The art of drinking a glass or two of the 2008 Picpoul De Pinet Languedoc southwestern French dry white out in my backyard with my wife on a day that I am off, usually either on Sunday or Monday afternoon on a beautiful day is pretty special indeed. It's an added bonus with good smoked salmon and crackers, too. This late afternoon as the sun was making it's majestic " adieu " here as you can see in some of the pictures of the blue sky sprinkled with puffy white clouds was no exception. It was glorious in fact and I was feeling totally inspired artistically as I sipped and snapped these pictures and poured for my wife and offered her bites of the tasty smoked salmon to accompany the 2008 Picpoul.
I manage the wine department at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( have now for almost ten years ) and this wine that importer Fran Kysela himself came to sell before my time at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( he tasted and sold it to both Peter Anastopolos and to Mike Martin ) is perhaps still the best-selling dry white wine in the store : and for good reason. It's amazing, crisp, dry, fresh- lively and bright and always a great deal at under $8 a bottle. Now in 2010 I think we may have to sell it for $8.50 a bottle but that's still a pittance for all the wine and the flavors and the wonderful consistency of a dry white wine with liquid French sunshine infused in every fiber of this wine.
Couple all of this with the fact that the Inn at Little Washington has served it for years and you get to see some of the " big picture " that at least here in Washington D.C.'s metropolitan area a whole lot of us people know and love and buy and drink the 2008 Picpoul De Pinet from the Languedoc on a regular basis.
As you can also see I like to take lots of artsy photos and I hope that you enjoy them. I think it's fun with pictures to paint a wide as well as minute view of the specific as well as of the general that surrounds it. Let's see some of it all to get a better sense of the whole for my wife and me on this glorious late afternoon outside in our back yard on the weekend...
Look at the beautiful rich, golden color of the wine in the glass. Don't you just love it : and the frost from the coldness of the warmer glass outside on our deck?
I will always love taking pictures of things and people through the wine glass filled with whatever wine I am enjoying at the time. I love capturing the setting golden sun as it slips below my view and under the cover of this lush canopy of dark green and browns with the leaves and all the branches eventually hiding it from our sight ...
Look at that smoked salmon ? It has a wildness look to it : wild and mad and frantic and gasping it's last gasp before we eat it and chase after it with some of this yummy dry 2008 Picpoul!
I also really love looking at the light that comes through the canopy of leaves and branches and trunks of the many trees that almost surround our home in the back providing us with such a sense of privacy and isolation that is only partly a reality but seems so true when we sit out back sheltered and comfortable and feeling like the Lord and the Lady at our country manor ...
Look here at the eye of the 2008 Picpoul in the glass as well as it's wonderful golden liquid flesh - stunning with the cobalt blue-skied pillow cushions from the deck that are both blue and white , mimicking the sky above I notice now for the very first time : clever ...
Nice background with the flowers blooming in our pots, the dull, matted washed and sunshine-stained and dried color of the planks of the flooring of our deck. I also like the reflection in the shiny red brick/burgundy wine-colored big pot. Is that the sun's " adieu " reflected in it? And don't miss the cement pussy cat licking it's paws : priceless ...
And here above in this photo it's almost as if we are all submerged in the liquid golden-green color of the 2008 Picpoul grape with all the reflections that it holds inside : nice : I like it.
I'm wearing a t-shirt that I bought at the Outer Banks with all kinds of funny innuendos about mosquitoes that are found there at certain times of the year ...
It's interesting how my fingers come through here in these pictures seen through the liquid wine of 2008 Picpoul. The frost on the glass and the underwater/under wine impressions with bands of curving patterns and colors and bubbles and shades of dark and light ...
You can see by all these pictures that I am always on the quest for another " defining " picture of the many moments that catch my eyes at some point. from some vantage point or the other at any given time.... how to capture and live them all and not miss any of them ? Impossible task but that's what keeps life and living so captivating for me ...
Ohhhhh yeeeessssssssss ..... the whole frontal Monty of a sip : so gustatory, so alive and spontaneous and gratifying ... I'm ready for one now here on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 6:42 PM at home inside now awaiting my wife and my daughter. We will soon be celebrating the fact that we also " had and still have a dream " and are pursuing it individually as well as collectively as a neighborhood and community and country and world for equality for all ( at least I believe and want this very much ) here on earth. Go Martin Luther! You said it and I do certainly buy into it and agree with what you were then fighting for and which unfortunately we will all have to fight for for the rest of our lives I am sad to say. But that doesn't mean we should stop. As Dylan Thomas said : " Do not go gentle into that good-night ... " No way ....
That's so pretty looking at the last orbed rays of sunshine before this ball of sunshine disappears for now behind the canopy of green and brown on our horizon ...
Ahhhh, more 2008 Picpoul please ... what a sight : I still have more to enjoy here. Want to come over and have a glass with us? Bring a story for us like Robert Redford did in the movie " Out Of Africa " for Meryl Streep and you are most certainly welcome anytime ...
My balding head : so many great wines, so many great stories, so many great people and most of all such a great wife to have shared most of this over the years with ...
I leave you now with a beautiful evening here and tonight on Monday, January 18th, 2010 to enjoy the rest of Martin Luther King's Day. And below I have a glass to toast you and to wish you well and health and success : as well as to say in French " Merci a Picpoul De Pinet dans le Languedoc et tous quis sontent responsables pour le production de cette vin blanc incroyable et pas chere .... merci et Bonne Annee a vous ...
Hasta la vista baby - until the next time we meet. Maybe Fran Kysela will come by sometime to say " hello ", too ? ...
We will be opening a bottle soon this week to taste with our " new " wine member addition at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits , Chris Barker that asked on Saturday morning about the Picpoul? He's curious about it and does not know it yet and wants to taste it.
What do you say Fran and Jeremy - should I open a bottle and get Chris behind the Picpoul along with the rest of us?!?
You bet I should .... cheers, TONY
P.S. : My wife, daughter and I just shared a bottle of the CHARLES ORBAN Brut N.V. dry rose champagne ( On Sale for $47.99 a bottle ) and as we got our daughter ready to start her first day tomorrow as a 1st Grade elementary school teacher we spoke of Martin Luther King and celebrated his birthday and special day in remembrance of him and all that he stood for then and still does today.
The CHARLES ORBAN dry rose from the small village of Troissy ( I'd never heard of this until recently ) was superb and showing wonderfully : full and filling and creamy and bright and silky as silk can be without any disturbing nuances and accents or exclamations or hyphens or dots ot any other things out of place. It complemented pretty well, too both the regular and the herbed goat's cheeses that i served along with it before we gathered for our dinner.
By the way this CHARLES ORBAN is marked : " RM " which stands for " recoltant-manipulant " which ensures the greatest control over the whole process of making grapes into champagne as they both own their grapes and vines and also use them to make their own champagne without having to buy grapes from other growers or vineyards. These are all really good things when you want to ensure the highest quality possible.
I did not like the dry rose champagne when I tried it two months ago with the owner ( check here on the search engine for that blog posting ) as much as liked the regular. However, it seems fuller and less edgy and more as it has settled down from it's trek from Troissy to Washington D.C. We have some in the store. Come check it out along with some of this excellent Picpoul de Pinet white for only $8.49 a bottle. You won't be disappointed I assure you ... cheers et a votre sante Martin et tous les autres hommes et femmes du monde entier ...
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