French Medicine

I should have been a doctor.

Mom would have liked that, I’m sure. “You want to be a WRITER?” she said to me around the time of my graduation from William Jewell College (with a major in writing - self-designed – and another major in French, and a minor in mathematics). “But you could be ANYTHING!” Her voice dripped with disappointment and chagrin. Or maybe it was horror. She was aghast, that master of the left-handed compliment. You’d have thought I’d opted for a career in the service industry.

Heh. Yet another Mom story for the ages.

I never wanted to be a doctor. I briefly considered training as a veterinarian, but I knew I loved animals too much. I struggle with detachment – another way of saying I have attachment issues. Like everyone else I know.

Now if only Mom had said, “If you were a DOCTOR, people would give you kickass bottles of wine!”

Apparently that sort of thing happens to doctors. At least doctors like my friend Linda. I try to visit her and Danny in Tucson every year, preferably in February, the month in Kansas City when everyone’s fancy turns lightly to thoughts of wrist slitting. Could it get any colder and grayer?

Tucson turns out blue skies for me, year after year. At least it always seems that way, what with the great company, the desert hikes and the memorable food and wine we share on these visits. This year, Linda outdid herself, which is hard to do, given her consistently high level of grace and generosity.

I don’t know whose life she saved, but SOMEBODY, a patient of hers, was grateful enough to gift her with two bottles of a red Bordeaux blend. Isn’t that nice? I’m sure that’s what Linda thought: “Isn’t that nice?” She mentioned it to me. Yes, yes, it was nice, I assured her, via email. And was grateful that we were chatting online, because I was drooling.

The wine she’d been given was the 2001 Chateau Cos d’Estournel Saint Estephe, a little number it had not been my good fortune to taste but whose name I recalled from my obsessive reading in Wine Spectator. Google, google. . . yep, #37 on the WS 2004 Top 100 Wines of the Year. A 94-pointer. I wiped the saliva from the keyboard and began to daydream about our upcoming sojourn under the Tucson sun.

I don’t drink much French wine. The labels are challenging enough, and the more affordable wines – the Rhones – are essentially GSMs. I much prefer the Bordeaux-style blends, the classic mélange of Cab/Merlot/Cab Franc/Petit Verdot/Malbec. Alas, the Bordeaux wines are simply too expensive to add to my modest cellar. (The irony here is that I studied in Bordeaux in my youth, but was far too callow to appreciate the Bordeaux wines that were offered to me. I want a do-over!)

When I think of wine, I think of food, and vice versa. It’s my credo: good wines deserve good food. So what did we have? The Chateau Cos d’Estournel is a Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend. What menu might best showcase the qualities of the wine?

"Don’t get too fancy, Kim," I cautioned myself. "Let the wine speak for itself." The obvious menu choice, something we rarely indulge in, was red meat. I consulted Linda’s cookbooks, and we headed for the market. Turning my wistful eyes from the store’s impressive wine section, I marched stoically to the meat counter.

There, we considered beef tenderloin, but settled for the more modest (and favorite) charms of thick, premium ribyes. Holy cow! I do not exaggerate when I say these were the biggest steaks I’ve ever seen. Staggering under their weight, we headed back to the ranch to prepare dinner.

We pause here to salute Laura Louise, who insisted on springing for the entire gourmet grocery bill, and who further endeared herself by womaning the grill. She did a bang-up job. Those cowboy ribeyes – butterflied and still weighing more than a pound apiece – were grilled to perfection. I’m not saying I didn’t miss the carcinogenic crust of charcoal, but they were the best gas-grilled ANYTHING I’d ever had. (Drizzle with high-quality olive oil; sprinkle liberally with Montreal Steak Seasoning; cook to order.)

We let the wine breathe for an hour, while we rustled up some ‘taters and asparagus. Then it was time, both for the steaks and the vino, which was a deep ruby red, tipping into purple. Gorgeous. A swirl, a sniff, a first sip.

I confess I expected to be disappointed or underwhelmed, as I was with the Far Niente Cab and the Siduri Clos Pepe Pinot Noir – high prices set up high expectations, and this wine retails for $100 to $140.

Lo and behold, it was simply wonderful. It smelled, and tasted, of blackberries. Or maybe boysenberries. Dark berries, at any rate, and herbs. It was full and smooth, with a long, lingering finish. It was . . . many pleasant adjectives, including supple and elegant. It was a pleasure to drink, from start to finish.

A tasting room barista once likened big, jammy Zinfandels to strippers: the charms are up-front and obvious. The Cos d’Estournel is another type of person altogether: someone restrained, deep and quietly intense, somebody whose beauty isn’t in-your-face, a surprisingly lovely and well-built woman you may not have noticed when she first entered the room but on whom your eyes eventually return to, and rest on. An exceptional individual who becomes more beautiful with the passing of the years – just as this wine is supposed to age gracefully for a good 15 years.

The wine got tastier and more impressive with every sip, beautifully complemented by the red meat. I kept pouring very small glasses, letting myself pretend there was an endless supply. The real kicker is that Linda prefers white wines, so she had only a modest amount of the Cos d’Estournel, leaving more for Laura and me. Danny was on call, so she wasn’t drinking. And neither was Andie. Coincidence, or simply the more benign face of Fate?

The lovely libation went very well with our post-dinner nibble of Godiva dark chocolate; interestingly, the milk chocolate didn’t match nearly as well.

Now I still don’t think I’d buy this wine – at least not for myself, or only if I win the lottery. There are just so many tempting wines out there, and it’s just. . . too. . cher, at least for my pocketbook. But oh how I loved trying it, and oh how I’ll love trying it AGAIN in a few years, when it should be even better.

If only we had more . . . that’s the thought that lingers after a memorable wine: If only we had more. Maybe Linda will save someone else’s life, and they’ll get her this wine, only it will be the 2003 (97 points) or the 2005 (98 points!). A girl can dream . . .

Yes, Mom, I should have been a doctor.