street. He lived there from 1851 until he joined the Confederate Army in 1861.

He was a professor of philosophy and of artillery at Virginia Military Institute, which is in Lexington. I guess mastering both those subjects make anyone extremely persuasive.

We discovered that Washington and Lee University is also in Lexington. After he was paroled, or pardoned, or whatever, after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee was named president of Washington University. He held that job until 1869, when he had a stroke and died of pneumonia a few days later.

He could fight the U.S. Army for four years and come out all right, but four years of college kids made his head blow up. They added Lee’s name to the university after he died.

There is a marble cenotaph in the Lee Chapel on the university campus. It reminded me of the ones we saw in St. Paul’s in London. This one showed Lee during his insurrection years, sleeping in his Confederate uniform on the battlefield next to his saber. He appears serene. Perhaps he is dreaming of carnage. Generals may do that.

I have read recently, probably on a website somewhere, a quote attributed to Lee. It was advice to the young men of the university. In those days, only men attended universities. It was about hewing to the just and the right, and also avoiding spirituous liquors. No wonder he was belligerent. Lee needed to lighten up.

I think he is buried not under the monument but in the crypt of the chapel. The Lee Chapel is on the campus of the university. There is also a Robert E. Lee Memorial Episcopal (what else?) Church next to the campus but apparently independent of the school. This is the church Lee used to attend.

We also saw the monument to Stonewall Jackson at the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery in Lexington.



We drove up U.S. Route 11, which in Virginia at least, is called the Lee-Jackson Highway. We drove through Staunton, past the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library. Wilson was born there, and right near his house is a sign for the Stonewall Jackson Conference Center.

I think we also passed a Stonewall Motel and maybe Stonewall Motors used cars. Today’s photo is Joanna visits Stonewall.



That’s his house in Lexington behind her.

Everybody is lovely and charming down here, but just a little bit crazy when it comes to the Civil War. That and the hiking trails in the woods are the region’s main tourist attractions. Admit it now: When was the last time you said, I have to go visit the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library.

But battlefields and bullets, acting out Daniel Boone, standing on the mountaintop and making wisecracks, getting rescued from the heat--now, that’s what travel is all about.

And the cult of Stonewall Jackson? That is funny and well worth a drive of a few hundred miles.

A little way south of Strasburg, there is a covered bridge not far from the highway. We had to be careful when we got out to explore it because it’s still in use. When we were walking inside, we had to stand by the wall from time to time to let a car go by. It’s very dark in there and, coming out of the sunlight the drivers couldn’t see us.



If I had a pumpkin for a head (well, the "if" is debatable), I could have performed some real mischief.

Another cool thing about this bridge, aside from the novelty of its being covered, is the approach. You pull off the highway onto what must have been the drive to the big house on a long-gone plantation. The road runs straight between two large fields that extend all the way from Route 11 to the bridge. They may be several acres each.The road is lined with huge hardwoods. It looks like something from “Gone With the Wind.” But that’s appropriate because, although it’s Virginia and not Georgia, the same wind blew this place away, too.

We also stopped in New Market. I'd been there before. I may have stayed in a motel near the town during one of my previous raids into Rebel territory. There was a battle of New Market. Of course, that's not a big distinction in this neighborhood.There was a battle of almost every town along Route 11 in Virginia. Confederate soldiers, a sign says, used signal flags on top of one of the buildings in the town.

There's a log house, too. I thought it was a reproduction but apparently it's original.



One thing I noticed is that the Manor Memorial United Methodist Church sits right next to the Smith Creek Regular Baptist Church. Do the United Methodists get along with the Regular Baptists? Do they even speak to each other on Sunday mornings? If I walked between the two buildings would they fall on top of me?

The Wayside Inn in Middletown was started in 1797. It serves Virginia wines, including a cabernet franc that was only available by the bottle. It’s a little bit sharp, but very tasty. Joanna finished a glass of it.

The inn claims the peanut soup is made according to a recipe that dates to the founding of the hotel. The spoonbread is like cornbread mixed with eggs. The lamb shank, as advertised, fell off the bone.

No room for dessert. I finished off the wine in the room and fell asleep.



Day 8, Middletown to Home

July 7

Went exploring the Wayside this morning. Some of the structure is original, and like all old places, more was tacked on later. If you’re tall, you’ll have to duck now and then for low beams. The inn opened in the year that Washington died, and there are prints of him and a few of Martha, too, all over the place. Also portraits of unidentified people. Some may be originals, but I really wouldn’t know.

The inn is easy to find. It sits right on the Lee-Jackson Highway, which follows Main Street in Middletown. Out front there is a historical marker that says Stonewall Jackson succeeded in some kind of maneuver that forced a Union general to divide his army.

That was in May 1862. Stonewall Jackson didn’t have long to go after that.

Got back home around 4:30 Saturday, after a drive of about 1,800 miles, but aromas and the lights and the colors were fantastic. There was also Cabela's, sitting on a bluff over Route 78, so we had to stop there and look at firearms and stuffed animals. Who the hell shoots prairie dogs? They're cute.



I was thinking about buying a .22 short, but decided to keep my life simple and bought a switchblade instead.

I am back in New Jersey, so dinner was chicken cacciatore with bread from Calandra’s bakery.

The cat is happy.

Be well, all.

Harry