Autumn in the Berkshires – October 24, 2011

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog.  This is our second post about our brief visit to the Berkshire Mountains to behold the beauty of the landscape during autumn, the friendly people, fine local cuisine, and wine, of course.

Our base of operations is the Chambery Inn in the small town of Lee, Mass.  I mentioned in the previous blog entry that the Chambery Inn is a former school, moved to its present location and re-opened as a lovely bed and breakfast.

Here is today’s breakfast, delivered in a basket to our room, arranged before the fireplace, with a pot of fresh Green Mountain coffee and today’s newspaper.  Not bad!  We both had warm oatmeal and fresh fruit.   Mary had a freshly baked scone.

While I read the news, Mary went for a stroll around town.  Take a look at these beautiful images.  She’s really quite a fine photographer.  The foliage varies from trees that haven’t yet turned, through trees of various vivid colors, all the way to some that are completely bare.  The air was chilly, in the low 40s.  The grass is still a deep green.  Interestingly, as I write this blog post, the area has been hit by an early snowfall!

Lunch was at the Starving Artist Café in Lee, a delightfully hippiefied lunch spot attached to an art gallery.  I must say those artists are going to starve, though, if they expect people to pay the prices they are asking for those paintings!  The food was not so expensive, fortunately, and it was delicious and healthful.  The house specialty was crepes.  Mary had a crepe with fresh sliced pears and goat cheese called “pearfection.” 

I had a salad of mesclun, fresh apples, feta cheese, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette.  They were both delicious!

We spent the afternoon in Stockbridge, a picture postcard of a small New England town.  Stockbridge was the home of Norman Rockwell from 1953 until his death.  We visited the Normal Rockwell museum and his studio, which is a converted carriage barn that was in his back yard. 

Perhaps you recognize this famous image from his work, which he called simply "Stockbridge at Christmas."

Mary took photos of some of the buildings that appear in the painting, which look largely the same today as when he finished the painting in 1963.

Cameras were not allowed in the galleries at the museum, but it is an American treasure…all those original Rockwell paintings, sketches, possessions, photos, Saturday Evening Post covers, Boys’ Life…wonderful and moving.

Dinner that evening was at Alta Restaurant and Wine Bar, definitely the nicest dining experience of our trip.  The owner, Aurelien Telle, a Frenchman from Évian, and his attentive staff provide a refined, relaxing experience with creative expressions of local and classic dishes.  The restaurant is small, intimate, with large windows onto Church Street in Lenox.  The wine list is compact, but offers an excellent balance of domestic and Old World wines to suit diverse tastes.  Importantly to me, the wines are properly stored, the service is elegant, and Aurelien is readily available to discuss pairings and choices.

Mary and I shared a first course of quinoa salad, a cool grain dish not unlike couscous, accented with golden raisins, garbanzos, carrots, hazelnuts, feta cheese, and served over fresh arugula.  The integration of various textures, sweetness of the raisins, and tanginess of the cheese was delicious.  Mary enjoyed fresh bread and butter.

Mary’s main course was pan-seared duck breast with a salty caramel sauce (who knew?), mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables.  The cut of the breast was different than what we usually see, but Mary said it was more tender than the duck breast we prepare at home by scoring the skin to render the fat, crisping the skin side, then searing the flesh side.  The flavor of the Alta version was the typical savory, earthy quality of excellent duck breast, but the tenderness was more like a good roast beef.  Mary said the caramel sauce was not sugary sweet, like the caramel topping on an ice cream dessert.  She said it was more like a sauce or gravy and provided an interesting twist to the duck and side dishes.

My main course was pan-seared salmon.  I was curious to see how this would turn out and whether a substantial cut of salmon could be properly cooked through by searing without overcooking the outside.  Somehow, the chef produced a fish that was perfectly cooked, flaky, still moist throughout.  The salmon was accompanied by mashed potatoes, sautéed spinach, topped with goat cheese crumbles and slices of fresh local apples.  Red pepper coulis completed the plate.  It was a delicious, memorable main course.

Monsieur Telle indulged me by allowing me to practice my limited French language skill.  “Avez-vous une assiette de fromage?”  To my delight, it was close enough to correct that he didn’t laugh and, in fact, he prepared a wonderful cheese plate of local cheeses called Maggie’s Round, Tabasi, and Berkshire Blue.  Aurelien knows the cheese makers personally, visits their farms, and selects the cheeses to serve at Alta.  The cheese course includes a jam of fig and berries, sliced apples, nuts and raisins drizzled with honey, and crostini crisps.  We haven’t seen such a nice cheese course since we left France.

Now, to the wine.  We needed a wine that had the structure to stand up to a hearty dish like duck breast, but the balance and elegance to match the salmon without overwhelming it.  Readers of the blog know that Mary and I are unabashed Francophiles, so I went straight to Burgundy and Pinot Noir.  Like most restaurant wine lists, the choices were almost all recent vintages, so I knew the wine would be young.  My approach is to use a trusted producer whenever I can.  Domaine Faiveley is exactly such a producer and I was delighted to see it on Aurelien’s list, another indication that he really understands how food, wine, and the dining experience work together.  Mercurey is a village in the Côte Chalonnaise, just south of the more famous, and expensive, Côte d’Or.  Wines of Mercurey are often just as delicious, elegant, and structured as more expensive wines.  I was optimistic about the choice and when Aurelien came to our table to personally perform the wine service, he complimented us on the choice.  Here are my notes on the wine.

Domaine Faiveley Mercurey 2008.  It is a very young wine, but has delicious aromas and flavors.  A pretty medium ruby out of the bottle, the nose reveals bright red cherry, earth, and fresh mineral notes.  The palate is smooth, medium-bodied, with bright acidity, providing an edgy quality at this early juncture.  Flavors were similar to aromas, bright red fruit, plus a nice spiciness throughout.  Beautifully balanced, moderately complex, medium length, I expect this wine will improve much more with time.  Very nice.  The pairings with the duck and the salmon were both excellent.  13.0% alcohol.  The restaurant price was $46.

Our evening at Alta was delightful.  The ambience, the service, the innovativeness, attention to detail, an excellent wine list, a dessert course of local cheeses add up to a memorable experience.  If you travel to the region, we recommend you visit Aurelien Telle at Alta in Lenox, Mass.

That’s our post for today.  We hope you enjoyed coming along with us on our trip to the Berkshires.  Check back at Cépage et Cuisine for more wine, food, and cultural experiences.  Don’t forget, you can follow our nightly tweets on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cepageetcuisine.  Until next time …

Cheers,

Mary♥Brian

Autumn in the Berkshires – October 23, 2011

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog.  Mary and I are taking a short trip to New England to soak up the color, literally, and enjoy the culture, food, and wine.  We’re ensconced in the western Massachusetts village of Lee.  The foliage is spectacular, although a bit past peak, and the locals tell us the colors are not as vivid as usual.  As Mary says, we don’t know what we’re missing because we haven’t been here before and the countryside seems impossibly beautiful to us.  Just take a look at the intensity of the color of this tree.

The Housatonic River flows through this area and powered many textile mills long ago.  Here are a couple of photos of the river and the old mill at Lee.

I went for a jog and discovered Laurel Lake just north of town.  You can see some trees along the shore are already bare, but the scenery remains beautiful.

We set out on an afternoon drive to see what there is to see.  Here are some images from Lenox, just a few minutes to the north.

This large shrub or small tree is common here, its leaves fiery red in autumn.  Can anybody tell us what it is?  Please comment!  We’re very curious.

After stopping for lunch in Pittsfield at the Nook & Cranny, a tiny little corner place open only for breakfast and lunch, we crossed into Vermont, only a 45 minute drive from Lee.  This beautiful hilltop is just across the state line.

A pumpkin patch with hundreds of pumpkins, various squash varieties, and local syrup and fruit was a nice roadside stop.

Red Radio Flyers were for children to use to pick their pumpkins for Halloween and pull them back to the barn for purchase. 

This interesting dried corn is called strawberry corn.

Dalton, Mass, is another old mill town on the Housatonic.  Here you can see the old mill, the dam on the river creating a mill pond and falls.

Back in Lee at the end of the day, this is the Lee Congregational Church.  It could use a paint job, but it is a beautiful, imposing structure.  The cornerstone gives us a glimpse of its history.

Our short-term home away from home is the Chambery Inn, an old schoolhouse built in 1885 and known as St. Mary’s School, saved from the wrecking ball and relocated to its present location in 1989.  It is now a bed and breakfast inn, owned by Robert and Olga Healey.  We have met Olga and some of her staff, all delightful people. 

Some of the guestrooms still have the original chalkboards and fixtures from the school.  The photos below also show a diploma from 1919 and one of the original school desks.

Breakfast to order arrives at our door at our requested time each morning, including a generous thermos of Green Mountain coffee and the local newspaper.

Mary sets it up on a small table in front of the gas logs fireplace.  We relax in the privacy of our room, sip coffee, read the local news…wonderful!

Dinner Sunday evening was at Bistro Zinc in nearby Lenox.  It is a lovely setting in a beautiful New England town.  It has many typical French bistro menu items … coq au vin, steak frites, pork roulade, and grilled loin of rabbit.  Mary had cassoulet and I had boeuf bourguignon.

 

The appetizer course for Mary was a salad of arugula, beets, and goat cheese.  The goat cheese had an interesting golden crust of Panko bread crumbs, which we’ve never seen.  The salad dressing was an orange, fig, and fennel vinaigrette.  Here’s Mary to describe the salad.

I loved loved loved this salad! I had never seen nor tasted goat cheese prepared this way. I thought it was a crabcake at first. The crust was crispy yet the creaminess of the cheese just melted in my mouth. The beets contributed a sweetness to the salad which balanced perfectly with the tanginess of the goat cheese and dressing.

My first course was a soup of pureed potato and leek in a cream base.  It was warm, rich, creamy and delicious.

Mary’s main course was cassoulet with duck confit, pork belly, and pork sausage with Peruvian lima beans.  The dish arrived with the duck confit still on the bone and a sprinkling of bread crumbs.  Here’s Mary again.  The cassoulet was excellent!  The duck was tender, pulled right off the bone, and had that slightly salty, rich flavor of long cooking with herbs and spices.  The pork belly and sausage were also delicious, but there was just too much meat in there for one person to finish, try as I might!  The beans were fine, but to be honest, I prefer regular white northerns for cassoulet.  Cassoulet is the perfect dish for a chilly autumn night in the Berkshires and I enjoyed it very much.

Brian here again.  The boeuf bourguignon was fork tender, comprised of braised short ribs with roasted carrots, onions, and mushrooms, served alongside goat cheese mashed potatoes.  I guess I’m spoiled to Mary’s boeuf bourguignon.  We’ve had the dish several times in French restaurants here and in France, and Mary’s is better or at least as good as any I’ve experienced.  Guests in our home who are experienced in French cuisine have said the same.  The Bistro Zinc expression was good, but on the whole, unremarkable.

The wine list was a disappointment, much less than what was indicated on the website.  It was almost all domestic, no Burgundy, no Rhones, only a few Bordeaux.  With all due respect to the great wines of California, Oregon, and Washington, which might pair just fine with the food, a restaurant that claims to offer Bistro fare should offer French wines.  Cassoulet cries out for wines of the Languedoc or southwest France.  Those experienced with boeuf bourguignon would say a good red Burgundy, Rhone, or Bordeaux would be best.  French wines are more likely to offer the balance and complexity to complement traditional French cuisine.  The list at this restaurant may be a reflection of what they are able to sell to mostly American patrons, but I would suggest at least a slightly expanded list with more options.  And while I’m offering constructive feedback, nicer stemware would be good, but to be fair, we have dined in French bistros that use exactly this kind of wine glass.

From the available options, I selected a Bordeaux called Mauvais Garçon, French for “bad boy.”  The winemaker, Jean-Luc Thunevin, describes himself as a “garagiste,” starting out making wine at home in his house or garage.  You can see the wine has a playful label which includes an arrow pointing to the garage.  This wine is a Merlot with a splash of Cabernet Franc.  The grapes are sourced from throughout Bordeaux, so the label indicates only a general Bordeaux appellation, not a specific area.  Here are my notes on the wine.

Mauvais Garçon Bordeaux 2007.  Definitely modern in style with new oak providing a big hit of chocolate and vanilla, the wine eventually opened to reveal a little Bordeaux character of currant and cedar.  On the whole, it was aromatic of dark fruit, currant, dark cherry and plum without much varietal integrity at first.  On the palate, it was fleshy, full-bodied with low acidity but not unbalanced.  The palate was soft and easy without the edgy structure I like to see in good Bordeaux.  Plum, currant, dark berries, and chocolate all highlighted the flavor profile.  Reasonably balanced, moderately complex, medium in length, not really my style but drinkable, and paired adequately with dinner.  95% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 13.0% alcohol.  As Miles said in Sideways, “quaffable but not transcendent.”  The restaurant price was $46.

The other disappointment on the menu was an absence of a cheese course.  This may be even a bigger oversight than the wine list.  Even if they can’t sell a great deal of French wine, I expect a nicely selected cheese course would do well in a bistro-style restaurant.  Plus, western Massachusetts and Vermont are well known for delicious, artisanal cheeses.  They had a variety of other dessert options, including a delightful-looking profiterole that was enjoyed by table parties on our left and right, but Mary didn’t want to partake unless I had some kind of dessert, too, so we opted out of dessert.  Instead, we just sipped on the remainder of our wine, enjoying each other, discussing the events and beauty of the day, and the ambience of the location and the restaurant.  All in all and even with the minor critical observations, it was a delightful end to a delightful day.

That’s our post for today.  We’ll have one more report from the Berkshires in a few days when I have time to get another post up on the blog.  In the meantime, here’s another picture of my wonderful wife at Bistro Zinc.  Life is good.  Keep checking back for more wine, food, and cultural adventures here at Cépage et Cuisine.

Cheers!

Mary♥Brian