|
As lead guitarist for San Francisco–based pop group Train, Jimmy Stafford has spent over a decade on the road in support of the Grammy Award–winning band’s hit albums and songs, including “Meet Virginia,” “Calling All Angels” and “Soul Sister.” Along the way, Stafford developed a passion for wine, blogging about his finds and connecting with fans over good bottles. He recently parlayed this interest into the subscription-based Train Wine Club, and has plans on deck for a wine-and-music festival in Northern California and a “Drops of Jupiter” Train wine, named for one of their biggest hits. Stafford spoke with Wine Spectator from his new home in Nashville about the unorthodox way he built his collection, the best countries for wine on the road, and his plans for a new cellar.
BC WIne: How did your interest in wine develop?
Jimmy Stafford: I’ve always kind of dabbled. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more into wine. The past couple tours I’ve asked for a bottle or two in my dressing room every night. I like to have a glass or two before going on stage and then a glass after. It’s nice to have around for guests. Some nights I drink one bottle and stick the other in my wardrobe case. By the end of tour, my case is full. I’m starting to develop quite a collection. We’re going to do a tour in January of Australian wineries. I’m hoping to collect some good Australian wines. My next big project is to build a wine cellar in my Nashville home.
BCW: You’ve traveled all over. Is there a place that stands out winewise?
JS: We did eight laps around the world in 2010. I love the German beers. I’m not a really big fan of Riesling, so when I go to Germany I stick to beer. When I’m in France or Spain or Italy, it’s all wine. Same with Australia, and I love South African wine as well. There’s a fan of ours from Hungary and every time we play in that region—Austria, Hungary, Switzerland—she comes and brings me the best Hungarian wines. My favorite wines are still the California wines. I don’t know if I’m biased, but I think they’re the best in the world. Cakebread, Jordan, Chappellet, Orin Swift, Wente …
BCW: What have you learned about wine while on the road?
JS: We did a show, Live at Daryl’s House, with Daryl Hall [of Hall & Oates], who is also a big wine lover. We did a segment about wine and I was telling him about how I get wines in my dressing room every night, which can be hit or miss; sometimes you find something new and great and other times you get grape juice. He said that that’s exactly the reason why he requests the same wine in his dressing room every night. I guess that has its pluses and minuses. He doesn’t get to try anything new, but he doesn’t get that occasional bottle of grape juice like I do.
BCW: Do you know what your cellar is going to look like?
JS: I do. I’m going to put it in my man cave. There’s a place in the back of it that’s octagon-shaped that I’m going to wall off and put my wine cellar there. I’m picturing wine racks all around. Concannon Winery, who is going to manufacture our Train brand of wine next year, said they would give me an old oak wine barrel that I could put in the center of the room as a tasting table. I’m really excited about it. I can’t wait to get all my wines out of the boxes they’re in right now. |
|
The 100-mile diet has become a byword across the continent for sustainable eating. At the very least, the 2007 book of the same name that spawned the concept — written by Vancouver journalists Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon — got people talking about local produce, let alone considering it as a viable option at the store. One thing that's often painfully clear from the book, though, is just how difficult Smith and MacKinnon's year-long experiment was. The 100-mile radius that they set from which to source ingredients did include most of their major food needs, but many of those were extremely difficult to source.
Increasing the limit to within B.C.'s borders would have made life a little easier. From Okanagan orchards and vineyards to Fraser Valley farms and the teeming seas of the Strait of Georgia, from Pemberton potatoes to birch syrup from Quesnel, this province has an extraordinary bounty of food. And with sustainability on more and more people's minds, B.C. ingredients are being seen more often on store shelves. This movement toward local, sustainable food on the West Coast began before the 100-mile fad appeared, and actually had its origins in Vancouver's restaurant scene in the early 1990s. One restaurant, to be precise: Raincity Grill (1193 Denman Street,Vancouver; 604-685-7337; raincitygrill.com), in the city's West End, which was opened by Harry Kambolis in 1992 when he was only in his mid-20s.
"[Back then] you saw a lot of products come in from around the world and I think with a lot of restaurants that was one of their main efforts, to bring things in like asparagus from France or whatever, products people seemed to want at the time," says Kambolis. "When Raincity started we did a lot of work with people, we had to say 'we don't have that' a lot and then have to convince them that was OK. Back then it wasn`t really OK."
Kambolis doesn't feel as if he made a concentrated effort to move the food in his restaurant in a more local, sustainable direction. With a viewpoint objective from the restaurant industry at the time, it just seemed like common sense to use ingredients from the area. "When I walked into Raincity and started making decisions on what I thought was right and what we should be doing, where we were going, I didn't actually know that was what I was going to do.
"But with every step and every decision I made I seemed to move in that direction, that just seemed to be natural. I never had any formal training, I didn't work in the fine dining restaurants at the time. It just made sense to me: 'Why are we bringing this in from halfway round the world when there's products right here we can use?' "You know, when you strip it away, it's nothing but common sense."
Coming up on its 20th anniversary, Raincity Grill is still one of Vancouver's top places to dine, with constantly shifting prix fixes to accommodate ingredients and the season — including a 100-mile menu — along with a superlative list of B.C. wine and a killer view of English Bay. But it was a slow process to get people to accept the notion that local produce was actually a better choice.
"Developing the channels and connections in the food and beverage industry has been important because there was a different way of thinking back then. Nobody was asking where things were from unless it was unique and from halfway around the world.
"In the case of carrots, they could have come from California, B.C., Washington, it didn`t matter as much at the time. They just showed up and you were happy to have them. You got to looking at the box and wondering why they were coming from California. . . . Getting to know the people who were supplying them and knowing what their philosophies were was part of the building blocks."
Today, there are dozens of restaurants that tout their local and sustainable credentials. So why does Kambolis think Raincity Grill — along with its sister restaurants C and Nu — has the edge over all these young upstarts?
"What we do at Raincity , Nu and C is more of a program than a selection. We work on it from the ground up and work directly with the producers.
"You'll find in other restaurants, they're buying items that say the Vancouver] aquarium is telling them to buy. Or the supplier says 'this is certified.' Our program is more grass roots. In most restaurants, it's superficial by comparison."
This doesn't apply at one of Raincity Grill's main competitors in B.C. dining, which boasts a similar longevity on the scene. Bishop's (2183 West 4th Ave., Vancouver; 604-738-2025; bishopsonline.com) is consistently rated as one of Vancouver's best dining spots, and chef Andrea Carlson - formerly in the kitchen at Raincity Grill - shows great invention and knowledge of local and seasonal produce as she unleashes the full potential of the province's ingredients.
Other superb examples of Pacific Northwest cuisine — as it's commonly called — include Blue Water Cafe (1095 Hamilton Street, Vancouver; 604-688-8078; bluewatercafe.net), Boneta (1 W Cordova St., Vancouver; 604-684-1844; boneta.ca), Cru (1459 W. Broadway, Vancouver; 604-677-4111; cru.ca), Social at Le Magasin (332 Water St., Vancouver; 604-669-4488; socialatlemagasin.com), Two Chefs and a Table (305 Alexander St., Vancouver; 778-233-1303; twochefsandatable.com), West (2881 Granville St., Vancouver; 604-738-8938; westrestaurant.com), Hart House (6664 Deer Lake Ave., Burnaby, 604-298-4278; harthouserestaurant.com), The Pear Tree (4120 E Hastings, Burnaby; 604-299-2772; peartreerestaurant.net) and Araxi (4222 Village Gate Square, Whistler; 604-932-4540; araxi.com).
It's no coincidence that all of these charge more of a premium because only premium ingredients are used, the majority of them from within B.C.
But it shows how highly regarded the local, sustainable movement has become that some of the best restaurants in Vancouver — Canada, even — centre their menus around local food. However, there are also less expensive, great options that don't sacrifice quality: Try Refuel (1944 W 4th Ave., Vancouver; 604-288-7905; refuelrestaurant.com), The Cascade Room (2616 Main St., Vancouver; 604-709-8650); Controversial Kitchen (1420 Commercial Drive, Vancouver; 604-254-6101) and Bravo (46224 Yale Road East, Chilliwack; 604-792-7721).
Many of these great B.C. menus are paired with great B.C. wine lists. Wine is a real barometer of how dining attitudes have changed in the Vancouver area, as Kambolis recalls from Raincity Grill's early days.
"We had only wines from the West Coast, and people wanted Italy and France. The wines from our regions weren't as developed as they are now.
"But now I think people can find something they like, certainly from California, Oregon and Washington, but even from B.C. now, that seems to be a lot easier.
"Now you can see that the reds are really coming into their own. You can tell by spending habits — people are starting to spend a lot of money on B.C. reds. You'll get $100 bottles at restaurants whereas once upon a time you would never see that. The richness of them and quality continues to improve and there are some winemakers down there [in the Okanagan] that do want to be the best in the world."
The B.C. wine industry is now making inroads into the U.S. and even Europe. Besides Raincity Grill, other places that offer superb B.C. wine lists include Blue Water Cafe (details above) and Uva Wine bar (900 Seymour St, Vancouver; 604-632-9560; uvawinebar.com).
And don't forget beer. B.C.'s craft beer scene is undergoing a boom in growth at the moment, with dozens of microbreweries dotted around the Lower Mainland and beyond that are producing flavourful and interesting brews. Many microbreweries have a pub or even just a tasting room attached. But if you want a good overview of B.C. craft beer head along to either the Alibi Room (157 Alexander Street, Vancouver; 604-623-3383; alibi.ca) or St. Augustines (2360 Commercial Dr., Vancouver; 604-569-1911; staugustinesvancouver.com) for a vast selection of local brews on draft and even some from casks.
Of course, you don't have to get someone else to do all the work for you when it comes to acquainting yourself with B.C. food. In fact, getting to grips with the goods yourself is the best way to learn more about what the province has to offer. If you want to learn what's growing and being reared and caught in the province, Edible B.C.'s current outlet store (Granville Island Public Market; 604-662-3606; edible-britishcolumbia.com) is a great place to start. This one-stop shop in the Granville Island market sells more than 800 B.C. food products, which can also be bought online through the website. As well, Edible B.C. offers culinary tours of Granville Island Market and Chinatown and, for the more adventurous, gastronomic kayak tours of the Gulf Islands.
It's all the brainchild of Erik Pateman, a chef looking to give people a more straightforward, less advertorial take on B.C. food. Naturally, he's delighted at how the demand for local and sustainable food has grown.
"It's reaching that critical mass where consumers are demanding it so the big guys have to listen," Pateman says. "Industrialization created this global food economy that just made things easy. Then all of a sudden people suddenly began talking and thinking about it and all those small pieces added up and made a difference. . . . All it takes is the Costcos and the Walmarts of the world to get behind this and all of a sudden everyone's much more aware of it.
But he acknowledges that the local diet can only go so far.
"I don't think it's sustainable to feed our entire population based on what's in our back yard. But every little bit makes a big difference. We can support our local farmers. B.C. has its own challenges with land prices and taxation issues. Every little bit that everbody can do that supports somebody locally, that keeps food from travelling halfway round the world, makes a difference."
"You're never going to replace sugar, grain that stuff. Completely B.C. [diet] is not a realistic expectation. People are too busy to cook from scratch. You're seeing more people talking about canning and preserving again. But it's all two-income households, both working parents.
Instead of canning and preserving yourself, Pateman suggests, you can get somebody local to do the hard work for you.
"One of the things we've seen is more pickles and preserves flying off shelves. In B.C. you can only eat so much squash and root vegetables during the winter, and the only way round that is canning. People have a memory of canned foods - I remember growing up and we always had canned peaches and plums and nectarines. I just don't have the time to do that today. But that doesn't mean I won't buy local preserves."
Excitingly, Edible B.C. is moving to a larger "culinary centre" beside the market that will expand their store and include a restaurant, 50-person demonstration kitchen and take-away food service. All food will be at least 75-per-cent sourced in B.C. The new 3,000 sq. ft. venue is slated for a May 1, 2011 opening.
The Granville Island market itself is, of course, a fabulous place to shop for B.C. ingredients, should you want to cook for yourself. But there are many other neighbourhood markets across the metro area offering top-quality goods. Queensdale Market (3030 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver; 604-987-8941; queensdalemarket.ca) prides itself on offering organic, specialty and traditional foods across its range of produce, bakery goods, meat and deli products. The deli also offers sandwiches, salads and hot specials.
Offering a similar range on Commercial is Drive Organics (1045 Commercial Drive, Vancouver; 604-678-9665), which always has great local produce.
The daddy of all organic and ethical food stores is Capers Whole Foods (various locations; wholefoodsmarket.com/capers), founded in West Vancouver more than 20 years ago and now thriving with a further three locations in Vancouver. With two more stores in Ontario, Capers is now Canada's leading natural and organic foods retailer. Local producers and produce are actively promoted in every location.
If you want good-quality, local meat, head to your local butcher, if you still have one. If not, it's worth the trip to some of the area's better meat-smiths, which include The Butcher (4529 West 10th Ave., Vancouver; 604-224-0602; thebutcher.ca) in Vancouver's West Side, and Westlynn Meats and Seafoods (1199 Lynn Valley Rd., North Vancouver; 604-988-7644; westlynnmeatsandseafood.com) — which does a great selection of freezer packs.
"We know where everything else we buy comes from," says Kambolis. "We know what our labels are, what kind of shoes we buy, where our car comes from. And for some reason . . . food is last on the list: 'I don't know where it's from but I'm going to eat it.' They'll spend more time figuring out where their shoes are from than where their carrots are from."
When our industrial food chain is explained like that, local food really becomes the only common-sense option. |
|
|
Opportunities for fine dining may have been somewhat limited within the confines of Victor Verster prison in Paarl, but Nelson Mandela always enjoyed a small glass of semi-sweet Nederberg wine with his Sunday lunch during his incarceration. Today, Mandela’s legacy is set to become entwined with South Africa’s R20 billion (£1.75bn) wine industry.
At a low-key tasting and reception in Johannesburg’s modern Sandton Square complex in July of last year, the first three wines in the House of Mandela range were launched by Mandela’s eldest daughter Makaziwe, her daughter, Tukwini and Mandla Mandela, the new chief of the Mandela clan. At the age of 92, Mandela will not be personally involved with the project, but he has given it his blessing.
On his travels following his release between 1992 and 1994, Mandela was careful never to endorse any one product personally. But when he was photographed with a Cape wine in his hand, a Nederburg, he took the opportunity to say that while in the past he had asked people to boycott such products, he had changed his mind and was now asking for support for them. Today, he has that support. South Africa produces 805 million litres of wine, more than three per cent of the world’s wine, and exports half of it.
When Makaziwe Mandela was first approached with the idea four years ago by her Norwegian friend, Camilla Bernal, her first instinct was to say no, especially since the Norwegian company were keen to put Mandela’s face on the label. Makaziwe made it clear that it just wasn’t done in Africa to put the face of one member of the family forward in that way.
The Norwegians changed tack and suggested it be called the House of Mandela, telling the story of the family’s ancestors, Mandela himself and his legacy. Makaziwe saw the potential and gave it the green light. The new House of Mandela website with the bee as its family crest (www.houseofmandela.com) recites the Mandela family ancestry in proud detail.
Although she knew little about wine at the start of the project, Makaziwe always had at the back of her mind something her father had told her: ‘if you don’t drink wine, the world won’t accept you’. She was also reminded that her father, while a man of principle, was not inflexible. She came round to the idea of the project as a way of embodying the spirit and accessibility of the Mandela family.
At the same time, she saw the opportunity of establishing a black brand capable of setting new standards of quality and sophistication in the new South Africa. ‘Traditionally South Africans are more into hard liquor than wine but I think if we help to demystify it, more and more black people will come to appreciate what is after all a wonderful drink’.
The vast majority of the estimated 275,000 farm workers and their dependants working in the South African wine industry are black, but Makaziwe is acutely conscious that their involvement in the decision-making and production side is as yet far outweighed by the industry’s white Afrikaner dominance. ‘The wine industry has been slow to transform’ says Makaziwe, ‘but the time is right for that to change’.
Since deciding to go ahead with the project, Makaziwe has been involved at each stage, from selecting the blends with her consultant Lynne Sherriff MW, to researching the global wine trade and organising the launch. The first three wines are a 2009 Chardonnay from Thelema’ s Elgin Sutherland property, selling for 190R (£16.50) and two reds, a 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon from Hartenberg and 2007 Shiraz from Charles Back of Fairview, both selling for 350R (£30). The aim is to accompany the three premium wines with a value for money tier of wines, to be called the Thembu Collection.
In June this year, a meeting with Italy’s famous Antinori family was arranged as Makaziwe is fascinated by this historic Italian dynasty and inspired by the story of Piero Antinori selling his family business and then buying it back. For Makaziwe, Antinori is the model of a wine with a family stamp on it that has both top end and value for money wines. Also among ideas for the future is to involve young black artists in a label design competition.
Married, with four children, Makaziwe Mandela, is Nelson Mandela’s daughter from his first marriage to Evelyn Mase. Born and brought up in the Orlando west district of Soweto, she wasn’t able to visit her father in prison in Cape Town until she was given an ID book at the age of 16.
As social worker, anthropologist, educationist and businesswoman, she is held in high regard in her native South Africa. Thanks to the association of her name, she is well-placed to steer the project both domestically and internationally. She’s a firm believer in individual effort , dialogue and courage, and determined in the face of growing materialism not to lose ubuntu, the ‘caring and sharing’ philosophy of African culture. |
|
Of all the vinyards in all the world... |
Scarcely taller than the vine from which she is picking grapes, Fatima, a Moroccan woman in her 50s, squints as she peers into the sun shining on the open plateau near Meknes.
With only a few more rows of vines left, the grape harvest is almost over and she will be moving on to picking olives.
Fatima and a handful of the other agricultural casuals bridge the gap between the end of the nectarine and the start of the olive seasons in the acres of vineyards just outside Meknes.
But Fatima has never tasted wine - she says it is too expensive.
Nor does she realise that her job is at the cutting edge of commercial moves to sell Moroccan wine to distant markets.
Chateau Roslane, a sprawling property of more than 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) belongs to the country's oldest winemaker and boasts Morocco's only Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC) - a French system which guarantees that wine has come from a specific geographical location.
It also produces a Moroccan "champagne", a sparkling wine made according to the Champagne method and which is sold locally.
But like the other handful of growers in Morocco, the owner wants to concentrate on exporting the red, white and rose, despite a healthy domestic market.
Ancient art
According to Les Celliers de Meknes' Belgian export manager, last year the company saw real growth, especially from new markets.
"Our production grew by over 12% and our biggest emerging markets are India and China," says Jean Pierre Dehut.
"This is likely to deprive European producers of some of their anticipated growth in these areas."
He also predicts that the extra hectares being planted with vine seedlings will be eclipsed by the speed of growth in the market.
"Unfortunately we no longer have any indigenous Moroccan varieties," he explains.
"We use grape varieties from the Mediterranean basin."
Wine has been produced in Morocco for thousands of years, so it does not touch the raw nerve it would in Saudi Arabia, for example.
It is sold in a separate section of the country's largest supermarket chain, with specific cash tills dedicated to all transactions involving alcohol.
The first evidence of wine production in Morocco was in the time of the Phoenicians - the first millennium BC.
Prized by the Romans, the strong wine was sent back to Italy.
During the years of the protectorate in the early 20th Century, the French colonised the Meknes region in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, planting hundreds of kilometres of vines to satisfy the need of compatriots living in the North African country, but also for consumption in France.
Until the Treaty of Rome in 1957 banned blending wines, the highly coloured, robust Moroccan wine was shipped back to France in bulk and frequently added as a boost to Gallic wine.
After Morocco gained its independence, King Hassan II offered parcels of land in the 1960s at knock-down prices to foreigners so they would continue wine production.
Chinese bottling factory
Some French took up the offer at the time and others are now purchasing vineyards taking advantage of low land prices, manpower and transport costs.
But in return buyers have to comply with a "Cahier de Charges", a list of responsibilities that include employing a certain number of local people.
Wine-growing, categorised along with other agricultural products, is tax-free until 2012, providing the farming is not on an industrial scale.
Members of ASPRAM, the Moroccan wine-growers association, buy a percentage of their grapes from local growers so as to remain within the scope of the law.
Mehdi Bouchaara, a member of ASPRAM and director of Les Celliers de Meknes, says that Morocco is currently producing 300,000 hectolitres of wine each year, making it one of the most significant in the Arab world.
"At the moment we are in negotiations in China and will shortly be building a bottling factory there. Most of our wine is exported in bulk," he explains.
"With our Chinese partners we will put it in bottles that bear a Moroccan label."
Currently only about 1,000 hectolitres are exported, but with a foothold in China, there is a chance that the record of almost 300m hectolitres clocked up during the French protectorate could be matched or even bettered.
|
|
