Woodberry Kitchen

Breaking from my usual Baltimore quick trip tradition of crabs and beer on Butcher’s Hill or a night out at Peter’s Inn, this time around I planned ahead for dinner at Woodberry Kitchen. It was my little sister’s birthday after all, and I also remembered old tales from her husband about how much he liked Spike & Charlie’s, Woodberry co-owner Spike Gjerde’s long gone spot near Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. Besides, I’d been hankering for a visit ever since reading about Woodberry Kitchen at both Old World Old School and The VLMTR.


Open for about a year and a half now, Spike and his wife Amy Gjerde’s newest spot serves contemporary American cuisine with a strong locavore focus. The sprawling space, which includes seating on two-levels, an inviting bar and a fully open kitchen, combines country rusticity with an air of urban chic. It’s a feel very much in keeping with the restaurant’s location on an old mill site that’s now been converted into an upscale condo development. A similar feel carries over to the equally sprawling menu, where popcorn, poutine and pierogies intermingle with Chesapeake classics and dressed up bistro-oriented “supper” plates. Though the menu lacks focus, its wide range offers something for just about any taste.

Oyster Stew – Choptank oysters, cream, leeks, pretzel bowl

Along with the brilliantly flavorful Roseda Farm tavern steak ordered by Sister R, Woodberry’s oyster stew was a highlight of our meal. The pretzel bowl presentation eliminated any need for a side of bread for sopping up the remains of the dish while also putting a fun twist (pun half-intended) on a Maryland standard. Of course, it would have been nothing more than cute if not for the richly creamed soup and generous fistful of plump, juicy Choptanks.

Woolsey Farms Leg of Lamb – purple cabbage, mixed roots, warm pea shoot salad, fresh mint

This was a seasonal special, right down to the creamed purple cabbage that made for a seriously startling, Easter egg-hued plate presentation. Once past the color shock, though, it was plenty tasty, the lamb beautifully bronzed and fork tender, the fresh snap of pea shoots and mint providing brightness and balance to what otherwise would have been a bit too bass heavy.


I neglected to note the official menu description for my dessert. The scrumptious apple-caramel bundt cake was true to Woodberry’s overall feel in its comforting core dressed up with a touch of pastry artistry.

The wine list, split simply into sections for sparkling, white and red, then arranged by price, is also right in step with the menu and mission at Woodberry. Offerings are focused in Europe with just enough globalization to provide appeal to a broad range of diners. A serious nod is given to local wines from both Maryland and Virginia, while the list also includes a featured organic producer – Nuits-Saint-Georges’ Domaine Thibault Liger-Belair at the time of our visit. Good values include the Beaujolais “Cuvée Traditionnelle” from Pierre-Marie Chermette, Charles Joguet’s Chinon “Cuvée Terroir,” and Jo Landron’s 2007 Muscadet from Domaine de la Louvetrie. I had set my sights on Provençal producer Henri Milan’s “Le Grand Blanc,” which I’d scouted out on WK’s website, only to find it no longer available. A bummer… but given our carnivorous choices, we made do with a bottle of red, Montirius’ Vacqueyras “Garrigues.”

Everything we tried was well executed, showing more than enough promise that – as a destination diner in this case – I’d like to see what Chef Spike and his kitchen crew could achieve by cutting back on the number of menu offerings, perhaps allowing things to be taken to a higher level. On the flip side, if I lived close enough to make Woodberry Kitchen a regular stop I might just be happy to have pierogies and poutine for the occasional mix-up, or to splurge on a bottle of Larmandier-Bernier Blanc de Blancs to pair with the housemade potato chips while hanging out at the bar.

Woodberry Kitchen
2010 Clipper Park Road, No. 126
Baltimore, MD 21211
410-464-8000

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Midweek in Mobtown

Does the lack of response to yesterday's pop quiz means that identifying the photo turned out to be harder than I expected or is it just a reflection of the fact that traffic here at MFWT tends to plummet like a rock on holidays? The above question is more or less a moot point, as I'm about to reveal the answer to yesterday's puzzle; stop reading (at least for now) if you'd still like to go back and take a stab at it.


Yesterday's mystery photo is of the police station located on Thames Street in Baltimore's Fells Point neighborhood. The station acted as the central setting for my favorite cop drama series of all time, Homicide: Life on the Street, which originally aired on NBC from 1993-1999.


Just across the street from the station, The Daily Grind was once among the progenitors of coffee/cafe culture in Baltimore and was also a regular stop for the cast of HLOTS. It's far less crunchy, far more corporate today than in its early days. But at least it's still not Starbucks.


In spite of all the development that's gone into the Inner Harbor commercial district and Camden Yards over the last couple of decades, the view from most points across Baltimore's harbor still reveals the city's industrial heartbeat.

Though I'd planned my midweek trip to Mobtown just to spend a little time with family, my timing turned out to coincide with my brother-in-law Mark's group art opening at Roman's Place, a tiny little locals' bar at the intersection of the Patterson Park, Canton and Highlandtown neighborhoods in East Baltimore.



That's Mark's entry, "Fool in the Mirror," in the foreground above.





Some of the other entries in the group show, including a typically freaky photo from Sam Holden (who's been mentioned here before).



My nephew Axel, grooving on the artful energy at Roman's.


It may have been a cold and blustery day but Spring was still clearly in force around the pagoda in Patterson Park.


Yep, there was even a little wine junket built into the trip. I hit Chesapeake Wine Company on the way out of town. The shop, which also includes a wine and snack bar, is located on the site of the old American Can Company facility on Boston Street in Canton. They carry a fairly diverse selection with a solid percentage of interesting stuff from good importers such as Rosenthal, Potomac Selections and Domaine Select. They also passed at least one customer service test with flying colors, not even batting an eye when I returned the corked bottle of R. Lopez de Heredia's 2002 Rioja "Viña Cubillo" I'd picked up on my last visit.

There was food too, but for that we'll have to wait....

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Where Was I Last Week?

This shouldn't be too tough.... Bonus points for nailing the 'hood and/or pop culture reference.

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Bernard Baudry's 2007 Chinon "Les Granges"

If yesterday was tomorrow, it’s now clearly today…. With that, as promised on Wednesday, today’s post takes us about a half-hour’s drive to the west along the greater Loire Valley to the commune of Chinon and, specifically, to the Domaine of Bernard and Matthieu Baudry in Cravant les Coteaux. Baudry’s wines have been promoted gregariously by Brooklynguy of late, an endorsement that always raises my expectations. This represents my first chance to check in with any of the estate’s wines from the 2007 vintage.


Chinon "Les Granges," Domaine Bernard Baudry 2007
$18. 12.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Louis/Dressner, New York, NY.
In direct opposition to Wednesday’s Cheverny, Baudry’s “Les Granges” was at its most seductive immediately after pouring. Right off the bat, it delivered aromatic waves of hothouse flowers and macerated blue fruit, interspersed with a natural, attractive equine scent. Like many of the other 2007s I’ve tasted from Chinon, Bourgueil and St. Nicolas de Bourgueil, it’s extremely fruit-forward and supple. One could chalk that up partly to the young-vine nature of “Les Granges” but it also seems to be a signature of the vintage – less structured and easier drinking than 2006.

After about 20 minutes, the wine settled into a more red-fruited and slightly leaner stance, with red cassis, pencil shavings and mineral character coming through on the nose and palate. Though its tannins remained quite gentle, the raspy, invigorating texture and bright acidity – both aspects that help wines from this region work so beautifully on the table – became clearer than when first poured. Day two brought much of the same. Not profound but highly pleasurable, this will make a great choice for regular drinking over the next year or two and is more than enough to make me look forward to spending some time with Baudry’s other cuvées from 2007.

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Philippe Tessier's 2007 Cheverny Rouge

For today, we have a note on the first of a couple of quite enjoyable and relatively good-value – one perhaps a bit more so than the other in both instances – Loire reds I’ve tried in the last week. The first comes from Philippe Tessier, a producer whose wines I hadn’t come across, until recently, since my last visit to François and Manuela Chidaine’s wine shop, La Cave Insolite, in Montlouis-sur-Loire.


Cheverny Rouge, Domaine Philippe Tessier 2007
$18. 12% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Potomac Selections, Landover, MD.
Is it just me or are Gamay/Pinot Noir blends nearly always stinky? In the case of Philippe Tessier’s Cheverny Rouge, I’m thinking brush fire and a dash of barnyard, backed up by a distinct impression of stemminess. There’s a smidgen of Côt (about 10%) in the blend as well, so perhaps Malbec's typical black earth aromas are also a contributing factor. In any event, the wine’s not altogether charming at first. But on the palate, it’s immediately more pleasing, delivering a subtler version of the “earthy” aspects found on the nose along with bright if somewhat simple red fruits, mostly in the cherry/raspberry end of the spectrum. On day two, it actually blossomed into something much more attractive, with delicacy and fine texture coming to the fore, along with a greater purity and clearer expression of medium cherry fruit and spry acidity. Not a bad choice for simple poultry, and I expect a quite good one for baked salmon.

Tesssier is apparently a somewhat common surname in Cheverny. (I wrote up a Cour Cheverny from another Tessier, Christian, a while back.) Philippe Tessier’s estate comprises 20 hectares of vineyards on an ancient maritime influenced silico-argilo-calcaire soil base in the heart of Cheverny. Philippe farms organically, ferments his wines on their native yeasts and uses only a small dash of sulfur on the bottling line.

Tomorrow, we’ll check in with another ‘07 Loire red, from one of the top producers in Chinon.

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More Good Stuff: Able Grape, Burgundy Report and The Wine Digger

When sitting down to write yesterday’s post, I had every intention of putting in a handful of quick plugs for some notable things that have been happening around the vinternet of late. That segment on ChampagneGuide.net quickly took on a life of its own though, so here’s some more of what I had in mind.

Being someone who is quite detail oriented (as a reader recently noted), I tend to do a decent amount of research when putting my wine related pieces together. As much as I rely upon Google for day-to-day web searches, I often find it lacking when it comes to filtering wine data. It’s taken me a while to change my ways but I’ve finally gotten into the habit of using Able Grape instead. Able Grape’s creator, Doug Cook, has put together a database built around search algorithms that are specific to wine information. It’s simple to use, especially if you install the AG plug-in that allows you to search directly from your browser’s toolbar). And it works – really well. Check it out.

As for new developments in the wine blogosphere….

Bill Nanson has recently posted the Spring 2009 edition of Burgundy Report, which features, among many other notable things, a profile of Domaine Georges Roumier and a vertical tasting comparing the wines of Clos des Lambrays and Clos de Tart. His constantly growing – and absolutely free – site is a fine resource focusing primarily on the red wines of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or.

Thanks go out to Cory Cartwright at Saignée for turning me on to the youngest entry on today’s roster. The Wine Digger was launched a mere week ago by Guilhaume Gerard, one of the co-owners of San Francisco wine bar/merchant, Terroir. It’s as yet a bit unclear where Guilhaume’s headed with it – shop blog, personal travelogue, tasting note emporium – but no matter; if he keeps up at the pace and spirit with which he’s started there’s bound to be plenty more good stuff to come. His post on Paris wine bar/café Le Verre Volée should give you a good feel for things.

I’m tempted to keep going but I think that’ll do for today. Wouldn’t want to spread too much love at once now, would I?

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ChampagneGuide.net

Peter Liem, a Senior Correspondent for Wine & Spirits Magazine who lives in the Champagne region of France, has been writing one of my favorite blogs, Besotted Ramblings and Other Drivel, for about 1½ years now. While like most bloggers he’s always felt free to write about wherever his travels or thoughts take him, his blog has nonetheless focused primarily on Champagne. I’ve found it to be a fantastic resource, as he has an insider’s knowledge of the region yet analyzes it with the freedom of an outsider, writing some of the finest tasting notes and most well informed producer profiles I’ve ever come across.


All along, Peter’s hinted at working on “bigger things” and he’s now brought the fruit of that labor to light with the launch of ChampagneGuide.net. In Peter’s own words:

"The site features profiles of over 100 champagne producers, along with tasting notes for nearly 600 champagnes currently on the market. While the Champagne region boasts over 5,000 registered brands, I have made a selection of those houses and estates that I feel to be the most significant and the most interesting in terms of quality. In addition, I wish to highlight the vast diversity of champagne, and in these pages you will find comments on large négociant houses, tiny grower estates and everything else in between—Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot are represented, but at the other end of the spectrum, so are Cédric Bouchard, Jérôme Prévost and Marie-Noëlle Ledru, and many others besides.

In general, the site is arranged by producer—unlike most wine guides, which focus heavily on tasting notes and point scores, offering abbreviated information (and oftentimes none at all) on the producers themselves, my champagne guide focuses on profiling these houses and estates in detail, in the belief that the more informed you are about where the wine comes from and how it is grown and made, the better you will understand and appreciate what it is you are drinking."

An annual subscription to ChampagneGuide.net will set you back US$89. If it’s anywhere near as well done as his blog – and I somehow don’t think that’s a worry – it will be an investment well made for any connoisseur, established or aspiring, of Champagne.

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Institute Benjamenta

Tomorrow is the final day of this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival (now also known as Cinefest). I’ve been attending the festival annually for just about as long as I’ve lived in the Philly area, sometimes managing to squeeze in a dozen or more films in a little over a week. This year, I managed only two. The only one that really made an impact, was the 1995 film, Institute Benjamenta, the first live action film of renowned stop-motion animators, The Quay Brothers. At once incredibly artful and painfully artsy, it’s one of those films I feel I was supposed to like (or at least respect). Yet I had a hard time doing so in the moment, struggling to get through it on a late night after a long day of work. Nonetheless, images from the film and its overall feel have now been stuck in my head for days – something provocative filmmaking should achieve, I suppose. Here’s a clip of one of the film’s more frenetic scenes. It shouldn’t take long to get a feel for whether or not it’s for you.

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Johann Peter Reinert, Patrice Rion and René Renou – Notes from a Sunday

Today’s notes all go back to the same Sunday session from which yesterday’s write-up of Jacky Truchot originated. Though I initially intended to cover all four wines at once, the Truchot piece – once I got rolling with it – quickly took on a life of its own. I wouldn’t want the other three wines to feel neglected (though one of them would have been better left alone), so here we go….

Saar Wiltinger Schlangenbraben Riesling Spätlese, Johann Peter Reinert 1993
$18 on release. 8.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Petit Pois, Moorestown, NJ.
Much more developed than when last tasted about two years ago. Fully mature but not showing the petrol aromas so common to old Saar wines; instead, its bouquet is loaded with scents of orange oil and white flowers, along with a suggestion of partially botrytis-affected fruit that I hadn’t picked up in the past. Its texture was very soft and comforting, though it was certainly not without grip. The wine’s mineral and fruit-driven flavors have completely integrated, rendering a slightly saline, savory core. Preserved lemons, wintergreen, sweet dill and nougat all emerged as the wine developed in the glass, with a slow move toward room temperature revealing the wine’s acidity and mineral depth even more clearly than when cool. Quite delicious (that should be clear, I hope), though I believe it has reached its full potential.


Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru “Clos des Argillières,” Domaine Michèle & Patrice Rion 2001
$52 on release. 13% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Petit Pois, Moorestown, NJ.
While I ended up comparing the wines of Jacky Truchot with those of David Duband in yesterday’s post, this is the wine we actually tasted alongside Truchot’s Chambolle. Totally different terroir and very different winemaking approach, but it’s still educational to taste comparatively like this. Though three years older, Patrice Rion’s wine is younger in its developmental curve and is still in a fairly reductive state. Quite tight when first uncorked, it then opened up relatively quickly, revealing aromas of tobacco and concentrated black fruit, along with plenty of firm, spicy plum and blackberry fruit on the palate. A half-hour later, though, it shut right back down. “Les Argillières” is considered by many to be one of the top, if not the top, crus in the commune of Prémeaux, located at the southern end of Nuits-Saint-Georges. (The ½ acre “Les Argillières” and 10.4 acre “Clos des Argillières” are two climats within the same Premier Cru.) Patrice’s wine is showing more force than finesse at the moment but it does suggest the potential for better things to come with age.


Bonnezeaux “Tri de Vendanges,” René Renou 1999
$13 on closeout. 13% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Robert Kacher, Washington, DC.
The color was fine – lighter than expected if anything – but that’s about the only positive thing I can say for this. Flabby and smelling of paint, rotten corn and, vaguely, vomit. I didn't expect much given the closeout price... but what the hell happened here?

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Jacky Truchot and the Human Element

I’ve been on a wee Truchot-Martin kick of late, most of it courtesy of my friend Bill who has to be one of the biggest fans of Jacky Truchot’s wines on the planet. A couple bottles of 2004 Bourgogne, a 2003 Morey-Saint Denis 1er Cru “Clos Sorbés” Vieilles Vignes and the Chambolle below have all gone down the hatch in the last month. Infanticide, you say. Perhaps, I say (although I think the ’04 Bourgognes are better drunk now than later). The problem is trying to save them; the wines are just too plain delicious not to drink.

Run afoul of water damage…. Somehow, the sepia toned stain doesn’t seem out of place with the old school elegance of Truchot’s label. Kind of reminds me of a hidden treasure map.

Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru “Les Sentiers,” Domaine Truchot-Martin (Jacky Truchot) 2004
Price unknown. 12.5% alcohol. Cork. Importer: Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA.
The cloudy, punch-like color of Truchot’s wine makes it look almost like a barrel sample, even though it’s been in bottle for several years now. Aromas of raspberry cream and white pepper lead to a mouthful of soft, sweet, cherry-vanilla fruit. Sounds like a rather modern profile, but this couldn’t be much less modern in style. There’s a tang of sourness wrapped around the whole package, from aroma to finish, and an underlying sense of pure, wild character. This is classic Truchot – light and racy, completely open, expansive and deep.

“Les Sentiers” 2004. Unfined, unfiltered and unclear.

Who makes wine like this anymore? Not David Duband. When I tasted through Duband’s lineup a few weeks ago, I didn’t even put it together that he’d purchased some if not all of Truchot’s land following Jacky’s retirement after the 2005 vintage. Neither produce(d) wines that bear any signs of heavy manipulation, yet Duband’s wines – masculine, dark and perhaps more technically correct – could hardly be more dissimilar from Truchot’s, which are limpid, delicate and sometimes variable from bottle to bottle. Lest you think I didn’t like Duband’s wines, I assure you that’s not the case (although Ms. Feiring didn’t think too highly of them a couple of years back).

The terroir seems to speak clearly in both cases, yet the human element – each man’s voice as it speaks through his wines – renders their end products strikingly different.

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