Mostly what I’ve been up to lately is making baby food. Celeriac and liver purée is Simone’s current favorite, followed by boiled pumpkin “fingers” and Marcella Hazan’s bolognese. It’s a lot of fun watching her eat and develop personality but also, in all honesty, motherhood can feel like a trap. Like, remember when I used to chug Chenin Blanc and discuss Marx at 2am? Those were the days!
To reclaim some of my intellectual vigor I ordered a case of wine from @wineandfoodsolutions_aus — a Melbourne based importer of natural wines. For a moment I thought the case would not get sent, as Melbourne has returned to lockdown for 6 weeks. But it came, and we opened Yann Bertrand’s 2018 “Morgon” as we dug into a 3-hour osso buco (which has such an impressive finish and is so easy to make — flour the meat, sauté, remove from pan, add mire poix, add stock and wine and tomatoes, boil then simmer in the oven) and put on “Hamilton,” the Black/POC-powered musical about America’s founding recently released on Disney+ and which has fabulous choreography and is totally worth watching.
So the wine should have definitely been cellared. I should have known that! Morgon is generally a powerhouse, in for the long haul. But the richness of this wine did slowly gain a nice mineral tone as it was open longer. I guess I was pretty excited to have some Yann B in my glass... his wines always knocked me out when I tried them at La Dive and in New York.
And no, we didn’t feed Simone the osso buco... but maybe next month!
Yann Bertrand 2018 Morgon, “Dynamite,” 80-100 year old vines. Rich and ripe and lush, carbonic maceration, noso2 but very structured and stable...hold onto it until at least 2021.