The charming wine guy at the Metropolitan

In November, Erin and I went to Seattle with no other mission than to eat, drink, and buy lots of shoes. We had some difficulty with the eating part – two of the restaurants we had really wanted to go to turned out to be closed or shut down for good – but with the drinking part of the mission we succeeded effortlessly.

One of our restaurant searches left us eventually at the Metropolitan, on the advice of our cabbie. I wasn't really in the mood for steak, but I liked the classic, authoritative feeling of the place. And we got to sit in a really cute mini booth. But the best part was the sommelier. He was inspirational enough to make it into my sketchbook. As you can see above, he was a cute old man with short gray hair, glasses, and a bow tie. And, he loved his job, I noted. He drifted from table to table, always smiling. Their wine list was seriously long. So we needed his help. I managed to narrow it down to a riesling, and he matched us up with the J. & H.A. Strub Riesling Kabinett, 2005. And we loved it. The wine guy rules.

Other notable discoveries on our drinking tour of Seattle:

• We enjoyed another Riesling the night before – American Thanksgiving, when the only restaurant open and not serving turkey was the 24 hr 13 Coins – Chateau Ste Michelle Columbia Valley Riesling 2006. This was preceded by Kim Crawford Pinot Noir from New Zealand, and followed by oversized bottles of Miller High Life...
  
• At Vons, the only bar we could find open at 6 pm on Thanksgiving, Erin had a glass of beer that was practically as tall as her and I tried one of their variations on a Manhattan – a Southern Grandfather: Jim Beam + Amaretto + a cherry. Yum.
  
• I tried Tuaca for the first time: a lightly sweet, amber Italian liqueur based on fine, cask-aged brandy, possessing a rich fruit-like flavor of vanilla and citrus. Mixed with Gin and garnished with an orange slice, I'd drink this again for sure.

That's it!

Holiday Drinks. Yum!

Here is a bottle of Advocaat, the most sought-after liqueur in Britain this Christmas! And why? All because of the 'Nigella Effect.' That's right, Nigella Lawson reminisced about Christmas Drinks Past on her new show, 'Nigella Express,' and that was all it took to get Britain out to the shops to buy 40% more Advocaat than last year.

It's all because the Dutch liqueur is an essential ingredient in a 'Snowball,' one of those sort of drinks that was popular 20 or 30 years ago, but which has since fallen out of fashion. However, Nigella single-handedly revived this cocktail by describing it in all its luscious detail, and now everyone wanted one, including my dad. Many attempts were made over successive days by both my dad and stepmum to snatch up a bottle of Advocaat, but without success, until one was finally snagged on Christmas Eve. Phew!

Advocaat is a yellow liqueur that was originally made by Dutch settlers in Suriname with avocados (hence the name), but when it was made in Holland itself, the Dutch didn't have access to those, and used thickened eggs instead. Advocaat is thus quite like eggnog, and is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of drink, whose ingredients include "a blend of egg yolks, aromatic spirits, sugar or honey, brandy, vanilla and sometimes cream (or evaporated milk)." (Thanks, Wiki).

To make a Snowball, you use one part Advocaat to three parts lemonade (in England lemonade is a fizzy, clear drink, like Sprite) and a dash of lime cordial or lime juice. Stir and pour over ice cubes in a highball glass. It's a frothy delight, I tell you!


Another drink that my dad had a hankering for was a Kir Royale, which we all know is a mixture of blackcurrant liqueur (creme de cassis) and champagne. There are lots of variations – for example, a plain Kir is made with creme de cassis and white wine, whilst a Kir Normand is made with creme de cassis and Normandy cidre. But our Kir Royale was delicious. Like grown-up Ribena. Here it is in all its burgundy loveliness.

Scallops love Muscadet

Les Vergers
Muscadet Sevre et Maine, Sur Lie
2006
12%
$17.95
France (Loire Valley)

Yesterday, my mom, my sister and I were roaming around town, enjoying the sunny afternoon and looking forward to having uncle Ken over for dinner. As usual, most of our activities for the day revolved around food. In the car, on our way to Granville Island – after a visit to Monde Chocolat and Les Amis du Fromage – we concluded our half hour discussion of what we should cook for dinner, deciding finally on scallops. Specifically, the scallops we made in the summer for WeDine, sauteed with chicory and apples. Yum, yum. Once at Liberty Wines on Granville Island, I described this dish to the nice man who asked if I wanted help, and he brought me straight over to French section and pronounced "Muscadet Sur Lie." His description of its virtues won me over right away: apparently this palette-cleansing wine had the ability to make each bite of our perfect scallops taste as amazing as the very first bite.

Well, he was right. The Muscadet was great with the meal – light, crisp and refreshing, but neutral enough to let the flavours of the food shine. Very dry and low in acidity, it was a bit lacklustre when tasted on its own after the meal.

Something interesting... Liberty offered two levels of this wine – an entry-level one (which I chose) aged sur lie for six months, and a premium-level one aged sur lie for nine months. My helper said that the nine-month one would just "do its (palette-cleansing) job a little bit better."

Here's what wikipedia has to say about sur lie aging:

Sur lie literally translates from the French as 'on lees', [lees being the yeasty residue remaining in the cask after fermentation]. 'Sur lie' wines are bottled directly from the lees without racking (a process for filtering the wine), giving an added freshness and creaminess to the wine.

Oz Clarke says that aging the muscadet sur lie "gives it a bit of life and depth and makes all the difference between interesting neutrality and boring neutrality."

So now I know I'm a fan of interesting neutrality – I'd buy this wine again, next time I'm cooking up some rich seafood.