My last experience with the Riverview Theater was when my mother took my sister and me to see a movie called The Other Side of the Mountain. It was the true story of a skier who plunged off a cliff while training for the Olympics and was paralyzed from the chest down. She rode around in a motorized wheelchair, learned to paint, and fell in love with a downhill medalist named Mad Dog, played by Beau Bridges.
So it’s a cool, windy June evening nearly 30 years later and I’m sitting in the Riverview Wine Bar, staring at the theater marquee and remembering the scene where she sobs and tells him she’s never had sex. He pulls out a handkerchief, wipes her nose for her, and says something like, “Don’t worry about it. Sex isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” then strides off and promptly dies in an airplane accident (isn’t that how all 70’s love stories end?).
My mother and sister were weepy for days. I was unnerved. Imagine my relief, years later, when I discovered Beau was only being kind. . . .
I have plenty of time to muse about this, because I’m waiting for Johnny Hodges — the manager, a spiky-haired musician in skin-tight striped pants who could be Billy Idol’s little brother — to create a flight for me. It’s a wonderful thing, this service: you go into the Riverview wine bar, tell Johnny what you like, and he’ll dream up a tasting for you. Four two-ounce pours that match your yearnings. Nine and a half bucks. What a deal.
I’m a woman who loves a big red, on the dry-ish side with tons of fruit and a very long finish — particularly on an unseasonably chilly night in June. So after working the room and making recommendations all around, Johnny pulls out a card and makes some cryptic notes. Then he pours my four miniature glasses.
The first one is a big miss. Johnny describes Villa Carafa Sannio Aglianico D.O.C. 2001 (Italy — 13% alcohol) as “like a Chianti that has all the things I love and none of the ones I hate. . . .plummy and raisiny with a nice, tart finish.” I, however, find this wine bitter, shrewish, and empty, with no finish but for a lingering tongue-curling taste. And at $40 a bottle and $10.25 a glass, it’s on the pricey side — especially as I drink only a couple sips, leaving a good ounce and a half to be poured down the sink.
But Johnny’s second selection, Chateau Couronneau Bordeaux Superieur 2004 (France — 13.5% alcohol), is a great antidote. Smooth and round and big, tart around the edges of the tongue with a body of oak and wild strawberry, this wine is drinkable and versatile. It’s great alone, but I can easily imagine having it with cheese, artichokes, or the crisp, fragrant Margarita pizza that’s being enjoyed by the people at the next table. A full bottle of the Chateau Couronneau will set you back $34, but a glass is only $8.75.
The third, Sobon Estate Fiddletown Zinfandel 2005 (California — 15.1% alcohol), is “hot”: the vapors coming off it as boozy as rum. This wine is big, too — full of flavor that marches through the mouth, blackberry, cherry, a little butter, licorice, pepper, and meat. I will rarely say this, but the Fiddletown is so weighty, it’s not for drinking solo. This Zin requires food to balance it out, some chewy bread soaked in olive oil or an antipasto platter with plenty of peppers and smoked meats. It’s $39 a bottle and $10 per glass, but given the alcohol content, you can’t drink much.
Finally, there is the Mas de Gourgonnier 2004 (Provence — 12.5% alcohol), a lush red that takes my breath away. “So earthy, you could stick a pitchfork in it,” Johnny tells me. And he’s right. This wine is warm and soft and jammy, with a hint of mushroom and peat. Drinking it makes me think of fresh rain in the morning; the rhythm of horse hooves at a canter; black soil and yellow sun and blue sky. Plus, it’s a bargain! The Mas de Gourgonnier sells for just $28 a bottle and $7.25 a glass. I could drink this one all evening and, in fact, I do, sipping slowly, gazing at the marquee across the street, thinking of movies, mountains, and the well-intentioned lies men may tell.
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