BILL HUMBERT - NINETY SIX HOURS (PART ONE)

The cell phone quietly sang. The song was Paper Doll sung by The Mills Brothers. There was a special reason for this having been chosen but that’s another story. It was an iPhone 5 and had been set at the lowest ring volume but Bill Humbert woke at the first bar. He reached over carefully and pressed the listen button trying not to wake Trixie the pregnant barmaid who was sleeping (finally) softly next to him. Well, she wasn’t that much pregnant

Humbert eased himself out of bed and moved quietly into the living room.

“Hello Big Guy” he said, having noticed the caller ID on the screen.

“Bill, Bill, thank God or any other form of omnipresent being that may or may not rule our lives and incidentally who may or may not exist given that Jasper, the planet we live on may or may not be alone in the universe as a populated planet and who knows how it all began and, and…..” blustered Richard (of RBB) having spilled out these words in a barely understood torrent.

“Slow down Rich. This is a poor time to call me you know”. Said Humbert, knowing that his old pal Richard would get the intended pun and most likely come back with a riposte of sorts but there was silence on the end of the line. Nothing. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

“Rich. Are you there? It’s 4 am here as I’m sure you know” Humbert was being kind. Richard was a music teacher. He was a very good music teacher and pretty good at grammar but simple arithmetic wasn’t one of his strengths. Humbert knew that 4am in his motel unit meant that it was 11am the next day in Nuova Lazio where Richard lived. Humbert had an internal clock that gave him a register of all times in all time zones 24 hours a day. 4am was 4pm the same day in Kiev, 9am in Asuncion, 8am the next day in Tonga….

“Bill, Bill, sorry to bother you mate but something’s happened”

Humbert felt a chill creep up his back and goose bumps came out on his arms and legs. Excusing himself from Richard for a moment he stepped back into the bedroom and pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped himself in it. Trixie stirred and woke shivering but Humbert wasn’t too concerned. She’d buggered up his wine order after all. He went back into the living room and picked up the phone.

“Tell me” he said, knowing that it was best to keep the sentences short or the nit-picking old schoolteacher would want to correct his grammar.

“You know that Shelley and I like Chardonnay” said Richard which was an understatement. Between them they had reversed the ABC (anything but chardonnay) trend and caused grapegrowers to plant the varietal in all sorts of unlikely places in order to keep up demand.

“Yes. I’ve heard something to that effect” said Humbert while pouring himself a glass of the 2010 Batard -Montrachet Grand Cru from the bottle on the coffee table. Good Chardonnay fruit, lean structure, judicious use of wood. Temperature perfect in the early morning chill. It’d go well with a …..

“Bill. Bill. Are you there? You know that we took your advice and only look out for Hawkes Bay and Gisborne Chardonnays. We don’t go near those Marlborough and other South Island ones except for the top Nelson ones but then we can’t afford those?”

“Good man Rich, keep it up” said Humbert and for some reason the thought of going into the next room and keeping Trixie warm sprung into his mind.

“Well” said Richard, finally calming down a bit” I ordered some Hawkes Bay Chardonnay off the internet last week. It was a 2012 Te Awanga barrel fermented Reserve. I did what you advised and looked up the books . The vintage is great and the location superb for Chardonnay with good fruit but with a nice cutting edge. The barrel ferment is supposed to soften out the acids and give a nice creamy texture from lees contact and the Reserve suggests some barrel ageing, about 10 months or more which adds complexity and nice vanillin characters and….”

“Whoah. Slow down, slow down” said Humbert as he stretched himself out on the couch. The Montrachet warming him nicely as he idly imagined spooning with Trixie and….

“But it wasn’t” said Richard.

“What?” Humbert asked thinking the old guy was losing his marbles “What wasn’t?”

“The wine” blurted Richard “the bloody wine I bought wasn’t a 2012 Cape Kidnappers barrel ferment Reserve. When it arrived I grabbed a bottle and … er, I chilled down a bottle and carefully took off the capsule and pulled the cork out and ….”

“Cork?”

“Yes, cork and I noticed that the printing on the cork said ‘2009’. I thought that strange and before pouring anoth … before I poured a glass I checked the cork again. It said ‘2009 Eiffelton’. I didn’t think that was in Hawkes Bay so looked up the school computer in the bedroom….er waited until I got to school the next day and checked out where Eiffelton was. It’s in South Canterbury!”

“Bastards” said Humbert “The dirty bastards. They’re up to their old tricks. Look, don’t open any more of those wines. Carefully put them aside with the carton and the courier ticket and wait to hear from me. I’m on my way” Humbert closed the call and looked up Safari on his iPhone, going to Google to check on the next departures from San Francisco to Wellington.
He knew that there wasn't much time. The old guy would only be able to last out four days before he'd crumble, forget all the good advice and go back to drinking those cheap supermarket 'specials'.

Ninety six hours.

 He had a job to do. Bastards.



(To be continued)

JOB DONE

Bill Humbert sniffed. He sneezed and sniffed again. No doubt about it. Thirty years of Special Services duty taught him the smell of spent cartridges. The SO2 was distinctive. It took him back. Kunduz, November 2001. The ground was littered with cartridge cases some still smoking. The wisps of smoke mingled with the smoke from body parts ripped from comrades who lay amidst the debris. Bastards…..

 Under the sulphur there was something else. Beirut 1983. The Marine Corps hospital. The bandages that swathed Humbert’s body gave off a cheese and plastic smell, not offensive but unnatural, antiseptic…. Brettanomyces? He gingerly sniffed the wine again and yes, there it was. Bretannomyces in unacceptable concentration. “Bastards.”

 The 2011 Oregon Pinot Noir was spoiled. This wasn’t good enough. The bottle had set him back $80 at the corner wine shop but it wasn’t the money that bothered him it was the ruined expectation of delight. Something had to be done. Should he go back and kick the shit out of the clerk who sold him the bottle? No, no point. It wasn’t his fault even though he should know the quality of the wine he sold but the poor prick was only being paid $15 an hour so probably never gets to try anything more expensive than a two buck chuck. No, something had to be done and Humbert knew where.

 “Brettannomyces” Humbert mused as he rode the Greyhound from Seattle along Route 99W to Willamette, “volatile phenols and fatty acids are the key molecules responsible for the olfactory defects in wines affected by brettanomyces, the key molecules being 4-ethyl-phenol, isovaleric acid and 4-ethyl-guiacol.one. The ratio of the disgusting 4-ethyl phenol to the comparatively pleasant smelling 4-ethyl guaiacol varies substantially from wine to wine from as little as 3:1 to over 40:1. In the latter case the wine smells like Band-Aid. Hospitals. Bastards.”

 Humbert knew that red wines, due to barrel ageing are susceptible to brettanomyces if poor winemaking and cellar management come into play. The ‘good’ wine yeast saccharomyces normally overrides development of brettanomyces but if too much oxygen is allowed during primary fermentation (unlikely given the amount of CO2 generated) or more likely during barrel maturation then brettanomyces is stimulated. Lazy winemakers who fail to adequately top up barrels during this stage run the risk of brettannomyces developing. Worse, winemakers who syphon off amounts of wine from barrel to use for cellar tastings without topping up leave too much room in the barrel so that the aerobic conditions allow the ‘bad’ yeast to flourish. In such cases, before bottling the criminal winemakers add extra Sulphur to try and slow the process and to mask the spoilage. Spent cartridges? SO2. Bastards.

 The bus slowing pulled Humbert out of his reverie. They had passed through Oregon City and as arranged were stopping at the intersection of Routes 5 and 206. The Greyhound headed off to Woodburn. Humbert shouldered his pack and headed off by foot up the Chehalem Valley. In the early morning air there was a smell of violets and heather intermingling with wood smoke and cooking. Humbert’s belly rumbled and he remembered he hadn’t eaten since the evening before when he boarded the bus. The Tilapia slider washed down with the creamy Mondavi Reserve Chardonnay was a pleasant but distant memory. “It’ll have to wait” he thought “there’s business to be done”.

 After an hour and a half trek along a gently climbing dusty road which was bordered by sprawling vineyards Humbert saw what he was looking for. Cheetim Cellars. The large and imposing frontage of the winery announced grandeur, expense and confidence. The front door was locked. Humbert made his way around the side of the building. The grandeur, once out of sight of the visitor car park out front disappeared and he could see that the frontage was like a Hollywood film set with ramshackle, poorly maintained sheds behind. All doors were closed but Humbert gripping the corner of a piece of corrugated iron that the largest shed was made of and, with power developed from many years opening wine bottles, peeled the iron back to allow him entrance. Humbert peered about, wrinkling his nose at the various odours. Normally he loved being inside wineries. The fruity smells mingling with toasty oak and pleasant yeasty aromas usually made him hungry but here all he could small was vinegar, mustiness and….Band-Aid. There were no lights on but the many holes in the roof allowed the mid-morning sun to penetrate. The shafts of sunlight illuminated tanks, barrels and winemaking equipment. He stopped as he heard a sound. It was coming from above somewhere. He remembered that in the Takht-e-Sulamein mountain passes to triangulate a position you stood slightly side on so that direct sound and reflected sound would converge thus eliminating false echoes. He stood still. He turned, looking up and saw boots at the top of a ladder which leant against a huge wooden vat. Humbert climbed quietly. Reaching the top, just below the boots he said loudly “Humbert. Bill Humbert”. The man at the top of the ladder jumped in fright and almost lost balance. Grabbing the rungs of the ladder he dropped the bag he had been holding and as it fell past Humbert he could smell it. Spent cartridges. SO2. Bastard.

The man was worried. Humbert sincerely hoped he wouldn’t pee himself given that he was on the ladder directly below. He decided to cut to the chase, no preliminaries needed.
 “You the winemaker here?” he asked while taking a strong grip of the ladder with his left hand allowing his right hand to be free.
“Yes, what’s it to you?” answered the man who seemed to be recovering himself and was adopting a belligerent attitude, just what Humbert liked.
 “You make the 2011 Pinot Noir?” Humbert asked.
 “My best wine” smirked the winemaker as he edged himself higher up the ladder.
 “What’s this wine in the vat here” asked Humbert.
“My new creation, a fortified wine” answered the winemaker.
 “This here a butt?” asked Humbert even though he knew the answer.
 “I guess so” said the winemaker.
“Have you got a name for the wine-style yet” asked Humbert.
 “No, any suggestions” sneered the winemaker.
 “You familiar with George Plantagenet, First Duke of Clarence?” asked Humbert.
 “What about it?” said the winemaker, sounding confused.
 “Well from now on you can call this wine Malmsey” said Humbert as he grabbed the guy’s boots and lifted him up and over the edge of the vat.

Humbert climbed to the top and perched on the edge of the vat quietly watching as the winemaker floundered gasping for breath as the foul wine filled his lungs made worse by the recent sulphuring which cut
down on the available oxygen. When all was still Humbert climbed down.

 Job done.

AMERICAN HEROES

I got a Nelson de Mille novel out of the library. It is titled Wildfire and is yet another of de Mille's wanks about his alter-ego saving the world etc.etc.

I knew what to expect but I was bored. De Mille's characters are 'smart-ass' and make 'wise-cracks' all the time. Cue boorish and pain-in-the-ass. John Corey, one of his characters drinks 'man drinks' like Budweiser and neat scotch but thinks that wine is for pansies. I guess he appeals to sales managers, long distance sales reps, van delivery drivers and shoolteachers - those who want to fantasise themselves into positions of power and rebellion.

Richard is reading all of the Lee Child's Jack Reacher books at present. Reacher is not 'smart-ass' nor is he boorish which largely is why most of his readership is women (and old male schoolteachers). There are things that Reacher does however that gets close like never changing his underpants and thinking that it is manly to drink copious amounts of strong black coffee. Oh, and not drinking wine.

Imagine Reacher or a similar type of character who is a vinophile:

Bill Humbert watched the guy walk past the window. He'd seen him twice before. First as he stepped off the Greyhound bus at Union Station. It had been one o'clock. June. Bill knew the time exactly as one o'clock, June, was the ideal time for a Prosecco aperitif. Simple. The guy was dressed like a businessman but there were some giveaway clues that suggested otherwise. The cuff of his shirt on the right arm had smear marks. These weren't ordinary smear marks as Humbert could tell. They looked like the accidental splashings from a bar. A copper-topped bar where the wiping cloth doesn't completely clear the spilled Chardonnay. Humbert remembered such a bar...

Humbert drew the glass of red wine closer to him. He looked at the colour that was highlighted by the late afternoon sun coming through the window (now not obstructed by the guy outside)and reflected on the shiny zinc table he was sitting at. Syrah. Rosemount Balmoral Syrah 2004. It was good and worth the argument with the pregnant barmaid who tried to pour a pint of Guinness for him when He'd asked for it. Silly cow. He knew that it needed to sit for another 55 seconds to allow optimum breathing before he took a sip but there was that guy. The guy had been walking Eastwards which took him from Humbert's right to left. Humbert knew that the entrance door was on the right side of the windows - facing in. He had calculated that the window frontage was about 40 foot long. The guy was moving quickly. Too quickly. Humbert knew that it would take him less than 20 paces to the door and then, after looking around another 15 paces to where he was sitting. 20 seconds tops. Not enough time for the wine to breathe properly. Humbert wasn't angry, just peeved. Peevishness he thought was an old English word created in a time of gentility and manners. Certainly not appropriate for today's rudeness and brashness. He watched the reflection of the guy approaching. He could see it in the top third of the glass which contrary to expectations was highly polished. He was ready. The guy came to the table, bumping it slightly and spilling some of the Syrah on to the table. The droplets glimmered like a ruby eye set in a Balinese statue. "Good life left in it" thought Humbert " 15 years more with adequate cellaring". "Remember me?" asked the guy. Humbert looked at him thinking "Not much life left in him, certainly not 15 years". The guy said he was the barman in the winebar down by Union and that Humbert had stiffed him on the tip. Humbert remembered the Chardonnay he'd ordered. It was supposed to be a barrel fermented oak-aged Napa Valley 2011. What was given however probably only saw a barrel when it was poured at waist level by this portly barman. "here's a tip" said Humbert and drove the point of his elbow into this guy's belly. The guy crumpled and fell to the floor by the table. Humbert stood up, drained the glass (nice fruit - plums, blackberries and nice American oak) and motioned to the pregnant barmaid. "Thanks" he said and pointing to the writhing figure on the floor "He's paying. Don't expect a tip"

DISCOVERIES

Packing up the house for our relocation has brought about some great discoveries of things we had misplaced and forgotten about.
Tonight, clearing out the bottom drawers in the china cabinet I came across a photograph of Her Indoors that was taken on our visit to Remy Martin Cellars in Cognac many years ago.

In this she is savouring a particularly pleasant aged cognac- Louis XIII. HERE

I represented the brand in New Zealand at the time and we had a day visiting the manufacturing facility,  the barrel halls and Seguin Moreau cooperage. At the end of the day we were hosted in the tasting room (above).

I particularly remember the occasion not ony because it is a wonderful facility and a great brand but because of that typical French arrogance and chauvinism. When hosted at the bar we were given over to a young and pompous marketer who assumed that antipodeans knew bugger all about their fine cognacs. When he was about to go through his spiel I told hiim to line the offerings up (6 of them at different gradings) in a random order and to do so blind. When he did so in a set for her and a set for me I waited. He was expecting me to try first and had his rehearsal ready but I nodded to Her Indoors who sniffed and tasted the drinks in turn. She correctly identified VSOP, Club and XO and pushed two aside which she said she was unfamiliar with (they were blends that were only available in Europe). The last glass she held on to and savoured. She said to Mr Pompous "This is my favourite - Louis Treize".

Mr Pompous did a double take and then excused himself and disappeared out back.

 I smiled at Her Indoors and set about tasting my set of cognacs. Soon one of the big wigs we hadn't seen during the day and the resident Master of wine showed up and began to chat. Obviously the marketing guy had told them that these Nouvelle Zealandaise were serious.

We enjoyed some more hospitality, declined a lift back to Bordeaux and made our way back to the train station.
,

CAC*

* [Bugger in Gaelic]

We're going overseas for a couple of years and have been packing stuff away in a storage locker - you know , the things that can keep for a few years more. We've drunk, given away and sold most of the wines but there are a few old cognacs and whiskies that are worth keeping.

I wrapped them up and packaged them carefully before storing them in the long term rental locker.

Today, when taking some more packages of artwork and boxes of books I discovered that one of the stacks of boxes had collapsed. I saw quite a few boxes scattered across the floor when I opened the door. "don't be the booze" I thought as I approached and guess what - it was. I quickly checked boxes and two of them rattled. Bugger (or Cac)! On opening, the XO cognacs were OK but ..... some of the old whiskies had been broken.

McLeay Duff 'Antique'

Munro's King of Kings

Buchanan's The Royal Household

Plus an old Lord Calvert Canadian whiskey (over 40 years old) and a litre of Drambuie.

Now the Calvert was probably worth about a hundred bucks and the Drambuie about eighty but the others were worth a bit more.
I think the Munro's might have been a couple of hundred dollars.
The going price for the McLeay Duff Antique (about 40 years old) is about five hundred dollars.
The one that really pisses me off (cac) is the The Royal Household which is circa 1940's and the going rate for this is between a thousand and two thousand pounds (about two to four thousand dollars).

Bummer.

I should have drunk them.

CHAMPAGNE TASTES ON A BEER BUDGET

We like Champagne and we've drunk a fair bit of it over the years.
We have our favourites in Champagne House styles - Pol Roger, Louis Roederer, Krug - usually driven by the personal associations we have had with the brands and the owners as much as with the quality.

Her Indoors' all-time favourite is Louis Roederer. We often have a glass of this when we see it in bars and regularly have a bottle. On occasion Louis Roederer Cristal comes our way - previously when it was more affordable we would buy it and in recent years we have had it by way of gift.  Needless to say we love it.

Roederer Cristal is a very expensive champagne. Ridiculously expensive. Its cost has as much to do with its quality as much as its popularity. There was a bit of a stoush a few years ago when the head of Roederer publicly announced that he and the company were perturbed that a big percentage of sales in USA were attributable to drug dealers, hip hop artists and rappers. Jay-z got all uppity and labelled the comments as racist and called for a boycott of Roederer Cristal. This was music to our ears as if overpaid hip hop artists weren't buying it then it might come down to affordable levels. Fat chance. It still is one of the world's most expensive champagnes.

We're drinking up the cellar at the moment as we're heading off overseas for a few years. The other night we drank a bottle of 2005 Cristal.

As I mentioned earlier, we like champagne and drink a lot of it. We also appreciate very good examples of methode champenoise like Deutz. When it comes to drinking a vintage champagne or a prestige champagne the difference is phenomenal.

A good methode champenoise should usually cost about $30.
A good non vintage champagne should usually be about $80
A prestige champagne can be over a hundred.
Elite champagnes like Dom Perignon, Krug, Cristal etc start at $250 and just keep climbing.

Ridiculous?
Yes.

Worth the money?
Well no but ......

.....the difference between the really top stuff and the simply good stuff is tremendous.
The Cristal 2005 was fine, absolutely fine. The bead was intense with tiny bubbles. The texture was silky with no coarse notes at all. The flavour was fruity and fresh. Delightful. On opening the fresh bread smell (yeast autolysis) was very pronounced and could be smelled from metres away.
The wine is an experience and any champagne drinkers should splurge out on wines of this calibre at least once to use as a yardstick.

I don't know when we'll try it again, maybe we could become hip hop artists and make our fortune

"C'mon y'all, get sippin', get sippin'
'dis Cristal man is for tippin', for tippin'
Break da bank, do dat pawn thang,
Do watcha gotta just get that big bang,
Drinking champagne
Yeah, do it just do it
Drinking champagne
Y'all never rue it"

SWEET F.ALL

Sweet wines, once the most consumed type of wines have been falling in popularity for decades.
Sauternes, Barsacs, Sherries, Ports, sweeter German wines and their replicants around the world once made up substantial parts of winemakers' incomes. The reasons for this were many and included the fact that the sweeter wines kept better and longer, dining was longer and included desserts and dessert wines, the taxman wasn't as greedy and sweet wines can mask a myriad of winemaking faults.

Nowadays, with faster life-styles and a new calorie-consciousness, sweet wines are generally out of favour much to the consternation of traditional producers who are looking at new ways of marketing them ..... but that's another story.

Last night, in celebration of our move to Canada soon we opened a bottle of a sweet Canadian wine that I've had in the cellar for some time. The wine is Inniskillin 2002 Gold Reserve Vidal Icewine.
Inniskillin is a producer based at Niagara.

Vidal is a Canadian grape varietal. Icewine is a style of wine made from frozen (on the vine) grapes.

To be honest I was thinking that I'd left the wine in the cellar for too long as I do with most of the sweet wines we have but I was really surprised. The wine has a rich, golden colour but is still bright. The aroma is full of honey and butterscotch notes and the flavour - delicious.  It is all honey, butterscotch and tropical fruits with a hint of apricot kernel. Marvellous and a great teaser for our adventure.