Dining
The Ins and Outs of Decanting a Wine I always tell people that Brad and I were friends long before he was rich and successful. However, that certainly doesn’t stop me from taking advantage of his generosity as far as fine wine and food are concerned. This time of year, he tends to pull out several incredibly expensive bottles of wine from his small stash. And he always makes a huge spectacle of bringing them out, presenting them to the crowd and then handing them over to me. “If you would be so kind, garçon, to decant this fine wine.” Truth be told—and no offense to Brad—I don’t think he’s completely clear on why I’m decanting the wines for him. Sometimes, he’ll hand me a wine that he thinks needs to be decanted and I’ll tell him it isn’t necessary. “Uh, I paid $400 for that. I think you should decant it.” Which I do. And sometimes it doesn’t help the wine. Sometimes, it actually hurts
it. So for all of you Brads out there, and even those of us regular schmoes who might just have a special bottle stashed away for our upcoming holiday parties, I’m going to talk a little bit about how, why and when a bottle of wine should be decanted. There are two main reasons a bottle of wine should be decanted, and those two reasons speak to the two very different types of wine you might decant. First, there are the older, expensive wines that may have been By Josh Perilo sitting in a cellar for years. The object of aging a wine (correctly) is generally to let the wine, which may be harsh and tannic while young, become mellower and more refined. After several years in the bottle, however, the wine will begin to give up some precipitate. That is to say, there will be some crap at the bottom of the bottle. Don’t worry! The wine isn’t bad. This is natural, but it isn’t a lot of fun to drink. That is why decanting an older wine is
No Title Required Museum dining artfully done at Untitled
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ing genuinely edible food, have the quickstop, your-tour-bus-is-waiting feeling of museum cafés everywhere. Now there is Untitled at the Whitney, which successfully blends the two approaches to provide a dining experience that could easily succeed on its own merits set squarely inside a museum. To achieve this, Meyer called Gramercy Tavern executive sous chef Chris Bradley up to the big leagues and tasked him with creating two separate menus: casual classics for the museum crowd and interesting New American for weekend dinners. Daytime gives us a take on New York diner culture, all-day breakfast and lunch featuring pancakes and eggs, sandwiches and salads. Every dish is carefully considered, and nothing is offered out of obligation—unlike your corner coffee shop, of whose sprawling menu maybe one-third is worth ordering. With a smaller kitchen, the restaurant outsources many of its baking duties to partners like Balthazar Bakery and Four and Twenty Blackbirds to great effect. But there’s plenty that is unexpectedly housemade—like the sausage and pastrami—all of which is spot-on. At night, the three-course, prix fixe menu is short and sweet, changing
Decem ber 1, 2011
weekly to keep things seasonal, fresh and playful. Each course has just two or three options, and common side dishes are brought out with the entrées. These assimilate to varying degrees with the rest of the meal, depending on how you’ve chosen (a three-grain pilaf was an unnecessary starch boost for gnocchi but the perfect complement to a seafood stew), but are a pleasantly familial touch. Wines are much better than tolerable; a concise list of American whites and reds by the glass or bottle. With such a short list, there is no room for error—surprisingly, though, there is plenty of room for eye-catching rarities, like the “Giuliano,” from Cameron Winery in Oregon, a remarkably food-friendly blend imported especially for the restaurant. The space is comfortable, chic but sparse. Blond wood tables and low-slung black chairs fill the center of the room, ringed by padded banquettes. The bar is the same blond wood crowned with a chalkboard that displays the menu. The true accomplishment is the atmosphere at night, when the residual glare from the lobby above is parlayed, with candles and strategically placed pin-lights, into a cozy den where you can still read the menu. Adjacent to the restaurant, in the space that used to be the downstairs gift shop extension, is a sleek waiting area to hold the inevitable crowd at peak brunching hours. One wall is devoted to a moreinteresting-than-necessary Lawrence
more agitation the wine gets, the more air is introduced and the more elegant that monster red is going to taste. My friend, Sean Kenneavey, manager at Bolsa Restaurant in Houston, has a tendency to even double decant his vino if it’s extra tannic. By all means…if it works, do it! While it isn’t that often, there are the rare occasions when decanting is unnecessary and even harmful. In the event that you have a very, very old bottle of fine wine (i.e. a 1945 La Tache, a 1959 Lafite, a 1921 Chateau d’Yquem), you want to avoid this. These wines are so delicate that pouring the bottle’s entire contents, even slowly, into another vessel would destroy what is left of their structure. Think of it like taking a well-preserved garment from the 1880s and throwing it into a modern washing machine; you’d end up with a pile of threads. My holiday wish for all of you is that you have the opportunity to experience a wine worthy of decanting for any reason! Follow Josh on Twitter: @joshperilo.
Nicole FraNzeN
By Regan Hofmann Hit the gift shop, skip the restaurant. Unless you’re part of a tour group, hypoglycemic or having a day out with your nana, this has always been the accepted wisdom for museum visits. If you happen to be an unlucky member of one of these groups, you can look forward to a selection of dry sandwiches, a steam-table entrée and a sweaty, pre-cut cheese plate. The best to be hoped for is a tolerable wine to drown your sorrows and some art to remind you of the reason you’re there. In recent years, Danny Meyer, the prolific and preternaturally successful restaurateur (so uniquely prodigious, in fact, that Eater.com now hands out a “Danny Meyer Empire Builder of the Year” award) has been fighting the good fight against this institutional ignominy. He first tackled MoMA, opening The Modern, a mannered, genteel restaurant accessible from the museum via a corridor or by its own street-facing entrance. You might stop in there for lunch after getting your fill of de Kooning’s women, but you’d check to make sure you were well-dressed first. Nearer to the galleries are two additional cafés that, while offer-
necessary. Let the bottle stand upright for a full day before serving to let the sediment fall completely to the bottom. Then, grab a decanter and a flashlight (or candle if you’re feeling particularly arcane), and set the light up behind the neck of the bottle. Pour the wine slowly into the decanter. Stop just as the sediment creeps into the neck of the wine. Congrats! You’ve decanted a crazy expensive bottle of wine! That’s only half the story, though. There are thousands of bottles of wine out there that should be decanted every year that aren’t. These tend to be your newer vintage, full-bodied reds, the ones that come out of the bottle so tannic and bold they rip your mouth apart on the first sip. By decanting these wines, you are exposing the entire bottle to oxygen, speeding up the aging process and immediately softening and maturing the wine. With this style of decantation, you need much less finesse. Simply open that bottle of vino and throw the whole thing in, the more violently the better. The
Weiner installation, a play on the theme “Here There & Everywhere” to ponder while you wait for your table. It’s the only physical reminder that you are inside a museum full of iconic work, but there’s little chance you’ll forget where you are as you eat—the meal itself is an act of cultural appreciation. Take your nana, your tour group, or your hypoglycemic buddy here to show them what museum dining has the potential to be. Maybe they’ll think twice about those dry sandwiches next time. N EW S YO U LIV E B Y