Today’s culinary realm is seeing wine in exciting new ways. Some of the best American restaurants are moving on from our dusty old ways and trying new perspectives and regions, without losing sight of the ancient history of wine. For the wine drinker, this is compelling news.
Palestinian wine might best exemplify this new way of seeing the old. Wine has been made for thousands of years, evidenced by amphora and other wine-related artifacts. And today, producers are looking to honor those ancient traditions while telling the story of today through the power of wine.
These wines tend not to show up stateside, especially in conventional restaurants. But some adventurous wine pros are changing that and looking to turn the wine spotlight a bit and illuminate some other players on the map. For one individual, it’s about cultural storytelling through a modern lens, and that means showcasing wines from post-colonial nations, as well as the usual suspects.
William Simons is the wine director and director of operations at Albi in D.C. The Palestinian-inspired restaurant eschews the traditional wine list for one more personally driven. The result is magic, with intriguing selections from all over the globe.
A new approach
“I’ve read a few more books about wine than the average person, and I find ‘traditional’ tasting notes so unbelievably tiring,” Simons admitted. “It’s completely useless information to know that a certain wine tasted like plum and smoke in the afternoon on a Thursday in 2013 — it certainly doesn’t anymore.”
He likes to go with personification, relating the wine to a public figure we’re all familiar with. “I’d rather tell them that Sancerre is a bit like George Clooney when he was on the Facts of Life — a little gawky and angular, and leaner, but blend in some Semillon, and now it’s Oceans 11 — more confident, more refined, even more gravitas.”
And why give away the ending? “If I’m doing my job right, the guest is about to taste the wine, so why should I tell them what it tastes like first? Reading tasting notes is like reading Cliff notes, and no one reads Cliff notes for pleasure,” he said.
Selling the unknown
Of course, there are hurdles in selling folks on eclectic wines. Some imbibers are naturally curious, others are less so. Regardless, regions like Palestine and Corsica are vastly overshadowed by, say, Champagne or The Napa Valley. “There’s always some challenge in selling the unknown, but our clientele at the restaurants is incredibly open-minded and we have the advantage of working with food that people don’t have preconceived ideas about with respect to wine,” Simons explained. “Imports from Lebanon and Palestine certainly face some additional challenges, no question.”
But there’s beauty in the unknown and a dining experience that exposes you to new culture can be as enriching as the food and drink itself. At Albi, Simons likes to show Palestinian wine’s place at the table in a variety of ways. “In some ways, there are connections which are surprising, and in others, totally expected,” he said.
The results can be downright transcendent. “There’s a group of producers in Palestine (and in Lebanon as well) working to write those particular ‘rules’ for how food and wine connect in that part of the world,” he said. “It’s a story that’s unfolding in real time and in some ways, we get to play a role in the writing. In a lot of cases, here, looking backwards might show the way forward as people reconnect with ancient traditions and reconnect food and wine culture at the same time.”
The pairings can be dazzling and head-turning. Currently, Simons’ favorite tandem is Zibbibo (a rare Sicilian variety often used in dessert wines) smoked and infused with tea aromatics, served with citrus ma’amoul (a semolina cookie with a sweet filling) foie gras, and embered fruit.
Wines that move you
Simons is candid when talking about the wines that can create peak experiences. He said they can be giddy or melancholy. “Neither is really a ‘better’ experience than the other,” he said. “The same wine could probably elicit each response on different days of the week or different hours of the day.”
It’s all part of wine’s unique ability to offer a colorful and timestamped portrait of a certain place. “The melancholy arises from the fleeting nature of — sure, wine — but really, it’s more that the wine can trigger an awareness of the unending passage of time,” he explained. “The excitement comes from that perfect set of circumstances which might conspire to bring about the possibility that you open any given bottle at the perfect moment for that particular bottle — so again, it’s really about time, but that’s one of the things about wine is that it’s a stand-in for a great many things and always has been.”
The wines that move Simons are from all over the place and often from lesser-known regions. Right now, one spot in particular that’s catching his eye is South Australia. “The pendulum swung so far in one direction, that now it’s been swinging back and carrying a huge degree of momentum for a while now, so it’s exciting to see what people do with that, the freedom they find when the pendulum turns into a wrecking ball,” he said of the region.
He’s moved by the age-old ways, too. “But there’s also Lebanon and Palestine, where producers are working to reestablish ancient traditions and grape varieties,” he said. “The monks dialed Burgundy in a long time ago, but there are places where that process is still underway.”
Check out some of our related material. We’ve got features on terroir in wine as well as ancient Roman wine.
