Rr59 Beaujolais

L
et’s start with the posi-
tive.....before we descend
into “the crisis”.....
before, finally, we grope our
way back towards the positive.
What I have thought of as
“Beaujolais” for most of my
life—impossibly joyful, light,
racy, fruity red wine, capable of
filling a room with strawberry
scents so powerful that the
only possible response is to
throw a party—is one of the
chief anchors of my wine-with-
food world. I mean it! I cannot
tell you how many times, when
asked for matching recommen-
dations, I’ve said either “find a
crisp, light white like dry Ger-
man Riesling,” or “find a grace-
ful, fruity, non-tannic red like
Beaujolais.” The beauty of the
ISSUE NUMBER 59 • RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 2007
latter beast is that, in addition
to its charm, ease and gentle-
ness, it throws some of the
most seductive and sublime
red-fruit aromas of any wine on
earth—in a key that just hap-
pens to go perfectly with the
melody of French bistro food.
In a word.....Beaujolais was
perfect.
Unfortunately, the most
important “word” in that
sentence was not “perfect”.....
but “was.”
For over 20 years now,
Americans have been assaulted
with advice from wine
“experts” who have, effectively,
trained the American
palate....and the advice, in my
opinion, cannot have been
worse. We have been urged, in
Continued on page 2
Products I’m Lovin’
Right
Now
PAGE 18
Beaujolais
Restaurants
PAGE 15
Japanese
Ramen
PAGE 22
Travel
Tip
PAGE 24
Beaujolais“Crisis”
The
R T h e
Report
osengartenT H E F O O D S A N D W I N E S T H AT M A K E M E S W O O N
.....and the Best Way to Ignore It at Your Table!

white wine, to avoid the lean,
crisp, tart little whites that go
with food.....and to worship the
fat, oaky, alcohol-dense whites
that turn dinner into an ordeal.
When it comes to red wine, we
are told, over and over again,
in numerous ways, that any
self-respecting wine-lover
understands that the only “seri-
ous” wines are dark, rich,
weighty, woody, low in acid,
high in alcohol, and even high-
er in tannin.
In other words, the message
is: “if you’re drinking Beaujo-
lais, you’re not really a wine-
lover.”
To which I say: “Get lost.
The only real wine-lovers are
those who understand the
sheer joy of wines like Beaujo-
lais.....wines you can really
enjoy every day with your
meals. Wines you drink.....not
wines you pray to.”
But it doesn’t matter what I
say. The market has spo-
ken.....and, though it has spo-
ken in English, the viticulteurs
of France have heard it loud
and clear. Unmistakably, about
20 years ago, winemakers all
over France started caving in.
“Alors,” they seemed to be say-
ing, “if the American palate
wants our Sancerre to be riper,
higher in alcohol, less
dry.....we will make it riper! If
the American palate wants
darker red Bordeaux, we will
make it darker!” What could
they do? They are business-
men as well as craftsmen, and
businesses need to please their
large markets.
Nobly, to me, one French
region, for all these years, has
resisted the siren call of “97
points.” And the same French
region has resisted the almost-
universal trend towards price-
gouging. That region, of
course, is Beaujolais—whose
wines, until just a few years
ago, were being made the
same old way, without regard
for American interest in
“extreme” winemaking, and
were being offered at eight
dollars a bottle or less. It was
as if the winemakers there
were saying, for some years,
“c’est dommage that our
brethren in other regions have
to adapt to the marketplace.
But we are Beaujolais! We will
always be Beaujolais! And we
will always price our wines as
Beaujolais should be
priced....in the everyday afford-
able range!”
Until, finally.....sales went
down like a soufflé out of the
oven.
That’s when the Beaujolais
producers started speaking of
“the Beaujolais crisis.” I toured
the Beaujolais vineyards for
almost a week in May 2007,
and everywhere I went, I kept
hearing about “the Beaujolais
crisis.” Most Americans have
never heard of “the Beaujolais
crisis”—but we caused it. Not
only did we start worshipping
very un-Beaujolais-like wines,
but we stopped drinking Beau-
jolais. The boom popularity of
Beaujolais Nouveau—a super-
insubstantial version of Beaujo-
lais that comes out every
November, and is marketed
like crazy—didn’t help,
because Americans started to
associate Beaujolais with Beau-
jolais Nouveau. And relegated
their Beaujolais-drinking time
to Thanksgiving dinner with
the brand-new Nouveau stuff.
Before long, the producers
felt the crunch in Beaujolais,
and became determined to
turn things around. Alas, solv-
ing the “problem” of a wine
like Beaujolais has its chal-
lenges—for if you transform it
into what the marketplace
wants it to be, it’s not like mak-
ing a “heartier” version of the
same wine. It is more like con-
verting the traditional wine
into something else
entirely.....i.e. the death of
Beaujolais......throwing the
baby out with the graceful, low-
THE BEAUJOLAIS “CRISIS”
2 WWW.ROSENGARTENREPORT.COM
The only real
wine-lovers are
those who
understand the
sheer joy of
wines like
Beaujolais

alcohol bath water.
Today, in the wake of “the
crisis,” lots of frightened wine-
makers who export to America
are moving their Beaujolais in
one of two directions:
*Some are making wines
that are more extracted, more
tannic, more charpenté, as they
say.....more “carpentered,” or
more structured. A house mov-
ing in this direction is the
high-quality Domaines Piron.
*Some are focusing on the
relationship between Beaujo-
lais’ grape, Gamay, and the
grape of neighboring Bur-
gundy, Pinot Noir—striving to
create wines with more of the
multi-layered complexity that
red Burgundy has. For these
producers, wood, and new
wood, are becoming very
important—adding a spicy,
and/or toasted dimension to
Beaujolais that it simply didn’t
have before. Taste the excel-
lent 2005 Moulin á Vent, La
Roche, from the venerable
house of Louis Jadot, and you’ll
see exactly what I mean—very
Burgundy-like, very un-Beaujo-
lais-like.
As you may infer, producing
wines like these is going to
have an impact on the bottle
price.
And Beaujolais? The simple,
fruity, utterly affordable stuff
that goes like a miracle with
food? Is it an endangered
species?
Perhaps. But I suspect not. I
suspect, at the very least, that
this re-rigging of Beaujolais
will prove to be a temporary
trend....that the new wine-
drinking world, with a little
more drinking experience, will
come to see the beauties of tra-
ditional Beaujolais. If I’m
wrong about that, there’s still
hope.....because there will
always be Beaujolais producers
who produce Beaujolais for
their old-fashioned customers
in France, and some of that
stuff will always trickle
through to our side of the
pond.
So, for now, the burden falls
on your shoulders: sort
through the Beaujolais offer-
ings in the U.S., and find the
good, affordable stuff.
Happily.....that’s what you’ve
got me for.
The Five Factors
to Consider When
Buying Beaujolais
There is no perfect forecast-
ing system for Beaujolais in
the bottle. That 750ML you’re
got in your hands at the
wineshop could be traditional,
semi-traditional, new-fangled,
or somewhere in-between. The
proof’s in the putting—putting
the wine in your mouth, that is.
However, before you buy the
bottle to put the wine in your
mouth, there are several
things you can check out to
increase your odds—if, like
me, what you’re longing for is
Pronouncing
“Beaujolais”
It actually isn’t easy to
say “Beaujolais” and
sound just like a French
person.....but I thought
you might want to try.
The first quirky thing
about the word is its even
syllabic emphasis: all
three syllables get just
about the same stress,
with maybe a touch of
extra mustard on the third
one.
Then comes the gliding
J; this is French, so you
can’t say the second sylla-
ble as if it’s your Uncle
“Joe.” That consonant has
to begin as a soft glide in
the first syllable, slipping
into the second.
Then come the vowel
sounds: O-O-AY. But it all
depends how you say O-O-
AY. If you say you say the
Os like you’re from Balti-
more—sort of AO—then
you’ve lost it. Even if you
say the first O like most
Americans do, you’re still
not there.
Here’s the secret: the
“Beau” is not pronounced
like “bo.” French people
say it as if it’s somewhere
between “bo” and “buh.”
Put it all together, and
you’ve got: buhge-o-LAY!
Or something like it.

the kind of merry, accessible
Beaujolais you imagine the
French drinking in the 1950s
while listening to Edith Piaf.
Be warned, however: not all of
these factors are easy to read.
They don’t give you “answers;”
they give you “clues.”
Beaujolais Factor #1:
Big Producers vs.
Small Producers
Most Americans who know
Beaujolais know the names of
the largest Beaujolais produc-
ers, The name that comes up,
again and again, is Georges
Duboeuf, who’s so gigantic
he’s usually referred to as the
“pope” of Beaujolais. Ameri-
cans who get really geeky
about Beaujolais, though, are
always on the prowl for some-
thing “better” within the cate-
gory, always eschew the big
houses, preferring to ferret out
little “garagistes” who make
more artisanal Beaujolais.
So guess what: especially
among the wines that arrive
here, it’s the ones from the
“artisans” that usually have
more 21st-century
oomph.....more structure,
more alcohol. Oh, the big guys
are certainly experimenting
too—but, so far, I have discov-
ered that by selecting carefully
among the various offerings
from big producers, you can
fairly easily find graceful, tradi-
tional Beaujolais from houses
like Duboeuf, Jadot,
Mommessin, Bouchard, Louis
Tête, etc. Just because you’re
“serious” about wine.....don’t
write off Duboeuf and the oth-
ers!
Trendy Producers
vs. Old-Fashioned Pro-
ducers
Aha! If you could acquire a
list of which is which, you’d be
made in the shade (having
endless picnics with endless
glasses of perfect Beaujolais).
Unfortunately, there is no list-
ing of who’s up to what today
among the thousands of pro-
ducers in the vast region of
Beaujolais; to my knowledge,
no one in English has under-
taken this project. And it
wouldn’t be hard to do, just
time-consuming—for there are
plenty of houses up to one
style or the other.
On my trip to Beaujolais in
May, at some places it was
crystal-clear that the propri-
etors were trying to crack the
non-traditional Beaujolais mar-
ket, creating wines with more
heft, alcohol, structure, con-
centration. I’m not knocking
these wines as wines; many of
them were lovely wines. But
many of them were wines that
would disappoint me in my
hunt for traditional-style Beau-
jolais. Some of the producers
on this list were Jocelyne
Depardon of Domaine du Point
du Jour, Dominique and Kris-
tine Piron of Domaines Piron,
and Jean-Paul Brun of Terres
A Great Day in
Beaujolais
The people who made
the best frilly Beaujolais I
tasted on my trip in
May....also provided the
peak travel experience of
the trip! Marie Gros and
her husband are both
responsible for wine pro-
duction at their rustic
estate, Domaine de la
Terre Vivante, near Brouil-
ly. But Marie has another
calling.....she loves to bake
bread! And she has set up
a super-rustic oven, and
classroom, where visitors
may spend a few hours
punching dough—before
sliding their boules into the
oven and breathlessly
awaiting the results. The
couple is so sweet and
charming, the setting is so
idyllic, the fresh bread is
so good.....if you’re in the
Beaujolais region, you can-
not miss this!
Contact Domaine de la
Terre Vivante
by writing Marie at:
Marie-
Ludovic.gros@wanadoo.fr
or call
011.33.4.74.60.52.13
or fax
011.33.4.74.60.56.29

Dorées (who has been racking
up big points in The Wine Spec-
tator with his hyper-extracted
Beaujolais).
Happily, I did also find some
smaller producers who have
decided, at least for now, to
keep the faith. Tops on this list
for me were the Gros family of
Domaine de la Terre Vivante
in Charpenay, who have an
idyllic life growing grapes,
making wine, and baking
bread (see sidebar). Best of
all—they are making exactly
what I want to drink when I
crave Beaujolais! Their 2006
Beaujolais-Villages, La Lutine
was the most delicious tradi-
tional Beaujolais I tasted on
my trip: bursting with straw-
berry fruit, light but luxuriant,
good acid, gentle finish, total
harmony.
Another producer to track is
Bruno Debize, in Apinost,
who, using natural and tradi-
tional methods—and some
experiments, but only in the
service of the old-fashioned
taste—is creating exquisite,
cherry-scented, ultra-graceful
Beaujolais. I was also highly
impressed with Ghislaine and
Jean-Louis Large at Clos des
Vieux Marronniers in Char-
nay, a sustainable-agriculture
estate; their 2006 Beaujolais
has a gorgeous cherry nose
(there are cherry trees on the
estate!), with a long fruity fin-
ish that’s completely free from
heat. And also on my short list
is Martine Chermette at
Domaine du Vissoux in Saint-
Verand; she and her husband,
Pierre-Marie, can be quite
experimental, and can create
some structured, new-style
wines—but when you hit
something traditional like
their sappy-zappy 2006 Fleurie
Poncié, you realize that these
full wines have the graceful
soul of Beaujolais.
One place I did not visit—
but supplied a terrific, wildly
fruity 2006 Brouilly, right in
my style, to a restaurant meal I
had—is the Domaine Dubost
in Lantignié.
Your only remedy here is to
keep yourself educated. Read
as much as you can about pro-
ducers in Beaujolais—and
that includes reading between
the lines!
When the big American
wine publications froth on
about the “dark, plummy,
structured blah blah,” make a
note to avoid those wines
when you seek real Beaujo-
lais. Tell your wine merchant
what you’re looking for and,
as you test his suggestions,
see if he gets the point.
When you’re speaking wine-
speak with wine geeks, make
sure they know you’re in favor
of “carbonic maceration”—the
traditional Beaujolais way of
crushing the grapes, which
produces the traditional Beau-
jolais character.
The New Wave guys
eschew it, because its results
are too fruity and not tannic
enough. (To be really cool: let
them know that you know
that in Beaujolais the tradition
is actually a modified form of
carbonic maceration called
“semi-carbonic maceration!”).
Best of all: take a trip to
Beaujolais and discover tradi-
tional producers for yourself!
(If you’ve got a trip planned to
Beaujolais, Rosengarten Report
readers are invited to contact
Millissime, the New York
office that promotes Beaujolais
in the U.S., for information on
Beaujolais travel—and maybe
a few suggestions on winery
appointments!
Talk to Pamela Wittmann at
212.366.4864).
Happily, I did also find some smaller producers
who have decided, at least for now,
to keep the faith.

for the vegetable garnish:
6 medium shallots
2 medium white mush-
rooms, quartered
8 cut pieces of bacon,
each 1” by 3/4” by 1/8”
about 1/2 cup very young
Beaujolais
for the croûtes:
4 slices of French bread,
crusts removed,
cut 1/3” thick,
about 2” in diameter
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 tablespoon butter
Continued on page 7
Well, that’s an easy one:
everything! Everything is
Beaujolais food.
The kind of simple, light-hearted Beaujolais I’m touting is one
of the world’s most remarkable food-matching wines. If you
want to have it with fish....chill it down a bit, and go right
ahead! If you want to have it with a heavy meat stew.....warm it
up a bit (say 68 degrees) and go right ahead! The only type of food I’d keep it away
from is sweet food—because Beaujolais is very dry, and sweetness in the food will
make Beaujolais taste even leaner than it is.
Among the millions of recipes I might suggest to serve with a Beaujolais, I wanted to
share with you a Burgundy/Beaujolais area specialty , one of my favorites, that is often
made with Beaujolais: eggs poached in red wine with lardons of pork. This is heaven,
at any time of year, as a first course, or as a luncheon main course—but especially
good when you can get your hands on a just-released bottle of fruity, frothy Beaujolais:
Food
Beaujolais
for the poaching liquid:
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons chopped
bacon
6 tablespoons chopped
shallots
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
2 cups very young
Beaujolais
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup chicken stock
for the beurre manié:
1 tablespoon softened
butter
1 1/4 tablespoons flour
for setting the eggs:
4 large, very fresh eggs
1 tablespoon red wine
vinegar
final assembly:
1 tablespoon very young
Beaujolais
1 tablespoon very finely
chopped parsley
Oeufs en Meurette
makes 2 servings
NOTE: This is very much a mise-en-place-centric recipe for oeufs en meurette—meaning you get to
prepare lots of things in advance, lay them out in readiness, then whip it all together in a flash
when you’re ready to serve

1. Pre-heat oven to 400
degrees.
2. Prepare the vegetable gar-
nish: Peel the shallots, but be
careful to keep them intact at
the root ends. Place the shal-
lots in a buttered roasting
pan, and place them in the
pre-heated oven. Roast until
they are well-browned on the
outside, soft on the inside
(about 45 minutes). While
they’re roasting, baste occa-
sionally with Beaujolais to pre-
vent them from burning.
3. Place the mushroom quar-
ters in a small pan, and place
the pan under a hot broiler
until the mushrooms are nice-
ly browned (about 5 minutes).
Add the bacon pieces to the
mushrooms for 2 more min-
utes, then remove from the
heat. Mix together the shal-
lots, mushrooms, and bacon,
and reserve.
4. Prepare the croûtes: Place
the slices of bread on a roast-
ing pan. Rub well with the
smashed garlic clove. Place
the butter in a small, heavy
saucepan along with the garlic
clove. Melt the butter over low
heat, stirring. After it melts, stir
it over a low flame for 1
minute. The drizzle butter
through a sieve onto the bread
slices, distributing evenly. Plac
e rthe slices under a broiler
until they become golden-brown
on one side, 3 to 4 minutes.
Beaujolais Food:
Oeufs en Meurette (continued)
Turn them over, and broil them
until the other side becomes
golden brown. Divide among 2
dinner plates, and reserve.
5. Prepare the poaching liquid:
Place the butter in a heavy
sauté pan over medium-high
heat. Add the chopped bacon,
shallots and garlic, and sauté
until the shallots just start to
turn brown (about 5 minutes).
Turn the heat to high, and add
the Beaujolais and bay leaf.
Boil until the wine is reduced
to 1 cup (about 10 minutes).
Add the chicken stock, bring
the mixture back to the boil for
2 minutes, then remove from
heat and reserve.
6. Prepare the beurre manié:
Mix the butter and flour until
they are well-blended. Reserve.
7. Set the eggs: Bring 1 quart
of salted water to a simmer in
a 10” pan or Dutch oven. Add
the vinegar. Slip the eggs into
4 teacups, and, with the water
at a gentle simmer, slip the
eggs into the water, holding
the teacups close to the water
as you do. The idea is to keep
the whites as close to the
yolks as possible. As soon as
the eggs hit the water, push
the whites toward the center of
each egg with a wooden spoon
(this takes just a few sec-
onds). Simmer for about 2
minutes (the eggs will be just
set). Remove the eggs to a
wide, shallow pan, the fill the
pan with cold water. The eggs
will keep nicely in the water for
at least one hour.
8. When you are ready to
serve, bring the Beaujolais
poaching liquid to a rapid sim-
mer. Add the eggs to the sim-
mering liquid, and poach them
for 2 minutes more, or until
the whites are firm and the
yolks still runny. While the
eggs are poaching, baste the
tops with some of the poach-
ing liquid. Remove the cooked
eggs with a slotted spoon, let-
ting all the liquid run off, place
them on the croûtes, which
are on 2 dinner plates, and
keep them warm for a moment
under aluminum foil.
9. Meanwhile, bring the
poaching liquid to a rapid
boil, and begin whisking in
the beurre manié, bit by bit.
The sauce should be medium-
thick within a moment or two,
the beurre manié completely
absorbed (use your judgment
as to how much beurre manié
to add). Season to taste with
salt and pepper. To the
sauce, add the whole shal-
lots, mushroom quarters, and
bacon pieces. Add the table-
spoon of Beaujolais, and stir
well. Pour the thickened
sauce over and around the
eggs, dividing the vegetable
garnish evenly between the 2
plates. Top with parsley, and
serve immediately.

Big Prices
vs. Small Prices
It is no secret among wine
marketers everywhere that
when Americans see a higher
price on a bottle of wine.....they
think it’s a better bottle of wine
than one priced lower! It’s just
a part of our infatuation with
big names, big vintages, big
numbers (like alcohol lev-
els)—as opposed to the classi-
cal European infatuation with
harmony and grace, whether
the wines are “big” or not (and
that includes their price tags).
Wine industry types have
been taking advantage of this
for years. But it’s not always
based on pure greed. Some-
times winemakers “upscale”
their wines—that is, make
them from more concentrated
fruit, from vineyards with less
yield, before aging them in
expensive oak barrels; of
course the vinous result is
going to be more expensive
than a wine not treated so roy-
ally. But even in these cases I
have to ask: do we want this
wine to be “upscaled?” Do we
want this wine to be inkier,
oakier, ickier, pricier? I usually
just say “no”—and I especially
say it when it comes to Beaujo-
lais!
So....my advice is....if you’re
looking for traditional Beaujo-
lais.....remain open to all those
potentially beautiful wines that
have now edged up, only a bit,
to the $8 to $13 range (their
reasonableness still remains a
miracle!). Once the price starts
going north of that.....geez, you
can find Beaujolais at 25 bucks
a bottle these days!.....keep in
mind that the odds of New
Wave manipulation, tannin and
pain, are rising with every
extra cent on the price tag.
The Vintage Question
People discuss vintage as if
it’s a blanket concept, with the
vintage “desirables” remaining
uniform across the board, in all
wine regions of the world. But
it ain’t so: what you need to
know conceptually about vin-
tage in one region may have
nothing to do with what you
need to know conceptually
about vintage in another
region.
Beaujolais is a perfect exam-
ple of the idiosyncrasy of it
all.....because its desirables,
vintage-wise, are unusual for
red wine. If you are seeking
“my” kind of Beaujolais—the
mirthful, fruity, seductive
stuff—you are seeking, above
all, a Beaujolais from the most
recent vintage. If I walked into
a bistro tonight, and wanted a
simple Beaujolais with my gar-
lic sausage, and saw an ideal
candidate on the list—except
that it was from 2003 —I would
not order it. I might accept a
2005.....but what I’m looking
for right now is 2006.
Of course, every wine lover
knows that Beaujolais can
age—but the kind of instant-
gratification Beaujolais I like
best, with age, just gets less
fruity, and less fruity, before
becoming thin and completely
uninteresting (this will take
anywhere from 1-4 years).
Now, if it’s a Beaujolais built to
age.....which means not the
kind of Beaujolais I love so
much when it’s
young.....increasingly, during
its maturation, it will become
less and less like Beaujolais,
and more and more like Pinot
Noir.....until, ten years down
the road, if it’s a sturdy wine,
from a ripe vintage, it may
taste like a good aged Bur-
gundy. The French say “il
Pinot,” which means, roughly,
“it Pinots,” or “it becomes like
Pinot.” Admittedly, this can be
a very good thing—but it’s not
what I rely on Beaujolais for.
Once you know the vintage
“basics” in Beaujolais, then
you’re ready to play the usual
game: “what’s a great vintage?
what’s a poor vintage?” And,
once again, your answers will
be determined by what you’re
looking for. Here’s a view of
some recent vintages:
2003. This was the vintage
of the “great heat” in France,
the summer when upwards of
10,000 people died from the
soaring temperatures. The
result in Beaujolais was wine
that was riper, darker, more
alcoholic, bigger than Beaujo-
lais normally is. It wasn’t clas-

sic, merry Beaujolais when
young—and I would never
choose a 2003 today if I’m
looking for a classic, merry
Beaujolais to drink with my
food. However, that being
said....on my trip in May I tast-
ed some extremely lovely 2003
Beaujolais bottles that, as long
as you’re not thinking “classic
Beaujolais,” are pretty darn
yummy. Perhaps the best one I
tasted was the complicated but
balanced 2003 Moulin å Vent
from Domaine du
Vissoux.....and the 2003 Julié-
nas Grande Reserve, Cuvée
Speciale from P. Granger was
also a jammy good drink.
2004. This was a “difficult”
vintage in Beaujolais: rain (too
much) and sun (too little) con-
spired to steal some of the
fruity kick from the usual fruit-
driven Beaujolais. For me, the
wines were actually just fine
when young, if a little on the
lean side. But I would not
order a 2004 today if I’m look-
ing for the classic fruit bomb,
to be sure. Intriguingly, I tast-
ed a few 2004s on my trip that,
though lean, were showing
attractive minerally-earthy
characters, quite rare for three-
year-old Beaujolais; the 2004
Fleurie, Cuvée Prestige, from
the Domaine du Point du Jour,
tasted almost vegetal, almost
Cabernet-Franc-like, and would
be a great wine for a tart
chèvre.
2005. Here’s everyone’s
favorite Beaujolais vintage of
recent years. It created rich,
fruity wines—but not so rich
and fruity that they went over
the top, as they did in 2003.
Those who made “Beaujolais
to age” have in their cellars
some beauties, that may take
7-10 years to “Pinot,” and reach
their full potential. As always,
in Beaujolais, I’m more inter-
ested in the young stuff—and I
have found that a considerable
ratio of fruity-style 2005 Beau-
jolais have kept most of their
fruit, have kept most of their
freshness, and are drinking
rather well right now. I might
order 2005 Beaujolais in a
bistro today.....but not if I can
get my hands on some 2006.
2006. For the moment, “da
bomb.” But a year from now
there’ll be a new bomb. See
my 2006 tasting notes further
ahead.
The Geography Game
OK. Here it is. This is proba-
bly the single most important
factor in finding a rollicking,
classic-style Beaujolais—and,
of course, the one that cuts
most heavily against the “wis-
dom” of my oeno-contempo-
raries.
When you get introduced to
Beaujolais, in our wine books,
and in our wine periodicals,
you are usually told that only
the lowest-quality Beaujolais
actually has the appellation
“Beaujolais.” Then you are told
that one rung up the quality
ladder is wine with the appella-
tion “Beaujolais-Villages”—
which means, legally, that the
grapes were grown in one or
more of 39 specially designat-
ed villages in the region.
Now, the story usually goes,
you’re ready for the “real”
stuff, the best Beaujolais of all:
wines made in one of ten very
special villages known as the
crus du Beaujolais, or
“growths” of the Beaujolais
region. These ten hoity-toity
villages are in the north-central
part of the Beaujolais region,
the area of granitic soil. You’re
always warned about one
sneaky fact: that these wines
are always named by the vil-
lages in which the grapes were
grown, never by the mere
moniker “Beaujolais.” The ten
villages—and the ten names
you’ll see on labels—are:
Chiroubles
Regnié
Brouilly
Côte de Brouilly
Juliénas
Fleurie
Saint Amour
Chénas
Morgon
Moulin á Vent
Would-be Beaujolais con-
noisseurs like to tell everyone
else that if you want a “great”
Beaujolais you have to look for
one of these names—that
“real” Beaujolais never says
“Beaujolais” on the label!
Bloody typical. These kinds
of “connoisseurs” are always

seeking the “biggest,” the
“riichest,” the most expen-
sive—no matter whether their
faves carry the soul of Beaujo-
lais or not.
Me, I go backwards. When I
think Beaujolais thoughts, I
start thinking about the appel-
lation Beaujolais, and the
appellation Beaujolais-Vil-
lages—for this is where, if you
choose a young one, you have
the highest odds of finding the
classic light-hearted style.
Read on, and you will see my
tasting notes on five superb
Beaujolais, and Beaujolais-Vil-
lages, that are available right
now in the U.S.
First, however, I must in all
fairness point out that just
because a bottle of Beaujolais
has one of the ten “crus” on its
lable, it is not eliminated from
the possibility of holding
mirthful, graceful wine. I’ve
had many a delightful “cru”
over the years—it’s just that
these wines are not the happi-
est hunting ground for Beaujo-
lais freaks like me. Here is a
cru-by-cru analysis, telling you
which ones are mostly like to
produce the kind of Beaujolais
I favor:
Chiroubles. This is the
one—the village most likely to
produce “cru” Beaujolais in a
light-hearted style, the “cru” I
seek out most ardently when
it’s a new-born. Beaujolais-
lovers say it’s the most “Beau-
jolais” of all the crus, and that
it glisser en bouche (slides
down your throat!). The terroir
secrets here are sandy soil,
and a slightly cooler tempera-
ture.
Regnié. The village of Reg-
nié-Durette (whose wines are
known as “Regnié”) is the last
village to have gotten itself on
the “cru” map; Regnié became
a “cru” only in 1988 (when I
started drinking Beaujolais in
the Pleistocene Age there were
only nine crus). The soil is
pink granite, and some produc-
ers here go for a slightly
longer vatting—adding up to a
“cru” wine that can go either
way. Most Regniés are in the
light and aromatic direction,
but beware....there are some
more potent ones as well.
Brouilly. Brouilly is a large
appellation, covering 20% of all
“cru” territory—which means
shifting soil (some granite,
some sand), and a diversity of
styles. But it is possible to find
young Brouilly that has the
Beaujolais elegance I enjoy;
even the bigger wines are
“meaty,” but never too hard or
tannic. If you can, try to locate
Brouilly wines that come from
the commune of Pisse-Vieille,
one of the sandiest spots.
Côte de Brouilly. This
appellation is set on a hill that
rises in the center of the
Brouilly appellation. The soil is
special here: a hard, volcanic
rock that is known as “blue
stone.” I find the lower-altitude
Brouilly appellation a higher-
odds proposition for light-
hearted Beaujolais than Côte
de Brouilly; the latter can be
harder in youth, firmer, more
tannic. On the up side, it also
can be more capable of devel-
oping nicely over time.
Saint Amour. This highly
romantic name—the Saint of
Love—is also the source of
highly schizophrenic wines. A
tiny cru, the smallest of all, and
the most northerly of all, Saint
Amour is fiercely divided into
two groups of winemakers: one
that makes light, fruity, boister-
ous wine, meant to be drunk
young (my ideal Beaujolais
style), and another that makes
much fatter, stiffer, more pow-
erful, more age-worthy wine,
with more nuanced flavors.
Choose carefully. Never more
than a 50-50 gamble. (Later on,
I will tell you about a Trichard
Saint-Amour that knocked my
socks off!)
Fleurie. I gotta admit....I’m
a Fleurie freak, though I do
regularly have my disappoint-
this is where, if you choose a young one,
you have the highest odds of finding
the classic light-hearted style

ments. Everything about this
place—the floral name, the
beautiful village, the great
restaurant (Le Cep), the wines
when they’re just right—gets
me. The soil is mostly pink
granite, and the usual descrip-
tors for Fleurie wine are “silky”
and “feminine.” Well, that
sounds like what I want—
except that very ambitious
winemakers in various parts of
the Fleurie area, highly suc-
cessful ones with Euros to play
with, are regularly making
“cru” Beaujolais that is intend-
ed for eight years of cellaring!
You gotta get lucky with
Fleurie, if you’re seeking what
I’m seeking—but you can
improve your odds if you seek
out Fleurie wine from a climat
called La Chapelle des Bois or
one called La Madone. (NOTE:
there are 11 other Fleurie cli-
mats, but most of them, such
as La Roilette, produce firmer
wines).
Juliénas. Illogically, I also
love Juliénas, the oldest wine-
growing area in the “crus.” In
reality, Juliénas wine rarely has
the lively, lambent quality I so
prize in Beaujolais. However, it
often has this rich, glossy
ruby-purple that sucks me in
every time—a really sensuous
experience. And, when it’s just
right, it has a most un-Beaujo-
lais-like range of complicated
aromas, including violet, cinna-
mon, red currant and some-
thing like green pepper. OK! I
admit it! I sometimes drink
Juliénas! But not when I’m
seeking an everyday-Beaujo-
lais experience.....
Chénas. All righty.....here’s
where it starts getting easi-
er.....because Chénas, and the
next two crus, more reliably
make bigger, firmer, longer-
aging, less “Beaujolais-like”
wines than the other seven
crus. A classic Chénas descrip-
tion is “a bouquet of flowers in
a basket of velvet”—but this
only applies to the wine after
extended bottle-aging (like 5-7
years).
Morgon. This is the second
largest cru after Brouilly—but,
unlike Brouilly, its soil is very
consistent. Locals call it la
roche purrie, or “rotten rock,”
named for the soft, crystalline
dirt rich in iron oxide with
traces of manganese, schist,
and old volcanic rock. This soil
creates very rich, very power-
ful wines that are usually very
far from my beloved light
Beaujolais. It is often assumed
in textbooks that Moulin á
Vent makes the most powerful
Beaujolais, but I beg to differ; I
give the weighty crown to Mor-
gon.
Moulin á Vent. So why is
Moulin á Vent normally called
“king of the crus?” To me, it’s
not a question of weight. Yes,
Moulin á Vent is weighty and
powerful—but, typically, less
so than Morgon. Instead,
Moulin á Vent goes to the head
of the class for the remarkable
aromas and flavors it can
develop with ten years (or
more) of bottle age. Taste a
great one today from, say,
1995, and you’re likely to find
spice, ripe fruit, dried roses,
toast, truffle, musk and game.
Hey....I’m not turning this
down! But it’s not what I usual-
ly drink with my onion soup.
(NOTE: In an ironic twist, this
most famous cru is not named
for a village at all; there is no
village of Moulin á Vent—just a
landmark windmill. Most of
the appellation’s land is within
the village of Romanèche-
Thorins).
Well, having scaled these
heady heights—for aged
Moulin á Vent is a special treat
for once a year at most—let’s
return to the people’s wine,
real wine, the stuff that you
can inhale every day. My wine.
The sub-region that has the
appellation “Beaujolais” sits
mostly in the south of the larg-
er Beaujolais region, around
the large town of Villefranche-
sur-Saône, with a few vine-
yards creeping up the east side
of the larger Beaujolais region.
Make no mistake about it:
despite what you’ve heard,
there are great winemakers
laboring here, most of them
striving to create dizzyingly,
disarmingly light and simple
Beaujolais, a perfect wine for
food. The region gets its
knocks, I’m afraid, because
some of these wines are even
too light for Beaujolais-heads
like me; some of the wines

recall the old days of wine-
instead-of-water drinking. But
here’s where our American
culture pays off: a lot of the
simple “Beaujolais” destined
for the American market is not
of the water-thin variety.
Nevertheless, to be really
safe, I want to recommend to
you the Beaujolais sub-region
that I think contains the very
highest odds for classic Beau-
jolais merriment, neither too
heavy nor too light—and that
would be the Beaujolais-Vil-
lages sub-region, made up of
39 great wine-growing villages.
These villages encircle the
great north-central strip that
contains the crus: the Beaujo-
lais-Villages villages are south
of it, north of it, west of it, and
for a small stretch, east of it. If
a wine is a blend of grapes
grown in two or more of these
“villages,” it will be called
Beaujolais-Villages, with no
designation of specific villages.
If a wine comes from one of
these villages alone, the pro-
ducer is allowed to print the
name of that village on the
label.....but in smaller print,
and under the big words
“Beaujolais-Villages.” Do keep
in mind that the 10 famous
“cru” villages discussed above
are among the 39 Beaujolais-
Villages villages—but a pro-
ducer of, say, Fleurie, is
allowed to call his wine
“Fleurie” alone, and would
never ever think of indicating
“Beaujolais-Villages” on the
label.
To me, Beaujolais-Villages is
a very good thing. Oh, yeah,
sure, some of it is plonk. And
oh, yeah, sure, some of it is
made by over-ambitious wine-
makers who have caught the
“make-it-big” disease. But,
though we never hear about
this—producers based in a vil-
lage like Blacé, or Lantignié, or
La-Chapelle-de-Guinchay, are
not losing sleep at night
because they’re not in Fleurie,
Juliénas or Morgon; they go to
bed damned proud to be mak-
ing Beaujolais-Villages in
Blacé, or Lantignié, or La-
Chapelle-de-Guinchay. I submit
that villages like these, all
around the Beaujolais region,
should become the objects of
much more scrutiny—that
wine guides should be describ-
ing their differences for the
first time, rather than repeat-
ing the Moulin á Vent clichés
for the thousandth.
NEW WINE
REALITY
Upon my return to New
York, flushed with excitement
about Beaujolais, and Beaujo-
lais-Villages, I asked Millissime
for a tasting of as many wines
from these two appellations as
could be gathered. My only
stipulation was this: please
make them the youngest wines
of all, those from the 2006 vin-
That’s What I’M Talkin’ ‘Bout
My love for Beaujolais is founded in my love for well-behaved, non-aggressive red wines that
go beautifully with food. In other words.....it doesn’t have to be Beaujolais! Rosengarten
Report readers may remember my rant this year in favor of simple young Bordeaux—not the
kind of red Bordeaux you worship, but the kind you drink with dinner. While putting together
this Beaujolais piece, one of those other drinkable guys swam into my purview: a 2003
Chateau de Launay, Bordeaux Supérieur, imported by Acadia Imports, Santa Rosa, CA. The
legendary heat of the vintage, and the deep, lush purple in the glass, all seemed to augur a
wine that “hurts”—but this wine defies augury! It’s a lush carpet of blackberry-scented fruit,
ripe and round, with an extremely gentle finish.....that perfectly caressed my mustard-green
and caramelized-garlic linguine!

tage—a favorite of mine right
now by virtue of its character
as well as its momentary youth.
Dozens were assembled,
and I had a great time with my
beloved Beaujolais. But one
red flag emerged that I was not
expecting.
Once upon a time, the new
vintage from the Beaujolais
region appeared on the U.S.
market in several stages. Beau-
jolais Nouveau, of course, was
first (and still is), the just-made
wines appearing in time for
Thanksgiving (so, for example,
2007 Beaujolais Nouveau
appeared in November, 2007).
Then, in April, five months or
so later, the Beaujolais and
Beaujolais-Villages appellations
would appear. A bit later, dur-
ing the summer, you would
start to see the “crus.” So when
I requested a tasting of 2006
Beaujolais, and 2006 Beaujolais-
Villages, in July 2007, it didn’t
occur to me that the wines
would be hard to find.
But they were. It seems that,
in the new wine reality,
importers are holding off on
the marketing of the newest
Beaujolais vintage, 2006. Why?
Well, at the moment, some of
that has to do with the fact that
there’s a boatload of 2005 sit-
ting in warehouses, because
that’s just about when Ameri-
cans stop buying Beaujolais.
And.....the importers these
days are reasoning that “in a
rich vintage like 2005, and with
so many Beaujolais producers
making bigger wines, there’s
no rush to get these wines to
the market.”
Yeah, no rush—except that
Beaujolais never tastes truly
like the Beaujolais I mean if
you wait a few years to drink it.
My fear is that the importers
have learned something new:
“you don’t have to rush Beau-
jolais into the market!” I fear
that in spring, 2008, they’ll just
be getting to the 2006s! Yikes!
All the more reason for you
to get on these wines right
now. The following five wines
from 2006 are all available in
the U.S., brought in by
importers who understand that
Beaujolais is time-sensitive. If
you can’t find them at stores
near you, call the importer
(indicated after every note) to
find out the closest retail
source—or tell your wine mer-
chant to put in an order!
THE BEST 2006
“BEAUJOLAIS” AND
“BEAUJOLAIS-VIL-
LAGES” THAT ARE
CURRENTLY AVAIL-
ABLE IN THE U.S.
These wines are listed in
descending order of giddy
pleasure:
2006 Beaujolais-Villages,
Domaine de Bel-Air
($12.99)
Leave it to Michael Skur-
nick, importer extraordinaire,
to ferret out what I consider to
be the loveliest 2006 non-cru
Beaujolais in the market. Pro-
duced in the village of Lantig-
nié, this joyous wine is light-
garnet in color, with an almost
watermelon-y kind of exuber-
ant fruit on the nose. Sweet
attack, light and evanescent
body, gorgeously balanced,
falling off into extreme gentle-
ness in the finish. The picture
of pretty youth and freshness.
Marked by persistent melon-y
flavors that are not quite typi-
cal. Imported by Michael Skur-
nick Wines, Syosset, NY
2006 Beaujolais, Chateau
de Pizay ($9.99)
I was pleased to see the #2
spot go to an appellation
“Beaujolais”—and pleased as
well to see that it was made by
one of the great Morgon
estates, who make much more
“serious” wine with the Mor-
gon appellation (next time in
Beaujolais, stay in one of the
gorgeous rooms in their rustic
chateau/hotel). This simple
Chateau de Pizay is very pretty
in the glass, a bright, medium
ruby-garnet. Gorgeous cherry-
strawberry-fresh grape strain
in the nose, marred slightly by
a kirsch-like whiff of alcohol.
Wonderfully captivating fresh-
fruit flavors on the palate,
though, with crackling acidity
adding to the fresh-fruit
impression. Round, lush feel
for a simple “Beaujolais.”
Imported by Martin Scott
Wines, Lake Success, NY

Chateau du Basty ($12..99)
There is most definitely
something going on with the
village of Lantignié, just north-
west of “cru” Regnié—because
that’s where these grapes were
grown as well. Medium ruby-
garnet in the glass. Lovely,
deep nose: very strawberry
jam, with hints of incense and
perfume. Sumptously fruity on
the palate, but not over-the-top:
a rich feel which melts into
lightness. Great acid. This is a
delicious wine—a Beaujolais
you can chew which still feels
like Beaujolais. Imported by
International Gourmet,
Atlanta, GA
Louis Jadot ($8.99)
Hooray for large houses! I
contend that some excellent
classic-style Beaujolais is being
produced by them. This one’s
a light-ish garnet-purple, with a
very typical red-fruit Beaujolais
nose. Some Beaujolais snobs
will object to this nose because
it has a touch of the “banana”
character—an olfactory strain
that emerges, the snobs say,
when a more industrial kind of
yeast is used. Feh. I like
bananas, and don’t mind a hint
of the tropics in my Beaujolais.
Rather lush Beaujolais-Vil-
lages, with strong fruity fla-
vors.....and a slightly astringent
finish, making it a candidate at
my house for grilled-meat duty.
Imported by Kobrand Corpora-
tion, New York NY
Vieilles Vignes, St. Armand,
Labouré-Roi ($8.99)
This is a very pretty Beaujo-
lais-Villages, not an exuberant
one, from another large
house—one whose reputation
used to be down, but is now on
the way back up. Medium-dark
purple, with a lovely, ripe, red-
fruit nose. Despite the dark
color, the wine’s on the light
side—featuring good balance,
good acidity, and a soft finish.
Imported by Palm Bay Imports,
Boca Raton, FL
This Wine Just Cru on Me!
At my July tasting of Beaujolais, and Beaujolais-Villages, the organizers threw at me a sam-
pling of the few 2006 “crus” that are available now in the U.S. As you know, I often find cru
Beaujolais delicious—though they’re often not exactly what I’m looking for in Beaujolais.
With this wine—a 2006 Saint-Amour, Domaine des Pierres, from Trichard ($15)—I take it
all back. This is a bewitching cru Beaujolais, one that seems to have the stuffing for age—but
is absolutely delicious, even Beaujolais-like, in its youth. Gorgeous, bright ruby-purple in the
glass. Big red-fruit and pear nose, very vibrant—with some non-intrusive earthy notes, the
kind of thing you’d expect from a more “serious” wine. On the palate, those earthy notes
blossom into a delicious tug-of-war between Beaujolais-like fruit and Burgundy-like minerals.
I’m impartial! I love it! Especially since the wine feels like crushed velvet, and, aside from its
apple-y acidity, remains soft throughout. Sexy, silky, wonderful wine. Should remain substan-
tially as it is until Christmas or so.....then it may become a candidate for the cellar. Imported
by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ

B
eaujolais is a beautiful
place to visit. With its lit-
tle villages, rolling hills,
old houses made of the local
“golden stone,” it is one the
most charming wine regions in
France. And there’s more good
news: in restaurants, the Beau-
jolais area is relatively free of
the over-the-top fusion-shmu-
sion craze sweeping the rest of
the country. Yes, it is possible
to get old-fashioned cooking of
the region here!
But hurry. For just as the
wine of the region is beginning
to change, so are the many lit-
tle mom-and-pop places trying
to upscale. In the south of the
region, I pulled into the gor-
geous village of Bully, all gold-
en stones, walked into the
great-looking restaurant in an
old stone building in the town
square—and found a decor
reminiscent of L.A., as well as
food showing lots of interna-
tional ideas with no soul.
On the other hand....it is still
quite possible to stumble into a
place like Le Morgon, in Vil-
lié-Morgon, a journey through
time to the quaint, family
charm of yesteryear. Don’t go
out of your way to get here, for
this is a very modest restau-
rant, with modest food. But, if
you’re touring the fabulous
Beaujolais vineyards a stone’s
throw from the front door, the
restaurant’s food is local and
traditional all the way: really
good escargots; a superbly
fresh, vibrant, almost sweet
foie gras terrine; rich mussel
soup; plump and deep coq au
vin; and a platter of cheeses
featuring especially good
creamy ones.
Now, if you are looking for
destination old-fashioned food,
have I got the place for you—
really one of the best traditional
country restaurants in France,
crazily celebratory. I wrote
about it in one of the early
issues of The Rosengarten
Report; later, the late Johnny
Apple of The New York Times
put it on his list of ten favorite
restaurants in Europe; now the
world knows about it, but it
doesn’t seem to matter. Le Cep,
in the idyllic village of Fleurie,
has landed on its feet.
I say this because it has had
its ups and downs. Chantal
Chagny, the wonderfully color-
ful proprietress, began the
place as a simple bistro.....until,
out of nowhere, a supremely
talented young man rose from
dishwasher to head chef....pro-
pelling the restaurant towards
not one, but two Michelin
stars! Then, suddenly, after 18
years in the kitchen, he died,
at the age of 40, in 1990. Chan-
tal tried to maintain the two-
star level of the cuisine but
could not. So, in 1998, she
decided to bring back the old
silverware, the old china, and
her old ideas in the kitchen—
turning Le Cep into a place
that unmistakably feels like a
bistro but still, somehow, has a
really electric two-star glam-
orous gloss over it.
The food today, happily, is
bistro all the way—and pre-
pared, impeccably, with
absolutely extraordinary local
ingredients. Are there better
Burgundy snails on the planet?
Only the ones I had at Paul
Bocuse 20 years ago can com-
pare, in my experience. That
goes double for the frogs’ legs,
the best ever—explained, by
Madame, as a result of her
insistence on fresh frogs’ legs
(“I don’t know any other
restaurant in France,” she told
me, “that doesn’t use frozen.”)
Another great first course is
the coarse and gamy duck ter-
rine.....but if I had to pick just
one starter, it would be without
question the insanely sweet
and buttery crayfish in a rich,
BEAUJOLAIS RESTAURANTS
Beaujolais Bonus:
A Guide to Local Restaurants

coral-colored, flavor-exploding
lobster sauce of the gods.
Sweetbreads for a main course,
or medium-rare poultry-crazy
pigeon, ain’t bad either. And, of
course, you will find here one
of the most complete Beaujo-
lais wine lists in existence:
every Beaujolais appellation
and cru is deeply stocked,
from scads of producers and,
when appropriate, a myriad of
vintages.
There must be other high-
quality ultra-traditional restau-
rants in the area, but I didn’t
find any better than this. What
I did find was a group of
restaurants that you might
place in their own category:
not exactly traditional, but not
crazy creative, with a lot of
local flavor and tradition being
spun with modern kitchen
savvy into a “converted” ver-
sion of local cuisine. Sounds
scary, of course—but at the
right restaurants, it works
beautifully.
One of the right restaurants,
to me, is Les Platanes de
Chénas, set in a wide, old,
gaily painted stone building
right on the roadside in the cru
town of Chénas. Enter the inn,
and you will see one of the
most beautiful terraces in
Beaujolais....as well as a large,
airy dining room, all yellow,
lime-green, and cactus-fruit
red, with colorful chairs and
tablecloths, and wacky pieces
(like a bust of Louis Arm-
strong on the bar, like a side-
piece in the dining room
resembling a coffin). Some-
how, it all works.....as does the
modified local food created by
chef and co-owner Christian
Gerber-Thorin. His lovely wife
Valérie works the front of the
house with aplomb—though,
on the night I visited, the rest
of her staff was the weakest
link in the meal.
Nevertheless, we dined well
on a perfect blend of new and
old. The kind of lobster-sauced
crayfish dish I adored at Le
Cep is served here in a new-
fangled fashion. It is again
anchored by shellfish (this
time, lobster itself, tender and
sweet), in a wide bowl of Fer-
nand-Point-type of rich lobster
sauce....but at Les Platanes you
also get little pieces of chicken
oyster (what the French call
the sot l’y laisse ), earthy mar-
row dumplings, potatoes and
haricots verts. All together, it’s
not a pin-point bull’s-eye like
Chantal’s bowl at Le Cep—but
I sure as hell couldn’t stop eat-
ing it. Another great dish,
more rustic, is a fat roll-up of
pinkish sausage meat with
broad, thin potato slices—all
browned and crusty, bathed in
a rich brunoise-studded brown
sauce, which falls perfectly
short of too rich. The taste, to
be truthful? Like corned beef
hash that went to school in
France....and I love corned
beef hash!
Gerber-Thorin seems to
have a special fascination with
oxtail, which is a good thing. I
got to try his meaty-good cold
terrine of oxtail, but the star is
the main-course oxtail, cobbled
together like “an andouillete,”
breaded and roasted in the
oven to earthy, tender,
crunchy-brown perfection. At
dessert time, don’t pass up the
chef’s sorbets just because sor-
bet seems too simple. In May, I
had here two of the greatest
sorbets I’ve ever tasted, sump-
tuous in texture and powerful
in flavor (making instant ID
possible even among subtle
fruits): a dark, lurid-red cherry
sorbet, and a dark, lurid-purple
cassis sorbet. If these fruits are
in season when you visit.....you
know what to do.
And I’ll tell you one more
thing to do—pay a visit to
the lovely hotel/restaurant
called Les Maritonnes, in
Romanèche-Thorins (Moulin á
Vent territory!), site of perhaps
the most perfect gastronomic
experience I had on my trip.
You might even want to stay
there—for it’s a graceful, inn-
like, 200-year-old building that
was first turned into a hotel
about 100 years ago. The
rooms are not drop-dead gor-
geous, or rich in
antiques.....but they are gener-
ally spacious, very comfort-
able, impeccably kept up.....and
astonishingly low-priced (you
can get a small one for 110
Euros, or a family one by the
side of the pool, next to the ivy
wall, that sleeps 4 or 5 and

costs 290 Euros a night).
You’ll be happy to have
access to this dining room—a
wide-open, traditional-feeling,
sunny affair, upscale-style, with
wood beams, white tablecloths,
carved wooden chairs, copper-
green pillars, copper pots on
rag-rolled walls, dreamy land-
scape paintings, and a right
fine grandfather clock.
As soon as the ultra-suave
captain approached me with
his amuse, I knew I was going
to be happy here—a delicious
“cold milk” of spring peas in a
tiny jar set on a slate with a
scatter of crushed pistachio
nuts. Green, I believe, was the
concept—and it’s worth think-
ing conceptually here, for
every dish presented by this
very skilled and very thought-
ful Breton-born chef, Pascal
Quellec, is the result of careful
culinary cogitation.
Some chefs do that and end
up with over-intellectual food;
Quellec does it and ends up
with delicious food, always
based on the season and the
place.
I freaked out at the Terrine
du Chef, for I’d never seen any-
thing quite like it: an extreme-
ly sexy-looking marble-white
slab of compressed meat, with
violet highlights. Quellec
builds his terrine from chicken
(Bresse is not far away) ,
chicken livers, duck breast and
foie gras, then surrounds it
with a huge, silky bard of
white fat; this albino thing just
breathes poultry. It is perfectly
partnered by a gorgeous tan-
gle of greens on the side, and
by a pot of caramelized onions
stewed in.....guess
what?.....Beaujolais.
Crayfish, next....a local
obsession.....but this time in a
pot-au-feu....and, once again,
I’ve never seen anything quite
like it. The concept here
is.....hot!.....as in temperature.
You are served an individual
cast-iron cocotte of delicious,
crayfish-y orange broth, stud-
ded with perfectly cooked peas
and crayfish tails.....served
with its lid, super-hot, on a
super-hot oval copper pan,
which sits on a very wide,
super-hot dinner plate. And the
temperature of my crayfish?
Piping hot and perfect!
Then, with Bresse at my
shoulder, I dug into more
chicken—Quellec’s Volaille de
Bourgogne, a wonderful cre-
ation with chicken feet in both
worlds (the traditional and the
creative). Broad slices of gold-
en-skinned chicken are
arranged with a superb selec-
tion of pot-au-feu vegetables
(talk about thought: the whole
cooked leek has had its green
part braided!). It’s all dripping
with gorgeous, long-cooked
chicken juice.....but wait, it gets
better. Scattered throughout
the composition are fat, fresh,
really earthy Burgundian
snails......and the whole is gild-
ed with an exquisite brown jus
kissed with vin jaune, an east-
ern French wine. It is a dish
that Beaujolais was made for.
Speaking of which.....this, of
course, is another super-strong
Beaujolais list, specializing in
the local juice, Moulin á Vent
from many vintages. But I
went for a bottle from the
other end of the cru strip, a
2006 Brouilly from Domaine
Dubost: purple, sappy, filled-in,
harmonious and wildly fruity
all at the same time. And liquid
heaven with the food.
There is one more Beaujo-
lais kitchen of this ilk that you
need to know about—though,
damnit, circumstances prevent-
ed me from getting there dur-
ing my visit. But many knowl-
edgeable locals told me that
one of their favorite places for
this kind of big-deal, modern-
ized traditional food is La
Table de Chaintré, in Chain-
tré. “Many courses of small
plates,” they say, “with ultra-
high-end ingredients, sophisti-
cated cooking.....and fabulous
game in the fall.”
That’s coming right up, isn’t
it? Beaujolais region, anyone?
I freaked out at the Terrine du Chef,
I’d never seen anything quite like it

O
nce upon a time—before the Food-
ieolithic Period that began in the
1980s and bloomed in the 1990s—
there weren’t a lot of different
kitchen knife brands available to the Ameri-
can consumer. If, say, in 1975, you knew
good knives, and wanted them for your
kitchen, you pretty much had to decide
between Wusthof, Sabatier and J.A. Henck-
els. There were always small variations in
weight, design and style....and back in those
days you had the clear option of stainless
steel vs. carbon steel.....but the choices you
had from the Big Three weren’t that varied.
I, for example, could never decide which of
the three companies I preferred.
Then, ka-boom. Those guys on TV start-
ed looking so cool rocking their
knives.....just as cooking was becoming a
national participation sport......and the knife
business got really hot. Lots of new quality
brands appeared in the market, all fighting
for your knife dollar. I don’t know who’s win-
ning, but I do know this: differences among
the top-quality knifes are still not mind-blow-
ingly clear. Yes, the stainless-steel vs. car-
bon-steel choice has now been replaced by
another central dichotomy—Western-style
knives vs. Japanese-style knives (the santoku
knife having become a new staple of the
American kitchen)—but most of the new
knife products I receive make me say, “Yes,
sure, another very fine example of a chef’s
knife, or a santoku knife.”
And that is why I got excited recently
when I stumbled upon (I didn’t hurt myself)
a line of knives that was brand-new to me. It
wasn’t brand-new to the world; for many
years, this German line of knives, called
Gunter Wilhelm, was much more widely
available in Europe. Recently, however, an
independent cookware manufacturer in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida by the name of Phil
McMahon decided to acquire the German
company, to make a few changes in these
knives, to change the name of the line, and to
attempt much wider distribution in the U.S.
Why? Because he believed in the knives. And
the reason you’re reading about it right now
is that I believe in them too—for they are
some of the only knives in a long time that
have made me say “THAT’S different!”.
The new line will be called Hammer-
stahl.....and the basics of production will
remain the same. The steel is forged in Ger-
many...but then shipped to China, where the
handles are manufactured and the knives
are put together. This is one of a few cost-
saving strategies the company employs, so
that you can get two great results:
1) much heavier knives, with better con-
struction, since certain other costs are
PRODUCTS I’M LOVING RIGHT NOW
German Knives with Japanese Style
Hammerstahl 8” Santoku Knife ($99) 65
Hammerstahl 10” Santoku Knife ($119) 75
Hammerstahl Asian Cleaver ($109) 70

lower; and
2) lower prices overall than you’ll pay to
other companies for knives of this quality.
On the cost-cutting side: the wood they
use in China is relatively low-cost pakka
wood, which doesn’t look low-cost to me; it
has a lovely cherry-wood color, as well as
some dark knotty grains. And it has some-
thing else, too: the pores in the wood are
filled with a phenolic resin that makes
these handles more durable, according to
McMahon. If all of this adds up to $20 less
per knife.....and if the knives are really
good.....I’m in.
OK....here comes the really good stuff.
We are about to discuss the tang, and I
don’t mean astronaut orange drink. The
tang is the part of the steel that reaches
down to the wood handle; how deep it
goes, and how firmly it’s set, are two of
the key factors in determining the quality
of a knife. You are often told, with an
expensive knife, that the tang goes all the
way to the bottom of the handle. Some-
times you see it peeking out on the two
narrow sides of the handle, all the way
down to the bottom. Almost never do you
see it peeking out from all four sides of
the handle—but that’s exactly what you
get here: an amazingly solid construction
with high-quality steel showing every-
where through the wood. The steel is
high-carbon no-stain steel, and—most
impressively of all—when you pick this
thing up, IT...IS...HEAVY!!!
That’s the thing that attracted me in the
first place: this is one of the heaviest knives
I’ve ever held—and one of the sharpest. It is
almost literally true that if you rest the knife
on a tomato, sharp-edge down, you really
don’t have to move your arm at all: the
weight of this thing will pull it down through
the tomato! I held a number of different
styles in my hand—McMahon tells me that
there’ll be still more in the line soon—and
my three favorites, outside of weight consid-
erations, also felt terrific in my hand, with
very comfortable grips and angles.
Hammerstahl is into Japanese styling, big
time. Since I acquired my Hammerstahl 8”
Santoku, I’ve been using little else in my
kitchen; it has become my new chef’s knife.
I’ve also been experimenting with another
one of Hammerstahl’s innovations—the 10”
Santoku which, according to McMahon, is
the first ultra-long santoku knife in the mar-
ketplace. It is enormously heavy—and just
the thing for cutting 8 or so carrots sitting
side-by-side into rounds. Both Hammerstahl
santokus are dimpled (or indented) along the
blades, to give the quick-release of vegeta-
bles that modern chefs favor. Ain’t no dim-
ples yet on my other fave—the substantial
Hammerstahl Asian Cleaver—but McMahon
says that dimples will appear soon (so if
that’s an important feature to you, hold off
for a little while on this one). I love this knife
too—which enables me to get a great rock-
ing motion going for jobs like finely mincing
parsley, and then enables me to pick up the
chopped stuff on the broad side of the wide
blade.
Isn’t it time you tried a Hammerstahl?
BEST STRATEGY
FOR ACQUISITION
To find out more about these knives,
you can log on to the web site:
www.hammerstahl.com
To order.....I’ve got a surprise for you!
Phil McMahon has made an offer to
Rosengarten Report readers that you
practically can’t refuse. If you call
866.398.1086, identify yourself as a
Rosengarten Report subscriber, and order
one or more of the knives I’ve described,
he’ll give you a staggering discount. The
8” Santoku Knife goes down from $99 to
$65; the 10” Santoku Knife goes down
from $119 to $75; and the Asian Cleaver
goes down from $109 to $70.

T
here are hot sauces galore on the
gastro-landscape today—but, as
with knives above, it’s tricky to
find a real Point of Difference.
Well, me buckos, put your endorphins on
alert.....for this new line from Connecticut
really does have something extra.
As Paul Sarris, the founder and owner
of Sweet Sunshine puts it—even on his
labels—that something extra is “flavor
before fire.” Bravo! That’s what I’ve been
touting for years! Far too many hot sauces
have names with images of thermonuclear
destruction, or mental illness—and pro-
ceed to lend a hand in facilitating those
things by burning the bejesus out of your
mouth!
It is gratifying indeed to
see a whole company devot-
ed to the way that hot sauce
tastes, not the way that hot
sauce burns.
Sarris started the compa-
ny recently with a home
recipe, and has now had
enough success to, in his
current batch—only the
fourth!—employ slightly
larger-scale production
techniques. But he is still
there, batch by batch, tast-
ing away, creating a very
artisanal version of a hot
sauce.
The entry-level sauce is
the Sweet Chili Sauce
($5.50 a bottle)—a dark red-
dish-brown, fairly thick
purée, with good layers of
flavor: heat (from ancho chiles), a mus-
tardy- touch, and hints of sweet spices. It
also has a Worcestershire kind of kick, like
Pick-a-Peppa Sauce.....and thereby hangs a
tale. Sarris was looking for that flavor, and
originally added Worcestershire sauce to
the blend. But he wanted his sauce line to
be “all-natural”....and, after he realized that
Lea & Perrins contains some “non-natural”
ingredients.....found a way to create a
Worcestershire-like dimension by other
means. The end result is a fairly sweet
sauce, not unlike a complex BBQ sauce,
with some heat. I like it. But it gets better.
Sarris has three more notches to go on
his basic “chili sauce.” One rung up is the
Warm Chili Sauce ($5.50 a bottle), which,
in addition to the base sauce
above, gets a mixture of
dried habañeros and a little
extra vinegar. It is slightly
lighter in color, slightly thin-
ner in texture, but with a big
upgrade in flavor: still medi-
um-sweet, but with the fruity
dimension of habañero
chiles. It is hotter, but not
distractingly so.
The Hot Chili Sauce
($5.50 a bottle), a little run-
nier still, and a medium
brown-orange-red, is defi-
nitely hotter—but with a
huge rush of the fruity quali-
ty in habañero peppers.
With this sauce, you begin
to say: “wow! those are great
habañero peppers!” And
they are. Sarris researched
Put Your Endorphins on Alert
Sweet Sunshine Chili Sauces
(from $5.50 to $7.75 for a five-ounce bottle)

different sources for habañeros, and came
up with the “red savina” habañero from
Cartagena, Colombia. He receives 50-lb.
buckets of habañero mash from Colombia,
kind of a purée with little chunks in it.
When the buckets are opened, he told me,
“the whole bottling plant starts to cough.”
But that’s thermonuclear talk. Sarris has
the good sense to make sure his Hot Chili
Sauce, yet another variation of the base,
has only 10% by weight of this incendiary,
super-tasty mash. The heat, by the way, is
in the back taste: wicked, direct and clean.
OK....if you really want it.....you can go
all the way to the fourth variation on the
base, the Atomic Chili Sauce ($7.50 a bot-
tle). Oh no!.....I guess even Sarris had to
get into the arms race. And, admittedly,
this one would not be my favorite of the
line. But you do get 25% by weight of that
special South American habañero mash,
and you do get an even fruitier flavor than
in the others.....if you can take it.
Now here’s what I’d really like to take:
two other sauces, special blends that Sar-
ris makes outside of his basic Sweet-
Warm-Hot-Atomic continuum. I’m sure
that you, like I, have tasted many hot
sauces with onion and/or garlic in them—
and have felt, many times, that the flavor
seems kind of industrial, powdered-soup-
like. Not here! The Roasted Shallot and
Garlic Chili Sauce ($7.75 a bottle) is one of
the best lily family-to-bottle conversions
I’ve ever tried. It’s a laborious process for
Sarris; what goes into his sauce is the
result of long-browning of fresh shallots
and garlic in a large steam kettle. The
sauce itself is a medium-thick purée, a
slightly orange-y brown, with a real
caramelized taste of fresh shallots. The
background is medium-sweet, quite hot,
with a definite buttery dimension. I don’t
normally do steak sauce—but I’m sure this
would be killer on a hunk o’ steer.
However, I have saved the best for last:
Sarris’ Jamaican Jerk Chili Sauce, which
doesn’t need to be dedicated to “jerk”—for
this is one of the most flavorful hot sauces
I’ve tasted in a long time. Yes, it does taste
exactly like great jerk tastes in Jamaica—
but I’d go wider than that in my applica-
tions. It is a dark reddish-brown, pulpy-
thick sauce, with a killer Jamaican taste of
allspice and clove, anchored by a fruity hit
of chilis, and a hearty meatiness. The heat,
though not excessive, is very penetrating;
your mouth hums for minutes after a few
swabs of this stuff. If you wanted to try
only one sauce from this very special line,
I’d say this one is it.
BEST STRATEGY
FOR ACQUISITION
If you'd like more info about Sweet
Sunshine Chili Sauces, log on to:
www.sweetsunshine.com
If you'd like to order some.....have I
got a deal for you!
First of all, the number to call is
866-sweet-01. You will be charged
anywhere from $5.50 to $7.75 a bot-
tle (see above), plus shipping and
handling charges (this comes to $2
for a one-bottle shipment, plus 75
cents for each bottle after that).
But here's the BIG news: if you
identify yourself as a Rosengarten
Report subscriber, Paul Sarris will give
you a phenomenal discount: 50% off
the regular price, no matter how many
bottles you order!
Just go to www.sweetsunshine.com
and in your shopping cart, enter Spe-
cial Offer Code: FLAVOR
You will still have to pay the per-bot-
tle shipping and handling charges. The
way I figure it, you could get yourself
four bottles of Sweet Sunshine for as
little as $15.25!

H
ere’s an update on a
subject that has
become a passion of
mine: Japanese ramen.
You may remember my
raves in Rosengarten Report
#57 about the ramen experi-
ences I had in Japan in April
....deciding, finally, that of all
the regional ramens, Hakata
ramen, from the southern
island of Kyushu, is the yum-
miest ramen of all.
You may have noticed my
piece in TASTINGS a few
weeks back (subscribe to this
weekly e-zine free on
www.davidrosengarten.com),
concerning my hunt for Haka-
ta ramen in southern Califor-
nia.....finally finding a place in
Fountain Valley, near Anaheim,
called Hakata Ramen, that
serves a decent Hakata ramen.
But if you’ve seen these
pieces at all, you’ve doubtless
noticed the pain, the melan-
choly, the longing, caused by
the fact that Ippudo Hakata
Ramen, my ramen heaven, is
in the Ginza district of Tokyo,
thousands of miles from my
door. Definitely beyond ramen-
run range.
Then the web turned up an
amazing thing.
I received a note from Mon-
eyMoy, blogger, food fanatic
and ramen addict, informing
me.....be still, my heart.....that
Ippudo Hakata Ramen, owned
by the same people who own
the Ginza place.....is going to
open soon.....in New York
City!!!
This is too much for me to
bear.
Furthermore, MoneyMoy
(who’s a font of information)
goes on.....informing me that
there’s lots of ramen activity
just now in New York’s East
Village. Here....I’ll let him tell
it:
“The Ippudo news was on a
few different blogs and foodie
sites of which these are three:
http://search.japantimes.co.j
p/cgi-bin/nb20070620a4.html
http://eater.com/archives/2
007/06/plywood_after_d.php
http://www.chow.com/diges
t/3106
Another Japanese chain,
Ramen Setagaya just opened
last month on 1st Ave. between
8th and 9th and is terrific, but
they make shio ramen, not the
Hakata style you fell in love
with. But with Minca (decent
but inconsistent), Momofuku
(overrated), Rai-Rai Ken (so-
so), Setagaya (superb) and the
coming of Hakata Ippudo, the
East Village is shaping up to
be the battleground of the
ramen wars. Hooray for us!
If you haven’t tried Setagaya
yet, you definitely should. Its
broth is light but full-flavored
(think dried scallops), and the
noodles, soft egg, everything,
just makes it a wonderful eat-
ing experience. Lighter than
the Hakata style I also enjoyed
in Japan, but so delicious in its
own right. You can check out
my blog entry on it here:
http://www.moneymoy.com/jo
urnal/ (scroll down to the 6/23
entry).”
Thank you, MoneyMoy.
There is hope.
Meanwhile, the whole
ramen thing has re-ignited my
fire for all kinds of Asian noo-
dles.....which is why, this
month, I found myself in a
Cambodian “Noodle Bar,” just
north of New York City’s Chi-
natown, called Kampuchea. It
is a place that I need to tell you
about.
First of all.....it’s no longer a
“Noodle Bar.” That was part of
Kampuchea’s name when it
opened in November, 2007—
because one of the largest sec-
JAPANESE RAMEN
Noodling in New York:
Ramen.....and Beyond!

tions on the menu lists katiev,
or Cambodian noodle soups.
Ain’t nothing wrong with
these, many of them made
with different kinds of noodles.
I especially enjoyed the slip-
pery noodles, very sen-lek-like,
or pad-thai-like, in the Phnom
Pen Katiev, a rich, dark combo
of noodles, broth, ground
Berkshire pork, duck confit,
chicken breast, tiger shrimp,
sprouts and herbs.
But.....as you can
see.....Berkshire pork? duck
confit?.....this is a “Cambodian”
restaurant with a difference.
And the difference is the chef-
owner, Ratha Chau, who fled
his native Cambodia at the age
of seven.....and now, after years
in the American restaurant
business (notably at Fleur de
Sel in New York), has opened
his first restaurant. Yes, you
can get noodles.....and yes, the
ideas are founded in Cambodi-
an cuisine.....but by removing
the words “Noodle Bar” from
the restaurant’s name, Chau is
trying to get the message
across that this is an important
restaurant, with careful cook-
ing, and very impressive ingre-
dients....not all of them Cambo-
dian. It reminds me a bit of the
night, almost 20 years ago,
when I met the-then mostly
unknown Douglas Rodriguez
at his hit restaurant Yuca in
Coral Gables. I wanted to inter-
view him about Cuban food,
because I’d been sent there to
do a story on Cuban food.
“Why do you guys want to
pigeon-hole me?” he said. “Do
you interview Wolfgang Puck
about Austrian food?”
Good point.
So here it is: go to Kam-
puchea for the....food. It is fan-
tastic!
Start with a few of the
“Share Plates”—a wild ride
through a bunch of Asian-
inflected appetizers. Two are
crazy good. One of my favorite
dishes on the whole menu is
the Butter Filet Mignon, an
amazing, broad slice of slightly
seared, mostly raw beef, look-
ing for all the world like
carpaccio, but topped with a
wild julienne salad of green
mango, shallots, and cilantro
that’s gorgeously salty and
sour. I also love the P.E.I. Mus-
sels, plump and sweet, swim-
ming in a gorgeously light and
clean citric broth, flecked with
a profusion of herbs and veg-
etables. One of the things that
absolutely sells this dish—and
reminds us all of the French
presence in Indochina—is an
accompanying basket of but-
tered baguettes, which, when
dunked, explode into surpris-
ing new realms of fusion flavor.
Another great category is
the “crepe” category—a new
kind of pancake on me, a puffy-
spongy Cambodian creation
made from rice flour, egg,
coconut milk, coconut flakes
and turmeric. The cool thing is
that you take your crepe—
already stuffed with chicken,
or shrimp, or pork, etc.—and
then stuff the whole thing in
lettuce leaves, which you
douse with tangy dressings,
chilis and peanuts. Really, real-
ly good.
It’s a little tricky to figure
out at Kampuchea exactly
which category is the main-
course category—though
you’d have to guess it’s the
short “From the Grill” catego-
ry. However, because I didn’t
find anything there that I love-
loved.....I’ll be back!.....and
because I looked around the
room and saw many in the
young, hip downtown crowd
chowing down on sandwich-
es.....and because I definitely
love-loved the sandwiches.....I
would recommend that you
think between the bread at
main-course time.
And what a cool thing these
“Nam Pung” are: toasted
baguettes, very golden, wit’ da
woiks, which, Kampuchea-
style, is pickled carrots,
cucumber, cilantro and chili
mayo. Then there’s the sand-
wich fillings. Oh my. I loved
every one I tasted, but espe-
cially fixated on the Grilled
Skirt Steak Nam Pung, which
adds sambal chili and toasted
coriander seeds and, best of
all, the Kampuchea Nam Pung,
which features house-made
pork pâté and a headcheese
terrine—all liver-y, and soft,
and ready to combine miracu-
lously with the Asian flavors. If
this makes you think of the
JAPANESE RAMEN

great Vietnamese sandwich
Banh Mi—you’re right! Except
that I’ve never had a Banh Mi
made by a chef with the pedi-
gree of Ratha Chau. The sand-
wiches are southeast Asian
street food reproduced on a
very, very high gastronomic
level.....and the rest is just
great food on a very, very high
gastronomic level.
The place itself has the
appropriate buzz for food like
this. Set on the up-and-coming
corner of Rivington and Allen,
just steps from the Ludlow St.
restaurant boom, the restau-
rant sports a canny design that
prepares you for “high con-
cept”—lots of schoolroom ref-
erences, such as high benches
with desks, and Mead-note-
book menus. “Teach me!” the
foodie crowd seems to be say-
ing, packing the place nightly.
I’m not sure I got a complete
education in Cambodian cui-
sine at Kampuchea—but I am
sure champing at the bit to get
back there, whether I feel like
champing on noodles or not.
Kampuchea
78 Rivington St.
New York, NY 10002
212.529.3901
JAPANESE RAMEN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: David Rosengarten
PUBLISHER: Walter Pearce
EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Gregg Early
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: T. J. Robinson
DESIGNERS: Steve Kizer, Trae Turner
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Andrea Prendergast
© Copyright 2007
by Salt Pig Publishing, LLC.
All rights reserved. Reproduction
in any form is prohibited by law.
For more information
THE ROSENGARTEN REPORT
P.O. Box 4126,
McLean, VA 22103-9815
TOLL-FREE TELEPHONE: 800.832.2330
WEB SITE: www.DavidRosengarten.com
osengartenR T h e
Report
Help for Travellers?
A New Web Site You May Want to Explore
Well.....it’s infuriating, damnit! Once upon a time, when you wanted a
plane ticket, you just knew that the earlier you bought it, the better the
price would be. And you knew that wherever you bought it, and however
you bought it, you’d basically get the same price. Then, everything
changed. It became impossible to outsmart the airlines—and every ticket
purchase has slipped under this dark, dark cloud of doubt. Did I buy at
the right time? Did I buy from the right vendor? Am I paying 300 bucks
more than the guy sitting right next to me?
Recently—as I was thinking these gloomy thoughts on a flight back from Los Angeles—I
was pacifying myself with the L.A. Times, in the pages of which I found something extraordi-
nary. They ran a story on a new web site called farecast.com—which takes your flight infor-
mation and not only tells you the best place to buy your ticket, but tells you the best time to
buy it. The site actually predicts whether the fare is going to go up or down—and, according
to a recent independent audit of 44,000 farecast predictions, is dead right 75% of the time.

Dear Reader of The Rosengarten Report,
I’ll never forget a night in Napa Valley in the early 1980s—the night that Donn Chappellet, one of
California’s legendary winemakers, invited me to his house for dinner.
Everything about this grand evening was spectacular—the warmth, the remarkable dinner-party
skills of Donn’s wife Molly, the great California food from the grill. And...of course...the wines. Donn
not only poured numerous vintages of his own historic Cabernets for us, but he raided his considerable
wine-cellar collection of top Bordeaux and Burgundy bottles to make us happy.
We truly, truly were.
But just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Donn leaned over and asked me if I would like to
go downstairs with him to his “pride and joy.” Sure, I thought...even more wine! The really big bottle!
Perhaps the 1969 Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon, the one that had recently set a record for most
expensive California wine ever sold at auction!
When we arrived in the cellar, we entered a room that had only one thing in it: a fairly small barrel.
I was confused. Donn walked me over, and, with a radiant smile on his face, pulled the bung from the
bunghole. “Smell that,” he said. I knew right away it wasn’t wine...because the aroma was more
complex than the aroma of wine, even of the aromas we’d been sniffing that splendid evening. This had
a wild, fruity-jammy character, mixed with an old, old, old character, even beyond the classic “cured
leather,” “sweaty saddle,” and “aged cigar box” of the greatest old reds.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“It’s vinegar,” said Donn. “Red-wine vinegar.” And I knew my life had changed.
I encounter “the mother of all mothers”
When we brought a tiny quantity upstairs, and used it to make a palate-clearing salad before
dessert, I was astonished. This was one of the greatest, most evocative things I’d ever tasted—and
“If you think BALSAMIC
is as good as it gets...
Let me introduce you
to REAL vinegar!
The Key to the Most Delicious Salads
You andYour Guests Will Ever Taste!”
David Rosengarten,
Editor-In-Chief,
The Rosengarten Report,
winner of the prestigious
James Beard Award for
“Best Food & Wine
Newsletter in America”
(over, please)

- 2 -
though I’d been making salad with vinegar all my life, I had never experienced anything like this before.
So of course we spent the rest of the night talking about vinegar. Donn had obtained a vinegar
starter—a blobby, plasma-like mass that vinegar pros call “the mother”—from a restaurant in San
Francisco called Swan Oyster Depot, a place that has been making vinegar for a long time. I’ll say! This
“mother” came from a batch of vinegar that had been started in the 19th century...and survived the
earthquake of 1906! This was the mother of all mothers.
I could not imagine vinegar this bewitchingly complex
Donn decided to make the most of this mother and, for years, had been pouring wine over it in his
basement barrel—which is how a “mother” gives birth to more vinegar. But not just any wine. Donn
demonstrated his technique by scooping up what was left of the Grand Cru Burgundies, First Growth
Bordeaux, and Chappellet Cabernets on the dining table, walking them downstairs...and pouring them
into the vinegar barrel! Can you imagine what kind of wine that barrel has seen? Until I tasted this
brew, I could not imagine vinegar this bewitchingly complex.
When I left his house that night, I had great vinegar hopes—because, now that I knew what heights
vinegar could reach, I assumed it was just a matter of time before the food world discovered vinegar
like this, before it became the next generally available foodie obsession.
I was wrong. I failed to take one factor into account—a factor that threw the distribution of mind-
blowing vinegar off the tracks to this very day!!!
And that factor is...balsamic vinegar!
At about the same time as my Chappellet tasting, aceto balsamico from Modena exploded onto the
foodie scene. I confess; I was one of the guilty ones who helped bring it to public attention. Intrigued
by its “mythology,” I wrote a story about balsamic vinegar and sold it to Gourmet magazine, my first-
ever food-story sale. A few years later, after the owners of the food emporium Dean & DeLuca virtually
flooded the country with this stuff—I wrote “The Dean & DeLuca Cookbook,” which included a
number of recipes using balsamic vinegar. Through the efforts of many, many people in the 1980s and
1990s, balsamic vinegar became the “it” condiment, the cool thing to buy at your gourmet grocery
store, and the essential thing to use on your salads.
But there were three unforeseen consequences...
One was the misuse, indeed the overuse, of balsamic vinegar in America. In Modena, it had been
used most widely as an historic sprinkle for fruit, particularly strawberries. Also, Emilian-Romagnan
chefs had long liked to build sauces with it—sauces that go best with dark meats, such as liver, and foie
gras, and game. Things didn’t develop that way in kitchens over here. Americans heard the word
“vinegar,” and assumed that its chief usage was in salad. When they tasted it—they loved the salad idea,
because balsamic vinegar is sweet! It is very hard for many Americans to turn down an upgrade—in
this case salad dressing—when the upgrade is sweeter than what came before it. Woo-hoo!—went the
sentiment; “We can now have tossed salad that’s sweet and sanctioned by gourmets!”
The Italians went nuts
But then problem #2 came up...
Fueled by the American desire to use balsamic vinegar practically every day, the industry in Italy

- 3 -
went nuts. Once upon a time, they only needed to create a few dribbles of this stuff per year. Suddenly,
they were forced to pump out oceans of it. You can imagine what happened: The percentage of truly
great balsamic vinegar plummeted from something like 100% to something like 5%—and the stuff that
was really great rose in price, becoming hideously expensive. The $4 bottle at your supermarket? Made
in an industrial way, with caramel added, having nothing of the charm or subtlety or complexity of the
real stuff.
To me, dousing your salad with cheap, sweet
balsamic vinegar is like pouring
pineapple juice all over your greens!
When I finally realized that I could barely order a salad any longer in a restaurant without
somebody pouring cheap balsamic vinegar over it—I think it’s like pouring pineapple juice on your
greens—I started going out of my way to avoid “balsamic” vinaigrette. A man’s home is his castello,
and I assumed I was protected in my own four walls, because there I could use any vinegar I liked. I
could preserve the great European tradition of pouring tart, complex vinegar on my salads, keeping
them lively and interesting. I could track down Chappellet-style vinegar and make myself happy with
that.
But, alas, that’s when problem #3 came crashing down on my head...
The “industry” is certain that what Americans want is balsamic vinegar. So a great deal of the
“gourmet” vinegar importation and distribution today focuses on...you guessed it....balsamic vinegar!
Had this thing not come along in the 1980s, vinegar in America would have taken a different
path—a path towards ever greater complexity, refinement, a path towards Chappellet-type vinegar
brilliance. But that movement got stopped in its tracks by the balsamic bulwark!
How do I know? Because I’ve been searching for years for top-quality non-balsamic vinegar in
America, trying to match the thrills I knew at the home of Donn Chappellet in 1983.
Finally, I decided to do something about it. Sure, I’ve been tasting the kind of Chappellet-like
vinegar I love over the years—but on the road only, mostly in Europe, in regions where the great non-
balsamic traditions of vinegar are maintained! And...having found that my Rosengarten Report readers
are so willing to follow my instincts when it comes to olive oil, when it comes to wine, and to many
other things...I decided to take the risk.
Announcing the David Rosengarten Real Vinegar Club
This letter announces the formation of the David Rosengarten Real Vinegar Club, dedicated to the
greatest, most delectable, most meal-stopping, ovation-inducing vinegars on the face of the earth that
are not balsamic vinegar!
Instead, these will be vinegars that you can use with real pride and delight every day—in your
simple green salads, in your more complicated salads, even as the secret ingredients in sauces and
marinades.
Four times a year, members will receive two different vinegars, each one in a 250-ml bottle—a
total of eight great vinegars a year that I have discovered on my travels, eight vinegars that will bring
you the joy Donn Chappellet brought me in 1983.

- 4 -
Your first two life-changing selections
And I can think of no greater way to kick off the David Rosengarten Real Vinegar Club than with a
pair of mind-blowing vinegars from the country that practically invented wine and wine
vinegar...Greece!
As readers of The Rosengarten Report know, I have taken two magical journeys to Greece this
year—where, among many heart-stopping gastronomic delights, I have stumbled upon some of the very
greatest vinegar I’ve ever tasted. The two vinegars I liked best, sure enough, are not available in the U.S.
What maker of non-balsamic vinegar ever wants to go to the trouble of exporting non-balsamic vinegar
to America?
But that’s until I came along. I have worked out all the frustrating details of export, import, etc.—
and I am now able to offer you these two life-changing Greek vinegars as the first introduction to the
David Rosengarten Real Vinegar Club.
Your first one—called Oxos—is a killer vinegar I happened upon in an upscale gourmet grocery in
Athens. This shop dedicates itself to finding the very best of artisanal Greek production, and has a
whole wall of Greek vinegars on offer.
I bought a bunch of them—and fell in deep, deep vinegar love with Oxos! It comes from the well-
known wine area of Zitsa, which is near Epirus, in the northwest corner of Greece. The wine that goes
into this vinegar is made from local grape varieties; the precious juice is then nurtured through a slow,
slow acetification process (in the Orleans method, as developed in France), and then stored for a long
time in oak and chestnut barrels.
The magnificent vinegar you will receive will be from wine that was made in Zitsa in the great
2000 vintage—and the pedigree will be apparent when you taste it! Just upon opening the bottle, you
will sense the aroma bomb: raspberries, strawberries, dried fruits, and, most particularly, a spicy quality
that suggests cinnamon more than anything else. The color is dark red, like a good mid-life wine—and
the palate, while absolutely carrying through all of these wild, fruity-spicy aromas, is also crazy-tart,
electric, with, aside from the taste of fruit, hardly any sweetness at all. Oxos, I predict, will become, in
short order, your vinegar of choice for any salad you make!
Your second vinegar is completely different from the first. It is made by Gaia Wines (that’s YA-ya)
on the fabled island of Santorini—by the man whom I consider to be the greatest winemaker in Greece!
For his vinegar, he has chosen to use Santorini wine from the Assyrtico grape—a grape that
produces what most experts consider to be the best white wine of Greece, an earthy, long-lived wine
that reflects the bizarre volcanic soil of Santorini, and the brain-drilling meltemi, or wind, that whistles
through this Homeric-feeling place.
Brilliant winemaker that this guy is, he has come up with a new way to make vinegar: make it two
ways, then combine them! The first way is a bit like the balsamic process; the juice of some of the
Assyrtico grapes is gently heated in copper pots until only one-quarter of it is left. This batch has
concentration, complexity, and some sweetness.
But the other half of the grapes is turned into a very un-sweet vinegar, using the classic Orleans
process. Then...the winemaker marries them, and ages them for five years in 500-liter oak casks. The
ultimate vinegar is poured directly from the casks into the bottles, with no filtration or any other
treatment. The result is brown in color—but not nearly as dark as the color of balsamic vinegar. The
nose suggests coffee, prunes, nuts, Sherry. The promise of all these things comes through on the

- 5 -
astonishing palate—which is a touch sweeter than the Oxos palate, a little richer, but still very “dry”
and exactly right for really sophisticated un-sweet salads. Of course, the extra layers of flavors in this
one make it perfect for sauces and marinades; mix a bit of this Gaia with any brown sauce, and watch
the fireworks go off with duck, foie gras, etc.
These two sublime vinegars
are just the beginning!
I’m so excited to be involved in the world of vinegar—just as you will be!—because it is a huge,
largely unexplored world out there, filled with gastronomic possibilities neither of us has ever even
dreamed of!
I invite you to join me for this adventure, as we discover traditional vinegars from all around the
globe that, with the greatest of ease, can add zing and liveliness to your home cooking.
I can’t know right now, of course, exactly where this road will lead us, but I’m anticipating at least
some activity in the following vinegar sectors:
Vinegars from the Great Wine Regions. This is a natural, to be sure; almost all winemakers around the
world convert some of their wine into vinegar. But I’m on the hunt for winemakers who have Donn
Chappellet-type passion about vinegar—in regions with great vinegar traditions. I already know there’s
fantastic Barolo vinegar, and, on the lighter side, great Champagne vinegar...even great Prosecco
vinegar. Who knows what else I will find? Great Chablis vinegar? Great Tokay vinegar? Great South
African Pinotage vinegar? The sky’s the limit!!!
Ultra-Deluxe Sherry Vinegar. Probably the most famous vinegar-making wine region in the world is
the Sherry region, in Andalusia, in the south of Spain. I’ve been to this region several times, to learn
more about its fabulous wines. But I’ve never made a vinegar-targeted journey...and I can’t wait to do
so! For I understand that the brown, Sherry-based vinegars we get in the U.S. can be very, very good—
but not as good as the exquisite long-aged Sherry vinegar not yet available in the U.S.! I love Sherry
vinegar already. Soon, you and I are going to love it even more!
Malt Vinegar. Famous as the fish-and-chips vinegar in England, the malt vinegar that’s available in the
U.S.—I think you’ll have to agree—is underwhelming. One reason may be that most English producers
have changed their base ingredient for malt vinegar; though it used to be made from beer, most
production today is from a sugar infusion of cereal starches. I’m on a malt-vinegar hunt: through Wales,
Ireland, Scotland. And further still—for I have a tip that the best, truest, beeriest and maltiest malt
vinegar in the world today is being produced...in Germany!
Japanese Vinegar. There’s a venerated Japanese vinegar-making tradition that has been practically
overlooked in the American stampede to sticky-sweet balsamic vinegar. But I have tasted a number of
vinegars made in Japan that are simply extraordinary—and exactly what you want to use in the
preparation of great Japanese food. These can range from extremely bright, pure-tasting vinegars with
something of an appley quality (perfect for making sushi rice), to brown-rice vinegars, darker in color,
holding all the mystery and complexity of the famous Japanese “fifth taste,” umami.
Caribbean Vinegars. The “sour” taste in Caribbean cooking is very pronounced—and in a region with
so much French influence, wouldn’t you expect a local vinegar tradition? It’s there, all right—it’s just
that it gets overlooked continually in the U.S. Quel dommage! Last year I tasted a sugar-cane vinegar
from Martinique that made me want to get on a boat soon (and I will!). “Sugar cane?” I thought. “That
must be sticky-sweet, exactly what I don’t want”—but I was wrong! It was brilliantly tart, completely

- 6 -
“dry”—and with a gorgeous, haunting, rum-like flavor, spilling over into the flavor of corn. Imagine
what you can do with this vinegar when you’re making light Caribbean-style fish dishes!
Other Vinegars from Fruits and Vegetables. I gotta admit—I’m awfully traditional when it comes to
the world’s great liquids. I don’t like flavored coffee. Or tea. I don’t like flavored beer, and flavored
wine has no reason to live (with the exception of Retsina!). So I was pretty sure I felt the same way
about vinegar: Why would I want the great soul of wine messed up by some cheap raspberry
concentrate? But a few tastings in the last year have changed my mind. Well, not about the flavor
additives; I still don’t like flavored vinegar. But I have now discovered many unusual vinegars around
the world that are made not with flavor additives, but from different fruits and vegetables—ending up
complex, intact, not sweet, filled with integrity and brimming with possibilities for salad and beyond.
I was blown away by the Italian tomato vinegar I tasted recently (yes...made completely from
tomatoes!), as well as the Indonesian coconut vinegar, and the Mexican pineapple vinegar so loved
by Diana Kennedy. As the
SS Rosengarten steams across the seven seas...there will be more!
Vinegars from Specific Grape Varieties. Lastly, I don’t want you to think I’ve abandoned the grape.
Far from it. My favorite vinegars of all are wine vinegars—and I have discovered that, unlike the
“Chardonnay Sauce” you find at your typically ersatz creative restaurant, vinegars can really be
powerfully affected by individual grape varieties! I have tasted Cabernet vinegars with the soul of
Cabernet, Syrah vinegars with real Syrah character, etc. There’s even a little-known artisanal
producer right here in America, in Napa Valley, whose vinegars I can’t wait for you to taste! They are
astonishing...made by two brothers who lavish on their hand-blended vinegars all the love and
attention normally bestowed upon only the finest reserve wines. The search is on...all over the world.
Who knows? Cabernet vinegar today...Pinot Gris vinegar tomorrow?
* * *
What an adventure in taste we will share! At times we will even work with the world’s greatest
artisanal vinegar producers to make custom blends according to my instructions...and available to
Club members only! What a dazzling, varied wardrobe of authentic vinegar flavors you will have to
dress your salads and numerous other dishes! You will never be satisfied with ordinary vinegars
again!
100% money-back guarantee if you’re not delighted!
Each quarterly shipment in the David Rosengarten Real Vinegar Club will bring you a set of two
250-ml bottles of authentic artisanal vinegar for only $39 (plus $10 shipping). Moreover, every
quarterly shipment is protected by a 60 day 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee—no questions
asked. So you have absolutely nothing to risk.
As an added bonus, I will also send you my tasting notes for each vinegar (so you can compare
your impressions with mine)...plus suggestions for using each vinegar, emphasizing seasonal and
regional uses and recipe ideas (including my favorite vinaigrettes).
This offer is strictly limited. I must ask you to respond now. These rare, precious vinegars, so
lovingly brought to the peak of perfection by the artisans who create them, are strictly limited in
quantity. This is why we are extending this offer to only a relatively few food lovers.
And it’s why you must get your order in right away, so we can begin to secure these
extraordinary vinegars.

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