The other day my daughter-in-law Julie came to dinner bearing a most welcome surprise—a picture-perfect, made-from-scratch, chocolate layer cake. After taking an appreciative bite, a visiting friend said, “This cake would be an ideal match for a banyuls.”
As luck would have it, I happened to have a bottle of this luscious, sweet fortified wine, made in the southwest of France from the grenache grape: Le Clos de Paulilles, Banyuls Rimage (vintage) 2005, from Rousillon, on the Mediterranean Sea. Banyuls is similar to port in that it is made from very ripe fruit, fortified with distilled spirits, then aged to smooth out the alcohol. And my friend was right—each sip of this banyuls, with its intense blackberry-like flavors, exaggerated the potency of the chocolate.
Few of us drink fortified dessert wines; they seem a bit
de trop
at the end of a meal. But an occasional foray into the land of stickies (as dessert wines are called in Britain) will reward a jaded palate with distinctive and energizing taste dynamics.
Fortified dessert wines are rare on Long Island. In Bridgehampton, winemaker Christopher Tracy at Channing Daughters always maintained a focus on dry wine until this year, when an experimental batch of merlot gave him the chance to make a sweet wine unlike any other.
Ever the innovator, in 2004, without knowing how the wine would evolve, Mr. Tracy took a shy ton of merlot, stomped it by foot and fermented it dry. Then, he fortified it to 18 percent alcohol with neutral spirits and left it outside for five years in barrels exposed to the elements, using a “solera” technique similar to that used for sherry.
Just before bottling the wine this fall, he sweetened it slightly (1.6 percent) with fresh merlot juice from this year’s vintage. The resulting wine is oxidized; it’s maderized, like the wines of Madeira that historically traveled across the equator and back before contributing to the tempers and gout of 19th century literati and politicians.
Serving this wine (called “pazzo,” meaning “crazy”) at a recent wine dinner at The Living Room (a new restaurant iteration at East Hampton’s revamped Maidstone Inn), Mr. Tracy beamed, saying, “We love Madeira. It was important to America—the Declaration of Independence was signed with Madeira!”
I’m sure he meant that the signers celebrated with Madeira, just as the Maidstone’s guests celebrated with pazzo at the end of what was a singularly stunning evening of food and wine.
Winter, when business is slow, is a time when many restaurants feature wine dinners. The Channing Daughters event was the third at The Living Room since it opened this summer under the new ownership of a Swedish hotelier, Jenny Ljungberg, who renovated the historic East Hampton building (now calling it “c/o the Maidstone,”) to reflect her Scandinavian flair.
A deep turquoise reception and bar area leads to the restaurant proper, which is papered in a dark pattern of wild tulips. White napery offsets the modern floral upholstered chairs. Black and white photos scarcely moderate a décor fraught with emotion and sensuality, but a glistening ceiling and tall candles balance the setting by creating a Caravaggio-esque illumination on the guests’ animated faces.
The restaurant did well to hire its chef, James Carpenter, formerly of Della Femina, the American Hotel, and Aquavit. Mr. Carpenter, like Mr. Tracy, is an advocate of Slow Food, and designs his menu around what is fresh, local, and in season. Here, he adds a Scandinavian twist, but not excessively so.
This dinner began with a Nordic chunk of cured salmon; the next course offered Swedish caviar on top of a puff pastry filled with Peconic Bay scallops, and the chef’s veal ravioli had a touch of Vasterbotten cheese, but everything else—the pork belly, angus hanger steak, and Mecox Bay dairy cheese—were all-American, if not New York sourced.
Mr. Carpenter, again like Mr. Tracy, is entirely hands-on. I heard (from Mr. Carpenter’s wife, who was seated at my table) that the night before the dinner he had come home in pain, saying, “My shoulders are so sore—I’ve been rolling out the ravioli for the wine dinner.”
Using a pasta machine would have toughened the dough.
The same level of care was evident from the winemaker during the course of the meal. Offering a series of six wines, Mr. Tracy paid tribute to Steve Mudd and Alice Wise, the viticultural colleagues with whom he has partnered for years, and described how he adapts his winemaking to the fruit that he sources from three distinctive microclimates: the Channing Daughters Bridgehampton vineyard (where he grows 24 varietals), the Mudd vineyard, on the North Fork, and Alice Wise’s Cornell research vineyard in Baiting Hollow.
Most of the wines we tasted were blends of clones and varietals—all of them balanced, textured, and dynamic. In making them, Mr. Tracy puts his talents to the test. For example, a red wine called “Over and Over Variation Three” was made from 2004 merlot that was refermented with 2006 merlot and dornfelder, and again with 2007 merlot, syrah and dornfelder, in the “ripasso” style—plus solera aging.
As Mr. Tracy explained, “This is our poetic interpretation of north and south, young and old, warm and cool.” He described how, when the older wine is added to new juice, its alcohol stuns the yeast, making for “a very scary moment when fermentation stops, and I think, oh my God, I just made a $100,000 mistake. But the stunned yeast come back and do their thing.”
Mr. Tracy’s winemaking is based on experience, trust, and genius. The results are deliciously inspiring, and I recommend that one and all move outside their comfort zone and try them.
As for Chef Carpenter, he will be offering other inventive wine dinners throughout this winter and spring. Visit www.themaidstone.com for details.
More Posts from 
