I have been writing less lately because my laptop is not working well and will not convert my text to the blog properly and even worse, will not import pictures into the blog. I will work on this problem, but in the meantime I am using Suzette’s old Dell computer and seeing if its ancient technology will do the job. Today was a great day. We went to Santa Fe for a meeting at 12:00 and then went to El Farol for lunch. El Farol is one of the landmark restaurants in Santa Fe. It sits near the corner of Monte Sol on Canyon Road and has been serving Spanish Tapas for over ten years. I have a watercolor of folks dancing from the 70’s and I remember a wonderful dish of baked enchiladas I had there in the early 70’s. We went because El Farol serves one of Suzette’s favorite tapas, an avocado half battered in corn meal and deep fried and filled with pico de gallo and garnished with a chili crema dressing.
Today we sat in the outdoor patio facing Canyon Road. Suzette ordered the Tuna Salad ($16.00) because they were out of Halibut and her favorite avocado tapa ($7.75). I ordered a bowl of Posole clam chowder. I asked the waitress if the clam chowder was out of a can and she assured me that it was made fresh in the kitchen every morning. When it arrived I was impressed, especially after just having eaten real clam chowder in Maine. The bowl was filled with fresh corn kernels, whole baby clams, onion, small pieces of fresh a red chile, probably Serrano, and posole in a milk base broth. I was amazed and charmed by the use of posole instead of potatoes. Suzette’s salad was brought first and it had a piece of tuna taken from the end of the steak where the white tendons meet and it was inedible. I encouraged her to send back the tuna salad and she did. When the dish was prepared again with a proper piece of lightly seared tuna it was delicious. They used an interesting reduced balsamic and seeded Dijon mustard dressing on the salad that I liked a lot. Suzette had a glass of Burgen’s Albarino ($9.00) and I drank water because I knew that we were just minutes away from a wine tsunami. I was uncertain about the kitchen and still a little hungry after my bowl of soup and a small plate of Suzette’s tuna salad, so I ordered a flourless chocolate torte with a cherry port wine sauce ($8.00). The torte was flourless and really just a slab of baked chocolate fudge on a small plate with a sauce mad from soaking dehydrated cherries in port and a small mound of whipped cream, probably out of a can. Very uninteresting. This proved to me that the kitchen at El Farol is just going through the motions of cooking and not really stretching to create interesting food. It has the history and location to be a favored tourist restaurant and unfortunately has fallen into that category.
At 3:00 p.m. we drove to the Eldorado Hotel for the Chile and Wine event. This is a unique event that is put on each year by the trade for the trade. What I mean by that is that the Chile and Wine Festival draws producers and their wines from all over the world. They come or their importers or their distributors bring the wines for tasting. There is a wine tasting, usually on Wednesday afternoon in the large ball room at the Eldorado where wine shops, liquor stores and restaurants can come and try the wines. If you like the wine, you get the name of its New Mexico distributor and some literature or a link to its website or an offer of information to be sent to you, so you can buy the wine. Suzette’s Greenhouse Bistro is introducing a new menu in October, so she was looking for some new wines to serve and we were diligently tasting as many of the hundreds of wines that we had yet to try to see if we could find some wonderful wines that were not too expensive, that could be served by the glass at the Bistro. As you can imagine there was lots of selling and tasting. Anything you asked to try was gladly poured into your glass. Our favorite was a new importer (M Imports) of wines and ports from Portugal. We were looking for a sweet wine and we found a great Muscat Canelli made by Kendall Jackson. There was also a new lovely product. A real Bellini made by the grandson of the creator of the Bellini in Venice in a handsome 250 ml bottle.
I said hello to Josh Jensen, Owner of Calera and congratulated him for being featured on the cover of this month’s Wine Spectator and tasted a new wine, Ravn?.
Here is the Calera story:
Calera is a vision, and Calera’s wines truly express the sense of place. Rather than follow the recommended path, Josh Jensen became a pioneer in search of the perfect spot on the globe to grow grapes. Taking his cue from the great domaines of Burgundy which have grown grapes in limestone soil for centuries, he set out in search of the perfect spot in California to create wines unique to the world but in the style of the greatest wines of France. Site selection was vital as he ventured off the grid to plant on the site of an old limekiln in the Gavilan Mountains of California. Today Calera wines still express that pioneer spirit and are revered the world over. We are proud to report that even Robert Parker is convinced: "Calera is one of the most compelling Pinot Noir specialists of not only the New World, but of Planet Earth."
We said hello to Suzette's main distributor, Bacchus Wines and Spirits, which is a division of Southern Wine and Spirits, one of the two biggest distributors in New Mexico. National is the other one. This year I was impressed with how many good new wines National is distributing. Wine distribution falls into two main categories. There are small companies that own one or several properties that produce a small line of wines like Calera or Ridge from in one distinct area. Then there are the huge wine producing companies that produce in several continents and several areas in one main area, like Drouhin, that produces mainly in Burgundy and Oregon. We did not taste every wine because there were five to ten wines at every one of the over 80 booths. How could you? But it was fun and we made it home alive.
We were a little hungry when we arrived home, so we prepared a PPI meal of Ratatouille and Suzette heated up some of the PPI roasted chicken, broccoli and potatoes from last nights meal at the Palmers. We drank water with the meal.
Bon Appétit
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