chez pim

A Burgundian harvest: part III

Guest blogger Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac continues his harvest report from Burgundy.

----------------------
23 October 2006

I love it when a plan comes together! I also love using that line, having been an avid watcher of the A-team as a kid…

On Saturday 23rd September, exactly a month ago, we met with our pickers at 7.30 AM, separated them into two teams, one for me and one for Lilian Robin, our vineyard manager, and set out to the vineyards. We went to Puligny-Montrachet, a white wine only village, while the other team began in the Echezeaux, one of our Grands Crus. As a quick reminder, if I am talking about white wine, the grape varietal is Chardonnay, and if I am talking red, the varietal is Pinot Noir, unless stated otherwise. In Burgundy, most of the differences between the wines of any producer come from the different terroirs, i.e. they are differences due to vineyard location, rather than to things such as blending. We put in a long day of picking as the grapes appeared to be riper than I had anticipated, and picked Bonnes Mares and Charmes-Chambertin as well as the aforementioned vineyards.

Lookie whose blog I found today: Carlo Middione, an Italian chef extraodinaire

While having my latte this morning, I suddenly had a craving for biscotti –you know, the proper, porous, Italian kind, with only almonds and not much else? The ones that are so hard they are damn near inedible until dunk into a cup of hot coffee? No, I wasn't thinking of the American Biscotti which -though not nearly as icky as American-style Scones (aka the Doorstop Variety)- are cakey, dense, and can be filled with any number of weirdo ingredients.

What's all this stuff about biscotti got to do with this new blog I found? Well, the best biscotti in San Francisco are from this little restaurant called Vivande on Fillmore St. The chef and owner of Vivande is Carlo Middione. I googled his name this morning, hoping to find the recipe for those delicious biscotti of his, but what I found instead was the man had a blog!

A Burgundian harvest: part II

This post is written by a guest blogger Jeremy Seysses, a wine maker in Burgundy, France. This is the second in the series: A Burgundian Harvest.
----------------------------------------

We've been keeping ourselves busy.

The whites are now all in bottle. I'm not very good at having my camera in my pocket at times when I would need it, so again, I have no action shots for you. But I do have a picture of some of the bottles in question. We store our bottles unlabeled in metal crates that can hold 500.

We prepare the wines just before we ship them. Different markets might require different back labels for instance, so we cannot do this until we know where the bottles are going. The US labelling compliance is overseen by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), which is hardly a humorous institution. As a European, the association of alcohol, tobacco and firearms is rather a funny one and conjures images of a Chicago gangster, cigar between his teeth, Tommy gun in one hand and bootleg booze in the other. You can then understand the need to repress such outrageous behavior. I was in Alsace recently and a producer I am friendly with admitted –rather proudly, I thought- that he had a label refused because it suggested "violence and pornography". But I digress…

A Burgundian harvest: a special report from Burgundy

Chez Pim has a special treat today, and for a couple more days next week. We have another special guest blogger, this time a wine maker from Burgundy who will share some fun –and not so fun- experiences from the harvest this year.

Wine is something I am learning, and in my quest I am lucky to have many friends who are ever so generous with their expertise. One of those friends, Claude Kolm, of the Fine Wine Review, let me follow him to Burgundy last year on a tasting trip.

It was during that glorious trip to Burgundy that I met the dashing Jeremy Seysses, of the famous Domaine Dujac. Claude and I went to the domaine to taste wine with Jeremy, and were invited to stay for lunch afterwards. I was introduced to his father Jacques Seysses, the founder of the domaine and the one who made it famous, and his wonderful mother Rosalind who is in charge of the domaine's PR.

Rosalind is American. She went to Burgundy for an internship, and ended up falling in love with and marrying Jacques Seysses. Jeremy is their eldest son. How romantic is that story? Even sweeter –I'm such a sucker for wonderful love stories- is that Jeremy met his American wife in exactly the same way. His gorgeous wife Diana Snowden –herself from a California wine making family- went to Dujac as an intern, and the rest is family history. That would make Jeremy even more than half American, don't you think?

Though young, good looking, and a scion of a great wine making family, Jeremy is hardly a lightweight. He read Biology at Oxford –presided the fabled Oxford Wine Circle while there no less- and has a degree in Science de la Vigne from the University of Burgundy. He is also coming into his own as a capable winemaker, working at the family's property in Provence, Domane de Triennes, and collaborating closely with his father in all major decisions at Domaine Dujac. He's even making wines under his own label, Dujac Fils et Père.

Jeremy has generously agreed to share his experience with this year's harvest in Burgundy with us here on Chez Pim. I am very excited about this: what better way to learn to appreciate wine than learning from the ground up? Next time you drink a glass of Burgundy, you can experience through the taste the feel of the vineyards, the effect of the climate, the grapes, the soil, and everything that goes into making that delicious wine in your hand.

Happy drinking, and happy reading!

The Incredible Shrinking Chowhound: censorship at work again?

image credit: Photobiker

I was browsing Chowhound last night while waiting for you know who to come home when I came upon a series of very curious looking posts, by someone who called himself 'Photobiker'. This Photobiker dude apparently lives above the popular Yucatan-Vietnamese restaurant Yucatasia -quite beloved amongst the Chow set.

Mr.Photobiker is apparently so sick and tired of the unsatinary practices he's observed from his windows above the restaurant's courtyard, he took a bunch of photos to expose those practices and posted them on Chowhound. The photos were damning -if they indeed came from the courtyard of said restaurant- showing workers cutting meat on the cement floor with only a tiny piece of wood or a piece of cardboard box as the cutting board, and cooking right next to the overflowing garbage -complete with rats-on-wings pecking happily at the refuse.

The tenacious Mr.Photobiker tracked down all the threads in CH that mentioned Yucatasia, and posted a message and a link back to his website. I poked around at the Photobiker's website, and he seems legit enough, a French photographer on a mission to take photographs around the world on his motorbike. There was nothing there to make me suspect that he might be a restaurant owner jealous of Yucatasia's success. Not that I can verify that, but you check out his website yourself and see if you think he's legit too.

Miraculously, by the time David came home and I tried to pull up the posts on Chowhound to show him, they've all disappeared, with no note or notation to tell us where they've all gone to.

Tomato Confit: oven-dried tomato in olive oil

Every time I go to my friend Joe's Dirty Girl farm and see the unending rows of beautiful dry-farmed tomatoes, I tell myself I would confit some before they are gone for the season. Last summer came and went, and I never got a chance to do it. This summer I made a promise to myself that I would do it, and so when I came back home from New York, with only a few fleeting days of the season left, I decided it was time to put up or shut up (pun intended.)

I have to confess something to you. I've never actually done tomato confit before. Many moons ago in Greece, a French neighbour of my friend Rena's gave us the best confit tomato I've ever eaten, so I asked to observe how she did it and took some notes.

The process was simple enough, The tomatoes were cut into halves and left to soak in the hot Island sun until completely dry. The dried tomato pieces then received a quick dip in a pot of boiling red wine vinegar, then packed into jars and covered with olive oil and a clove of garlic and a bit of herbs. The jars were left alone for a couple of weeks until they were ready to be eaten.

So I decided to do this with Joe's beautiful dry-farmed tomatoes this year. I picked up a 20-pound box from Joe and set out to work.

Michelin Guide San Francisco: the Red Guide is coming to town

What's all clad in red and is coming to town? No, Christmas isn't coming to the City early this year, though if you asked a few chefs in town they might say that's exactly what has just happened to them.

I'm talking about the Michelin Guide, that venerable and oh-so-French institution that's been anointing its stars to generations of illustrious chefs, and which has just arrived in our fair city.

The Press Release came out today, and here's the list

THREE STARS
The French Laundry

TWO STARS
Aqua
Cyrus
Manresa (Yay!)
Michael Mina

I don't have much to say about this today. We're heading off to the Michelin release party soon. Check back here tomorrow for my take on what's on and what's off the guide!

(The list of restaurants with one star after the jump.)