Topic: TN: Monsieur is a great connoisseur (Alsace, pt. 1, long, img)
Author: Thor Iverson (Boston, MA)
Date: 20040112000342

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Paris

The cheese that keeps on giving The lapin not-so-agile

Late for a rendezvous

I'm sure the Parisians sitting around me on this Métro car think I'm nuts. To them, I probably appear to be talking to myself. Which, I admit, I am.

The thing is, I'm trying to figure out how to ask the kind folks at Lavinia to open their temperature-controlled wine room, armed with only my limited French skills and a friendly smile. I'm not having much luck coming up with the magic phrase ("open the door, please" and "wine room" are no problem, but "temperature-controlled" is a different story; the only form I can imagine virtually screams, "hey, look, I'm a stupid American!"), though when I finally arrive, I don't have occasion to mangle anyone's language; the door is propped open with a case of 2000 Bordeaux.

Back at the hotel shortly thereafter, Theresa – who slept through my early-morning solo jaunt – is putting the finishing touches on our luggage. I add my purchases while she makes a quick phone call; a friend back home, Parisian by ancestry, has a cousin who's flying back from the States this morning (and who we'd met just days before, in Boston), and he wants to meet us for a drink. He is, of course, late.

Parisian logic explained via sculpture

Theresa relaxes in the hotel lobby's plush chairs while I wander around outside. There's a little wine bar just across the street, très Parisian and already filled with locals knocking back sauvignon blanc. At 10 a.m. I have a few moments of regret that we didn't give it a try, but my reverie is interrupted by the grating whine of a car backing up the narrow, one-way street alongside our hotel. The noise draws the ire of a nearby gendarme, who moves to lecture the driver. I shake my head – "Parisians!" – and re-enter the hotel.

A few minutes later, Dan walks into the lobby, a bit agitated. He's the cousin. He's also the one who just received a ten-minute lecture from an angry gendarme, though I note through the window that he's still double-parked on a single-lane street. An achievement in itself. We haul our luggage to his car, stuffing and cramming it and ourselves into his Euro-sized car, and drive away...only to squeeze into a parking space less than a block away.

No, I don't get it either.

Late for lunch

Café Delmas (2, place de la Contrescarpe), on a square near the head of the rue Mouffetard, is open and inviting, with the usual cramped assembly of outdoor tables, and we squeeze our way into one. It's a fine late morning, with the sun just taking the edge off a spring chill, and we soak up the rays with a few pan-European classics – salad with proscuitto and truffle oil, steak tartare, frites – and wine, while enjoying the kind of relaxed, conversational noshing that exemplifies the stereotypical French lifestyle. I order a couple half-pitchers of wine (the producers are, of course, unidentified) from a classically Parisian list while we eat.

Saumur-Champigny en pichet (Loire) – Pretty much what one would expect in this environment: chilled, frothy, and slightly candied berries in grape juice, with high acidity. A refreshing appetite-enhancer.

St-Nicholas-de-Bourgueil en pichet (Loire) – Again, no surprises here, though the appellation shift meets expectations: lightly chilled, with more tannin and dark berries laced with a little earth. Solid and helpful with our food. Tasting these two wines, one understands the difficulties faced by producers who want to make and sell groundbreaking wines from these appellations to a vastly indifferent market for whom Saumur-Champigny and St-Nicholas-de-Bourgueil will never be more than chilled bistro quaffers.

Picking up one of the restaurant's coasters, which is emblazoned with the giant "F" logo of Foster's Lager, I quip, "ah, the great beer of France." Dan and Theresa laugh. A slightly red-faced man, balding and somewhat overweight, turns and leans backward to face us from the next table.

"Aren't they your friends?" He's Belgian, by the accent. The three of us exchange puzzled glances. Then, suddenly, we get it. Foster's. Australians. The war. Theresa attempts to smooth it over.

"We're all friends here."

He won't let it go. Apparently, he's had a few more pichets than us. "Are you allowed to come to France?"

Dan smirks, answers in his thickest Parisian accent, "But I live here..." This quiets our interloper, though his table continues to talk about us, apparently believing that we can't understand them. But we shrug. It's too fine a day to let some antagonistic Belgians get us down, and Dan is a great joy to be around.

A day not to rue Mouffetard

Late departure

Our confirmation letter says "Bércy," but there's no Budget office here. Dan has kindly offered to drive us from lunch to our car rental office, but we can't find it anywhere. Eventually, asking more than a few questions of official-looking station employees who seem singularly ill-equipped with information, we discover that it's actually at the Gare de Lyon, nearby but not trivially so. In any case, we say our farewells, and are soon speeding eastward, towards Alsace.

"Speeding" is accurate, too, because we're on this autoroute a little later than we'd intended. Lunch ended on time, but the difficulty finding our hire means that we'll arrive in Alsace pressed for time; with check-in and a dinner reservation a good half-hour's drive from our gîte, we've got some time to make up. Theresa, as always whenever time is short, is tense. But there's nothing (short of maniacal Italianate driving) that can be done about it, though I do press the accelerator a bit harder than usual.

It's a pretty drive, and remains so no matter how many times (or how quickly) we do it, winding through valleys and the heavily-forested foothills of the upper Vosges, then, near Saverne, plunging valleyward towards Strasbourg. Where, unfortunately, the drive becomes much less attractive; the city's expanding industrial belt has been joined by a number of...well, "slums" is as accurate a word as any...and we're reminded of all the trouble and violence this urban jewel has experienced over the last few years. It's a sad change for the worse.

But Strasbourg is not our destination, and we bend south through the flat expanse of the Rhine plain. Picturebook villages dot the rising peaks of the mountains on our right, and soon they're surrounded by the flowing sea of vines that defines the Alsace we know and love.

Many turns, twists, and rotaries later, we're crawling slowly up the walled-in streets of Hunawihr, squinting at addresses in the fading light of evening. On the other side of town from the Eglise Ste-Hune, we find the one we're looking for on an open gate. This is the Demeure d'Anthylla, and this is where we'll stay on all future visits to Alsace. A cobblestone courtyard surrounds a stately, large home, with a weathered winery barn on one side and a garden-enclosed pool on another; lilacs and their windswept petals add a heady fragrance to the cooling air.

Upstairs – we're the only guests this week – all is quiet and rustic. Our suite has a small but nicely-equipped kitchen, a spacious dining area next to a courtyard window, a gorgeous sitting room with sofas that expand to bunk beds, and two rather exotically-designed bedrooms reflecting African and Asian themes; it's simultaneously traditionally Alsatian and reflective of the owners' world travels. And it's absolutely wonderful, a great place to settle in for a week of culinary and vinous relaxation.

Hunawihr on the road again

Late for dinner

Unfortunately, we don't have time to linger. A quick call to the restaurant pushes back our reservation, and as rapidly as possible we're out the door and headed northward. Though not for long.

We're almost out of gas.

Here's the problem with being petrol-deficient on a weekend evening in rural France: you're out of luck. Most of the gas stations are closed. Those that aren't, are unmanned, and only take credit cards with "smart chips"…which American credit cards don't, as a rule, have. We'd realized our situation only after exiting the autoroute near Strasbourg (the road south was a mess of detours), and there were no gas stations between there and Hunawihr, eliminating our best chance for a manned, modernized solution.

On the outskirts of Ribeauvillé, however, optimism blooms: we find an open station with the help of a bemused pedestrian who's walking her dogs towards the town center. Unfortunately, it too requires smart-chipped credit cards. We stare at each other, wondering what to do, when a local pulls up to the other pump. Theresa tentatively approaches him. Will he accept cash in exchange for our using his card?

He shrugs. "Sure, why not?" The kindness of a stranger reminds us that, our lunchtime antagonist aside, we are all friends. With many thanks, we hand him cash (he refuses, despite repeated entreaties, to "keep the change") and drive towards dinner. We are now extremely late.

Thela hun gin gîte

Late apologies

Near the hillside crest of the gorgeous little Bas-Rhin village of Ottrott-le-Haut sits a prototypical Alsatian hotel/restaurant, all shining golden gingerbread from warm lights without and within. This is l'Ami Fritz, home of a longstanding tradition of culinary excellence (of the non-starred variety) and very well known to locals and tourists alike.

We're meeting friends here, both native Alsatians who now live in Luxembourg but are visiting family just outside Obernai, and though they've been waiting for about an hour for a pair of tardy travelers, they're in fine spirits when we finally arrive. Perhaps thanks to several empty glasses of crémant d'Alsace.

The interior of the restaurant is all comfortable wood, stonework and earthtones decorated in the traditional style, which lends an atmosphere of conviviality and warmth to a series of partially-alcoved dining rooms. The food is unquestionably rooted in the traditional, but ever-so-gently lightened for modern tastes. Not having modern tastes, however, we dive right into thick, rich slabs of foie gras, presented with little piles of gewurztraminer gelée.

Selecting a wine with the foie gras, however, is something of a drama. Despite the gelée, I'm usually of the opinion that a sweet pinot gris is the best match for paté de foie gras, and there's an intriguing half-bottle of mature SGN on the wine list. I present my choice to the sommelier.

"Non."

It's a rare response that renders me momentarily speechless, but this does it. No? Just…no? I don't know whether to be amused or offended. Theresa and our friend Christophe both laugh, while Christophe's wife Elisabeth rolls her eyes.

"I prefer pinot gris with foie gras, because…" I begin, in French.

"Non." Again. He looks to Christophe, starts to argue his point. Christophe stops him. "He understands you." The sommelier looks back to me. "Gewurztraminer is the choice with foie gras, and then there is the gewurztraminer gelée…"

I can see I'm not going to win this one. "OK, the gewurztraminer then."

"You will not be disappointed."

I snort.

In truth, the Gérard Neumeyer 2000 Gewurztraminer Bruderthal "Grand Cru" (Alsace), from a vineyard and producer that don't get much international attention, is a terrific wine, well into off-dry but not all the way to sweet. Hugely spicy, with zingy citrus and a thick, ultra-dense intensity, it's an impressive wine with just enough acidity to age and develop, which (with all this stuffing) it most definitely will. But it's not a beneficial match with the foie gras; its strong flavor overpowers the preserved goose liver (in truth, gewurztraminer is one of the few wines that will). As we're discussing this, in agreement about the less-than-ideal nature of the match and the dangers of blind tradition, the sommelier returns to our table.

In-a-gadda-da-gîte-a

"And how is the wine?" There's the faintest suggestion of a smirk. I return it in kind, raising an eyebrow.

"It's an excellent wine. But it doesn't go with the foie gras. The pinot gris would have been better."

His smirk fades. He actually looks slightly shocked, as if no one has ever doubted or questioned his advice before. But he recovers admirably: "have you made a choice for the continuation of your meal?"

We have, and with an excellent breast of duck served with potatoes and turnips (no seasonal vegetables here!) I select a Josmeyer 1995 Riesling Brand "Grand Cru" (Alsace), another choice that seems to surprise the sommelier. "An excellent wine. Monsieur is a great connoisseur."

I resist the urge to respond "bite me" to such superciliousness, but more eye-rolling is exchanged. The wine is terrific; soft at first, then building in waves to a stern, chalky, purely mineral riesling with a shockingly long finish, one that just never seems to fade away. There's still years to go for this wine, but it's already delivering a marvelous expression of the Brand terroir.

We linger over the remains of both wines before spooning into a "soup" of strawberries and a sorbet of fraise eau-de-vie. Despite the difficulties involved in ordering wine, the service has been excellent in its invisibility, and our perfectly-timed courses have left us one of only two still-occupied tables.

And then, the sommelier returns.

He'd like (he says) to offer us a complimentary digestif; he doesn't say it's an apology for earlier disagreements, but we all know it is. The Darroze 1969 Bas-Armagnac (Southwest) is available, and as it's from both my and Christophe's birth year, it's our choice. But, like most grape products from 1969, it's a little disappointing. Very smoky and sultry on the nose, it falls apart into watery thinness on the palate.

We retire to the comfortably padded chairs of the hotel's lobby with our digestifs and coffee (decent, not extraordinary), conversing until both Theresa and Elisabeth appear nearly unconscious, then take our leave. Ottrott and the larger village of Barr are colorfully lit up even at this late hour, but the drive is a mostly dark and silent cruise through the winding roads of the route des vins and back to our gîte.

Sleep, like everything else today, arrives later that we'd originally intended. But it is nonetheless most welcome.

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