The Siren Calls of Chateaux Nights

During the annual Primeurs barrel tasting the first week of each April and during VinExpo every other June, hotel rooms in Bordeaux are as scarce as free samples of Chateau Le Pin, as wine writers and the wine trade flock to southwest France from the four corners of the wine bottle.

Fortunately, during these few lodging-challenged weeks, many chateaux owners, normally a somewhat private and reticent lot, drop their draw bridges and throw open their iron gates to welcome us hordes of purple-toothed eno-fans longing for a free flop. All in all, it's reminiscent of the youth hostel scene, as we rush from chateau to chateau (is my bag half-packed or half-unpacked?) for a few hours sleep; if it's Wednesday, it must be Chateau Guiraud.

There is a charm in staying for a night or two in a chateau built with stone blocks -- some were born as castles -- that were constructed before my ancestors, generations back, decided to depart England for the colonies, whose ceilings are three times my height, and which were retrofitted with electricity and plumbing perhaps three-quarters of a century ago. Air conditioning is often an open window that may not have any drapes of blinds (are there peeping Toms among the vine rows?), the loo may be down the hall, and showers often require a bit of contorting.

Not that there isn't excitement and glamour. Sometimes the room next door may be occupied by an aging Brit writer whose book you brought 20 years ago or a tales-spinning wine merchant of Hong Kong. While a chateau may only have two or three such guests, a dinner there can be a 1940s-style grand soiree with a dozen or more invitees -- some staying at other chateaux, others the people who own the chateaux next door and are sans guests -- roaring up the finely graveled driveway for an evening of foie gras, duck breast, a string quartet, and ancient vintages being brought up from the cellar. Once, in a rare rejection of Bordelaisian ethnocentrism, a host actually served a fine white Burgundy with the fish course.

In short, if you get an invite for lodging or dinner at Pontet-Canet, Issan, Grand-Mayne or Ormes de Pez, don't tic the "decline" box -- although at Ormes you may have to suffer a meal at the Cazes family's companion domaine, Chateau Cordellian-Bages. (:>)

Not that chateau living can't be strange and scary. Once, I was staying at a small country castle in Sauternes, which the family had already fled, and the caretaker had to leave for a family emergency. As the only guest, I was left to lock down the place for the night by myself. And if you think your house has a lot of creaks and thumps in the night, imagine waking up in the midnight hours to the moans and groans of a 500-year-old pile of rocks and ancient timbers. Haunted chateaux? I haven't experience those, but I've had other writers tell tales around the campfire -- I mean, fireplace -- about hearing voices and seeing things that couldn't be attributed to too much espresso and Cognac.

Which brings me to a little tale that starts off, in the Hitchcockian manner, with an innocent, bon joviale prelude. I was having a Saturday night sleepover at a Medoc chateau in April 2006 when tout le Bordeaux was crammed and atwitter in anticipation of the barrel tastings of the marvelous 2005, no doubt the first of many such vintages of the century. Dinner was spectacular -- with a blend of people from various countries, occupations, and ages -- and lasted just long enough, but not too long.

Again, I was an only guest, so the host told me before he retired to his wing of the castle that we would have breakfast around 8 in the great room -- although we would be left to our own means, as the caretaker-cum-chef had the day off.

Sunday morning awoke bright and sunny -- I had parted to drapes before crashing -- and I was in a leisurely mood as my first appointment was hours away over lunch in St.-Emilion. The shower was in my room, but the toilet was outside and a few steps down the hallway. I scratched my head and other appropriate parts and headed in that direction.

WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!

Like a flock of giant birds with terrifying cries and crashing of wings, the burlar alarm sent waves of noise bouncing off stucco walls and parquet floors. Stunned, I retreated into my bedroom and started throwing on clothes in anticipation of the arrival of the French Foreign legion or at least Margaux gendarmes. Where was my host? Maybe he wasn't in the other wing after all, but was sleeping in his private retreat elsewhere on the estate.

And, just as suddenly, the clamor stopped.

Half-dressed, I inched back toward the door. My hand emerged waving like a refugee with a white flag. Nothing. Next my head. Still nothing. A whole body, somewhat cowering. Nothing at all. Of course, by now I really needed to go to the toilet.

A half-hour later, I was dressed and refreshed. Crisis over. It was only about 7:30, so I would go into the great room and try to decipher my notes from last evening while much-needed coffee was brewing. I strode confidently into the quiet hallway, paused to look out the windows at the budding trees, then set foot inside the room where we had sipped Champagne and munched finger food a few hours ago.

WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!

The birds were back, and this time they brought with them an instant fog that came gushing out from the walls! In seconds, the room was becoming obscured. Was I now being gassed as well? I fled the hall and went rushing down the giant stones steps to the first floor and the front door -- which was barred! I had noticed when I arrived the previous afternoon this gigantic piece of metal leaning inside the entryway, but now it was firmly slid into sturdy clasps on either side of the massive doors.

Feeling like Michael York in The Three Musketeers, I fought bravely to free the bar and myself. Would there now be stag hounds outside to rip me apart, or would I merely be epee-d and foiled? The barrier was finally flung free, and I escaped into the sun and ran across the gravel, the sound of the birds flying out the door in pursuit.

About this time, the door was flung open at the end of the wing, and my host sleepily emerged in his boxered state, "What's happening?" he croaked. I quickly told him about the attack of the birds, but his eyes quickly popped open when I got to the part about fog coming out of holes in the walls.

"Oh, my god!" he shouted and disappeared, the door left ajar.

Time passed.

Over breakfast, the windows of the great room now flung open to release the last vapors of the dark cloud, he explained what had happened. The chateau had once been burgled of collectables and a few paintings, even with an alarm. So he had gone into the extreme alarm mode, installing a nontoxic gas to "blind" any returning burglars. Staying in a separate wing, he would routinely shut off the alarms in the morning before venturing into the main part of the house. And last night, after cleaning up, the caretaker -- who didn't speak English and missed that part about one guest -- had routinely alarmed the house when he departed.

My bags fully packed, I left a few minutes later, forming in my mind as I drove down D2 toward the rocade a new rule for my Guide to Being a Chateau Guest in Bordeaux. Right after Rule 6 -- "Always bring a robe in case there are no curtains" -- and Rule 7 -- "Check to see if the ghosts in residence are good or evil" -- now comes Rule 8: "Always inquire about the intricacies of the security system," even if the owner might regard you with alarm as to why you are asking!

Until the next time...

Roger Morris

Inauguration Flashback: Balling with #42

Today's the best kind of national holiday -- I get to drink a great American sparkling wine, eat good food, watch Barack Obama be inaugurated as President on TV, and still have mail delivery. What I like most about Obama is his blend of intelligence, willingness to act, and ecumenticism in understanding the advantages in working with those of different viewpoints. It will be an interesting eight years.

I'm also reflecting today -- in these early morning hours -- on a similar day in 1993 when Ella and I awoke in Arlington, Virginia, across the river from the Capitol, in anticipation of the first inauguration of Bill Clinton. And another Bush was moving out of the White House that day. Although the pending arrival of Clinton and Gore bore nowhere near the enthusiasm and energy that the coming of Obama and Biden is generating, it was an exciting time.

Our plan for the day was simple -- catch the Metro into the city, watch the inaugural ceremony on TV from a corporate office near the White House, catch the end of the parade looking down from the sixth floor (I think) onto Pennsylvania Avenue, then refresh before an inaugural ball. I was working in public relations for DuPont's pharmaceutical business at the time, and I think my friend Scott and I were the only people who openly supported Clinton. Our bosses and colleagues were of a generation seduced, with some reason, by Reagan and were in death throes of fear and loathing at the spectre of the coming Hillary Healthcare Plan.

The DuPont legal offices were festive for the occasion, not because the lawyers were Clintonites, but because there were fresh faces across the street and at the Capitol to be lobbied and won over. So there was plenty of food. We arrived early, nibbled and chatted, and settled in to watch Bill get inaugurated. Bush 41 wasn't much of a communicator either ("the vision thing"), so everyone was waiting to hear what loqaucious Bill would say. It would be inspiring, we all agreed, but it would also be too long and windy. It was, and it was. We watched the parade on TV until it ended down below in the streets, when we all took to the large office-building windows. We thought we got a glimpse of Clinton, but weren't sure of that.

That night -- a cold one -- we made our way back into DC without much problem. Being in public relations, I worked with an agency that had worked with some music industry clients, so we were able to get two tickets to the hottest party in town, the MTV Ball being held at the convention center. We were appropriately tuxed and gowned when festivities got underway.

The music was good, especially Soul Asylum, who looked very dazed and crazed, though in a focused sort of way. Boyz 2 Men were OK. There were others. I had never seen a mosh pit before, but one quickly developed near where we were standing near the edge of the stage. Bodies came hurdling toward me, and I got some primal pleasure in hurling them back with a shoulder or a stiff arm. In a few minutes, the word started spreading through the crowd that the Clintons and the Gores were on there way, and that was soon confirmed from the stage.

About that time, a guy in his 30s, looking somber and severe in his suit, gave me a slight push as he worked his way through the crowd parallel to the stage . Of course, I gave him a shove back. He paused and gave me a withering look. I gave one back. "Don't you shove me," I shouted over the noise in my best attenpt to sound feral. He gave me one last look -- "I-wish-I-had-time-to-take-you-outside" type of glance -- then walked on, shoving and pushing.

I looked over at Ella, expecting admonishment, but instead found her chuckling. "Don't you know that was the Secret Service?" she laughed. "Didn't you see the wire coming out of his ear and the lapel pin?" True, in those pre-iPod days it was rare to see men with ear gear, but I hadn't really thought about it. But before I could reflect further with a mental instant replay, there were Bill and Hillary and Al and Tipper up onstage.

I can't remember a word they said.

The next morning, we were driving back up I-95 to Pennsylvania chatting about what a great time we had and what stories we could tell our cats, the late Fred and Cecil. Taking part in an inauguration was a great thing to do, we both concluded, but just once. Which is why neither of us -- excited as we are -- will be in Washington today, but will instead be watching on TV, drinking a vintage "J" sparkling wine from Sonoma, and fixing a pheasant stew.

Ella and I tend to be samplers -- try it once, see what it's like, move on. One Sundance festival. One Nascar race. One Orvis flyfishing weekend. One PGA championship with Tiger Woods.

In fact, if ever I had taken to Christianity and thus found myself in need of baptism, I would have opted for a few drops of water sprinkled across my head rather than being dunked into a creek the way things were done during my hill-boy childhood. Total immersion just never made it with me.

So here's looking at you Barack! I'll be watching you, I'm at your back, and I'll be there in spirit. But I already sort of know what it will feel like.

Until next time....

Roger Morris

A Beau Tour Down Sensory Lane

As I have spent most of my adult life buying inexpensive but well-balanced wines to cellar, I am always amused when another expert cautions that this or that red wine that has just been released must be consumed within the next five or 10 years or it will deteriorate quickly and go to live with the angels and baby Jesus.

Nevertheless, I do have some bottles that are getting a little long in the cork, so my wife Ella and I decided that every Monday evening when we are at home, we will have one of the oldest ordinary reds from down below, where they lurk under a thin veneer of dust. Plus, it's a good way to ensure that a good steak or appropriate cheeses are on the menu. (On Fridays when we aren't traveling or being entertained, we have an everyday Cava or other cheap sparkler to go along with homemade pizza and whatever happens to have come in from Netflix. A friend refers to the practice as Porn, Pizza, and Perignon.)

So we kicked off this new program last Monday with a 35-year-old bottle of 1973 Beaulieu Vineyard "Beau Tour" Cabernet Sauvignon, which I bought in 1975, to go along with a New York strip steak, medium rare, and some potatoes and a green salad on the side. The cork was tight, but slid out intact. I took a sip and decided all that was needed was a quick decant just before the last flip of the steak on the grill.

For those who aren't familiar with Beau Tour, for years it was what those of us who couldn't afford BV's Georges de Latour Private Reserve were forced to buy instead. These were the years when Latour was probably the best red wine made in America, always under the steady hand of Andre Tchelistcheff. Tchelistcheff's last year at BV as winemaker was 1973, so I have no idea whether he had any hand in the harvest or selection of the grapes that made the wine Ella and I were about to drink.

There was almost no sediment on decanting -- it was probably filtered -- and the color was excellent with only the lightest edge of a brown but no orange. The aromas were of mature fruit, but certainly bore no maderization. And it tasted marvelous -- well-rounded black cherry and dried cherry flavors with the enhanced minerality that older wines seem to gradually acquire.

While the Beau Tours of that era -- I think the brand has now been completely retired -- were certainly very good wines and very good values, they were not alone. I have finished off the last of the lovely Louis Martini cabs from 1968 and 1969 I had in my cellar, and those from Sebastiani from the same time have proved to be better than I gave the credit for back them.

While a well-balanced red wine may not be a joy forever, in most cases it can still give thrills for a good 20 or 30 years.

Until the next time.....

Roger Morris

Languedocumentary! Eat, Drink, Drive On

Food is an inevitable companion on trips to wine country -- wherever wine country happens to be this week -- and nowhere is it more enjoyable than it was earlier this winter in Languedoc. In the coming months, I will have articles appearing in several publications about the wines of Languedoc -- Beverage Media, Sommelier News, Signature Brandywine, and The NewsJournal in Wilmington, DE., among them -- but, for a moment, I will concentrate on the glorious food...

We descend into Toulouse, the early December rain and mist obscuring all but a few of the city's white-faced buildings with their ochre roofs. Our bags have made it through the Charles de Gaulle transfer, and we are soon met by Yves Retailleau, a jolly, middle-aged Frenchman who speaks enough English to answer our questions and to keep us amused. An hour later, we are cautiously negotiating the minivan through the slickened, narrow streets of ancient Carcassonne, the historical and cultural jewel of France's southwest. Just outside of town we had seen our first vines, denuded except for a few clinging leaves and wizened bunches too dessicated to drop.

It is Day One of our five-day march across Languedoc, France's Mediterranean culinary pork belly, in search of food and drink. That evening, we walk a couple of blocks in muted light from the Hotel Le Donjon across wet paving stones to the Hotel de la Cite, an impressive Orient Express property, where we meet Christine Molines, export director for the Languedoc wine authority (CIVL) which is sponsoring our small cadre of three journalists on the journey. Today, it is just Deborah Parker Wong and me, along with public relations exec Tia Butts, but tomorrow we will be joined by writer/restaurateur Pamela Busch.

We start off the evening with hors d'oeuvres in the lobby -- local Lucques olives, a pumpkin sorbet, and a duck mousse in a spoon that are all washed down with local blanquette de Limoux -- before descending into the hotel's cave for a fixed-menu dinner under the direction of Jerome Ryon. (As a matter of fact, we will never see a menu during our entire visit.) We are treated to a dinner of veloute de cepes et foie gras (mushroom and foie gras soup), scallops, and poitrine de veau (breast of veal). It is a lovely welcome to France! We drink more blanquette and red Minervois and discuss how far the wine of the region has come since the days when much of it was shipped elsewhere in France and northern Europe to be blended, perhaps, and bottled. Upstairs, an elegant party is just breaking up, Nigerians celebrating their signing of a contract with Airbus, which has major facilities in Toulouse.

Day Two. Has anyone had a truly memorable hotel breakfast in Europe? Perhaps, once in Geneva in the 1980s, but not at this moment, as I work my way through the limp cold cuts, unimaginative cereals, and little bottles of stamped-out yogurt. We start our adventure with a drive south to Limoux to take a tour of the giant caves of Sieur d'Arques, the region's largest producer of sparkling wine, where we taste both blanquette (from mainly Mauzac grapes) and cremant (often a blend that includes Chardonnay and Chenin) before moving on to lunch at Gayda, a jewel of a restaurant on a small hilltop near Brugairolles, where we meet Limoux producers from Antech, Delmas and J Laurens. The lunch of shrimp with julienned vegetables and duck breast with frites and chanterelles is delicious and matches well with the sparkling wines. Next, we head cross country for a tasting with Minervois-La Liviniere producers at the southern outpost of the Cazes wine empire, L'Ostal Cazes. (A new generation of local, family winemakers, many university-trained, as well as "outsiders" are behind the revival in the Sud de France.) We have as enjoyable, informative late afternoon tasting of reds from first-class winegrowers, including L'Ostal, Ch. Sainte Eulalie, Ch. Gourgazaud, Ch. Maris and Clos Centeilles. Then we rush across the countryside in the dusk -- the glow from sundown lights up the dormant vines in a halo of red -- on our way to the Hotel Domaine de l'Hospitalet near La Clape outside of Narbonne.

We have only a moment to deposit our bags, take a quick shower, and say hello to Pamela, fresh in from San Francisco, before we are again racing through the darkness (in the direction from which we have just come) for dinner at L'Auberge de Saint Martin in Beaufort to meet some producers of unhyphenated Minervois. Beaufort is a lovely little town -- the kind of place they look for as movie sets -- and the auberge next to the church has excellent country food. We meet the producers of Coupe-Rose, Hegarty Chamans, and Ch. la VillaTade, and immediately start a lively evening of tasting wines and arguing about terroir and winemaking, and almost don't notice that the appearance of an excellent foie gras with a chutney, which seems to be a continuation of our a poultry-based tasting pattern.

On the way back to La Clape, I ask when we will have a cassoulet, the signature dish of the South of France. But, like a child who asks a question about the existence of god or Santa Claus, I am not given a straight answer.

Day Three. It is a cold morning with a wind coming off the Mediterranean a few kilometers away, but I take a few minutes to walk in the garrigue -- the famous scrub growth that gives a scent to the region and some would say to its wines as well -- and pick a few sprigs of nice-smelling bushes, including some wild rosemary. And the coffee at breakfast is good.

Our first stop of the day is unplanned. Yves insists that we have to see the market at Narbonne, a photo op that is not to be missed and a great place to have fresh oysters for breakfast. Yves is right. I have walked through many European marketplaces, and this is one of the best -- tremendous amounts of meats, seafood, and produce in the heart of the city. It is very lively with people from restaurants making early selections, housewives and elderly couples looking for today's bargains, and all sorts of workers in heavy boots and high heels grabbing coffee and pastry on the way to the construction site or the office. I decline the oysters and settle on some sun-dried tomatoes that have all the concentrated essence of a fine old Corbieres.

Which is our next official stop. After miles of narrow roads through coastal hills -- desolate and lovely -- we arrive at the Cave d'Embres et Castelmaure, where we taste their Corbieres, quite well know in America, and those of Domaine du Grand Cres, which deserve to be known much better than they are. Perched on the side of the hill, the winery looks like a mining outpost in the Colorado foothills. Back into the van. Drive on across more countryside to Canilhac where we taste the wines of Ch. Ollieux Romanis in the Corbieres-Boutenac appellation at the Auberge Cote Jardin. If you happen to be on walkabout anywhere between Montpelier and Carcassone, you must rest your feet under a table here and have a meal. It is a delightful setting in a one-street town, and the food by Chef David Prevel is sublime -- imaginative but not over-engineered. Subtle but still assertive. We start with a polenta with beetroot and a mousse of rocket, followed by a melt-on-your-tongue pumpkin flan with a chesnut cream and trumpet mushrooms and sprouts. The main course is a -- is there any better adjective? -- succulent black pig with Corbieres legumes and winter vegetables and a reduction sauce. Dessert is a cheese and chutney. Now, tell me again, does the wine taste so good because of the food, or the other way around?

That evening, after an afternoon tasting at Chateau Cazal Vieil in St. Chinian, we are back at the l'Hospitalet -- and more food. Here, we are treated to wines of a large producer, Gerard Bertrand who owns the hotel and who makes both large volumes of everyday wine and small volumes of prestige wine with grapes harvested from across the Languedoc, and a small producer of very high quality wines from La Clape, Mas du Solleila. The food is excellent -- if a tad familiar: foie gras in a capuccino emulsion and duck breast with a potato gratin! Cassoulet, anyone?

Day Four. I'm beginning to fill a little bit of wine-and-food lag this morning, but I brighten as we have a great vineyard tour and lunch at Domaine de Nizas in the village appellation of Pezenas. Nizas is part of the same wine group that includes Clos de Val in Napa Valley and Taltarni and Clover Hill in Australian. There is a fancy catered lunch ar the domaine, where we are joined by a representative of nearby JC Mas. Our hosts do the re-heating and serving -- it feels much like showing up at a friend's house for a dinner party -- and we taste many wines with the food. The menu -- foie gras, roasted duck breast with a gateau provencal, assorted cheeses, and a pear tart with ice cream -- is enough to tide us over through a visit to the marvelous, misty, mountain countryside of Pic St. Loup, where we visit the chalet-like winery of Domaine de l'Hortus, set in a narrow valley beneath high rock clifts.

Tonight, there is another schedule change, and it becomes one of those up-close-and-personal moments that make wine writing so enjoyable. Instead of going as planned to a fine restaurant in our terminus city, we are instead invited to have dinner with Count Pierre de Colbert and his family at Ch. de Flaugergues. The property has become encapsulated by the city as it has grown around the vineyards, and the estate is now open to public tours. But we are this evening in the estate's rather modest kitchen, sitting around a wooden table with a huge fireplace keeping the night warm, chatting with the count's parents, who had run the property before him, his wife and their two young daughters. Dinner is soon served next door in the dining room, and it is a complex, warming, very satisfying smoked salmon casserole with pasta, spinach and cream cheese. Cheeses follow. It is a very special evening. Now, if I can just stay awake until we get to the hotel...

Day Five is mostly consumed with blind tasting more than 100 wines at the Maison de Vin from all the appellations across the Languedoc. We are choosing about one-quarter of them as a cross-section to serve as the region's "ambassadors" on a 2009 tour of the U.S. After a couple of hours, we smile though purpled teeth as the paper bags are removed, and we see the 27 wines that we have selected. It is quite satisfying to see that we have a good representation from many of the wineries we have visited during the week as well as many others than we don't know but look forward to discovering. We go next door to the Mas de Saporta restaurant for lunch. It is a lively place with excellent food -- all chosen in advance, as in the days before. But, please forgive me if I remember only one dish. My plea has been answered with an individual, appetizer-size cassoulet, small but rich in beans and fall-apart meats. I am a happy wine camper.

The final meal is, well, a bit of a let-down. We have good conversations with three Picpoul de Pinet producers -- Domaine Felines Jourdan, Domaine la Condamine l'Eveque, and Mas Saint Laurent -- at the Cote Bleue in a seaside lagoon. It is always a bit disappointing to have average seafood in a seaside restaurant. Maybe we should have ordered foie gras and duck breast.

All in all, it has been a fabulous wine and food tour, and one that makes me better appreciate this lovely stretch of land that arcs between the Spanish coast and the Rhone Valley.

Until next time....

Roger Morris

Publication Notes: I have been enjoying working recently with two CondeNet sites, Epicurious.com and Men.Style.com. For the former I contributed Top 5 Wines for Under $12, and for the latter I updated best Champagnes and wrote on 15 Top Wines for Under $15....for Drinks, I did a fun piece on Champagne All Day or "how to drink bubbly from breakfast mimosas to bedtime night caps"...sticking with the Champagne theme, I wrote about Champagne alternatives for Beverage Media, as well as telling how to throw a French-themed holiday party BevMedia's retail customer booklet, Good Hosting...Chablis was my topic for Tasting Panel, and I contributed a piece to Robb Report on the newly famous White Bowmore... Finally, the online Sommelier News allows me the space to write longer pieces, including recent ones on varieties of Champagne (is there a theme here?) and a profile of the Drouhins of Burgundy. Let me know if you can't lay your hands or browser on any of these and would like to read them -- londonbritain@msn.com.

Mr. Gutenberg, Let Me Introduce Ms. Kindle

Last week, after listening to Oprah, Ella and I decided to become part of a momentous, potentially groundshaking movement. No, I'm not talking about voting for Barack Obama.

Ella decided to buy a Kindle, the electronic book machine and electronic library.

Think about it: For 558 years, Johannes Gutenberg and his successors have been the only competitive reading game in town. Before the inventive German came along, monks for centuries were in charge of book production, one painful, beautiful letter at a time. Then, in 1450, Gutenberg invented movable type and the printing press, and practically everything that has been read since then -- except for handwritten love letters and post cards -- was first set into type and then printed. In the 1960s, the movable type part started to be phased out of the picture as offset, or electronic, type took over for hot type. But printing continues. Your morning newspapers, the copy of Saveur or Robb Report, the book you read at the beach this summer all were printed conceptually the same as Gutenberg did it. Sure, we can already read things on a computer screen, as you're reading this blog now, but lack of portability and flexibility hindered a totally electronic publication. Early electronic books were too klunky and too limited in scope.

Then came Kindle. Like hundreds of thousands of Americans, Ella -- the rapid adopter in our family -- got her first exposure to Kindle on an Oprah show, and she (and subsequently we) were bedazzled. Kindle is portable, can almost instantaneously download any of hundreds of books (including those just published) for $9.99, allowing you to store them for later or repeat reading, change fonts and type sizes, and find your place where you stopped reading any of them -- no bookmark or turndowned page corners. It can be read in any light with virtually no glare. And it can electronically access magazines and even your own computer files. Want to make notes in the margin? -- yup, Kindle can do that, too.

Of course, the Kindle people don't want you do printouts (too Gutenbergy and against their business model), and you can't share a book on one Kindle with another Kindle (oops, see corrective Comment below). Ella and I anticipate the day when I buy a Kindle, and we'll be switching our sets back and forth to read each others' downloaded books.

Some friends say they are holding off, partly out of loyalty to books and partly to wait for the technology to improve. The latter excuse sounds like one I would make, but we couldn't really think of anything that we would want in a handheld electronic library that Kindle doesn't already do. And we've done the test run. Ella's has quickly purchased and downloaded three books, including The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (above), her first.

As far as real books go....I have fondled them lovingly since infancy. I have been intoxicated by their smell, particularly the ones printed years ago in England. And I love the look of them ensemble, whether they are in the straining book cases in our library or haphazardly piled by my nightstand. We will probably end up buying more of them than we normally do just to justify our dalliance.

Still, when I get on the plane to Paris next month for a wine trip to Languedoc, odds are I will have convinced Ella to lend me her Kindle. Or will have bought one myself.

Until next time...

Roger Morris

Harvest Dinner at Mercer Estates

I have had a long fascination with the area of Washington state that lies "east of the mountains" -- a desert of slopes, hills and plateaus made green by irrigation, a land settled by families whose pioneering ancestors arrived here by wagon trains, a broad farm belt of waving grain and grazing sheep. More so than most places, there is a tradition here that blends agrarian culture, which at is simplest comes from planting seeds and working toward a harvest, and the older, basic hunting and fishing culture. Over the past quarter century, wine -- and very fine wine at that -- has been added to the mix.

On a recent visit to the Yakima Valley, I was able to experience the combination of all these threads as guest of the Hogue and the Mercer families, which earlier this year opened their new winery, Mercer Estates, in Prosser, the small farm town that is the center of activity in the region. In addition to visiting vineyards and wineries, I also went hunting with them -- pheasants in the woods and shrub-brush upland draws of Horse Heaven Hills --and fishing for steelhead trout from drift boats in the remote Klickitat River. Most of all, I was able to share two harvest dinners with the combined families, one a pheasant dinner a the home of Ron and Barbara Hogue Harle and the other a seafood fest, including steelhead trout, at the home of Mike and Dora Hogue. I also had the opportunity to spend time with Rob and Brenda Mercer and Rob's father, Bud. The game dinner was prepared by chef Frank Magana of Picazo 7Seventeen Restaurant, Prosser's one fine-dining eatery, and the seafood dinner by Anthony's in the nearby Tri-City area.

I will be working on various articles soon about the Yakima Valley and its 60 wineries and about my delightful visit with the Mercers and the Hogues of Mercer Estates.

PHOTO NOTES: From the top, Mike Hogue, grape grower and wine pioneer with Hogue Cellars; Chef Frank Magana prepares a harvest dinner using a Mercer Estates Merlot in a pheasant dish; Ron Harle and Rob Mercer with the first of six pheasants bagged earlier in the day in Horse Heaven Hills near the Mercer family vineyards; Magana's pheasant entree and Mercer Estates wines bring an active October harvest day to a beautiful close.

Until next time....

Roger Morris

Going Back to School on Wine Education

Just like the kids who every morning set off for the bus stop, wine writers have to go back to school every fall.

Oh sure, there are still things to study over the summer. Bottles keep arriving at my front door like so many textbooks -- some weighty tomes that need a lot of thought and analysis, others a quick read over dinner. And there's the occasional trip to the big city for a lunch-and-learn seminar at the DB Bistro Moderne or Per Se.

But things really heat up after Labor Day. First, we have to choose our field trips: Burgundy or the Mosel Valley or Mendoza? And the PR people who work for wine growers -- I think of them as my tutors -- always have suggestions about new things to try and new things to learn. Like Andy Rooney, they are always asking, "Have you ever thought about why...?"

Then there is this new education tool called a "webinar." In the old days, kids out in the boonies would be sent reading materials by mail, then they would turn on the radio Saturday morning to hear the lecture. With webinars, a winemaker in Chile or Australia, who could spend more money than Congress taking a plane north and still not catch up with all of us writers, merely has to set up a camera in front of a bunch of vines and lecture us via the internet.

Like a couple of weeks ago. The folks at Barossa Valley Estate make some really neat wines, especially two shirazes -- Ebenezer and E&E Black Pepper -- so the tutors set up a seminar for winemaker Stuart Bourne to talk to us via webcam from his Barossa vineyard while we sipped wine, trying not to get cracker crumbs in the keyboard.

I always do advance prep, and sometimes my friend Anthony helps with my homework. So here we are in my kitchen at 10 a.m. tasting these four wines before the noontime webinar. We immediately fall in love with the 2006 BVE E Minor Chardonnay, which has a sort of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc attitude. Next, there is the 2006 E Minor Shiraz -- lots of spicy fruit like a jazzed-up Russian River Zin. Wow!

Then we taste the 2004 vintage of Ebenezer and E&E Black Pepper, which regularly gets ratings in the 90s by the guys who write the textbooks. Eb has great, raw-meat, steaklike aromas, and Pepper has fruity balsamic and green olive notes. Both sport that trademarked Aussie fruit balminess, but neither is totally satisfying, like an apple pie with great filling but no crust. I turn on the computer to catch Stuart, but Anthony has to take off. What a guy -- helps me study even though he doesn't have to write a report!

Next day, I re-pull the corks on Eb and Pep -- education never sleeps -- then the next, then the day after -- and gradually they turn delicious. Should have decanted on that first day! But, if you study hard enough, you finally get it.

"No drinker left behind," I say.


This article appeared in slightly different form in my weekly wine column in the Delaware regional newspaper, The News Journal.


Until next time....

Roger Morris