Radikon

It might be redundant to call any one of the wines on the list unique. Uniqueness, like a translator choosing words, is relative. We focus on wines that are cultish. They will create a challenge both for the drinker and me. The challenge should be intellectual and not physical. And even though we feature bottles that are highly specific with personalities that are very diverse, we know that wine should be fun with dinner.

We stay away from international wine styles, avoiding mass production as well as any that try to fit a mold. Modern style wines are often rich and ripe, full of fruit, oak, and chocolate… but deficient in character. Very little distinguishes them from each other or their geography. Like the suburbs and fast food. Anywhere that milkshake and fry is going to taste the same. Fine for the three am desert interstate but no good for dinner.

A wine cannot lean solely on its grape varietals, natural process or artesian qualities. It must stand-alone. This quality maybe based in grape or geography but more often lies in mystery. The key to sustaining uniqueness, appreciation and reverence for a wine is the learning process. For example in my favorite geographic regions new grapes that I haven't heard often offer a new and more complex experience. In the Loire, the arbors grape is rare, and also known as menu pineau. Or in Piedmont the erbaluce di caluso grape is a fun muscat like grape flowery on the nose creating a easy to drink white wine… or a gamay from the south of Burgundy. Usually gamay is from Beaujolais and Loire and so we get to see how the grape functions differently.

The Radikon is radical. This area of Friuli is known for a group of back-to-the-future winemakers using very traditional techniques that are simultaneously cutting edge. Stanko Radikon makes his white wine like red. After the crushing the ribolla giolla grapes he leaves the skins in contact with the juice. This is a very old school wine making technique. And like any good cult leader he, and the people in his area using similar techniques, have followers. Abe Schoener of the Scholium Project in the states is now also making white wine macerated with the skins on.

Radikon has the most amazing cartoon sunset color, goldish brown with tinges of pink. Modern white wine is very clean and filtered for the most part. And it's tricky; if someone put a glass in front of your nose you would think you were drinking a fruity red wine. It has an apple-cidery, nutty, hay and yeast smell to it. You almost just want to smell it. It is wholesome and healthy in spirit and structure; the whole grape is in there. Only sold in a 500 ml bottle, Stanko thinks the Radikon is the right amount of wine to drink during dinner for two.

So you can drink two bottles at dinner and not get too radical.

---

---

---

You Must Sit Down,

So I did sit and eat.

The scallop, like poetry, is cool. It is interesting how geometry will unconsciously effect our preferences for something. The shape of the scallop shell, for its equality of design, its balance, is what we think of as THE SEA SHELL by the seashore. This is maybe why Sasha was so fascinated and excited by it that she took this lovely picture. Also did you know that scallops can sing? It's true! And also there is a form of poetry called the Scallop that due to its syllabic restrictions appears in the shape of our beloved bivalve.

It is the very quality of form, like the contours of a poem, that makes verse so unique. Several weeks ago I came into the office to find a copy of George Herbert's poem called Love. Apparently this poem, which I stole the closing lines from to name this post, is one of Tom's favorites. Then out of no where, as if to give the air itself structure and purpose Molly started reciting this tiny but satisfying agenda by Shakespeare:

Where the bee sucks

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

---

---

---

This Just In

Hurry up. It starts at 4! We have two tickets to tonight's Brooklyn Uncorked event that will be given away to the first person who comes in to the coffee counter at Marlow... and asks for them.

---

---

---

Coming Soon

---

---

---

Slow Roasted Berkshire Pork Belly

The belly was cured with cumin, chile de arbol, clove, star anise, salt and sugar. Afterwards it is roasted at 200F for 2 hours. It is cut into portion cuts and scored, broiled and then allowed to simmer in a Guajillo Mole.

The belly is served with black beans that are prepared with epazote, onion and garlic. The greens are Pea Shoots from Long Island.

---

---

---