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Tim Gaiser, Master Sommelier

Life in the Big Sh**ty

10/1/2014

10 Comments

 
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October marks 30 years that Carla and I have lived in San Francisco. We moved to California after I finished graduate school at the University of Michigan in January of 1984, initially settling in San Mateo because of the usual periodic housing shortage in the city. Those first nine months in California can only be described as bleak with the stress of finding a job and living in an apartment with no light and the most alarming vomit-hued shag carpet. The only salvation was a shopping center across the street that had a wine shop we often frequented--especially after experiencing the first several earthquakes. Welcome to California!

We moved to the city on October 1st of that year, finding a one bedroom apartment on Russian Hill with spectacular views of the bay, Alcatraz, and all of Pacific Heights for a mere $650--including parking! FYI the same apartment today rents for over $4K. It was never our intention to stay here for several decades, but having two kids meant first finding day care, then pre-school, and on and on through high school in a blur commonly referred to as parenthood. Contrary to a lot of negative press on the subject, both our kids--especially Patrick about whom you'll read more below--thrived in public schools their entire academic careers. That being said, the range of quality for public schools in San Francisco is just as extreme as in any other big city. Just as knowing the right producer in Burgundy is mandatory for getting a good bottle, a parent in San Francisco simply has to be an advocate for their kid to get them into the right schools. With special education programs--and Patrick is a special-needs guy--it's even more critical that a parent push to get their kid into the right school with the right teacher. Carla was a champion for both Maria and Patrick and a huge part of their academic success. I will always be grateful to her for that.

When I'm on the road, which is all too often, I tell people I live in San Francisco and get the usual how lucky you are or what a beautiful city or what an amazing place. I invariably agree yes to all the above. However, after living here for 30 years I have my own analogy for living in San Francisco that goes something like this: "it's like dating a gorgeous expensive woman that you can never really quite afford." And after 30 years she--the city--is more expensive than ever thanks to google and all my new high tech friends who have managed to push rents and housing prices to beyond New York levels. And she's no fun anymore. In fact, she's a complete pain in the ass. Want proof? Enter exhibit "A," a Friday night last summer.

Every second Friday night the ARC center holds a dance for its clients from 6:00 to 8:00. If not familiar, the ARC is a national organization for people with disabilities. Patrick is currently enrolled in a special ed program called ACCESS offered through the unified school district in a space attached to the ARC center.He will age out of ACCESS next May when he turns 22 and when he does he will move right next door into ARC programs. But because he's on site practically every day, he now knows almost everyone on the staff at ARC as well as many of the clients. Needless to say, the ARC dances are big fun for him as well as the rest of the clients and parents. But for Carla and me the ARC dances also mean two hours to go on an actual "date."
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Pet Cemetery in the Presidio
On that ill-fated Friday evening, we parked across from the ARC center on the corner of Howard and 11th streets (an important reference for later use) and walked Patrick over to the dance. We then clambered back into the vehicle and headed south on Folsom Street for a wine bar on Mission and 22nd where we'd enjoyed a glass of wine just weeks before. Mind you, I knew full well we were taking a major risk. I've lived in the city more than long enough to know what traffic and parking can be like in the Mission on a Friday night. The phrases FUBAR, impossible, and completely screwed come to mind. But we were game and in serious need of quality time together; so we set off in what was really just a sub-ten minute jaunt of less than 25 blocks. 

Once there we began the cosmic undertaking of finding a parking place on Mission St. or thereabouts, which is somewhere between passing an NFL team through the eye of a needle and a Sauvignon Blanc getting 100 points in the Wine Spectator. Dear readers, I really don't have to tell you what happened next--but I will. We drove around--very strategically mind you--for the next hour trying in vain to find a parking place, any parking place, within five to six blocks of said wine bar. You might hazard a guess, and you would be correct, that we never did find that illusive parking place. It was like the city in the form of my uber expensive girlfriend simply didn't show up for our date--and she wasn't even returning my phone calls, texts, or e-mails.

I have to say that I handled driving around pointlessly for an hour with great patience and aplomb. After all, if your expectations for success are near non-existent, even the least shred of success can seem life-changing. But that never happened either. By now you're probably thinking that we should have driven somewhere else, parked the car, and taken a cab to the joint. But really? Seriously? After all, we now had about an hour to get something to eat before having to retrieve Patrick.

After making the decision to bail on the wine bar, which was really quite easy to do, we headed back up Folsom Street with the intention of finding a place close to ARC thus salvaging whatever little time we had left. I told Carla to bring up "Near Me" on her phone to find restaurants on the way. But nothing interesting came up and in minutes we found ourselves parking in EXACTLY THE SAME PARKING SPACE we had just used an hour before when we dropped Patrick off. I am not making this up. But stay with me because this is where it gets good.
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Post-Halloween in the Sunset Disctrict
At the confluence of Howard and 11th streets and across from the ARC center were two restaurants; a Mexican place and a pizza place. We opted for the latter. Before going further, I have to confess that I am not the person to ask when inquiring about the latest, coolest restaurants in San Francisco. I travel a lot and eat out a lot on the road; when I'm home, I like to stay home and cook. As you can imagine, there's more than a few bottles of wine downstairs in my garage. That said, I was really not in the least informed about the pizza place we stumbled into because after all it was on the corner literally crawling distance from the car--and we were hungry, thirsty, and had little time left for dinner. But this was not just any pizza place; this pizza place which will not be named was one of those establishments certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletanna in Naples complete with a special wood burning pizza oven.

After the fact Carla and I were to learn that there's usually a line out the front door at this place and also that the restaurant doesn't take reservations. But on this Friday night the restaurant gods in San Francisco smiled on us, if only briefly, and we managed to grab the only open deuce. Inside the place was all austere concrete and cinder blocks with the enormous aforementioned certified pizza oven occupying front and center stage. Quickly I noticed that we were the oldest people in the restaurant and so completely un-hip that we probably didn't belong there. But screw it, I thought, we're hungry and now only had about 45 minutes for dinner before having to head across the street.

Eyeing the menu I spotted five different choices for pizza offered that evening all for the mere price of $25 a pie. Mind you these were single size pizzas. Not a big deal. But then my eyes drifted over to the right side of the menu to the wines offered by the glass. And here, meine freunden, is where it got interesting. All the wines poured by the glass were from Campania, which wasn't a surprise given the origin of the restaurant's certification. More importantly, all the offerings were either orange wines or natural wines. I let out an audible groan. Carla, who now has a zero-tolerance policy for my reaction to poorly constructed wine lists and/or less-than-adequately trained servers, immediately responded with a terse, "Now what?" I told her about the wines by the glass. She responded with something like, "Oh, it's probably fine." But I knew better. I've tasted enough of both categories to be a fervent believer in modern winemaking technology and to be just as unappreciative of chemistry projects masquerading as commercially produced wine. More on that later.

Soon the server took our order. I can't recall which of the five pizzas I ordered but I clearly remember ordering two glasses of Aglianico from a producer I'd never previously heard of. The wine arrived quickly in two of those thick, heavy, and dense tumblers normally used in chain restaurants or bar fights. Dismissing the fact that I was paying $13 for a glass of wine served in something resembling a weapon, I put my nose in the glass. Immediately all my internal wine flaw alarms went off. If seven alarms are the max in the firefighting world then I was at nine alarms meaning the wine had more than one serious flaw. Said Aglianico not only displayed a monumental level of VA--somewhere between floor varnish and Sherry vinegar--it also had an extreme level of brettanomyces. The combination made my eyes water and when I went to comment about the tragic condition of the wine to Carla she just gave me the eye. So I sipped the wine in pained silence trying to imagine the less then hygienic conditions under which it had been made. I'm reasonably sure that the winemaker and his/her tribe probably had the best of intentions, but this was way beyond the term "cellar palate" where one loses olfactory sensitivity because of working in a single wine environment for too long; it was more like "stable palate."
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Fortunately, the pizzas showed up just as I drained the last wicked drop of Aglianico. I wanted another glass of wine--any glass of wine but the Aglianico. I chose the other red offered by the glass only to learn from the server that they were sold out of it. However, the restaurant had just gotten a new vintage of Piedrosso from her favorite producer that afternoon and would we like to try it. Of course!  fter all, it had to be better than the previous wine. I was wrong. The Piedrosso arrived in moments in the same big clunky glasses; when I put my nose in the glass, I literally saw the color brown. The Piedrosso, for anyone keeping score, was the single most flawed glass of wine I've ever been served. It displayed staggering levels of brett and was oxidized--and it was spritzy! It was as if the wine was still sorting itself out in the bottle after several tortured years, hence my remark about natural wines and chemistry projects. For the record, the pizzas were delicious--absolutely top shelf even if they were a bit pricey. Total cost for the dinner with 20% tip and tax: $124. Experience of tasting "natural" wines: priceless. 

Allow me a moment on my soapbox. Regardless of the kinds of wine you feel best suit your menu, you as a professional buyer have an obligation to have a clue about what clean, well-made wine is, and to offer your guests sound, well-made wines that are good values. That's the deal and absolutely no exceptions including orange and natural wines. Further, in keeping with my Mom's sage advice that it takes all types to fill up the freeways, I would be the first to admit that there's room for just about everything in the world of wine. But let's not confuse unusual with flawed. There's a big difference. While it's been interesting to follow the orange and natural wine camps, I'm beginning to think that maybe it's about time they had some kind of certification so the rest of us in the industry know what the hell they're doing--even if what they're doing results in completely flawed wine. After all, there are certifications with standards for organic and biodynamic wines. Why not for natural wines? I rest my case.

So on that Friday night, my latest date with the uber expensive girlfriend known as San Francisco was--what a surprise--expensive, rushed, and agita-inducing. Oh yes, she was completely unkempt for the occasion. Ah the beautiful sadness of life…
10 Comments
Alfonso link
10/1/2014 08:25:32 pm

we gotta talk - I see a (Texsom( seminar here) in The City next few days.for sure I wont get una pizza from your napolitana joint;)

Grazie...

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Tim Gaiser
10/2/2014 01:21:02 am

Alfonso, thanks for reading and glad you enjoyed it. Let's talk. I'm in the home office the rest of the week. Drop me a note.

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Giovanni Pagano link
10/2/2014 07:32:47 am

On the AGLIANICO I understand that you can love it or hate it.......but the PIEDIROSSO is from APICELLA who is very conventional. You probably got a bad btl. The glasses are made of crystal and are $6 a piece.

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Tim Gaiser
10/2/2014 08:44:11 am

Giovanni, thanks for reading. Can I assume you are connected to the restaurant? If so, then memory serves that the glasses were tumblers and not crystal—but then you would be able to tell me. Otherwise, my opinion about the wines remains unchanged. Not a big fan of natural wines and if the Apicella was a bad bottle then it was monumentally bad.

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GG
10/3/2014 04:20:11 am

OMG... $124 for 2 pizzas and 2 glasses of wine? are you serious?
if that's right, this is complete insanity...and I'm from LA... it can get expensive here too... but at this level it's just ripoff.
Fortunaly there are plenty of other amazing places in SF to enjoy some good italian food and wine!

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Tim Gaiser
10/3/2014 06:37:53 am

GG, thanks for reading. Actually, to be accurate the cost for the meal included four glasses of vino and not two. Still a bit pricey.

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Jeff Boyer
10/3/2014 04:31:56 am

So very spot on! fun read! I had the same experience at a spot in LA that proclaimed "AMAZING" natural wine- so flawed, it made my skin crawl. The server tasted and proclaimed the wine to be sound. I asked for the manager and we had the debate on why he was going to take the wine back-it didn't go well and needless to say they are on the blacklist for me.

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Tim Gaiser
10/3/2014 06:41:32 am

Jeff, thanks for reading. Agree that there does some to be two sets of standards in terms of what flaws are "allowable" for most commercially produced wines (as in little or none) vs. natural wines. However, I strongly believe that someone who operates a wine program has the obligation to present sound--that is without flaws--well, made wines to their customers. That's really the crux of this post.

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Ben wood
10/3/2014 07:31:21 am

Tim,
I'm saddened by your experience. Did you point out the flaws to the server? I am compelled to point out there are a lot of both orange and natural wines that may have different flavors, but are not off. Orange takes some getting used to; but to play Devils advocate; so does uber high abv Cali Cabernet; overly Oaked Chardonnay that only tastes of wood, butter, sugar and is full of additives, many you can taste. Are those not faults also? There are good clean natural wines!

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Tim Gaiser
10/6/2014 04:42:25 am

Hi Ben thanks for reading and sorry about the delay in responding. Oak usage in wine is not a flaw--it's a winemaking decision. That goes for ML, batonage, etc. in Chardonnay. You may not like them in the wines you taste and drink but again they are not flaws. The two wines I wrote about in this post displayed extreme amounts of VA, brett and in one case, secondary fermentation in the bottle--all of which are considered industry flaws. While I certainly understand the interest in natural and orange wines the same quality standards that applies to all other still table wines applies here as well. That’s the bottom line.

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