Brad Hickey's Wine Odyssey

The Bloody Kokoda Track-Papua New Guinea

Sometimes I even surprise myself. Last year after a long dinner involving much food and wine in a comfortable restaurant, I agreed to hike the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea. At the time I was responding to the challenge of an Australian friend who clearly knew more than me and got my dander up when he suggested I'd need to bring a chair. Over the next months we began training by hiking the Heysen Trail, a 1200km continuous trail from the southern tip up into the North Flinders Range in South Australia. We had some tough hikes and long days, for sure, but nothing could prepare me for the 10 painfully exhilarating days that Papua New Guinea put before me 3 weeks ago. There had been plenty of attention on the Bloody Track, as it was called, this year. Most famous as the location for a wicked WW2 battle between the Allies (especially the Australians) and the Japanese called the Kokoda Campaign, the notoriously exhausting trail caused 3 deaths of ostensibly healthy trekkers within months of each other, all from physical ailments. There was also a plane crash that took the lives of all on board, including 9 Aussies on their way to begin the hike, into the side of a fog covered mountain. I was a little apprehensive about the whole situation.


Matters were made worse when our group had a death of its own. A Sydney based man in less than great condition died of a massive heart attack on the first day after the first descent. Day 2 was met with 2 trekkers, a mother and son, being helicoptered out of the jungle due to an adverse reaction to the heat and her medication. That the humidity was at times stifling and the terrain was relentlessly steep with slippery tree roots sprawling every which way like the veins in a weightlifter's forearm didn't make it any easier. Even one of the assistant guides had to pull out from heat exhaustion and dehydration. As Lonely Planet wrote in 1993: "The track crosses some of the most rugged and isolated terrain in the world, reaches 2,250 metres (7,400 ft) at Mount Bellamy, and combines hot humid days with intensely cold nights, torrential rainfall and endemic tropical diseases such as malaria. The track is passable only on foot; this had extreme repercussions for logistics, the size of forces and the type of warfare that could be conducted".
Yet watching the porters, PNG natives, climb so easily around the muddy hills, some barefooted, was awe inspiring. My guy, Eddie, was there to save my life many times; you could feel a gentle pulling on your backpack keeping you from copping it on a muddy precipice that went down 100's of meters. And during the less frightening segments they would disappear into thin air. The record for fastest time across the track, yes, there is a annual race called, appropriately, "the Kokoda Challenge", is held by a local trekking porter: 16:34:05. He said the reason he broke the record in 2008 was because he trained. It was nuts, this climb up the giant beanstalk, but after the first humongous downpour refreshingly washed away the thick layer of perspiration on my face, and wading waist high across dozens of growing rivers, there was something wonderfully cleansing about the experience.

The track was the site of various battles between the Aussies and Japanese in 1942 as the Japanese pushed for control of the South Pacific, and PNG was the last stop before mainland Australia. It was a Pyrrhic victory for the Aussies. They were badly outnumbered and supplied, but they were able to dig into the hills and exhaust the Japanese. Aussie infantrymen to this day are called 'diggers'. Obviously the conditions were impossible, it rained solidly for 2 months, and the hardship was enormous for the soldiers. Hardship that we were now experiencing firsthand as we walked the endlessly steep ups and downs of the 110km wartime track. There are plenty of dug out gunpits and ordnance left behind, and many of the trekkers in our group had relatives who fought and died on the track to drive the point home. We had a tremendous trek leader, a former Vietnam war hero Major Chad Sherrin MM, that kept things upbeat and the experience informative. He was able to recite poetry from memory from the best voices of the war era that breathed life into the now dead conflict while we quietly tried to dry our wet socks by the fire, to no avail. He captured the essence of the salty, rough hewn characters of the struggle with perfect anecdotes and song. The tour was expertly choreographed, made even more impressive by the unpredictabilty of the events that might happen on any given day. We were in the jungle, baby, devoid of electricity and Western amenities, and anything could go wrong. Fortunately, Chad is a jungle warfare specialist. We were made to feel as if we were walking thru a "living museum", as they like to say, and on top of all his military knowledge, his flora and fauna acumen was pretty impressive to boot. He also woke us up at 5am one day singing "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning".


It's impossible to share the mental and physical challenge hiking the Kokoda Track poses. It is considered one of the top 3 most difficult treks in the world. Fortunately my two Aussie friends and I trained well for the climb. As Australians, the track is a sort of pilgrimage into a young country's abbreviated military past. It has become a popular destination now with the number of trekkers rising from 75 in 2001 to over 6000 in 2009. They are trying to put higher standards of fitness levels into place, but many tour groups are slack in this department. Our group was one of the most experienced, Adventure Kokoda, and even we had a fatality. It's not a trek to be taken lightly. I was the token Yank on the trip, and did my best to finish the bloody thing. We had days when people were projectile vomiting, driven to tears by the pain and difficulty, and were swearing they were over it. After being back now a few weeks in civilization, I've received emails from people in our group saying it was the most profound experience in their life, thanking everyone for enduring it together so well. Something that made them dig so deep inside had to be incredibly difficult and that they felt amazingly good about themselves for completing it. I've had time to reflect about the 4 recurring motifs of the track that the diggers knew all too well. "Mateship" was key as we helped encourage each other up hills only to see it was just another false peak. "Endurance", because without it you would have fallen asleep in the jungle, and the ants there are big and have teeth. And there weren't any bus stops or taxis as far as I could see, you were "in country", deep and remote. "Courage", because it was a mother of an experience facing the long-drops, the PNG primitive toilets, each day. In the military case it would be the courage to fight an enemy knowing you were in bad shape, maybe wounded, starving and freezing yet still having the mettle to push on. And, finally, "Sacrifice", which, well, you can only imagine how terrifying it would be to die in such a strange and unfamiliar place, as a 24 year old soldier, so far from home sacrificing your life to protect your friends, family, and country.

The whole experience probably still hasn't sunk in completely. It was like a crazy, malaria induced dream. A crazy dream that smelled like it needed a shower and a bar of soap. I do know there needs to be a next adventure, however, and the sooner the better. It's way too easy to fall back into a soft couch, crack open a nice red, put some Miles Davis on the turntable and take pleasure in the basic fact that there are no leeches on my feet. I have to admit that this was a recurring fantasy of mine by day 8, but now that I'm back in comfort, it's a bit anticlimactic and incipient boredom needs to be fended off. Mt. Kilimanjaro anyone?

Getting Site Specific in South Africa

There are few wine regions in the world that can rival South Africa's natural beauty. The Groot Drakenstein Mountains, for example, are equally as picturesque as the Dolomites in Italy, and they set the dramatic scene as backdrops for the Cape winelands, and along the southern coast other mountains splay like tentacles breathtakingly into the Indian Ocean. Blue shadowed stacks of Table Mountain sandstone and decomposed granite rise from the vivid green pastures dotted with the brilliant white facades of 300 year old Cape Dutch homesteads. To the casual observer the landscape may look just as it did in the decades leading up to 1994, but in reality the wine map, the vineyards, the cellars, the people, and the wines have changed out of all recognition. I don't claim to be an authority on South African wine, but after a recent visit there for 2 weeks I certainly got an education. I covered great distances from the Swartland an hour and a half north of Cape Town to the semi-arid Klein Karoo, close to 6 hours away the opposite direction, along the lush Garden Route where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans divide. Exploring the cool climate Overberg region with new appellations like Greyton, as well as terroir driven pinot noirs and chardonnays from Elgin and the Hemel-en-Arde Valley was convenient since the communities are close knit. Even a long, cruisy afternoon out in one-time bulk wine mecca Robertson was illuminating for the highly individualistic producers now crafting their own estate made wines. All of this back and forth had a meaning, however: to discover which areas and people on the Western Cape were producing exciting, delicious wines. It's not a bad job, I know, although I was crook as a dog by the time I left. I had been to South Africa (SA) before for a 10 day trip as a restaurant wine buyer in April of 2006 as a guest of Vineyard Brands, a US wine distributor. They only had six SA brands so unlike most sponsored wine trips, we had a lot of free time on our hands to visit places like Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other dissidents were imprisoned during Apartheid, and the colorful craft markets with their slightly murderous glare in Cape Town. We even had a full day to wander around the unique ecosystem atop of Table Mountain, the remarkably flat-topped mountain whose base expands like tree roots thru the sidewalk that is coastal Cape Town. The lone producer of that group we visited in 2006 that was doing interesting work was Stark-Conde in the stunningly picturesque Jonkershoek Valley of Stellenbosch. They had painstakingly cultivated a new high altitude vineyard in their stubborn search for the right spot to produce the best examples of cabernet and syrah. I poured their syrah by the glass at Bouley Restaurant in NYC up until the end of my days there. The wine was delicate and spicy; a curious amalgam of the new and old world styles of syrah rolled into one. I also liked the Condes. Jose Conde, the winemaker and a fellow American, and his wife Marie, were both very bright and funny people. So it was no surprise that I sought to visit them again on my second trip to SA two weeks ago, and, to my pleasant surprise, was welcome to stay in the "Kato Kaelin Cottage" next to their home. They have a new red blend called "Lingen" which is crafted by Jose from a neighboring estate. I used the cottage as a basecamp. I made trips to visit dozens of producers around Stellenbosch. The best of which, besides Stark-Conde and sleeping lion Quoin Rock led by Carl van der Merwe, was the innovative Winery of Good Hope. Alex Dale and Edouard Labeye are making terrific wines by remaining true to the fundamentals of the terroirs from which they select fruit. The wines, from chenin blanc and viognier to pinot noir and shiraz, are made in a decisively French tradition with lots of style and care. The Radford-Dale range is extremely smart, but unavailable in Oz due to an agreement with winemaker Ben Radford who makes riesling and shiraz in Eden Valley, Australia now under the name Radford Wines. Ben was an early collaborator with Alex Dale and the two are still friends. The Winery of Good Hope was one of the first of many wineries I would visit that were passionate about being distinct, impossible to find at night, and most importantly quality driven. You can't help but like these guys. We ate tremendous steaks after the barrel tasting at nearby 96 Winery Road Restaurant, the unofficial HQ for wine luminaries, so they say. A two hour drive from Stellenbosch thru the baboon festooned Hugenot Tunnel lead me to Jeanette Bruwer at the family run Springfield Estate in mountain ringed Robertson. She was a great hostess, and paid particularly close attention to her trouble loving German and Swiss Shephards that followed along with us. The winery had a strong connection to the land, with a herd of Springbok penned up nearby, and the people who worked it, many of whom own their own homes. They were also one of the many organically farmed properties I came across. Farm labor is still inexpensive in SA, and predominately colored. Average wages were 1200 Rand per month or US$154.00. These lower labor prices, compared to Australia, for example, allow for more organic work to be done in the vineyard, for the hand picking of grapes, and for manning a sorting table at harvest while still turning a profit. The class system in SA is still in place. Springfield, nonetheless, seemed like a loving hommage to terroir in every sense of the word, and the staff there was happy and well looked after. Plus the rocky, schisty soils produced flinty, minerally sauvignon blancs that left the rest of the SA wine industry admirably wondering if something funny was happening in the winery. Most SA sauvignon blancs were big on green bell pepper flavors, not these. The Bruwer Family seemed to respect their positions as born stewards of their land and have helped the district of Robertson become a serious producer of fine wines, and not just wine grapes and apricots for the bulk market as it was in the past. Jeanette moved with an ease and patience that seemed to reflect the vibe of Springfield (and that she already exported all over the world)-it was a place where there's no need to rush and where life is dealt with one dog at a time. Her brother, and winemaker, Abrie, is a small engine pilot and is known for leaving early on Friday to fly off to their weekender in Namibia. Over the weekend I headed to a wine show on Walker Bay highlighting the wines of the Overberg, a large area on the Southern Cape including Elgin, Hermanus, and Greyton to name a few. I made the two hour trip to Hermanus along False Bay admiring SA's great ocean road hugging the side of Buffelstalberg Mountain. I had made contact with Peter Finlayson, the iconoclastic winemaker at Bouchard-Finlayson, one of SA's best known pinot and chard producers, earlier in the week and he invited me to watch the South Africa vs. Australia Tri-Nation rugby match at his home in Hermanus on Walker Bay and to stay for dinner and the night. This was a big deal. I was at Newton Johnson winery in the Hemel-en-Aarde (Heaven and Earth) Valley admiring their gravity fed cellars when I called Peter to find out where he was at. There was a silence on the other end of the phone when I said I was at Newton Johnson tasting a smoky Elgin pinot noir. He was at the Hermanus Wine Fair and said he'd meet me down the road at Bouchard-Finlayson in 5 minutes. I followed him to his home to watch rugby and was greeted by 3 other couples there, including his affable son, Peter-Allan. The match was won by South Africa, thankfully, and it raised the group's spirits for the delicious feast to come. I was able to pick up a few pointers about rugby, but the biggest newsflash was a balanced chardonnay from Crystallum, a new negociant project from Peter-Allan Finlayson and his architect brother, Andrew. The wine tasted great and the pinot noir Crystallum made in 2008 called "Cuvee Cinema" was lithe and subtle, with good length. This will be one to watch, as was Peter's face when someone pulled and opened a rare 2001 Bouchard-Finlayson pinot noir from the cellar during dinner. The Finlayson's are in the process of building an eco-friendly straw bale (a la rammed-earth) constructed winery in a nature reserve off Walker Bay. At the end of the visit I think Peter Senior and I were getting along. He has a wry sense of humor, a keen photographic eye, and a great love for his country's abundant wildlife. He and his goldsmith wife Geta, Harbour Gold, are great people and made my trip to the Overberg a rich and heady one. I look forward to seeing where our relationship heads. The next night Geta Finlayson pointed me towards Ocean 11 guesthouse on Walker Bay. It was nice watching the whales jumping around breeding in the bay whilst lounging poolside. Security is tight, and there is always someone wandering along the trails on the coast keeping an eye on things. Which is an interesting point about SA. Colored folk greet you when you get out of your parked car in order to let you know they're going to watch it for you. Same goes at a gas station; full service windshield wiping and gas pumping will cost you a few Rand (7 Rand to the dollar), no pressure, of course, but the look you get if you don't cough up something is a bummer. It's something the locals pay, since they may get a flat tire and need help out there, but as an outsider (and as a New Yorker) it seems bizarre. There are many mysteries surrounding these issues that I won't delve into here. Don't get me started about the people walking on the side of the road or the autobahn-like driving conditions. Suffice to say pedestrian road casualties are numerous in SA. On a completely different note, I met a very cool Californian winemaker at the Finlayson's named Samantha O'Keefe. She single handedly runs the pioneering Lismore Estate that was the primary force in gaining recent appellation status for Greyton. Lismore makes finely etched viognier that could be a new benchmark for SA, as well as classy chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. The vineyards are in a cool area and are still getting their roots down as Sam figures out the terroir's demands, but the place will be one to watch. The home is grand and sits at the foothills of the Sonderend Mountains. I had a wine epiphany sitting on Lismore's verandah taking in the mountainous landscape. Looking out over the newly planted vineyards, I was washed over by the immense amount of labor and passion that it takes to truly benefit from the proper choice of the best vines to thrive in a specific soil, on a completely individual site. The force of one's will to grow something special on a completely indifferent mountain. The trial and error involved to find the right combination of plant and micro climate before even thinking about irrigation, or what barrels to use, or which labels will get across the right message is rigorous. Thoughts of Samantha's story becoming a Dickensian novel crossed my mind. I then proceeded to forget all about it as I shifted my focus to igniting a big log fire with large lion-hunting dogs lying next to me in the comfort of this beautiful homestead. Lismore is at the beginning of an epic journey. There is no finer setting for a wine estate in the world, although you can find yourself saying this many times traveling around South Africa's winelands. From Greyton I zoomed up to Swartland on my final afternoon, north of Cape Town, at the end of my trip to taste Eben Sadie's (2005 Sequillo or the 2006 Columella) and Adi Badenhorst's (ex-Rustenberg) wines over a leek and chicken pie by the fire at Bar Bar Black Sheep in Riebeek-Kasteel. Southern Rhone style reds are coming out of this region in good to great quality. Badenhorst's red was one week's wages (US$50 or 350 Rand) for my waiter. "One week in that bottle there!" he exclaimed. I offered him a glass, but he declined. Mullineux Family is also a young operation (ex-Tulbagh Mt. Vineyards) that looks promising. I drove like Jehu from the Swartland, the swathe of cereal-growing fading fast behind me, to get to the airport in time to catch my 22 hour flight back to Australia. Strangely enough, I was happy to be heading home. Partially from a desire to get off the highway before I was involved in a collision and partially from a wicked cold building up in me from lack of sleep. I'd met a lot more people, driven a lot more kilometers, and tasted a lot more wines than I expected and can reasonably report about here. Safe to say that the South African wine industry is growing at a fast clip, and from the gang I met, it seems to be heading in the right directions: great values, rich diversity of styles, consistent vintages, terroir respect/exploration and organic farming to sustain it. All wrapped up with a bow by a group of headstrong, well-travelled winemakers at the helm. Today there seems to be a better awareness of what each vineyard is best at and smaller producers are daring to specialize in one or two wine styles. The slow but increasing focus on location in wine is the core to the evolution of a mature producing nation. The dogged question remains, unfortunately, how do we get those key tastemakers to jump on the bandwagon, as well? You can count me in, and with any luck in 2010 there should be a small army of these dynamite SA producers available in the US in time for the kick off of South Africa's international debut as host of the World Cup.

The Frenchies and Kangaroo Island

I'm beginning to really like it in Australia, in case you haven't noticed.I've been moving around Oz a lot lately; finally checking out some areas I've neglected. On a trip to Melbourne to visit my distributor, I decided to drive the Great Ocean Road from Adelaide with the two French backpackers staying with us, Quentin and Marion. These weren't just any backpackers, however. Marion is the step daughter of one of my favorite people on Earth, Simon John. You may remember Mr. John in my last Paris post about Pierre Gagnaire (scroll down). I first met Marion when she was 10, and would say hello on subsequent visits to Simon in Paris, but there was no real connection. I was merely passing thru. It wasn't until she arrived here at my doorstep in McLaren Vale this February that I ever REALLY spoke to her. Much to my surprise she spoke English well, albeit with a British accent. Her and Quentin's arrival in McLaren Vale was of some consequence and I wanted it to go well. In retrospect I think it did, especially considering that they were stranded without a driver's license in the middle of a wine region that had no work due to an extreme heatwave. Besides putting them to work in the Thorpe Vineyard and Gardens, which was tremendously effective in shattering any romanticism attached to the notion that hard physical labor is uplifting, they read books, cooked, ate with me and Nicole once in awhile, and watched dvds. I think she once spent a few days trying to catch mice, as well. I tried to show them a little bit of South Australia along the way in an attempt to make their great journey all the way down here feel worthwhile. I may be a slave driver, but I'm a fair and humane one at least. Quiet, Mr. Lincoln, they were being paid well, and at the end of the day, I had a bit of fun myself. The Great Ocean Road was peppered with interesting rock formations, and we took a few days to see it all. But it was on Kangaroo Island, an island 90 km from my house on the Fleurieu Peninsula featuring a Galapagos-like marine biology, that Mother Nature and the animals really stole the show. It is the mother lode. Not only was the coast magnificent with steep cliffs and crushing surf, but it was littered along the way with natural, unmolested colonies of seals, kangaroos, sea lions, and koalas. It was the kind of place where if you stopped for a second and looked closely at your surroundings, you would see something spectacular: perhaps a seal swirling through a curling wave, a lizard/dragon the size of Tennessee!, or a giant, polka-dotted wild boar ripping into a kangaroo carcass with a Wedge-tailed eagle watching closely nearby. I don't have a picture of that last one, fortunately, but I did witness it. Frightening. I think the kids loved it. It was the perfect send off for the Frenchies after 3 months of hard work on Thorpe Ranch. They went off to Cairns (the Great Barrier Reef) and to NZ afterwards. I wish them well and the possibility of a full blown Kerouac-like adventure. On the road with Q & M is a good place to be.

A Range Life in the Antipodes

For those of you who have followed the "Wine Odyssey" since the beginning, this is a post that I'd been thinking about writing the last few weeks. So much has happened over the last 2.5 years that it's overwhelmed me. Much has changed since I travelled to South Australia 2 years ago to work a vintage with R Wines after quitting the high life of Bouley in NYC. First of all, R Wines, a US owned company, isn't so popular anymore in McLaren Vale after abandoning some growers in the district due to obvious pressures overseas. Demand is low, and supply is high, and the US economy has hit the grape growers here head on. I actually hate to write that because many of the people in that company are really nice; however, it has been a rough year for everyone, everywhere, and the growers here in the Vale have taken a fair bit on the chin. Anyways, things were more rosy when I first got here. Secondly, I live in McLaren Vale now, part of the greater Australian nation. That was THE big news to my family and, to their credit, the folks made it out this last month to visit me in Oz. They liked the strong US dollar here a lot, as well as the nice, good-natured people, the breezy life on Thorpe Ranch (my home), and above all, the warm summer weather. We had a good time together. So good, in fact that we met up again later in their trip in New Zealand. I still come back to NYC a few times a year and still have my apartment there. I couldn't get by without "Great Burrito" on 79th and Amsterdam for too long. But the big move has had a backlash that has just started to catch up with me. It's dislocation more than anything, and recently I can be found looking at my dogs and asking, "who are you guys"? There's the obvious cultural drift- I can't talk to anybody about the NCAA games here, for example. They could care less that the Badgers went down to Xavier. This really hasn't bothered me all that much, as I've been learning about rugby (a sport that really matters!), and Aussie Rules Football, and dare I say it, cricket (perfect sport to watch drinking gin, a first). But this year it's creeping up on me, being a million miles away, and connecting with friends on FB and seeing the folks firmly reminds me I was once a Yank. My accent hasn't changed, praise Jesus, but I feel my normal core of unrest has abated. This is good, and has been brought on by hiking the Heysen Trail with 2 Aussie bastards, a 1200km high-test trek thru the state of South Australia's lofty ranges and deep creeks. This will lead to a trip walking the Kokoda Trail, a famous Australian battle victory in WWII, in Papua New Guinea this October. I can feel the foie gras melting off already. Some other changes here have happened naturally, like the beautiful baby girl that winemaker Lisa Wetherell, now Lisa Miller, had named Saffron Eleanor Miller. It feels like you've been somewhere awhile when you know a friend through her pregnancy. Will I be here to watch Saffie grow up? She's already starting to become more aware of her surroundings. And all my friends in NYC, Europe, South Africa and Australia with kids, how brave they are. I don't think I could make the sacrifice. One with a future Ohio State linebacker named Bear, another with child as fashion accessory, and a third destined to be either a great winemaker, chef, yogi or brewer. They are all healthy, cool children. It wasn't until I quit Bouley that I realized my friends were even breeding. I've now seen my third vintage here in South Australia. All three have been difficult, and it isn't until you live on a vineyard that you truly appreciate how hard it is to make a good bottle of wine. Foster's Wine Company is scavenging the district for fruit for bargain basement prices (2-500$ a ton). They feel like vultures, and that will hurt the average price for fruit next year, but when there's blood on the streets... I took a lot for granted as a pampered, A-list wine buyer in NYC. It's hard out here in the country, but this is where it all happens, in the vineyard. It's a cliche, of course, but it's so obvious it need to be repeated. As S.Malkmus wrote in the Pavement song "Here", "Let's spend our last quarter stance randomly, go down to the outlet once again". Here I am, and it doesn't get more random than this.

Passing Through Pauillac and Margaux

The left bank of Bordeaux's famous wine communes of Pauillac and Margaux are flat and pretty uneventful, save the impressive chateaus set back along the highway and the goods within them. Unfortunately, appointments are necessary to visit these top cellars, or "chais", as they are called. I only had an hour to spare and getting a closer look at some of the most expensive and sought after wines in the world was going to have to wait. Rumor has it the Chinese, if allowed to, would buy the entire production of Chateau Margaux ten times over. For now, however, this photo essay of a few exteriors will have to suffice.

Saint-Emilion Under Winter Skies

One of the best looking medieval villages in France also makes some of its most delicious wines. Saint Emilion sits on the shoulders of the Northeastern perimeter of Bordeaux. Any sane driver should think twice about even driving OUTSIDE its walls or prepare to pay for a new side mirror or two. This little hillside city was never built with cars in mind and, I would argue, it's for that reason it's such a romantic place today: because autos aren't allowed inside. With tiny alleyways and stone paths slithering down to hidden courtyards and charming restaurants, it's no wonder this ancient town gets over a million tourists per season. Thankfully it was cold, grey, and raining when we were there-stone streets as slippery as wet fish- so we had the place to ourselves. Well worth the 45 minute trip from downtown Bordeaux, St. Emilion has been transporting people back to the 16th century for a long time. We stayed at an ancient home in the center called "La Logis de la Cadene". The home belongs to a woman who grow up there and it has been in her family for a long time, as well. The Cathedral was lit up outside my room; it's quite a sight brilliantly lit at night, inspiring. It was a perfect place for 100 Euros a night, and the old town, I swear, wraps it's arms around you like...nevermind. Don't be surprised if that room price climbs during the summer when the place is swimming with people. They also have a sound restaurant off the hotel that is truly best for leisurely, boozy lunches under the wisteria arbor, with the sloping alleyways flowing around the outdoor patio like so many rivulets carved around a rock in a stream. I think most people who visit love to eat at "L'Envers du Decor" (literally 'behind the scenes'") for reliable, tasty Provencal dishes and a very good, yes pricey, local wine list. I drank an average 2004 Chateau Franc Mayne there which was medium priced on the list for 80 Euros which fell flat-we win some, we lose some. There is a tremendous gravel based backyard dining court there surrounded by decaying old church walls and protected by a priceless Caucasian Wingnut tree. I would love to revisit in warmer months and just sit there for hours quaffing rose, chomping on the local macarons, and gazing at the crumbling beauty of the place. After visiting Chateau Grand Pontet, one of the Grand Crus, we learned that 2005 was a grand vintage here and that any wine lover should pick some up and sit on it for a decade. Interesting how the French price the great vintages higher than the rest. I wish that would happen more in other countries. It would keep people interested in your wines out of sheer loyalty if prices were cut during a less than stellar vintage. In the meantime drink 2004, 2001, and 2000 for significantly less money from St.Emilion. We enjoyed wines from Clos Puy Arnaud, Couvent des Jacobins, Grand Pontet, Clos de l'Oratoire (a personal fav), Pas de l'Ane, Angelus, Pavie, and Chateau Destieux. Shipping them home is a good idea, after all wine is bloody heavy. The merchant up across from the cathedral, "La Grande Cave de Saint-Emilion" ships around the world and seems nice enough. His wife is sullen and quiet, but apparently makes some cult wine, so I forgive her. Shop around, however, there are about 47 shops to chose from. These merchants know which side their bread is buttered on, which explains why there are no scotch-tape boutiques here. Be prepared for hefty duties, hurrah!, I got crushed shipping to Australia. Out the door of L"Envers" to the right and around the corner, amidst the shadow of the cathedral, is the BEST spot for value hunters (I'm looking for the actual name, but to no avail). MAGNUMS, my favorite format, of very good wines were had for 35 Euros, like the 2002 Chateau La Grace Dieux "Les Menuts". They didn't ship to Australia. Merlot is planted up to 65% of the district, followed by Cabernet Franc at 25% and Cabernet Sauvignon at 10% over a 13,000 acre landscape. The wines here are opulent and soft, thanks to the merlot, and have built a devoted following due to their more rapid development and approachability. Having one on your wine list under a 100 dollars is a guaranteed sale, and with Ausone and Cheval Blanc in the district, the place is hardly in need of a fresh coat of siloxane.

A "Grand Moment" At Pierre Gagnaire

Before there was Heston Blumenthal, there was Pierre Gagnaire. The "enfant-terrible" of French cooking has kept pace with the molecular gastronomy boys by running a restaurant facing the future, but respectful of the past. We recently ate there with close friends of mine from the early Paris days. We had all come a long way since then, and sharing a fantastic degustation menu at Gaganire's eponymous restaurant in Paris on a snowy night was the ideal setting for the birth of, as the French say, "un grand moment". Mr. Gagnaire was present, he stopped by our table twice in chef garb to answer questions posed by our lone professor of DH Lawrence. My friend was into it! Gagnaire signed things and moved on. Still, always nice to see the man backing up his cooking, even though it's done by other people, of course. We drank a gorgeous 2001 Chambolle 1er Cru "Les Fuees" from J.F. Mugnier. To this date I wish we drank that wine all night. Finishing with Haut-Brions second, Bahan du Haut Brion 2001, we were happily working thru our menu. Both wines were seductive, delicious and ready for 2001s. I liked the sommeliers there, as well. Nice kids, in training, but they were friendly and aware of what their job was. Dr. Matthews and I got a tour of the upstairs cellar. The whole thing reminded me of my youth at Lespinasse. A time when I was thoroughly concerned with the differences between Puilgny-Montrachet and Chassagne. Now I drink Geoff Weaver Chardonnay, which holds its own compared to both Burgundian white wines. The degustation menu was good. There were not as many memorable dishes as we had at the Fat Duck, in fact the dish I remember most was the meal's great failure, a cold chicken noodle dish that was gelatinous and not appealing on a snowy-freezing-winter-Napoleonic-march-thru-Russia-night. However, it was still a great meal in the clubby lamp lit dining room, and the service was top notch. My vegetarian friend, Mr.John, had the experience of his life. That rarely happens for him; especially in France. He was treated to a dazzling array of dishes. We saw the night out with Calvados from Camut, 35 years old, and perfect. I used to buy it for Bouley Restaurant from Michael Skurnik, but I never realized how great it was until I was in someone else's fancy dining room in Paris, and firmly in the moment. Un Grand Moment? Oui, je croix. Much happened after dinner, as nobody wanted to go to sleep. Roy Orbison kept people up and in an hommage to Blue Velvet, the boys sang "Crying" to my now cross-eyed field of vision. Good stuff, and this last picture, Modest Mouse vs. Poseidon, still kills me.

The Fat Duck: Pleasure, the Brain, and Food

One of the highlights of my recent trip to England was a meal at The Fat Duck outside London in the tiny hamlet of Bray. Considered one of the top restaurants in the world, the Duck not only lived up to its reputation, it exceeded it. Chef and owner Heston Blumenthal has created truly unusual flavor pairings and a playful dining experience akin to a Post doctoral thesis on the art of eating. Memory is one of the key elements to his thesis. A number of creations were reminiscent of childhood favorites, like the Nitro Scrambled Egg and Bacon Ice Cream as a dessert. The sweet and salty maple syrup and bacon combined with the custardy texture of egg ice cream is a transporting experience that took me back to those carefree nights in my youth when we had breakfast for dinner. We were presented with a raw oyster with horseradish and passionfruit jelly, a snail porridge, and a parsnip breakfast cereal, like "Special K", with parsnip milk. These were just a few dishes which challenged your notion of what sounds like it would taste good. And they all were delicious. A large white plate with two tiny, precisely crafted, colored squares-one red, one orange-that seemed minimalist against the large white plate. We looked to our waiter for guidance. "Monsieur, madame. These are Orange and Beetroot Jellies. May I suggest you begin with the orange..." The orange colored one tastes of beetroot and the deep beet red purple jelly of orange. Surprise! As Blumenthal says in his beautiful cookbook, "The Big Fat Duck Cookbook", "This is meant to be fun. The food at the Fat duck must taste delicious-that's the guiding principle-but I don't see why a dish can't also engage the emotions, provoking curiosity, amusement or even a childlike sense of wonder. So with the jellies there is the bathos of size: the excitement of the menu with its mouthwatering ingredients, the waiter's grey-suited gravitas, the delicate, handcrafted tableware-all devoted to the peerless presentation of...two miniscule morsels of food. And there's the color swap, with its playful sabotage of expectations. It's a marvelous moment-the realisation that things are not what they seem." And later, on the inspiration for the jellies, "this poorly policed border between fruit and veg seemed to have potential." And of course, the jellies tapped into memory, as well: "Nostalgia, for example, has a huge influence on how we approach a dish. It's possible that the jellies' charm draws on memories of childhood...made all the more potent in the unlikely context of a three-star restaurant." (p.140) Also employed are the pairing of scientific terminology with classic food names: roast foie gras 'benzaldehyde', nitro-poached green tea and lime mousse, ballotine of mackerel invertebrate, onion and thyme fluid gel, the above mentioned nitro-scrambled egg, and ice-filtered lamb jelly. The fusion of modern science and classic menu items was nicely juxtaposed, much like the IM Pei's massive glass pyramid set in the heart of the classical beauty of the Louvre's courtyard in Paris. A much talked about dish, "The Sound of the Sea", is served with an Ipod nano in a conch shell. You are instructed to put on the headphones and listen to, yes, the sound of the ocean crashing on the shore and seagulls cawing in the distance. Does the sound affect the flavors of the fresh oyster, razor clam and seaweed on the glass platter? I think it does. It's certainly a fun experiment and sets your focus squarely on the dish in front of you. These dishes were matched perfectly with an Austrian riesling from Nikolaihof, the profoundly focused 2004 Steiner Hund Reserve for 75 pounds. For red I selected a 2002 Pommard "Premier Cru" Burgundy from Comte Armand which was delicious for 140 pounds. The list is a heavy 53 page tome, and full of the big names from France and Italy. Bargains are hard to find, but that wasn't really the point here at the Duck. I tend to resist wine pairings for long tasting menus, although I'm sure the Duck's was inventive. They were on to using sakes which was a good sign. The food was so original, however, that I didn't think we needed to be distracted by a sommelier prancing around like Martin Short's "Ed Grimley" character from SCTV, I must say.

In Bordeaux With Ermitage

After a good visit to NYC, I flew to France for the Vinitech wine supply show in Bordeaux. As a guest of Tonnellerie Ermitage, I was able to meet a lot of winemakers over the three day event who used and liked the Ermitage oak barrels. At our booth we also set up a temporary kitchen and served lunch to clients and visitors to the exhibition. This was a bit of madness, but in the end it was a great environment to taste wines aged in Ermitage barrels, like Yves Cuilleron's Condrieu, with delicious food from a Michelin starred chef. The show was a success with numbers of visitors up from the previous event. Even cold, rainy weather couldn't keep the hordes away. Everything you needed to make wine was there: harvesters, bottling lines, glass, corks, barrels, and tanks to name a few. It was actually my first trade show and I thought it was a great experience. I'm not sure if I'd like to attend them weekly, but with good food and wine all around, it had to be one of the least painful weeks of my life.

NYC Loves Brash Higgins

I'm in NYC for the month of November showing the Tasmanian and NZ wines in my portfolio to my friends in the restaurant scene here. Nice time to be here, right after the economy has hit the schnitzel. Needless to say, it's still a good time to visit. The tourists and mosquitos have left for the moment, it's below zero, and Central Park belongs to me. From here I'm to Chicago, then Bordeaux for a week, and to punish myself I'll chill in Paris, London, and Dublin. I look forward to seeing my Australian friends and assassins, but for now it's time to sell some cool climate wines in a freezing one. Check out www.bradhickeyselections.com in a few days, and www.soberwines.com if you'd like to buy.