An Embarassment of Riches

It’s summer, the season of easy-eatin' barbecue and easy-readin' literature. I’m a fiction addict, and I’ve been enjoying Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series, featuring a former slave, now free man of color, who is also a trained surgeon and musician in New Orleans of the 1830s. The setting is lush, the swampy bayou heat and rough river trade mixing in a stew of colorful French Creoles and crude Americans come to town to seek their fortunes. Intrigue and murder follow inevitably.

The key word here is “lush,” and it was the word that kept coming to mind last night as I happily, almost deliriously, tried out the Michael-David wines at Cellar Rat. The wines ostensibly were selected for their compatibility with barbecue – which as anyone from my neck of the woods can tell you is simply an excuse to drink Zinfandel.

Well, there was barbecue on hand, and there were Zins to match. But there was also a white wine (quel choc!), a Syrah, and a bright blend that should have been dubbed Kitchen Sink, featuring as it did nine separate grape varieties – Mourvedre, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Carignane, Cinsault, and heck I dunno -- maybe some Cab, Grenache, Petit Verdot???? Brothers Michael and David Phillips, who craft wines in the Lodi region (an hour east of San Francisco, and don’t go singing the Fogerty tune to them; they’re sick of it.) are responsible for 7 Deadly Zins, lately praised on this site for its smooth punch and wood-smoke finish.

Seven Deadly is the only one of Michael-David’s red offerings that I’d tried before. What does it tell you when I say that, stacked up against some of the winery’s other picks, the tasty 7 Deadly was merely pleasant to my palate, which was impatiently urging me on to other bottles that promised rewards higher on the Richter Fruit of the Vine Scale? I was perilously close to lunging across the table and grabbing me a big handful of Earthquake, and I could barely taste the Deadly wood smoke that had so recently beguiled me.

I’d been wanting to try the Earthquake Zin ever since I’d first heard it described to me a few years ago. What I learned in my wine tutorial last evening was that the Brothers Phillips are the producers of not only the Earthquake Zin, but Earthquake Cab and Earthquake Petite Sirah. One more time: Earthquake Petite Sirah. The actual reason I’d dragged Andie and three friends down to the Rat with me. Because if there’s anything as good as a kickass Zinfandel, it’s a kickass Petite Sirah.

And oh oh oh. As I’ve said before and hope to say again many times before I die, Petite Sirah is just the most BEAUTIFUL wine. It’s deep purple, almost obscenely rich-looking, with light in its dusky plum depths, like the sun has climbed into a sea of royal ink to drown. Happily.

Do you know, the Earthquake Petite Sirah is as lush and tasty as it is pretty? Luscious, like Michelle Pfeiffer (or some other aging hot Hollywood talent who’s worth way more than a bevy of callow, untested youngsters. Pick your own acting analogy here. You catch my drift, I trust: Seriously good.). It’s also a deceptively big wine, with blueberries and blackberries and vanilla coming together powerfully, but so smoothly and softly that you almost don’t notice its strength. Almost. The finish goes on forever, which is how long I’m hoping my stash will last.

When the character of the beloved matches the physical beauty, and she makes the earth move under your feet. . .well, grab that gal and ELOPE already!!! That’s what WE did. Except for the elopement part. We grabbed some Earthquake and headed out to dinner.

But not before we tried every dang Michael-David wine we could. Because even the Viognier, sounding its seductive honey notes, was lush. Lush, like a sultry spring night in 19th-century New Orleans, with mystery and adventure at hand. . .

Stay tuned for Part II of “My Adventures with Michael and David," detailing the rest of the Lodi lineup: the Incognito Rouge, The Windmill Estates Old Vine Zin, and a few more Earthquakes!