Month: May 2004

This year, it seems like there are more serious bike riders than ever, judging by the proliferation of Lycra on city paths. The Twin Cities have long been the secret capital of cycling: Two of the world’s largest bike-parts wholesalers are headquartered here, some of the best bike frames are built here, and we may soon replace San Francisco as the epicenter of bike style—you know, courier bags, single-speed bikes, vintage wool jerseys, and so on. With the increased bike traffic, there is naturally a collective rise in blood pressure among the belligerent motoring class. While it’s not legal and it’s not nice to harass cyclists, one can indulge in a genteel form of sadism later this month by posing as a fan of bike racing.

On June 13, dozens of professional cyclists will arrive in Stillwater to race what is billed as “the toughest criterium in North America.” The culmination of the Nature Valley Grand Prix is Chilkoot Hill, a heartbreaking climb from the floor of the St. Croix River valley. The road will be reserved from curb to curb for the riders, all of whom will be in a world of pain.

“Chilkoot is primeval,” said David LaPorte, director of the Grand Prix. Cyclists tackle it on the final leg of a stage race that stretches over five days and takes riders to courses throughout the state. Like a miniature Tour de France, the rider who completes all five stages with the lowest cumulative time wins. But things change quickly on that hill. “Chilkoot is so brutal that riders can gain or lose huge amounts of time,” said LaPorte.

For some perspective on how discouraging Chilkoot is, imagine I-35 as it climbs south out of Duluth. That hill has a six percent grade, the maximum allowed on federal highways. Chilkoot has a twenty-four percent grade. It rises one hundred feet over a distance of seven hundred feet. It’s so steep that the city of Stillwater closes it during the winter, because the north-facing parts are too treacherous for driving. Naturally, this improves conditions for other kinds of sport. “I used to slide on it as a child,” said Sara Russell, a veteran cyclist who grew up not far from the hill.

“We created that monster a few years back,” Monty Brine said with a laugh. He is the Stillwater businessman who brought bike racing to Chilkoot in the seventies, mapping a course that included the hill because he knew its cruelty would create some dramatic publicity. That first race attracted a handful of amateur cyclists. They were supposed to attempt three laps on the course, but Brine estimates that eighty percent of the racers dropped out early.

The Grand Prix resurrected the course for professional riders in 2002. This year, racers ride the circuit for seventy minutes, tackling Chilkoot more than twenty times. After only a few climbs up the hill, “Your legs will start to give out because they’re full of lactic acid,” according to Russell. “They’re wasted! They’re trashed!”

In planning the first pro race in 2002, LaPorte made arrangements to install pedestrian barricades along Chilkoot. But when workers arrived to install them, they took one look at the hill and turned around. “They said, ‘You can’t put fencing on that hill. It’s too steep and it’ll slide down,’” said LaPorte. Without fences, the race has a European feel that cycling fans compare to watching Lance Armstrong approach a mountaintop finish in the Pyrenees; spectators stake out the best spots. As the day wears on, the crowd jams the hill, leaving riders only a narrow passageway up. “Spectators scream support just a few feet away with nothing in between,” said LaPorte. “It’s awesome.”

Of course, what goes up must come down. While the struggle up Chilkoot can make for some comedic outbursts, the downward slope is terrifying. Last year, a thunderstorm and high winds made for slick conditions and the race was momentarily halted after a violent crash. The incident struck fear into Russell. “You’re not going to die going up the hill, but you could die going down,” she said. —Christy DeSmith

By coincidence, two relatively new bandstands have come to grace the St. Paul riverfront less than a thousand yards from each other. The Heilmaier Memorial Bandstand is situated on Raspberry Island, a neglected little spit of land in the middle of the river below the Wabasha Street Bridge, while the Target Stage hulks over the southern edge of the broad greensward of Harriet Island Park. One is a work of great poetry. The other is an eyesore.

Created by celebrated architect and designer Michael Graves and bestowed upon St. Paul citizens by the Target Corporation, the Target Stage is the kind of “gift” that, as soon as you see it, you start to look for ways to get rid of it. Implicit in a gift like this, however, is the expectation that the simple folk of St. Paul prostrate themselves with gratitude—not just for Target’s beneficence, but for Graves consenting to give us anything at all. Minnesotans are mortified that anyone might find us in any way “critical” or “negative,” so good manners require us to lap up whatever is set before us. In the face of celebrity, we are not merely bovine, we are cowed, and therefore probably stuck with this monumentally ugly necktie till it rusts away.

The shelves of Target stores are piled high with the fruit of Michael Graves’ approach to design: fun hamburger flippers, twee teakettles, chubby toasters, and toilet bowl brushes with rubbery, turd-shaped handles. All of these objects (there are almost three hundred) whimsically “democratize” design so that now, thanks to the architect’s feeling for the little people, the humblest home in America can have a shot at the elegance of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

Graves’ Target Stage is whimsy gone berserk. It consists of a raised concrete platform flanked by a pair of looming steel towers shaped like oil derricks. Suspended by cables between them is a skimpy canopy, embellished at the front with what looks like a piece of cupcake paper or the edge of a shop awning. This wavy bit of decoration is apparently meant to symbolize musical gaiety, or the shape of a sound wave, or a slice of bacon, or the wiggly Mississippi River nearby, or some damned thing. Graves would have done better to suspend a gigantic Target credit card between a colossal pair of shopping carts—it would have been more honest.

The whole thing looks like a gallows, but Graves’ towers are evidently meant to quote the skeletal industrial structure of the old railroad lift bridge a few hundred yards downriver. The bridge’s cross-braced steel towers powerfully but matter-of-factly express or diagram the forces acting on them. They embody the job they were engineered to do. The stage’s reference to them, however, is empty, perfunctory, and visually inept. If you agree with Goethe that architecture is frozen music, then this is evidence that Graves has a tin ear.

The stage’s other salient feature, its apron, is faced with panels of native Mankato-Kasota stone. A beautiful material, it’s applied here like pancake makeup, the words “TARGET STAGE” incised in foot-high, inch-deep letters, staring the audience in the face. As if this were not subtle enough, another panel to the right is carved with a greatly enlarged simulation of the architect’s scrawled signature, putting us all on permanent notice that what we have here is no ordinary edifice, but a signed canvas, a veritable work of art. The Target Stage oppresses the ground it stands on with its clumsy, hamfisted egotism. Let’s hope that Graves’ current project in the Cities, the addition to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is done with greater feeling for the art it is supposed to shelter.

A quarter of a mile downstream, meanwhile, is the Heilmaier Memorial Bandstand on Raspberry Island, designed by the architect and glass artist James Carpenter. Carpenter was one of the finalists for the commission several years back to design the new Wabasha Street Bridge. His bold proposal for a bridge centrally suspended from a soaring, V-shaped mast was rejected as too daring, too “modern,” too “different,” and probably too expensive; the bandstand is the only part of it that survived. It is owned by the Schubert Club, a non-profit musical group that privately raised most of the two-million-dollar construction cost (the city of St. Paul chipped in a hundred thousand dollars from a state grant). A jewel almost lost in the weeds of redevelopment, its elegance is a rebuke to the pointlessly busy detailing of the bridge that eventually got built, and to the programmatic mediocrity of so much of the rest of the St. Paul riverfront’s redevelopment, from the uninspired, pharmaceutically named “Centex Homes” townhouses upriver on Shepard Road to the blank and sterile faces of the corporate campuses across the river from downtown.

The Heilmaier bandstand is an architectural folly in the best sense of the word, a work of fancy, both ridiculous and sublime. From the standpoint of flatfooted practicality you could say it’s nearly useless, but on another level it’s a deeply necessary thing, a lyric structure that sings to the eye and to the heart; a materialization—a shockingly beautiful one—of music itself. Strictly speaking, it’s more a band “shelter” than a band “shell.” It doesn’t reflect the sound acoustically like the Hollywood Bowl, but it is an acoustical portal, a cornucopia for music to spill out of.

In the language of topology, the overall form of the Heilmaier structure is a hyperbolic paraboloid; in other words, it’s shaped like a saddle. From certain angles, its curves look like the wave patterns on the screen of an oscilloscope. Like the instruments of a chamber group, each material used in the structure has a distinct voice, clearly articulated from the others. The palette is simple—steel, glass, concrete, and wood—but this puts it too simply. The steel is stainless, carefully machined. Each of the sandblasted glass panels is actually a face-to-face lamination of two pieces, which influences how light is refracted. The wood, identified as “ironwood,” is a local species resistant to the weather, like teak. The massive pair of canted, prefabricated concrete buttresses is formed with unusually close attention to the fairness of the curves.

Whichever detail of the structure the eye lights upon, uncompromised workmanship is evident: the precision of the steel fabrication, the finish of the concrete, the way the planks of the stage have been laid, the dramatic cantilever of the benches tucked under the arch, and their boomerang-shaped supports that seem to grow right out of the stage floor. Everywhere you turn, there is a sense of craft consciously brought to bear, and of the pleasure the builders took in their work. That is not to say that the workmanship is precious; it isn’t there for its own sake, but to serve the structure as a whole.

Roofed in glass but open to the weather, Carpenter’s bandstand lets in not only light and air but also water, and in just about every form: rain, snow, sleet, icicles, hail, and the rising waters of the river when it floods. On sunny days, the canopy’s panels of laminated, translucent glass—each one oriented at a slightly different angle to the continually shifting position of the sun—refract rainbows onto the floor of the stage, rainbows that will at certain moments spill onto musicians as they perform.

Former Mayor Norm Coleman used to make it sound as though “bringing hockey to St. Paul” in the Xcel Energy Center just upstream was a feat equal to causing the waters to spring forth and the desert to bloom. The Heilmaier bandstand, meanwhile, surely one of the most beautiful works of public art ever built in the Twin Cities, seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle for the puck and the rush to get a Peanuts figure plopped down everywhere you look. Porous to the light—even to the waters that can flood through it—the Heilmaier bandstand, its roof diaphanous as a summer moth, is an embodiment of musica
l fluidity and grace. Strapped for funds, however, the city may be turning to the private sector to take care of it. A proposal is afloat for the same outfit that owns the Wild, Minnesota Sports and Entertainment, to complete the landscaping, seating, and lighting, then to take over management of Raspberry Island as a site for music, poetry readings, and weddings. It will be interesting to see if they can do this without slapping the Wild’s logo on everything in sight.

June 20, 2004

Well, the time has finally come. Hennepin-Lake Liquors’ Summer Wine Sale is in full force, running through July 3rd. Reportedly, this is the sale to beat all sales, and I pretty much have to agree. Be advised, however, that newcomers to Phil’s place, or those who are at all claustrophobic might become overwhelmed. With that caveat in place, let’s dive into the sale.

Henn-Lake Liquors, as comapred to Surdyk’s, has a huge selection of high-end wines. This is one of the standout elements of the Summer Sale. California, France, Australia, Italy: If the name is prestigious, Phil more than likely carries it. If only two cases came to Minnesota, he probably bought them both. Haskells might argue the point, but while they excel with European wines, they can hardly compete in the domestic category.

Being a California wine guy, need I say more? To put a finer point on it, let’s look at the Cabernet/Meritage list from the Henn-Lake’s sale catalogue. Some big names like Quintessa, Viader, Chateau Montelena, and Opus stand out from the rest. Some even better, though perhaps less-familiar names that stand to offer more “value” in the high-end world of wine are O’Shaughnessy, Atalon, Cain, and Flora Springs.

Just to be fair, there are also more than twenty wines among Cabernet/Meritage selection that are on sale for under $10 a bottle. The list is as broad as it is deep, and the prices, overall, are very good, about twenty-five percent off “other’s price” (which, as usual, is a somewhat inflated idea of full retail). You will find better values at Sam’s Club & Costco, but on a much smaller selection. A few examples from Sam’s: Viader ’00 is $54.99 (Henn-Lake is $69.95); Clos du Bois “Marlstone” ’97 is $24.99 at Sam’s and $35.95 (for the ’99!) at Henn-Lake.

Now, Phil always says he will match anyone else’s price, but you do have to wonder if that means he could go head-to-head with the buying power of Wal-Mart (the Sam’s Club mother-ship). Still, I would make Henn-Lake the first choice for stocking up on a few mixed cases of very special wine. Phil even teases us in saying that he might have some Harlan for sale!

Henn-Lake’s kick-off tasting did not reflect well on the overall quality of the sale. It was held on Wednesday, June 9 in a large tent in the parking lot behind Campiello’s, just a block from the store. Unfortunately, the tent was not nearly large enough, and by 7pm the crowds were hardly navigable. Luckily I arrived early and made quick work of the large selection of wines.

The first group was from Phillips and included the Atalon ’00 Cab (young, a bit hot, but massivea great wine), three zinfandels from Edmeades (the “Piffero Vineyard” my favorite), Archipel ’00 meritage (very nice), and the best at the table, the Verite “La Joie” and“La Muse” (two beautifully structured Bordeaux-styled wines (are a bit pricey at $77.95 on sale). Also sampled at the Phillips table were Cambria’s “Julia’s Vineyard” Pinot Noir (always solid), Hartford Pinot Noir (just ok), Heitz ’00 Napa Cabernet (a bit disappointing), Tommasi’s Amarone ’98 (very nice), and the organic cab from Bonterra (surprisingly good).

The quality really picked up at the Grape Beginnings table! In the three-stars-or-higher category were the Altamura ’00 Sangiovese, the Paradigm ’99 Cabernet (amazing!), and Ehler’s ’01 Napa Estate Cabernet (my pick for the best quality/value at the tasting at just $24.95). At two-and-a-half stars we had Liberty School ’02 Cab and Treanna ’00 blend; and at two stars were Paul Hobbs ’00 Cab and the Vieux Telegraph ’00 Chateauneuf du Pape.

Paustis was pouring some fine selections such as the Steele ’01 Pinot Noir “Durrell Vineyard” – three stars, very fine, the best Pinot of the tasting, along with Cat & Fiddle’s Handley. Also a standout at this table was Fess Parker’s ’00 Syrah and Whitehall Lane’s ’01 Cab (both two-and-a-half stars). At the Grigg’s table I tried their Hungarian Egri Bikaver and was not impressed; also, the Phelps ’01 Pastiche was disappointing, as I have been long-time fan.

On the Johnson Bros. table, who showed one of the top wines of the show, the Chimney Rock ’01 “Stag’s Leap” Cabernet (was a three-and-a-half-starswow! Also decent, but not worth the price ($75) was the Raymond “Generations”; Raymond’s ’00 Reserve Cabernet was just about as good and is on sale for $23.95. I also tried the Freemark Abbey ’99 Cab, which was smooth and solid (two stars).

Two nice pinot noirs at the Wine Merchants table were from Archery Summit (the ’01 Premier Cuvee, two-and-a-half stars) and Rex Hill (two stars). At the nearby Vintage One table I sampled Van Duzer’s Pinot Noir (also two-and-a-half stars), the Badger Mountain organic merlot (simply not good), and the Powers ’01 Cabernet (nasty! have they ever slipped from their ’00 “best buy” perch).

World Class Wines, one of my favorite distributors, had few selections that I chose to sample. These included cabs from Provenance (two stars) and Terra Valentine (the ’01 Napa two-and-a-half stars), and the zinfandel from Seghesio (also two-and-a-half stars). Next door Cat & Fiddle wowed me with the aforementioned Handley Pinot Noir and with the best chardonnay of the event, from Solitude (three-and-a-half stars). Also a standout was the Elyse D’Aventure ’01 rhone blend (three stars), and both the cab and merlot from Grove Street (two stars).

The Wine Company showed the top zinfandel of the tasting, the Dashe Cellars ’01 Dry Creek (three stars and best value at the sale price of $16.95). But the real stunner at this table was the Flora Springs ’01 Napa Cabernet, which I thought superior to the Trilogy from Flora Springs and about half the price. Wow! Wow!

I greatly appreciated the few dessert wines offered, especially the fabulous Muscat from Bonny Dune. At eighteen-and-a-half percent residual sugar, this dreamy potion earned my only 4-star rating of the night, but then I am a real sucker for dessert wines, especially on the tail of such a great tasting. My only real complaint, though, Phil, is how come you couldn’t spring for glasses? To drink so many gorgeous wines out of plastic cups was a real travesty. The distributors provide all the wine; Campiello, the food; couldn’t you supply some glassware?

Now, in contrast, a great tasting was put on by our friends Down Under, the Australian Wine Bureau. They showcased over three hundred wines last Wednesday night at the lovely Nicollet Island Pavilion. This event helped me redefine my image of Austalian wines; like many, I tended to think of them only as producers of fine shiraz and shariz/cab blends. Au contraire!

At one table in particular, I learned how great Australian wine can be. It showcased the wines of Penley Estate and Giant Steps and all that these chaps Down Under can do. The Penley Estate ’00 Reserve Coonawara Cabernet ($65) was truly remarkable, and by far the best cab of the evening. It rated the top four-star rating, as did both the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay from Giant Steps (both sell for $35). I never realized that I might find California- and Washington State-style wines being made in Australia. Sadly, so far we don’t see these in our retail market, but maybe this tasting will begin to change that. Another truly great offering from Giant Steps was their Innocent Bystander ’02 Barossa Yarra Valley Sangiovese Merlot (three-and-a-half stars), and very good was the Innocent Bystander ’03 Central Victoria Shiraz Viognier (the Aussies have got to shorten the names of their wines!). I learned the value of blending a white grape like viognier into a red wine to add silkiness and perhaps a touch of sweetness.

Great wines abounded at the Leeuwin Estate table, shared with Jasper Hill, who produce a knockout shiraz, “Georgia’s Paddock” ($100). At half that price, and my pick for the best of all the shi
raz at the event, was Charles Melton (Epic Wines) ’00 Baroosa Valley ($45, four stars). Amazing wine. Charles Melton also makes a killer rose for $22. Another four-star shiraz came at the next table, a wine compared to Penfold’s Grange but at a fraction of the cost. The Mount Langi Ghiran ’99 “Langi Shiraz” Grampians Shiraz (what’s with these names?) was fabulous ($45, four stars)

Again, it was the dessert wines that really stole my heart. Southern Starz was showing two wines from R.L. Buller, one a Muscat and the other a tokay. Both were absolutely delicious. Even more remarkable, though, is that these wines, rated 97 and 95 by Robert Parker, retail for only $15 per 375 ml bottle. That, my friend, is a steal and you should demand your local wine dealer pick up a few cases. The dessert wine that I saved for the very end was a Mt. Horrocks “Cordon Cut” Watervale Riesling which, even at $27 for 500ml, was sensational.

This California wine guy has to include Down Under on his amended list of the best wine regions of the world. Now if only it wasn’t such a long flight to get there, I could start thinking about touring Australian wine regions next winter!

But hey – no time to be dreaming of winter travels today. It’s summer, and the air is perfect today, so I’m off to share coffee and a game of chess al fresco, followed by a round of golf, a barbecue and some fabulous wines. Can life get any better than this?

June 9, 2004

The near-monsoon rains and sudden burst of heat tell us two things: 1) summer is arriving, and 2) it’s time to prep the barbeque for the long grilling season ahead. And, besides a frosty beer from time to time, nothing goes better with grilled meats than the big-fruited wines from California, Oregon and Washington State. Read on for news about several tastings featuring these domestic offerings, as well as aand preview of Hennepin Lake Liquors’ sale—arguably the best summer wine sale in the metro area.

First, the tasting reports. I was lucky enough to sit down with Mikael Thollander and Robert Croce of The Wine Doctor, sampling a lineup of their very best from the West Coast. After a light warm-up of a couple South African Chenin Blancs, we tasted a lovely Riesling from Brooks Winery in Oregon. Charlie Trotter, the Chicago celebrity chef, buys up almost all of Jimi Brooks’ Riesling, but a small amount is available locally at $17.99. Top quality.

Next we moved on to a few wines from Walter Schug, a premium Carneros region producer. The Heritage Reserve Chardonnay was sublime, with a rich fruit and oak balance. Schug barrel ferments its wine and ages it sur-lie (with the fermentation sediment in the barrels for big extract flavors). This chardonnay is one of the few worth the $31 price tag. Great with a grilled salmon or halibut. The Heritage Reserve Pinot Noir—the grape that Walter Schug has devoted his whole life to mastering—was even more stunning.. Elegant yet full of gusto, it would accompany a grilled lamb or salmon entrée perfectly. Also $31 retail. Schug’s ’99 Merlot was massive, but a $42 merlot is a tough sell in my opinion (I’ll contradict myself in just a few minutes!). It was a bit herbaceous in the nose, which is characteristic of merlots from cooler regions like Carneros and Oregon.

Those same regions are emerging as the very best sources of Pinot Noir. The next one we tried, from Maysara, was majestic. This ’01 Delara Pinot Noir, made by the aforementioned Jimi Brooks, was perhaps the finest example I have ever sampled of this sometimes awkward grape. Worth the $45 if you can find it. Ask Phil at Hennepin Lake Liquors to pick up a case and add it to his Summer Sale inventory.

The tasting got even better with two top producers from Washington State. Robert Parker named the first, DeLille Cellars, as the very best in Washington right now. Chris Upchurch, winemaker, produces a couple of estate bottled Bordeaux-style blends, namely Chaleur Estate & Harrison Hill, both of which retail at around $60 a bottle. Then there is the D2, the “deuxieme” or second wine, which blends the remains of the top estate wines. This ’91 D2 retails at about $40, and I found it at first very tight and hot, but as I “followed” the wine over the next 48 hours, tasting it at various points, it opened beautifully to show its full pedigree. It’s as good as, say, a Silver Oak Cellars or Jarvis from Napa Valley, at about half the price.

We ended our outing with two products from Andrew Will, second perhaps only to Delille as the premiere Washington State winery. Both wines, the ’01 Klipson Merlot and the ’00 Seven Hills Cabernet, were amazing. I could only use extreme superlatives in my tasting notes—“incredible!,” “stunning!” (though admittedly, this could have been partly due to the effects by then of about a dozen wines). These wines both retail at $50, which might seem steep, but not if you actually drink the wine. It’s all relative.

The next tasting to report was a benefit fundraiser for a local Humane Society. Greg Varner, proprietor of Excelsior Vintage wine shop , chose most of the lineup.. Whites included Monte Volpe Sauvignon Blanc ($12)(very well received), Bonny Doon Big House White($12)(always a good quaffer for grilled chicken or pork), Gallo of Sonoma Chardonnay($12)(a standard in value chards), and Cambria’s “Katherine’s Vineyard” Chardonnay ($18)(an even nicer accompaniment to grilled chicken, pork, or even salmon).

For the reds, things became a bit more interesting, as Greg’s lineup accented a few selections from my spring Napa trip. The showcase wine of the evening was Duckhorn ’98 Howell Mountain Merlot, and it proved every bit the winner predicted. We sampled from a magnum, so it was showing a bit young but opened nicely over the evening. Also on the sample list was a nice merlot from Andretti Winery, a relatively new Napa producer owned by the race-car legend Mario Andretti. At $12, this is a lovely wine with enough structure to complement a grilled rib-eye. A “Fleur du Cote Rouge” from Torii Mor was medium-bodied and delightful—another example of why Oregon is tops for Pinot Noir and rhone-style wines. This wine would go perfectly with grilled pork tenderloin.

We got a most pleasant surprise from a Meritage from Hahn Estates in central California. A classic five-grape Bordeaux style blend with merlot leading the way, this wine, for under $20, is a great choice to accompany any sort of beef done on the grill. Likewise, the Napa cabernet from Liparita ($25 in California, but not yet available in Minnesota) was powerful and smooth, with enough backbone to stand up to a grilled steak. We also enjoyed a Zinfandel from Chateau Montelena, brought back from Napa, but luckily now available in town. $25-$30 may be a bit pricey for a Zin, but hey, it’s Montelena. Not many know that this premiere cab-chard producer even makes Zin (they make a Riesling too, but only sell it at the winery).

Speaking of Zinfandel, I was fortunate enough to try a bottle of 7 Deadly Zins, an old-vine zinfandel from Central California. Very big fruit for the price (around $20), and a great choice with barbecued ribs. Yummy!

The last tasting in this report was a small, private BYOB event at which a few interesting bottles showed up. Among the three that stood out were two from Gundlach Bundschu, the $12.99 Bearitage and the $19.99 Mountain Cuvee. Both are blends, and great wines for summer beef grilling. The Bearitage is a perfect burger wine, whereas the Mountain Cuvee would show better with a nice sirloin. The third pick was the Steele “Pacini” Zinfandel, long a favorite of mine and also a great accompaniment for ribs or steak.

UPCOMING EVENTS

“G’day in a Glass” is a huge Australian wine tasting on June 16 from 6:30pm to 9pm at the Nicollet Island Pavilion. There is a Trade Only tasting in the afternoon and an event for the public that evening. Over 300 wines will be shown!

Hennepin Lake Liquors Summer Wine Sale
This sale runs through July 3. Come back for details on both the sale and its kick-off wine tasting event in the next report. In the meantime, get grilling!

I can’t think of anyone whose career I am more interested in or more forgiving of than Prince’s. Let it be known, I’d follow the tiny man who penned “Shockadelica,” “The Cross,” “House Quake,” and “Bambi” into the gates of hell if he asked me to. In the nineties I was one of those diligent tools who would drop everything and hightail it to Chanhassen to happily sit outside Paisley Park for hours in sub-zero temperatures for his “surprise three a.m. gigs”… that sometimes never happened. Let’s see, I can’t feel my feet, I have to be at work in two hours, and all I got was this lousy souvenir tambourine shaped like a part of the male anatomy? Cool. Let’s do it again tomorrow night! To this day I could cry that I loaned a cute boy my “sold under the counter” vinyl copy of The Black Album that he forgot was left in his car that had been towed to the impound lot where it sat in his back seat for five record high temperature days one August.

In case you think I’m some drooling Prince-can-do-no-wrong Minnesotan, I’ll risk public stoning by saying I think Purple Rain is ass. I stumbled upon it recently while channel surfing, all I could think was “ouch, there’s a time in history that hasn’t aged well.” Guitarist Wendy Melvoin’s many saucy stage threads made my teeth ache: miniskirt, nylons, and white basketball high tops? No, please. And I’m sorry, “Dr.” Fink, but somehow your stage persona seems like an afterthought. “Get the keyboard player some scrubs and be sure to cover his Jheri Curl and his face.”

The vast cavern between P’s hits and misses is what makes him so fascinating to me. I don’t think he consciously thinks, “Hmmm… Let me write a real stink-burger opus, with an amateurish screenplay to match, just to irritate the haters.” On second thought, maybe he does. Oddly enough, I could respect that. Other than his ill musicianship, it’s the mystery of the man that I love. It’s all very Wonka-like. In fact, rumor has it Around the World in a Day was produced by Oompa-Loompas.

I’m still surprised by the sound of his speaking voice coming out of that tight l’il body. You think it’s going to be squeaky and small and then out comes the sound of chocolate melting in the mouth of a baritone pre-op transsexual. Much like my curiosity with the pope, you can’t picture either of them doing normal, everyday things. Plunging a toilet, waiting for the cable guy? Not so much. It’s also very important to me to know if either of them owns jeans. I like to think that Prince even has four-inch heeled slippers built into the feet of his jammies.

Send your purple prose to Mary Lucia at popularcreeps@yahoo.com.

May 25, 2004

With two week’s worth of wine events to report on, this entry is packed with tasting notes. It is a busy time of year, springtime, so full of promise. The Napa Valley Vintner’s Association event of early May was the harbinger for the lively Wine Fest weekend on May 14 and 15, which featured a variety of gatherings celebrating Napa Valley wines and raising money for a local charity. It was my great pleasure to introduce Fernando Frias of Frias Family Vineyard to The Wine Doctor, so that the fabulous Frias Family wines might become available here in Minnesota. The deal was struck, so stay tuned for what could be the most exciting new wine to enter our market in some time.

Speaking of The Wine Doctor, I recently had the good fortune to sit down with him to taste the wines of Mike Januik, formerly the winemaker for Chateau St. Michelle. Mike had become perhaps the most powerful force in the Washington State wine industry, through St. Michelle’s dominance in the market. So why did he leave? Simply put, to work toward making the best wines in the world. Januik believes that Washington State can produce wines as distinctive and expressive in varietal character as those from the best regions of California. After putting nine of his wines to the test, here’s my opinion: His chardonnays are very solid, but these days not many of us are interested in paying $30 for a chardonnay. His merlots were not distinctive, but then I don’t find that quality in many merlots (Pride Mountain and Paloma being two exceptions). Januik’s ’01 Cabernet was approaching greatness, and I could see where the high ratings were deserved. But it was his Syrah, both the 2000 and the 2002, that made my heart sing. These wines are worth every penny—seek them out and consume with certain delight!

We also tasted a ’96 Chateau Corbin Michotte St. Emilion, which, at $31.99 retail, didn’t impress me too much. But I am tough to please when it comes to French Bordeaux, having developed such a Napa palate. I did get to try just this past Saturday a ’98 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou, quite a prestigious Bordeaux from the St. Julien region. This was a finely structured wine, but I still preferred its tasting mate, a ’97 Clos du Bois “Marlstone.”

The Wine Doctor and I also sampled a couple of tasty offerings from the South American producer Budini. Both the 2002 malbec and cabernet were very much worth their asking price of about $10 a bottle. Likewise the red and white blends under the label “Le Bistro” were very good, when you consider the $8.99 price.

Moving on to an event I presided over on May 15, during which a small group celebrated with four flights of Napa wines. Standouts included S. Anderson “Stag’s Leap” 2000 Chardonnay ($24.99) and the Kendall Jackson 2001 Cabernet “Grand Reserve” ($22.99).

And, lastly, a wine dinner on May 22 gave us the opportunity to taste Schramsberg’s “Mirabelle,” a non-vintage blend sparkling wine. A great bubbly for picnics, it’s also a great value at about $18. Another standout was the quirky zinfandel from “Blockheadia Ringnosii.” Winemaker Michael Ouellette honors his French heritage by making a wine that is very Rhone in its styling (perhaps akin to a Chateau-neuf-du-Pape, or in a similar manner as Bonny Doon’s “Cigare Volant”). This is a great wine to pair with a spring lamb barbecue. A Ferrari-Carano ’00 Reserve Chardonnay went over very nicely with a salad of spring greens, feta, and caramelized walnuts. And then came the big cabernet blends mentioned earlier, the Ducru Beaucaiilou and the Clos du Bois “Marlstone.” Both were massive and yet supple—great beef wines. And I must mention that just this past Friday I noticed at Sam’s Club in Maple Grove that the ’97 Marlstone was on sale for $24 and change. That, dear friend, is a steal!

We ended this fabulous evening with two knockout dessert wines: First, a sublime Eiswein from Franz Reh in Germany; and second, a delightful port from Silver Oak’s winemaker, Justin Meyer. Along with some locally produced passion-fruit-filled chocolates and a precious Stilton cheese from England, dessert became an international love-fest! Ah, gluttony…

So, what is up on the local scene? I was checking out one of the Cost Plus Word Market outlets, and they do offer an occasional reason to stop in a buy a few bottles. This month they are featuring Cline’s Red Truck blend, as well as the Toasted Head Chardonnay from R.H. Phillips. Two very nice spring picnic wines. Another chain, The Cellars, is having somewhat of a May sale, with a hodge-podge of selections discounted through the end of the month. A few big-name Napa cabs stand out, like Caymus and Staglin Family. And they stay balanced by offering an assortment of ’97 French Bordeaux as well. I might be tempted by the ’97 Chateau LaGrange, St. Julien, at $26.97.

With the spring wine sales now past, the next big sale to anticipate is Hennepin-Lake’s coming in June. Stay tuned for more news on this sale-to-beat-all-sales, if you believe everything owner Phil has to say… Well, time to jump back outside and enjoy what is turning out to be a long and cool spring. The city gardens and parks are lush and gorgeous this year, so grab your favorite bottle of wine, your favorite friend, and go enjoy!

There certainly has been a lot of fuss lately about the health insurance crisis. A couple of weeks ago in the New York Times Magazine, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton—a person who is guaranteed to get a rise out of excitable Americans on both ends of the political spectrum—set forth her case for reform. Again. She noted that the situation has only gotten worse since she was laughed off the rostrum the first time she proposed radical change to a broken system that will not heal itself.

Within the week, the puissant Newt Gingrich wrote to acknowledge that he agreed wholeheartedly with at least one of Hillary’s principles: that reform must focus on the individual. Although he didn’t say precisely what he means (undoubtedly that innovation and change must come from individuals exercising their profit motives, not the fed acting like a nanny state), we were gratified to learn that the issue means enough to him that he actually founded something called the Center for Health Transformation.

When Hillary and Newt agree on something, the end is surely nigh; only the willfully stupid don’t see the mess we’re in. Business leaders are noticing that employee health benefits are the single biggest debit on the company spreadsheets. When the captains of capitalism begin to complain, powerful people begin to listen. But what can the powers and principalities offer, other than flagrant lip service?

It is an interesting impasse. The only way to effect genuine change is to muster sympathy from influential folks who worry about health insurance only in connection with their stock portfolios. We live in times when enlightenment comes in only one flavor—enlightened self-interest—and no politician will take up the cause of real reform until it is clear that such a position will get him power, money, or both.

We wonder why William McGuire, the CEO of United Health Group, is so eager to raise money for George W. Bush. The president is grateful for the hundred thousand dollars McGuire has raised on behalf of his re-election. Does Minnesota’s highest-paid executive know something we don’t about what is required to overhaul health care? We hope so, considering he was paid ninety-three million last year to run the nation’s largest and most profitable health care company.

We like to pick on McGuire, but we know the problem is systemic. Of sixteen corporate officers at United Health, twelve have given a total of twenty-three thousand dollars to the Bush reelection campaign (just one thousand dollars short of the maximum allowed by law), while none have given a red cent to that bleeding heart John Kerry. (Lois Quam, the head of one division who is also married to DFL point man Matt Entenza, played it safe with a harmless donation to Dick Gephardt.) It may also be worth noting that four United Health executives reporting to McGuire bring home a total of $66.7 million in annual salary.

Which begs the question: Just how committed to change can a person be, who is compensated so handsomely by the status quo? And why does United Health make its home in a state where the company cannot legally operate its core business because it is a for-profit health management organization? Perhaps it is to insulate its executives from the public opprobrium their greed so richly deserves.

What is the Republican agenda for treating the health care crisis? It is to blame bogeymen, to distract from real issues with straw men and red herrings. The people presently in control like to claim that what is really driving health care costs are frivolous lawsuits and filing inefficiencies, and an absence of competition in the marketplace.

McGuire, in his euphonious annual letter from the chairman to stockholders, makes grandiose claims about the need for broad societal initiatives, while gloating about the performance of his company. He makes no specific recommendations for change—at least not anything that might ruffle stockholders. What’s really needed, in the argot of the day, is more “science-based decision making” (in other words, more insurance-company bean-counters making even more decisions—it is called actuarial science, you know) and the computer-compatibility of patient files. This is a little like blaming the oceans on the rain.

“Our health care can—must—work better, be more efficient, and truly provide for all people,” he wrote last year. “As a nation, we can and must cover everyone.” And yet he also points out that “the magnitude of the challenges in health care, combined with ideology, lead some to propose preemptive or unilateral decisions.” The clear message is that drastic times require timid gestures.

Let us translate McGuire’s game plan for you: We can squeeze even more money out of the system for our “stakeholders” by continuing to turn up the heat of our rhetoric, while cashing in our stock options, and being careful to do nothing of substance. When the issue is complicated, it’s best to blame the trial lawyers (malpractice chicanery!) and the nurses (lousy filers!), and raise as much money as is legal for political candidates who care about the basic human dignity of massive profits.

On Tax Day, United Health reported record first-quarter earnings and increased margins. Profits are way up. Oddly, the health care situation for most non-millionaires has not noticeably improved.