Broughton Quarterly - Spring 2008 - (Page 18)

wine & cuisine Cork Jester KING CAB Who died and made Cabernet king? W { Jennifer Rosen } Winner of a James Beard Award for wine writing, Jennifer Rosen is the author of Waiter, There’s a Horse in My Wine and The Cork Jester’s Guide to Wine, both winners of The Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Wine Literature. Read her columns and sign up for her weekly newsletter at www.CorkJester.com. ho died and made Cabernet king? Considered the noblest grape of all, Cabernet Sauvignon gets a higher price tag and more respect than anything else in the winery. It’s poured last in tastings, and you’re meant to ooh and aah, as though the winemaker had produced his kid’s law school diploma. It’s so well enthroned on top of the heap that we almost forget to ask why. Reviewers, loath to give Zinfandel 93 points, award 100s to Cabernets as though its zenith were somehow more perfectly vinous than any heights some frivolous grape with a wacked-out Z-name could ever reach. Cab inherits sheen from its key role in Bordeaux, where a yearly futures market infuses it with the gravitas of a Wall Street commodity. Stratospheric auction prices reinforce its rep as a blue chip wine you can trust. Unlike burly Barolo, the sort of wine that would take out the garbage and pull your car out of a ditch, Cabernet would hire someone. Focus groups link the grape with words like “important,” “prized,” and “serious.” They’d pair the square-shouldered, buttoned-down bottle with steak, never silly food like sloppy Joes or bouillabaisse. But certain as consumers are about Cab’s personality, they’re shaky when you ask them what it tastes like. Cabernet Sauvignon, offspring of a spontaneous mating of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, drifted from Central Asia into France around 1600, gaining its foothold in Bordeaux in the late 1700s with the appearance of the first great wine estates. A century later, pioneers brought cuttings to California, and Cab now covers more than 400,000 acres around the globe. Cab’s small berries are light on juice and heavy on skin, where most of the flavor and color resides. The best Cabernets offer a bazaar of complex flavors ranging from black cherry, chocolate, and cassis to cedar, green olives, pencil lead, and tobacco. Oak aging adds smoke, toast, violet, spices, and sawdust. Grape skin also supplies tannin. A little tannin gives wine structure; too much has all the charm of a mouthful of stucco. Tannin, however, is a fabulous preservative, giving Cab the potential for great aging. And here’s where it stands head and shoulders above the riff-raff. Just as French Champagne is less about fruit, and more about the remarkable alchemy of yeast and base wine, the miracle of Cabernet is the gorgeous way it evolves in the bottle, turning from fruit into that mysterious thing we call wine. But how many of us have wine cellars? And if not, why pay a premium for Cab? For some reason, we’ve always been willing, just as we inexplicably shell out more for Chardonnay than Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc. True, there’s the extra cost of oak barrels and time spent in them, longer than, say, Merlot. But why pick a wine that needs time in oak to be drinkable in the first place? With so much great wine sold readyto-drink, does Cab still deserve the crown? Perhaps it’s time for a coup d’état, a dethroning or at least a gentle defenestration. Of course, in the end it comes down to taste: if you love Cabernet, by all means drink it. But you might Q leave the red carpet at home. SEAGRASS RESTAuRANT 30 E. Ortega St., Santa Barbara 805.963.1012, www.SeagrassSantaBarbara.com It’s hard to imagine a better addition to Santa Barbara’s culinary collection than a fine dining seafood restaurant. Given the city’s upscale charm and oceanfront location, it’s actually somewhat shocking that the arrival of Seagrass took so long. Thankfully, proprietor Mitchell Sjerven recognized the niche, and along with talented chef Josh Brown has filled it to perfection. The concept behind Seagrass is essentially the same as that of bouchon, the duo’s other Santa Barbara restaurant: precise execution of locally sourced fresh, seasonal ingredients. Sjerven is the consummate restaurateur—passionate about food and wine, congenial and utterly devoted to his customers’ satisfaction. The menu at Seagrass is refreshingly tight, with just four fish entrees available each evening. Selections such as pan roasted grouper, crispy skin-on wild salmon, baked ling cod, and hoisin glazed ahi tuna anchor the main courses, which do include a few terrestrial dishes such as lamb osso bucco and filet mignon. Unlike bouchon, which celebrates the local wine country, the wine list is rather limited—intentionally so, as the selections are designed to not overwhelm the palate. Pairings are suggested for first courses, the highlight of which is Chef Brown’s inspired approach to sea scallops. Available individually, each plump morsel is nicely seared and presented with such creative combinations of ingredients as sauce asperge, fennel oil, corn, watercress, and lipstick pepper. The room is warm and unpretentious, and the cushy chairs lend to the comfortable yet refined ambiance—an accurate reflection of Santa Barbara itself. Like its wine country cousin bouchon, Seagrass has a firm place on the short list of hot tables in Santa Barbara. – Matt Katz 18 Broughton Quarterly Spring 2008 http://www.CorkJester.com http://www.SeagrassSantaBarbara.com

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Broughton Quarterly - Spring 2008 Contents Contributors Plugged In Notes Destination 1000 Words Calendar Wine & Cuisine Of Gods and Monkeys Santa Monica Beach Chasing the Rain Donald Trump Marketplace Spotlight

Broughton Quarterly - Spring 2008

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