Evaluating California vintages with any degree of accuracy is another matter. First,California is a very big area. It’s very hard to reconcile rain in Napa on 25 Sept after all the Chardonnay has been picked, with the same storm in Monterey before the Chardonnay harvest even begins. Similarly a great year in Californiafor Pinot Noir may not be a very good year for Zinfandel. In Germany or Bordeaux a Vintage Chart basically evaluates a single varietal, which is picked over a 15 to 20 day period. A California Vintage Chart pretends to evaluate eight varietals picked over two months. Can’t be done. Even if CA does have more consistent growing season weather than northern Europe.

Fog Entering Bien Nacido Vyd, Santa Barbara

Vintage scores where 9 out of 10 years are either ‘good’ or ‘great’ are generally offered by promotional Trade organizations, or somebody else with an inventory to sell. They are useless. The following Chart shows a strong alternative technique. In this Chart each decade must be divided into ten levels (“forced ranking”). Some year has to come in last. Naturally, reasonable people may disagree. May? Reasonable people will disagree. That’s the nature of fine wine, and of fine wine conversation.

But there is a bigger question to be explored here: Must Vintage Charts always be subjective, or are there objective measurements which could be employed to predict the quality of wines from any particular growing season? A good example is crop size. Traditional wisdom holds that smaller crops yield more depth and concentration. Hence the technique of “green harvest,” wherein clusters are thinned following veraison (color change). Personally I do think crop size can indicate strong years. Side-by-side tasting of the same Napa Cabernets from 1990 and 1991 is an excellent illustration. Many CA Vintage Charts list 1991 as the superior year. No way. The crop in 1990 was cut by a late frost. Side-by-side I always feel the 1991 seems to have had 3 oz. of water poured in each bottle. I also feel 1999 ~ lowest yield of the last two decades ~ was a spectacular, very reliable, and somewhat overlooked vintage.

Unfortunately these illustrations do not tell the complete story. There are also several examples of the vintners’ nirvana ~ very large crops in years widely viewed as exceptionally good quality. 1997 and 2005 would be particularly strong evidence. I’ve always considered 1997 way too robust stylistically for my personal palate, but there is no arguing about its success in the marketplace. On the subject of the 2005 vintage ~ biggest yield of the decade ~ even I am on the bandwagon. No less an authority than Dr. Richard Smart, perhaps the world’s pre-eminent viticulturalist, says, “Great wines occur when healthy vines get fully ripe.” That is precisely what happened in both 1997 and 2005.

Overall Harvest Size in California  [Wine Institute]

Which brings us to reports on vintage quality offered in San Francisco newspapers and on TV in early December each year. In 1995 I went to Australia, then in 1996 to South Africa, to work the crush at Coldstream Hills in the Yarra Valley then at L’Avenir Winery in Stellenbosch. Both trips were extraordinary experiences, both socially and physically. I went as a stagiaire, which is often translated as an intern, but in the wine industry should translate as well-educated, grunt labor. I was no spring chicken at the time, but I wanted to see the inner workings of a winery up close and personal throughout the chaos of a crush. I already knew what I would see as a journalist visiting a winery during the crush. In Australia and South Africa, I wanted to learn what journalists do not see during a crush.

I learned winemakers have to make hundreds of decisions by the seat of their pants. When I interview a winemaker as a journalist, I frequently ask how a wine was made. This is often two or three years after the fact. Winemakers routinely tell me how they planned to make the wine. It’s not that they’re lying to me; they just don’t remember all the small things that go wrong. When actually on the scene, I found the gap between plan and execution is actually a chasm. Grapes don’t ripen on schedule. Pickers are not always available exactly when you want them. Same with equipment. Things break. Quantities are frequently not as one expected.

Which leads to an interesting phenomenon. Winemakers like to talk about tough vintages! They don’t do this with consumers, and they only do it with writers once they come to trust the journalists’ scientific curiosity. But it makes sense. Winemakers have every reason to be proud of the magic they perform in difficult years. Doesn’t mean the overall, industry-wide quality of wines from that year is likely to be noteworthy.

On a different, but often entangled track, it would be hard for any winery owner to be entirely objective about vintage quality either. When asked which of your daughters is most attractive, wouldn’t the logical response be to point out the charms of your unmarried female child? Best vintage? “Why, coincidentally it’s the one I currently have for sale.” Doesn’t surprise me one bit when winery owners extol the virtues of a vintage which featured a really big crop. They’ve got a lot of that one to sell. A short crop may imply concentrated flavors, but it’s going to sell out quickly, especially if it is really good quality. So why waste media exposure on it when you could be hawking the vintage of which you’ve got warehouse(s) full?

SST ~ Seasonal Surface Temperatures (ºC) in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean [NOAA]

Each figure is a three-month average. Hence ‘NDJ’ means Nov – Dec – Jan.

What is an ideal vintage in CA? That’s another quandary. Weather stations can provide objective data as to temperatures and rainfall. A Princeton Economics professor named Orley Ashenfelter has made a very strong case that he can predict auction prices on Bordeauxwines based on climatological data [http://www.liquidasset.com/feature1.html]. Hasn’t exactly been embraced by the industry, but his correlation does appear to work for Bordeaux. The problem in California is standards keep changing. A warm growing season, and hot – dry harvest (the features Dr. Ashenfelter looks for in Bordeaux), may produce fruity, forward, opulent Napa Valley Cabernets which sell briskly when they first come out (cf: the 2001 vintage). But do those CA wines have any cachet past their tenth birthday? 1974 was that type of year in Napa. The 1974 Napa Cabs mopped the floor with the harder, less ripe 1973’s when both were in the marketplace. Today most 1974 Napa Cabs smell like prunes, while many 1973’s are still in good shape. Collectors of California Cabernets need to think about when they will be consuming those wines in order to evaluate vintages. Long life for Napa Cabs probably does not derive from extreme ripeness.Each figure is a three-month average. Hence ‘NDJ’ means Nov – Dec – Jan.

Flooded Sonoma Vineyard

Drought years are another consideration inCalifornia. Some water stress on vineyards can serve to concentrate wines. After a lot of stress, however, the vines simply shut down, making awkward, unbalanced wines. Is it possible to measure El Nino / La Nina conditions in thePacific Ocean, and thus predict drought-induced vintage quality in CA? Not easily. It’s not even easy to predict CA drought based on El Nino / La Nina conditions.

In the table above an extended period of temperatures above 0.70 indicate El Nino conditions, i.e. warming of the surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the Equator, which often brings rain toCalifornia. The opposite condition, an extended period of temperatures below – 0.70 indicate La Nina, i.e. cooling of the surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the Equator, which often means drought for California.

Annual Rainfall at Placerville, Sierra Foothills [1,870 ft elevation]

* Rainfall figures are from July, in the year of the vintage, thru June of the following year.

** Average rainfall inPlacervilleis 39.50 inches. Figure shown is over or under average.

Take a glance at 1976 / 1977. They were definitely severe drought years. [Note the rainfall figures in 1976 above run from July 1976 until June 1977.] See also 1982 / 1983 which were definitely rainy, flood years. In the first instance the Equatorial Pacific Surface Temperatures would have predicted the opposite. In the second instance the ocean temperatures were split ~ hardly a strong indicator.

At the end of the day California Vintage Charts are very complicated undertakings. They are open to many interpretations. They may work best for you in the same manner political speeches analyze current events, i.e. arrive at your conclusion first, then look to the Chart for whatever justifications it may offer you.

Gewürztraminer on the Vine

No, I suspect Gewürztraminer suffers from the same image problem in America that Riesling does: insufficient machismo. People think of it as girly wine. I probably didn’t help much calling it perfumed. How unfortunate. Gewürztraminer really is the ideal wine for so many dining circumstances. If you’re confident enough in your own sexuality to wear pastel colored shirts, you ought to consider adding Gewürz to your repertoire.

‘Traminer’ implies the grape comes from the German town of Tramin. ‘Gewürz’ is usually translated as spicy, although that phrase can use some elaboration. It refers more to the aromatic (perfumed) character than it does to any ginger/nutmeg smell or to any capsaicin pepper-like nuances. The aroma of Gewürztraminer is similar to rose petals, or to several types of melon. Experts call it floral as opposed to fruity in an attempt to differentiate it from the aroma of Riesling. The nose is due in no small part to a terpene called linalool, a compound Gewürz shares with Muscat and with Riesling. In fact difference in varietal aroma between those grapes is largely due to variations in the concentration of linalool. The fragrance of Gewürztraminer comes with a phenolic, slightly oily mouth-feel, which to me elicits the phrase plasticizer. Imagine sucking on a Barbie doll’s toes. Or think of the new car smell.

This plasticizer quality is not one of my personal favorites, but it does deserve deeper examination. Aficionados often conflate that character with minerality. Alsace is considered to be the region most frequently associated with Gewürztraminer, and Alsace is also famous for its mineral gout de terroir (taste of the earth or place). The most prestigious vineyards in Alsace, source of their most expensive wines, seem to produce the most pronounced, most obvious mineral character in those wines. I don’t think minerality and phenolic mouth-feel are the same thing, but I do think many people confuse the two.

Moreover, there are clear, historical culinary precedents in Alsace which would logically lead to a preference for wines with strong mineral flavors.Alsace(i.e. the French – German border) is a cold, northern European climate. Prior to the late 1800’s food stuffs would need to be preserved from their short Summers for consumption throughout their long Winters. That means charcuterie: salted and smoked meats, vegetables in brine or vinegar. If you were going to design a wine to drink for eight months each year with pickles, patés, sausages and sauerkraut, what would it be? Alsace has a lot of experience, and a worldwide reputation, in precisely this matter.

The Great German Shepherd

The phrase ‘Alsatian-style’ does not mean the way large canines like to make love. It implies Rieslings, Muscats, and/or Gewürztraminers made bone dry ~ all the better to match with food. Most people assume a Gewürztraminer from California will have several percentage points of residual sugar. That doesn’t have to be the case, although it is more likely to be true at giant-sized wineries, like Fetzer. It all has to do with capturing the distinctly Gewürz nose in each bottle. Alsace has a cool climate, especially in the Fall as Winter approaches. Cool weather means the harvest window, during which the distinctive smell is most obvious in the grapes, will be 10-12 days long in Alsace. Hotter weather in California makes the window much narrower, maybe only two to three days. The owners of small CA wineries can walk in their vineyard each morning, and (when the smell is at a peak) call their friends to come pick the next day. Big vineyards can’t do that ~ you don’t find Mexican harvest crews in the Yellow Pages.

So big California wineries often perform some skin-soak, prior to pressing and fermentation, in order to help extract linalool from the mucilaginous layer between the pulp and the skin. Skin-soak can make wine slightly bitter. Leaving a little residual sugar helps hide bitterness. Unbeknownst to most people, Gewürz grapes are not white; they’re slightly red colored. A little bit of ‘pinking’ can be observed in these wines if they are examined closely under good light (not dissimilar to Pinot Gris).

The reason I feel Gewürztraminer is so amazingly useful at the Left Coast dinner table is because it has such an affinity for the spices used extensively in south Asian cooking. It is absolutely essential for the myriad cuisines of India, where serious practitioners will heat their spices before grinding them fresh into each dish. The lifted, flowery aspects of Gewürz are ideal with fragrances such as cloves, cinnamon, mint, or citrus rind. The minerality of dry Gewürz meshes neatly with the earthiness of tumeric, coriander, or galangal. Curry and garam masala are such robust flavors, pungently scented, everyone assumes they need red wines with considerable oomph. A reasonable assumption. Hence a surprise that Gewürztraminer is, many times, the better answer.

Here are some fine examples of wines with which to launch your own investigations

CA Central Coast ~ The cool, maritime climate of California’s coastal valleys from Monterey through Santa Barbara offer excellent opportunities to produce top quality Gewürz. Claiborne & Churchill is a small winery in San Luis Obispo’s Edna Valley run by German professors at Cal Poly (Clay Thompson and Frederika Churchill). They have two decades of strong track record making wonderful Alsatian-style Gewürztraminers and Rieslings. Fogarty is a winery on Skyline Blvd high on the ridge west of Stanford University to which pioneering heart surgeon Thomas Fogarty brings Gewürz grapes from the Ventana Vyd in Monterey County’s Salinas Valley. The wine is technically dry, very impressive, and remarkably consistent from vintage to vintage.

CA Anderson Valley ~ On the ocean side of the coastal ridge in Mendocino County, Anderson Valley has long been known as a centerpiece for CA Gewürz. Navarro Vyd is my nominee for best direct-to-consumer mail marketing program in the American wine industry. They are masters of this varietal. A number of other wineries in Anderson Valley also do well with it ~ Lazy Creek is a particularly reliable example.

British Columbia~ The Okanagan Valley of British Columbia includes some of the northernmost fine wine producing vineyards on the planet. Despite the promises of NAFTA, few of these wines find their way into the USA. A visit to either Okanagan Valley or to Vancouver, however, is well worth anyone’s effort. Look for Quails Gate, Grey Monk, or Kalala Gewürz. A respectable, consistent example made by a large company, thus more likely to be available in the US, is Sumac Ridge.

Finger Lakes New York ~ One of several very colorful personalities in the American wine industry in upstate New York was a Russian plant geneticist named Konstantin Frank. He almost single-handedly shoe-horned vinifera (read European) grapes into a region dominated by Labrusca (read Concord) and French-American hybrids. Of course he was a little nutso. Aren’t all the colorful personalities? He used to tell people hybrids were poison. Dr. Frank has been gone many years now, but his heirs make a very nice Gewürz at the family estate. And the Finger Lakes are no backwater. The viticultural research station at Geneva is justifiably world-famous. As is Cornell’s Hotel School at Ithaca.

Oregon~ Pinot Gris gets much more attention from Oregon wineries than Gewürztraminer does: nearly 3,000 acres vs. 200. But occasionally an Oregon winery will distinguish itself from their competitors with a well-made Gewürz. Such is the case with Brandborg from Umpqua Valley in the southern half of the state.

Alsace~ Alsatian Gewürztraminer is the classic, which is not necessarily the same as being the most pleasant. Certainly Alsatian examples demonstrate the minerality concept better than any other region, and that feature alone can have a certain functional utility. Trimbach is a widely distributed, and very reliable, brand that’s not exorbitantly expensive. More money will get you greater concentration of flavor, more intense aroma, and often a little bit of residual sugar. Those features can be very impressive when matched to a particularly robust curry. Try Zind-Humbrecht from their Wintzenheim Vyd.

Whether you find them in the gourmet grocery or walking in a drizzly wood with your shirt on backwards, they cook up the same: wonderful, exotic, slightly naughty, very savory dishes that extend the range of paired wines in the most compelling ways.

Certainly it’s true that a five-hour hike works like magic to stimulate the appetite. That and the price are the major advantages of foraging mushrooms for oneself. What most of us call ‘the mushroom’ is actually the fruiting body of the fungus. The rest stays in the ground, or in the log, after you remove the fruiting body. So mushrooms continue to re-appear in the same place you originally found them for years in the future whenever conditions are right. It’s not a sure thing; the required conditions are very precise. That’s why these things are not raised commercially by growers. Nevertheless, experienced mushroom foragers (mycophagists) never tell anybody where their secret troves are located. Share mushrooms? Of course. Share mushroom locations? Never!

There are two solid strategies for foraging mushrooms. One is to go out about ten days after the first rains in the Fall, pick all the mushrooms you find, bring them home, and identify them using a reference book, or ‘key.’ That technique is great if you own a microscope and have ready access to an academic with mycological expertise. Failing either of those assets, I strongly recommend Strategy #2: only gather those mushrooms with which you are acquainted and confident you can correctly recognize.

Thumbing through a good mushroom guide will reveal hundreds of mushrooms are listed as “edible,” which means they are safe to eat, but likely to taste much as you might imagine Styrofoam would. Only a handful of mushrooms will be listed as “choice,” which means they taste great. Learn to recognize those. There is no compelling reason to be a voracious guinea pig in some grand mushroom foraging experiment. Never eat more than a small slice of something you’re not sure you’ve had before. Two rules of thumb will help you avoid almost all really dangerous mushrooms: (1) Ignore the vast category which might be termed “little brown mushrooms.” They are hard to tell apart, and they are too small to make a worthwhile meal anyway. (2) Learn to recognize the genus Amanita. Might as well avoid all of those. Every year a handful of people die from eating a big pot of Amanita phalloides, otherwise known as the Death Cap. They’re big, and they’re pretty. Artists depict them all the time when illustrating fairy tales. All Amanitas have a small sock, like the bottom half of an egg shell, around the base of their stem. So don’t break the stem off when harvesting a mushroom; dig down in the leaf litter with a knife blade or a spoon so you can see what the base of the stem looks like.

Chanterelles

One highly desirable mushroom which is widely found in northern California is the Golden Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius). It usually pops up in the Fall, especially if there has been September rain. The most likely habitat is under oak trees. On the plus side, if you find one, there is probably thirty pounds in the same location. On the negative side, there may also be a ton of poison oak intertwined with the Chanterelles. Wear gloves; pick carefully. Or look for Chanterelles in your gourmet grocery. They’re often good size, bright orange, and trumpet shaped. Slice into bite-sized pieces, then sauté them in butter, with a little olive oil to keep the butter from burning. Then serve a large portion with a little parsley and a little Gruyere cheese inside an omelet. Chardonnay is your wine choice, and not just for alliterative reasons. Choose a malo-lactic driven, lees-aged Chardonnay with lots of new French oak. Rombauer comes to mind as a mid-price-range brand which is almost a cliché for this style of wine. Alternatively, an eight-year-old, premier cru Meursault should be wonderful as well, if you just happen to have one lying around. The Meursault will be more in line with the cost of the mushrooms (which are likely to set you back $25/lb in a store). So this event can be either a rustic evening supper after a vigorous day in the woods (wearing flannel shirts and suspenders), or it can be a very special brunch (sharing a pair of silk pajamas) with no particular plans for the rest of the day.

Oyster

Another delicious fungi found commonly in the wild is the Oyster mushroom. Unlike my other mushroom suggestions, Oyster mushrooms have proven reasonably easy to cultivate. So, if you develop a strong craving, you might want to look into a kit which will allow you to inoculate logs in your own backyard. Two species in the genus Pleurota are most widely recognized among culinary fans of the Oyster mushroom: P. ostreatus in North America; and P. eryngii in Europe. Both grow on hardwood logs. P. eryngii, which is called King Oyster in Spain, has an obvious stem with a smallish cap. P. ostreatus looks more like a cluster of white, overlapping shelves, i.e. all cap and virtually no stem. They both have an earthy, steak Tartar kind of flavor. They work well sliced into strips, then fried with onions, sweet peppers, and strips of beef skirt steak to serve in soft tacos as fajitas. I’d serve those with a fairly robust Syrah, although in that technique the mushrooms tend to take on whatever flavor may have been added as a sauce. More unusual is to slice the Oyster mushrooms into fairly large, long pieces; dredge the pieces in flour; submerge them in an egg beaten with a tablespoon of cream; then dredge them in bread crumbs (with a little salt added). Fry the breaded mushroom slices in a skillet with a half-inch of hot oil. Use Thousand Island salad dressing as one dipping sauce. For a second dipping sauce thin some marmalade with a little rice vinegar. Don’t dip too vigorously. Serve these fried mushrooms as an appetizer paired with an old-vine Spanish Garnacha. Borsao is a reliable brand, widely available, and they almost give it away ($6 to $8 retail).

Cepes

In the opinion of many connoisseurs, the greatest Fall mushroom is the legendary Boletus edulis, known as porcini in Italy and as cepes in Eastern Europe. These aren’t common in California, but they can be found. Oregon, Washington, and Idaho are better prospects. Boletes look somewhat different than (say) a Portobello. Instead of having gills on the underside of their cap, they appear to be a form of pin-cushion. As the name implies, the Edulis species is particularly fine. The smell alone is how most Eastern Europeans recognize it. And the smell is abundantly retained even when the mushrooms are sliced and dehydrated. So buying dried porcini to reconstitute in red wine and to use throughout the year makes very good sense. They are wonderful added to stews or anything done in a crock pot. I believe B. edulis also makes the very best mushroom soup. It has a hearty, rich flavor, and a smell which is just intimately human enough to be at once exciting and mildly discomfiting. You know you want to do it again, but it’s not the sort of sensation about which you would tell your mother. The wine of choice is, of course, Pinot Noir. And not one of those clean, fruity California examples either. You want a wine with a past. Red Burgundy. Something from the commune of Vosne. Something with enough pedigree that people care whether or not it’s been foolin’ around.

Truffles may not qualify for this post, in the sense you’re not going to find one while strolling through your local park. Professional truffle hunters in Piemonte use trained dogs and/or pigs to locate the fungus underneath the ground. Dogs won’t eat the truffles, but pigs certainly will. And I’m guessing it’s no walk in the park to move a 250 lb. pig off a 3 oz. truffle once she’s uncovered it. Truffles are all about smell. A small bit goes a long way. So find a 250 ml bottle of truffled oil to use on pasta. Just the plain pasta. I’d say freshly made fettuccine, with a little butter, no more than half a teaspoon of truffle oil, and some good Parmesan or aged Asiago cheese. Italians would go with a Barbera for the wine (Barbera d’Alba or d’Asti), but my personal choice would be Tempranillo from Rioja in Spain with a little age on it. Something like the Marquis de Riscal Riserva from about 2005.

Morel

You may have noticed we have yet to stray very far into that bastion of American mushroom usage ~ the grilled, steakhouse, New York strip or filet mignon (a Porterhouse if served together still on the bone for you big eaters). That’s because steakhouses routinely employ the tasteless, easy to cultivate, meadow mushroom commonly found in Safeway or on your front lawn (technically Agaricus compestris). Browned in a skillet, along with soy sauce and garlic, those can be fairly tasty on top of a grilled piece of quality beef loin. So would a piece of Wonderbread. What you really want with a great steak is the magnificent, priapic, Spring mushroom, the Morel. All the species in the genus Morchella are delicious and are safe to eat. They tend to be found in cold climates as the snow melts. Michigan and Minnesota are prime areas. Instead of an umbrella shape, Morels have more of a Xmas tree shaped cap, with convoluted ridges. The stem is hollow, and the bottom edge of the cap attaches to the stem. This is important. The cap of False Morels doesn’t attach to the stem, and several False Morels can make you sick. You also want to slice Morels in half to make sure there are no bugs taking refuge in the hollow stem. Brown your Morels in a sauté pan, then put them on your steak. Cabernet if you must, cowboy, but the best wine choice will be a Meritage blend heavy on Merlot. Morels have a deep, singed flesh, slightly gamey flavor. The smell is not as obvious as that from truffles or from cepes. Six or seven years of age on the Meritage blend will be valuable because you want to emphasize bottle bouquet, not fruity aroma.

Wild mushrooms are a quintessential ‘savory’ experience. As such they are naturals with fermented foods like cheese, soy sauce, and wine. Take your umami tastebuds for a walk on the wild side this holiday season.

Broadly understood is the Calvinist image of an industrious, penurious Scot. And it is certainly true that if I had ever taken pleasure in something expensive as a child, my grandmother would have whipped it out of me. Those Calvinists were Presbyterians who supported the Hanoverian (Protestant, William of Orange) succession to the British throne which was codified by the Act of Settlement in 1701. Less understood is these Protestant alliances between Scots and the British were not the only game in town. Not in Scotland; nor in Canada. In the middle of the 1500’s Mary, Queen of Scots, had been married to Francois, Dauphin of France, and a Catholic. French sensibilities, including culinary traditions from the era of Louis XIV in the 1600’s, were well appreciated by certain segments of the population in Scotland. During the crucial 1700’s Scotland’s Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart) was both a Catholic and an active campaigner for the British throne. He inspired the Jacobite Movement in Scotland (eventually crushed by the British at the Battle of Cullodon, 1745). Today the wildlife, and extensive shoreline, of Scotland combine with long-practiced French cooking skills to create an extraordinary (if not widely recognized) cuisine.

Jump now to Acadia, the Maritime Provinces of Canada at the beginning of the 1700’s. Originally settled by French Catholics, Acadia was occupied by British troops in 1710, and Nova Scotia was established in 1713. Subsequently 12,000 French settlers were expelled (between 1755 and 1763). Many of them became the ancestors of today’s Cajuns in Louisiana. No one ever accused New Orleans Cajuns of lacking for culinary tradition. Nova Scotia isn’t exactly world-renown for fine wines today, but they do have a grape growers’ association and 13 wineries; up from 4 wineries in 2000.

Which brings us full-circle to a highland dancer from Nova Scotia who was named Drinks Writer of the Year in 2003 at the World Food Media Awards. It is my speculation that ascetic Scottish followers of John Calvin, rubbing shoulders over 400 years with neighbors who embraced a much more sensuous French culture (cf: the Quebecois), developed a rather intense love/hate relationship with luxuries such as wines. We like them a lot; we just like somebody else to pay for them. It may be akin to Catholics finding sex so much more exciting because of guilt imposed by the church.

Natalie MacLean has parlayed this little Scottish personality ambiguity into a rapidly ascendant career. I’m a fan. I first noticed a piece she’d written several years ago on rosé wines. Her theme was how studly those wines could be. If I hadn’t seen her name on the masthead, I would have assumed it was written by a longshoreman philosopher (think Erik Hoffer or Charles Bukowski). I believe I may have I sent her a mash note. She writes prolifically about wines from all over the world, yet always pulls back to recommend modestly priced examples which she pointedly claims to be drinking, and enjoying, herself at home with her husband. She never portrays getting a little buzz on as anything other than a really good thing. She is famous in Canada for her decidedly unpretentious style, which is not the same as using simple, lazy prose (in the manner of John Madden’s commentary on football). The woman studied Nineteenth Century English Literature at Oxford. She was a Finalist for a Rhodes scholarship. She’s plenty bright. She just doesn’t feel the need to strike authoritative poses. At the end of the day, her talent is to be a storyteller, a woman of the people. There are many wooden apparatchiks blogging today who think writing about wine will somehow add texture and color to their personalities. They tend to produce databases in narrative form. By contrast Natalie MacLean has an ear for interesting elements in a story, and she’s smart enough to present them in clear declarative sentences. It’s the way she arranges them that’s unusual and noteworthy.

XMAS GIFT RECOMMENDATION ~ Natalie’s latest book came out this Fall: Unquenchable. Find it on Amazon. Hardcover $16.00.

Unquenchable is a concept book; at once very efficient for the writer and for the reader. It covers a lot of ground (eight disparate wine producing regions around the world), but does so by telling stories about highlights ~ much as one might do at dinner with friends after returning from a trip abroad. Natalie says technical detail about wine production bores her. She only provides enough to act as background on why certain wines are special. Instead she concentrates on people. She picks a handful of well-known, respected wineries, then sets out to provide a window on the subject region by describing the people she meets while visiting. In an era when consumers are submerged in irrelevant wine data assembled by amateurs, it’s quite enjoyable to read wine stories where a professional author has chosen to throw out mountains of chaff in order to reveal the most entertaining grains of wheat.

This is a book for the mass-market. You don’t need an advanced wine credential, nor a lot of tasting experience, in order to enjoy it. There are chapters on major players: Australia, Germany, France’s Provence, and Portugal’s Duoro Port region. But there are also evocative chapters on less well-recognized producing regions: Sicily, Argentina’s Mendoza destrict, South Africa’s Western Cape, and Natalie’s local Niagara Peninsula. It’s a cornucopia of styles and stories, sculpted by a large number of adroit editorial choices.

You’ll like it. I did. Your boss and your uncle will too.

I’ve probably written 30 of those columns. So you’ll forgive me if I choose here to go in a somewhat different direction.

1.    Serve a seasonal crab hors d’oeurve. One of the unique highlights of any culinary year in San Francisco is opening of local Dungeness crab season. It occurs in mid-November, usually after some period of financial wrangling between the fishermen and the distributors; thus very close to Thanksgiving. There is no local season during the summer, although frozen crabs still arrive at high prices from Alaska. So Thanksgiving is the first chance in six months to get live crab for about one-third the summer price. Live crab, incidentally, makes a huge difference. Frozen crab meat is mushy. If strands of Dungeness crab muscle get caught in your teeth, such that you need a toothpick after the meal, you know the crab was fresh. Nothing could be more logical in Northern California than to make fresh, live crab part of your family’s traditional Thanksgiving appetizer.

Explore supermarkets in the Asian district of large towns. They will have live Dungeness crabs in aquaria. You can steam the crabs, just as you might a lobster. Then you clean them, and serve chilled at your convenience. I find it easiest for guests to eat if I cut a zipper up each leg with poultry shears. The legs can then be set out by themselves (or with a little melted butter) for guests to sample as they arrive. I take the meat out of the bodies myself. I stir that meat with a small amount of mayonnaise and lemon juice. I spread that mixture on finger-food-sized wedges of sourdough, and heat them under the broiler in the oven.

The perfect wine match with these Thanksgiving crab appetizers is an aged, cold-climate Riesling. An eight- to fifteen-year-old Kabinett or Spätlese from the Mosel Valley in Germany would be my first choice. That might take a little shopping. Query Corti Bros in Sacramento or K&L in San Francisco if you get hung up. Certain California producers have good candidate Rieslings, but you’ll probably have to lay a few bottles away yourself to end up with the aged examples I recommend. Try Madroña in El Dorado County or Greenwood Ridge in Mendocino’s Anderson Valley. What we’re looking for is taut acid balancing a couple percent residual sugar. The acid is refreshing, and the sugar reaches out to the perceived sweetness of the crab. The age factor confers a slight dried fruit character to the aroma of the Riesling. It’s somewhere between apricot and nectarine, but faintly nutty; a good match with the melted butter or the heated bread.

2.     Small adjustment to make a luscious Chardonnay work well. If you do jewel yams (the dark orange ones) with your turkey meal, I suggest serving them on a grilled slice of pineapple. That single maneuver will make them sing with a modestly priced Chardonnay from California’s Central Coast. This is such a good combination that even canned pineapple works, but fresh is better. If grilling on a BBQ seems a bother, just sauté the pineapple with a little butter in a skillet. When you plate the dish, put a generous serving-spoon-load of yams on top of each pineapple slice. Find a Chardonnay from Monterey or from Santa Barbara in the $20 to $25 range. Don’t serve it too cold. What you’re looking for is that rich regional fruitiness. Twenty minutes in the door of the refrigerator will be more than enough chill.

3.   Dessert can be very special. Pecan pie with an Australian Liqueur Muscat is a match made in heaven. That doesn’t mean pumpkin pie is disqualified. People will still eat a big piece of pumpkin pie. But 2 oz. of Liqueur Muscat with a square inch or two of pecan pie will be the jewel in your dessert crown. A single half-bottle of Liqueur Muscat is all you will need. Look for brands like Bullers, Chambers, Campbell’s, or even Yalumba. Half-bottle should cost around $15 to $18.

The wine is made in the hot Rutherglen region of northern Victoria, along the Murray River. Muscat de Frontignan grapes get fully ripe, then are slightly fortified in the manner of Port. The wine is aged for many years in wood casks kept in hot warehouses. Water evaporates, concentrating the wine to a caramel or toffee flavor with just a hint of Muscat’s floral fragrance. A tiny amount of treacle-like old wine will have a distinct effect on the nose even when blended with a large quantity of young wine. The result is sweet, but with complexity so intense that residual sugar shrinks into the background. A small serving lasts a long time in one’s glass. And pour it into big glasses, or even into snifters. It really is all about the smell.

4.   What are you serving for the rest of the Weekend? Turkey sandwiches can be dramatically invigorated with a little Hoisin sauce. This dark brown paste (Asian food section of any chain supermarket) is made from fermented beans. It has a very high umami taste component, which is a glutamate reaction. That makes your sandwich much more flavorful and savory ~ perfect to match up with a hearty, although not overly alcoholic, red wine. I’m going to suggest a moderately aged Barbaresco. Melt a couple pieces of Gruyere cheese on a slice of light rye bread. Put a little mayo and Hoisin on another slice of light rye. Maybe a little sweet onion, like Walla Walla or Vidalia. Turkey between the two dressed pieces of bread, lettuce as desired, and away you go.

It’s not that you sneer at tradition. You are merely open-minded.