East coast get away

We're back from a two week trip to New York City and state, as well as New England. This was a family vacation so not wine focused. However,  with distributors in both New York and Rhode Island, I had to take advantage of visiting the area to work the market a bit. If you're in the area, look for my Vincent wines in excellent shops like Frankly Wines in lower Manhattan and The Savory Grape in East Greenwich, RI, among other shops and restaurants.

Two of my sisters live in the NE, and one I mentioned with her husband a few months back in the post about 1978 Chateau Gloria. Every wine has a story, good ones anyway, and this one was fun to retell with the protagonists, reliving a special and emotional part of our lives.

Then in New York City, where we began and just finished up our odyssey, we visited with old San Francisco friends now living on the upper west side. How lovely to spend time catching up, eating delicious home cooked risotto and roast chicken, and drinking a few memorable if not A-list wine.

First to toast old friendship, the NV Pierre Gimonnet Champagne Selection Belles Annees Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs, which we picked up at an otherwise sizable but lackluster shop around the corner. I didn't realized it's only 4-5 atmospheres of pressure, meaning less carbonation than typical Champagne. That and being just a touch not cool made it delicious but a bit flat on the palate, lacking the dynamic edge I think either a touch more sparkle and/or just a few degrees cooler would have given. How's that for geeky.

Then with dinner first the 2011 Antoine Jobard Bourgogne Aligote, crystaline and razory crisp with lemon and leesy aromas and flavors, flavory but so clean on the finish, thirst slaking, perfect with the meal. Must be older oak aged, perhaps a bit of stainless steel or perhaps not. I would love to find more of this.

Then a taste of red, blind without being wine geeky about it, just efficient. Youthful vibrant magenta in the glass, floral and clearly syrah, bright flavored but with good depth, green olives, purple fruits, so floral but deliciously so. I guess something from Domaine Faury, perhaps their St. Joseph Viellies Vignes. No, it's old vines but Victoria, Australia, the 2011 Jamsheed Shiraz. Revelatory and on par with the best of the "new California" school, leaner but so delicious and lengthy, sneaky excellent without hitting yourself over the head with oak barrels. Not sure the price, but if I made syrah and this were in my barrels, I'd be very happy.

After eating, we walked down to Lincoln Center for gelato. We found a crowd of perhaps 2,000 seated in the courtyard of the Metropolitan Opera House, watching a recording of an opera that I believe was Italian. Regardless, the air was light and just warm enough, the gelato amazing along with the look on my son's face as he watched the screen intently. What a New York night, just what I wanted the kids to experience. A true get away for us all.