Edition 01.06
Cougar Juice and Charles Melton
A Letter from Maria
Hello everyone,
It’s beginning to look a lot like awards season, and I couldn’t be more excited! This year’s festivities feel especially pressing because of the shortened timeline, and there is a distinct buzz around the best movies of the year. We’ll start off the proper season with Golden Globe nominees coming on December 11, and Oscar Sunday is now less than 100 days away. Until the end of March, you can find me watching every new movie I can possibly consume.
I am super excited to share the new Wine and Movie Pairing with you this week! Take a look at the Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T. for the other little things that have been occupying my brain lately. And the Wine News Roundup features a good amount of local news this week, so keep reading to learn more about what’s happening in the Napa Valley and beyond.
As always, thank you for being here today!
Wine News Roundup
The United Kingdom has revealed a new study detailing the harrowing treatment of women in the wine industry. Jancis Robinson herself reported the findings of the study, which are astounding, and offers some additional commentary. Read the article on her eponymous website here.
A dessert wine made from the oldest vine in the United States has hit the market. Three separate wineries from the Los Angeles area have collaborated to release the Angelica wine hailing from the singular Ramona vine that takes over Mission San Gabriel. The wine is highly allocated, but if you’re lucky, you can purchase it directly from the producers. Read more about how the wine was made from Decanter here.
Académie du Vin Library has acquired Classic Wine Library, making it the largest wine publisher in the world. Academie du Vin was founded by the late Steven Spurrier, and continues to be the leading name in wine publishing content and volume. Read the full story from Harper’s UK here.
Napa Valley Features has released a feature article on the state of the local wine economy. Author Tim Carl offers some analysis and questions where the future of Napa Valley lies. Read the whole article here, take the survey questions at the end, and subscribe to the Substack here for more updates in the series.
The team behind Napa Valley’s famous BottleRock festival is launching La Onda, a weekend music festival celebrating Latin music. Featuring headlining musicians from the Latin music world as well as local and regional bites from Latin cuisines, the event will be held on June 1 and 2, 2024, a week after BottleRock takes over Napa Valley. Read more from La Onda’s website.
Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T.
Reading
I’m fulfilling a little bit of travel lust while reading this article on cocktail tourism. For some iconic bars and restaurants where a classic cocktail was created, the experience of drinking the cocktail in its birthplace is an experience in and of itself. As a Bay Area native, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for a solid Irish Coffee at Buena Vista, but I am adding a few more locations to my future travel list.
Eating
Seeing that I’ve been taking the time to catch up on some awards season movies this year, popcorn has been a staple in my diet this week. My favorite movie theater popcorn will always be Landmark because of the real butter poured on top, though an honorable mention goes to AMC and the epic Freestyle machines that allow me to make any flavor soda I desire. At home, I use Kerrygold unsalted butter, good Italian olive oil, and a sprinkling of nutritional yeast for screener nights.
Playing
Now that everyone has received their Spotify Wrapped, it’s been the only thing I have referenced for a week. Apparently I have the listening habits of someone who lives in Vancouver? Who else uses dance pop hits from the 2010’s as pre-shift pump-up music? Just me? Okay, cool.
Obsessing
It’s a tradition for Château Mouton Rothschild to commission a new artist to paint the label for its annual flagship release. The Mouton labels are one of my favorite examples of art forms colliding with popular culture, and the history of the artists commissioned for the labels is long and illustrious (for lack of a better term). The label artwork for the 2021 vintage of Château Mouton Rothschild has been revealed, and Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota has created a beautiful piece of art that intertwines the simplicity and beauty of nature and humanity. Read more about the artist here.
Recommending
Yes, I’m back on my Cabernet Franc roll. I picked up this lovely Chinon from Olga Raffault a few weeks ago, but it has been kept under Coravin for me to pour a glass with charcuterie, a hearty bolognese, or just as a post-shift tasting exercise while I look at the typical characteristics of Chinon. The estate is now run by Olga Raffault’s granddaughter, who maintains traditional winemaking techniques (including aging in some chestnut barrels), resulting in a wine bursting with ripe blackberries, some cinnamon and five spice, and a distinct green quality that infuses the wine with youth.
Treating
Because it is now screener season, the home TV set up needs to be on point. I have had my eye on these washable silk pajamas from Eberjey for a while now, so I am adding a monogrammed version in this gorgeous rosé champagne-inspired color to my Christmas wish list.
Wine and Movie Pairing
We have a new awards season favorite now available to stream at home, so let’s take a look at May December x 2022 Liquid Farm “White Hill” Chardonnay.
May December is a psychological thriller disguised as a modern Tennessee Williams adaptation. The plot follows actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) peering in on the life of Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton), a tabloid couple who made headlines for their relationship when Joe was 13 years old. Twenty years after the headlines, Elizabeth prepares to play Gracie in a movie by examining every move she makes, ruffling feathers and exposing unanswered questions along the way.
This is a movie that has stuck in my brain since my first viewing. It is a master class in acting between the lines - Natalie Portman is psychologically mechanical and precise, her best work since her Academy Award-winning turn in Black Swan. Julianne Moore is delusionally optimistic as Gracie, a Mary Kay LeTourneau figure who uses her fairytale dream life as both weapon and shield against everyone who questions her. The biggest revelation here? Teen heartthrob Charles Melton as the emotional core of the movie. Melton sheds the pretty boy stature of his Riverdale character to find the slumped, apologetic posture (physical and mental) of a thirty something man still stuck with the responsibilities brought about by his teenage decisions. The screenplay is fraught with tension, well paced and simmering with anticipation until the final scene, but it is the performances of the three leads that takes this movie from streamer staple to awards contender.
So what wine goes with a tense psychological thriller that features two middle-aged women duking it out against each other? My first thought was to play on the idea of “cougar juice”, the colloquial term for oak-driven Chardonnay (usually from California) that is easy to drink and consumed by many. For a California Chardonnay with the same bite that the movie evokes, I turn to Liquid Farm’s recent vintage of the “White Hill” cuvée.
Here are the winemaker’s notes for Liquid Farm White Hill Chardonnay: “Styled in the manner of Chablis, the White Hill is a racy and mineral-driven bottling sourced from select vineyards planted on the diatomaceous soils of the Sta. Rita Hills... The wine was barrel fermented in neutral oak and stainless-steel barrels for ten months.” With enough structure from time spent in neutral oak to give it a vanilla toast roundness, the razor’s edge acidity and the burnt lemon of the Sta. Rita Hills-grown grapes shine in one of the original offerings from Santa Barbara’s most prestigious producers. It’s a glass to be enjoyed time and again, on its own or with food.
The 2022 Liquid Farm “White Hill” Chardonnay is available from wine.com or your local wine shop for approximately $53. May December is currently available to stream on Netflix.
The Last Sip
Bay Area sommelier Tonya Pitts will be joining the Wine Enthusiast writing staff as a wine critic specializing in Northern Californian wines. Pitts currently works as the wine director and sommelier at One Market Restaurant in San Francisco, and her professional credits include wine criticism, wine judging, and a long history of mentorship, especially for early career women and BIPOC in hospitality. Read more about the new appointment here, and if you’re not doing so already, give Pitts a follow on Instagram at @noirsommelier.
That’s all for now. Until next week, cheers!
Maria Banson