Alice Feiring, my cousin the wine critic.
Of the finer things in life, wine is the subject of which I am least qualified to write.
However, my cousin Alice Feiring has authored Naked Wine, a fascinating book. And because Alice and I practically grew up together in Brooklyn, and because Alice writes a beautiful prose, and because Alice defended my film A Stranger Among Us with an eloquent letter to the nasty if not anti-Semitic attack published by the Village Voice, and because I love and adore Alice I’m going to take a chance and examine my cousin’s book and the narrow, insular world of wine and the rather obsessive-compulsive characters who populate this fascinating subculture.
Confession: I do not drink wine. I do not drink beer. I do not drink. Full stop. Period. Vicious migraines, which come upon me like a locomotive and imprison me in a dark room for hours if not days, are triggered by, among other things, liquor. So, yours truly is permanently sober and cannot comment on Alice’s taste in wine or her theories—when Alice gets into the chemistry of wine she sounds like Madame Curie—of how wine should be produced in order to achieve the taste she demands.
Briefly, Alice believes in honest, naked wine. Wine that is natural, free of chemicals and additives. Though a touch of sulfur is apparently okay.
One of my earliest memories of Alice is at the dinner table. Back in the 50′s, we lived in a pre-war apartment building, 760 East 10th Street, in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Those were the days when Brooklyn was the whole world. I was surrounded by grandparents, uncles, aunts, and a constellation of cousins. We darted into each other’s apartments like hummingbirds and shared meals together several times a week. But while the rest of us kids shoveled food into our greedy mouths, Alice sniffed her food. She studied the morsels, turned them over, and sniffed again. This drove her parents, my Uncle Phil and Aunt Ethel, up a wall.
“Alice, what are you smelling for?” they demanded.
And Alice, tiny, with an explosion of Titian hair, shrugged… and kept on sniffing.
From the very beginning, Alice’s refined sense of taste and smell were calibrated as exquisitely as a sniper rifle. As a wine critic, Alice found a calling; her super human senses as work.
Naked Wine is blessedly not a check list of wines with four or no-star ratings. Alice spins a tale of adventure. She’s a woman in search of the perfect wine and her book is an almost mythic quest in which she seeks the past and present of the natural wine movement.
The book is a classic road trip. My cousin crosses paths with an assortment of colorful, oddball characters who feel like they have stepped out of 1930′s screwball comedy. These natural wine purists are deadly serious about their mission—curses upon the antagonist, influential wine critic Robert Parker—yet in their earnestness, their single-minded fanatic devotion to a platonic ideal of wine, these quasi hippie capitalists are, well, just plain adorable.
Most fascinating to yours truly is Benyamin Cantz, covered in the last chapter of Naked Wine. Benyamin lives on a hilltop in Santa Cruz. He is founder and lone employee of the kosher Four Gates Winery.
A former peacenik-hippie from the San Fernando Valley, Benyamin, now an orthodox Jew, in order to have kosher sacramental wine for the Sabbath and holidays, decided, with no previous experience or interest in wine, to become his own vintner. After much trial and error, and all done according to Jewish laws, Benyamin, says Alice, produces a very fine wine.
In Naked Wine, Alice refers to herself as a lapsed orthodox Jew, and that identity, that consciousness, keeps reasserting itself in ways that form a subtext of which my cousin is surely aware.
Orthodox Jews are only allowed to drink kosher wine, and my cousin’s career depends upon drinking yayin nesech, non-kosher wines. For Alice, it’s a tension that hints at a wider conflict that simmers beneath the surface of every line of prose and every sip of wine. And the wider conflict is this: though Alice writes passionately about wine, about her search for honest and true wine, she’s really writing about her search for G-d, spirituality and a community in which she fits and draws sustenance.
Thus, Naked Wine is just as much about Alice’s soul and her search for meaning as it is about mere taste and sensation.
So enchanting is Alice’s book that I called up Benyamin Cantz of Four Gates Winery—a delightful man, we shmoozed for half an hour—and ordered a case of wine to be sent to my sons-in-law, both of whom are wine connoisseurs.
On the holiday of Succot, my sons-in-law sniffed, chanted the blessing—
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolam,
Borei p’ri hagafen.Praise to You, Eternal our God, Sovereign of the Universe,
Creator of the fruit of the vine.
—tasted, and pronounced Four Gates wine delicious.
Also delicious is my cousin’s book. Taste Naked Wine, savor it’s lovely prose and experience a grand adventure. Share in my cousin’s joy when she produces her own wine. Here’s Alice’s description of her first taste shared with Pascaline, a close friend. Yup, Alice actually knows people with exotic names like Pascaline.
The color was dark, dark blue-garnet. As if on cue, we simultaneously plunged our noses into the Riedel glass works. I swirled and smelled, and smelled again as if I couldn’t believe it. Actually, I couldn’t believe it. The Sagrantino was pretty. It made me laugh; it made me smile. “It’s gorgeous,” Pascaline gushed. “I’m very proud of you. I’d never have the nerve to do this.”
Water addition be damned. I almost started to cry, and there was no Tom Waits playing.
I asked Alice to recommend a few kosher wines and here, exclusive to Seraphic Secret, is my cousin’s top picks:
1) Four Gates Winery, Santa Cruz, California. Anything you can get is great. But you need to buy direct from his winery. My favorites are: Cabernet Franc and even his Merlot, true mountain and fierce fruit. Under $40. Very land driven wines, honest and serious stuff.
2) Golan Sion Creek Red, Israel, a blend of grapes, inexpensive and does the trick, under $13.
3) Segal’s Chardonnay Special Reserve, Israel under $15. I had really low expectations and it was surprisingly not bad. I know, faint praise. Not as complex as Four Gates but it’s a decent beverage, not a serious wine.
4) Lambouri Ya’in Kafrisin, Cyprus, under $20 Cabernet and Grenache Noir.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
31 Comments
Alas, Alice & Robert, I am not a wine drinker, nor a beer drinker (although I *did* consume copious amounts in college). I rarely drink anymore, but when I do, I prefer Rhum Agricole or Rum. Commercial rum is made from molasses — a byproduct of sugar production. Rhum Agricole is made from freshly pressed sugar cane and treated (in many ways) as if were a fruit for wine production.
Any interested parties can < href=”http://www.barnonedrinks.com/tips/dictionary/r/rhum-clement-homere-rum-9253.html”>read more here</a>.
I should warn you that something like “Rhum Clement Cuvee Homere” will run anywhere from $50-100 in the US and $100-150 abroad. For more reasonable sipping rums, I’d recommend anything from Appelton Estate’s line of sipping rums, or for dark rums, I’d also recommend Goslings Black Seal Old Rum.
I enjoy my grapes, just not fermented
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Alice, have you ever had Segal’s Unfiltered Cabernet? I went to a kiddush this Shabbos and it was served. (It’s a 70-ish dollar bottle, so I only drink it at other people’s expense.) My host, who’s very into wine, was talking about how “big” it is. I liked it, but I thought it was soft myself.
The Sion Creek was actually pretty good. Of course, I was already primed from the kiddush, and I find with wine that the more you drink, the better it tastes.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
I have only had the entry level wines. I did a fundraising wine tasting and reading for the Hillel School in Detroit 1.5 years ago and was dismayed (furious) that we couldn’t use NM wines even if we had frum people pour the wines, because what if, for example, I forgot and poured someone a wine. I’ll spare you my rant. Never the less I had to pour something and availability was limited in Michigan so I resorted to the under $10 Cabernet and Chard from Segals and was pleasantly surprised that they weren’t that awful and certainly I’ve had worse. I wish Israel would return to what was probably traditionally grown there, carignan for sure.
The Sion Creek is a pretty honest wine. A friend of mine says, with a conventional wine the first sip is the best, with a natural wine, it’s the last.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
I can certainly understand your frustration. There was a permissible way to do it; they should have gone that route.
About two years ago, my wife and I were in Israel, and my cousin took us to the small Tzora winery in a kibbutz near Beit Shemes, which has gone kosher. The woman who took us around was not observant, but they had procedures in place, and it was no problem. These things can be managed with a bit of effort.
I was pretty new at that point to serious wine, so this was an experience for me. I took home two bottles, which I enjoyed, but I’m sure I’d appreciate them more today.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
The Rabbi of the school told me to he didn’t believe in the meshuval process so I had the green light. When I showed up the mashgiach was having a melt down and he and I had a shouting match. It was not pretty.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
I love this bit of your blog post:
One of my earliest memories of Alice is at the dinner table. Back in the 50′s, we lived in a pre-war apartment building, 760 East 10th Street, in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Those were the days when Brooklyn was the whole world. I was surrounded by grandparents, uncles, aunts, and a constellation of cousins. We darted into each other’s apartments like hummingbirds and shared meals together several times a week. But while the rest of us kids shoveled food into our greedy mouths, Alice sniffed her food. She studied the morsels, turned them over, and sniffed again. This drove her parents, my Uncle Phil and Aunt Ethel, up a wall.
“Alice, what are you smelling for?” they demanded.
And Alice, tiny, with an explosion of Titian hair, shrugged… and kept on sniffing.
Robert, your description of the flitting hummingbirds is perfect, and I so can visualize the family scenes.
As for Alice sniffing her food… Let’s just say “THE NOSE KNOWS…” And her nose has not been leading her astray all these years.
L’chaim, Alice!
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
My siblings and I were famous food-sniffers and sometimes still are. It drove my father insane.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Pearl:
Thanks so much for the kind words. That you are a professional literary editor with exacting tastes makes the complement even more meaningful.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
I was in the wine store this morning, and, inspired by this column, picked up a few bottles of Golan Sion Red. $4.99 a bottle; a great buy. I’ll give it another try over Shabbos.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Kishke:
Enjoy! And give Benyamin a call at Four Gates and order a few bottle. I’m curious if you agree with my cousin.
Also, make sure to let Benyamin know that you found out about his wine via Seraphic Secret via Alice Feiring.
Have a lovely Shabbos.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Delicious! Both the new blog for me to follow, and the irony that teetotaller Robert’s cousin is a wine writer. Hard to add more irony to that, perhaps if pianist Klara Wurtz were yet another cousin…
I am looking forward to the books–they’ll be a welcome Western diversion from my Pashto studies. Have to hide them from my fellow paratroopers, though, could hurt the ol’ Hilts mystique…
Thank you so much for sharing your cousin on Seraphic Secret, Robert. What an amazing family. I will enjoy some of her articles, glass in hand, this weekend. And they’ll be all the wine I will get to enjoy for most of 2012.
Best,
Virgil
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
Thank you, Virgil. Pashto and Pinot. A great combination.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Virgil:
Thanks so much. It’s true we do have a pretty amazing family. We are all very proud of Alice.
Enjoy your Pinot.
But remember not to pack it in your drag bag on your next assignment to some camel kingdom. The natives might go postal:-)
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
Wow! Alice Feiring is your cousin?
I don’t know much about wine, but I’ve read about her on food blogs, and think she’s cool, with a great personal style. She could be the worthy subject of a whole Fashion Friday post!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Franny, Robert is indeed my cousin! I’m not sure I could support the whole FF, but thanks for the comment.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Franny:
That Alice and I are first cousins is my claim to fame. Alice’s mother, Ethel, is my father’s younger sister.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Alice, I wish I could introduce you to my friend in Beit Shemesh, who grows his own grapes and makes his own wine. He’s been a vintner for years and once I even had the privilege of helping him (just a tiny little bit) with the bottling process.
Every Friday, on my neighborhood’s main street, the grocery store there, or the wine shop a few blocks away, has a tasting booth. Often they have wine, sometimes they have locally-brewed boutique beer, and once they had hard liquor, which I avoided. If I’m around there on a Friday, it’s my weekend treat — well, except for the hard liquor. I’m not much of a drinker, but if I drink, it’s going to be a little bit of beer or wine. I never did develop a taste for the strong stuff.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Rahel, Sounds fantastic. I wish I could meet him too.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Alice – you would have fun visiting my area – the California Gold Country.
For the last 15-20 years the entire region – from the Sacramento Delta – to the Sierra foothills – have had a huge influx of wineries .
If you drive down the Delta levee road where you used to see miles of pear trees along the Sacramento River now are vineyards.
One of the Delta wineries – Bogle – a nice brand (at least regionally) - has a large business supplying (shushhh!) the Napa wineries with grapes (I was told the true connoisseur refers to them as “berries” but I am the provincial hick)
Our car club has had many a fine outing simply going up the roads (particularily Shenandoah Rd in the foothills) stopping at these various wineries – must be half a dozen on this road alone.
UC Davis nearby has a school for vineyard managers and I was shocked when 20 years ago – travelling though Australia – the Melbourne area has had a lot of vineyard growth – but the manager there came from UC Davis.
Small world.
Anyway to my wine snobbery remark – a late friend of my parents was a connoisseur and said something I never forgot – saying Gallo – while looked down by many – for the money has some very good wines.
I doubt that in Brooklyn you have Trader Joes – a small boutique supermarket started in the Bay Area – now owned by a German Company – but they have some wines by Charles Shaw they call – hold on to your hat – “2 Buck Chuck” – and for the money I think they are very good.
Can’t say that about most $2 wines - particularly the Thunderbird “Pagan Pink”.
I must say that I like your cousin’s blog for its variety – perhaps he can persuade to have an occasional wine column!
And why the Village Voice disliked A Stranger Among Us is beyond me – I think it was one of Melanie Griffith’s best performances – but from what I have read of of the VV in the past they are best ignored.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Hello Bill. I believe in the Sierra Foothills, and in fact, talked about two winemakers up there in the book. There’s really stuff up there in those crushed granitic soils.–Alice
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
I’m not a wine connoisseur by any means. I drink wine two or three times a year and as long as it is above the Thunderbird or Boone’s Farm level I’m fine with it. I am whatever the opposite of a wine snob is.
But Alice’s book sounds interesting enough to sniff out and see if it fits my tastes. If it seems too dry I can always put a cork in it and stay in port. It is likely to get better with age and avoid turning into a fiasco.
I could go on but I’ll just say I look forward to reading the book.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Bill:
Alice has written two wine books and they are both wonderful.
Here’s the link at amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Feiring/e/B001JRTER8/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Alice is no snob, believe me. But she has fierce tastes in wine—and footwear.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Thanks Johnny.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Personally, I have a rough time with Bordeaux. Not my favorite wines, kosher or otherwise. Remember, in my search for wines, I am looking for wines that are not only ‘good’ but have nothing added or taken away, no yeast, enzyme, bacteria, tannin, acid or excessive sulfur. Also no reverse osmosis and micro oxygenation. Besides that, kosher bordeaux can be extremely expensive. I mostly drink wines that are under $20 and are very natural and expressive. I am hoping one day this category of wine is available to orthodox jews, right now, the availability is extremely limited as most kosher wines are market driven as opposed to nature driven. So, yes, if there are kosher wines you can love and afford, that’s great. But my lament is that ‘natural’ and kosher when it comes to wine, aren’t linked.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Hello Alice,
But my lament is that ‘natural’ and kosher when it comes to wine, aren’t linked.
but ‘Natural and Kosher’ are linked when it comes to Cheese, and in fact, that’s the name of the company, Natural and Kosher.
btw, I heard, (don’t know if it’s accurate, but it seems like you’d be a great person to ask), that ‘wine and cheese’ tasting is not a good way to evaluate a wine, as the cheese can dull the taste and make a wine appear ‘better’, whereas a ‘wine and fruit’ tasting makes the taste ‘more critical’.
I love the cheese more than the fruit anyway, but was just curious if this was accurate.
Thanks.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Yes, Natural and Kosher are linked to foods for sure. As they say, you should buy wine with apples but sell it with cheese. Some cheese and wine pairings are fantastic, bringing out complexity in the wine and elevating the fromage.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Hello Kishke, You’ve hit on it exactly. I really love Benyamin’s wines as they seem as close to the ‘truth’ as natural wines I’ve had in the secular world. Most of the expensive wines are so manipulated and fruit forward and oaky, I just can’t bear them. The simpler wines have less makeup applied. So while they are not profound, for me they are more drinkable.
As far as mevushal, you’re correct. It’s a terrible thing to do to a wine. And unfortunately, as that’s where the money is, there is more and more mevushal wines all the time. One of my older favorite wines, Alsatians from Abarbanel, have gone mevushal, and as a result, I’ve stopped buying them. Thanks for your comment, Alice
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Hi Alice, thanks for your reply. What’s interesting is that from a halachic standpoint, non-mevushal is superior to mevushal, b/c it’s preferable to make kiddush on wine that could conceivably be offered on the Temple Altar would it exist – i.e. wine that is unheated and without additives. But of course mevushal is much easier to deal with for someone who wants to keep kosher in an integrated world. But there still are lots of non-mevushal wines out there. For example, I loved the Galil Mountain Cabernet, which was on sale for about 12 dollars. It has a dry, stony taste. I also like the Hai Merlot, and on Yom Tov we drank a Dalton wild-yeast Voignier, which was bright and light and very refreshing. All non-mevushal.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Yes That is interesting. No? The fact is there are few people behind winemaking and more business. People like Benyamin aren’t looking at the bottom line, they are living their life through wine and I’d rather support them, especially when they do such a beautiful job. As far as those others, if you like them that’s all that matters. Taste is very subjective. And there are plenty more additives than yeast. Though I was pleased to see Dalton experimenting. A friend of mine brought me two wines from Israel to taste he thought might be close to what I’m looking for. I haven’t tried them yet. One is Nave from the Bashan Winery. The other is Sea Horse. I’ll let you know when I taste them up.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
I’m surprised at the top picks. I’m not a connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy a decent wine. The Golan Sion Red, which I’ve had often, is okay, but really nothing special. Is it that many kosher wines are not “naked?” Or does Alice not have a lot of exposure to kosher wines? Or perhaps she was looking for cheaper wines. I’m curious. I’ve had some really delicious kosher wine, but it can be a bit pricey. But even in the 18-25 dollar range, there’s lots of very good wine. I’m also curious as to Alice’s opinion regarding “mevushal” (heated) wine. I would imagine she does not care for it.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
Also surprised at some of the omissions:
There are some excellent Kosher French wines (pricey), but according to my (not-yet Orthodox) cousin who drinks all wines, and vacations in France and Spain yearly,
the Kosher French Baron Herzog Bordeaux (non-mevushal) is excellent, and indistinguishable from any other French excellent Bordeaux.
btw, Robert,
it’s not yayin nesach, it’s only stam-yaynom, so Alice she can feel much less guilty …
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
2 Trackbacks
[...] (Here’s my completely unbiased review of Naked Wine) [...]
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
[...] Here’s my completely unbiased review of Naked Wine [...]
Like or Dislike:
0 
0